More About the Author
If it takes "delusions of adequacy" to put one's own beliefs forward as a viable new religious path, then it takes some degree of ego to believe that people really want to know the details of one's personal life. Yet I find that people become interested in keeping up with the progress I have made in my attempts to live life as a chemically sensitive individual, instead of letting it rob me of enjoyment and activity. So, for those of you who are actually interested, let me catch you up on my personal life. We have completed our international move to beautiful, sunny, clean and clear Adelaide, South Australia. The weather and clean air and space have been kind to me, and my health has begun to recover from the insults perpetrated upon it by the cold, damp, weather where I used to live, and the high mold and mildew counts that resulted, together with the filth mankind has decided is acceptable to eat, drink, breathe, and otherwise live with on a daily basis in its larger population centers. The improvement in my health has come with an improvement in my activity level, and I have taken up Chi Kung (Qigong), a Chinese breath and energy exercise that can improve the health of everyone from paraplegics to Olympic athletes. In the hopes that others may benefit from my experience with this art and science of exercise and energy, I have included the books from which I have been learning, in the books section of this website. If you are interested in learning more, I suggest you pursue training with a Chi Kung Master in your area, if available, but if not, the books are a good place to begin to understand the basic movements, techniques, principles, and research into this amazing healing technique and the benefits that have already been documented by its practicioners. If they're not available in your local library, you can order them online through many sources I have included a link to order them through Amazon.com for your convenience, and to allow me to include the cover graphics, rendering the books more recognizable when you locate copies locally. My health has not been the only thing to improve with this move; so has our standard of living, as we now live in a beautiful old stone house, built by a master cabinetmaker in the last century, who filled the house with beautiful woodwork, builtin cabinetry, and fireplaces in three rooms. The tiled family room in the back cries out to have a group holding a ritual gathering and circle, just as the old lamppost in the huge, fenced back yard cries out to become a "Maypole", though its use would be at Beltaine, November 1. The high steel fence ensures our privacy, as do the fruit and olive trees that ring the entire yard, providing us with fresh grapes, figs, walnuts, almonds, pears, persimmons, lemons, and all the ripe olives we could eat, free from sprays or chemical fertilizers, and so safe for us to eat. Through the kindness of those tides in life that provide opportunities when we are living the life that is our own calling, even our financial health has improved with this move, as my improved health has allowed me to take on web design contracting work. Such work has fallen into my lap, as a member of the pagan community recently chose to give me the opportunity to work with him on a site that promotes more environmentally sensitive solar technologies. The work appealed to me, my skill and competitive estimate and responsive design proposal got me the job. I appreciate the opportunity to work in support of something I care about, and my friend appreciates the opportunity to support the pagan community by creating opportunity within the community. This is a position I respect as much as I benefit from it, as long as such opportunities are understood to be just that, and not a free ride based on one's religion. We cannot expect our religion to support us financially, without offering skilled services to our community, services which the community can afford. We do our community no benefit by hiring incompetents based on their religious commonalities with us, and then advertising that these incompetents are pagan. While I am on the subject, I feel a need to comment on a situation I have seen on a recurring basis. We often harm ourselves, our community, and each other when we provide a needed service, like marketing pagan crafts, or ritual supplies, and expect it to support us, instead of being a labor of love. Religion is a deeply personal interaction with the universe, and many pagans have difficulty to begin with, accepting the idea of buying their ritual tools rather than making them. The desire to support a brother or sister in the craft is strong, and yet, the financial resources of the pagan community are not such as to allow luxury items such as ritual supplies to be a large enough market to easily support a person, without operating on a large enough scale, or a broad enough scope. A subtle resentment tends to form, as a result, when we see our fellow pagans placing themselves in a position of dependence on the pagan community as a market to support themselves, when the pagan community being tapped cannot bear the strain on its resources. Since the people doing this kind of merchandising tend to be the dedicated individuals who have given over their lives to their religious beliefs, it would be a shame to lose their dedication and effort through a simple failure to understand the economics of the burden they are placing on their community when they seek too much financial dependence upon other pagans. It is my hope that instead, people will consider more closely whether there exists an adequate financial base for the kind of involvement in marketing their skills, goods, or crafts, that they want to do, before they render themselves dependent on caring people who cannot be expected to bear that kind of monetary burden. If this means that the pagan community must sometimes lose its artisans and craftspeople, or at least the wide availability of their work, better that than that these same craftspeople should suffer financial ruin and the loss of their community simultaneously, by overburdening the pagan community with their dependence on a pagan market for their work or goods. That said, back to my new life in South Australia. <smile> We have found a wonderful young woman to live with us and care for our daughter while BarleySinger is at work, allowing me the time I need to do web design work and recover from the move. Sprout is flourishing here, though she shows some signs of stress from the change involved. She's growing like a plant in rich soil, and she loves the new house and yard, and her Mommy's increased availability. BarleySinger and I have both responded well to our new environment, though we could have wished for a longer stretch of summer before the return to the cold of winter, such as it is here. Both of us are writing again, everything from music to poetry, prose, fiction and informational articles and essays. The environment here seems to be very good for our creative output, and the release it provides. As Christopher Lowell, the host of educational television's "Interior Motives" show, often says, "Creativity is the antidote to stress." The quality of the result is not the most essential part, though we are enjoying the fruits of our labors as quite satisfying at this time. What is important is to create in the medium that works for you. <smile> Part of that need to create is emerging in a desire to work with a study group locally, perhaps putting together a class in comparitive neopaganism that would allow us to draw on the many dedicated pagans locally as representatives of their paths and traditions. We have yet to find a local group doing the kind of open gatherings and study groups that we are most interested in at this time, and so we are considering filling that niche ourselves, and taking that opportunity to work more closely with the many dedicated pagans locally, and many paths they follow. So, now you know where our time has been going, and what we have been up to with our lives. My life is so inextricably a part of my family's life that I cannot consider it seperately, so you will continue to see news of my husband and daughter here, as we walk our path together. May you walk in Beauty, and may you find and follow your own path in life, Willow Firesong ICQ# 8790312 Monday, 10 May, 1999
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