I am packing my stuff for today's opening of another one week ecumenical training which is taking place in my own city. The venue is a reconstructed old farmhouse turned into an eco center, which I look forward to very much.

The last seminar took place in Albania and the country was a bit of an adventure. I wrote about my life-changing experince for the campaign's journal, Fundamental Issues, and won at Oak Awards, a competition of several Druidic orders. By the way, Mike from RDNA was about to return from Laos in May and send me the award, and I'm still waiting. (As fast as.... ).

I will also be writing a scholarly article - for a reviewed monography! - about new religious movements in Czech Republic, and perhaps even speak at a conference next year. I got this job through one of my Ecumenical council contacts, from a guy who stdies theology and law (in order to have someting to eat).

I hope this time I will come better preared and less anxious and represent our movement well. Although recently my university mentor wrote to me, after reading my essay, that he can see I have a "Christian spiritual core" (he actually used a word denoting a very small seed). Unfotunately, I quite agree. There is no other tradition of Western thought, philosophy and theology, and in intellectual Catholicism I feel much more at home with my reflections about faith, than among radicalized, confused teens and tweens who profoundly despise science, "the establishment" and rational criticism of just about anything. I've never been a "feel" person and this aspect of new religious movements, this focus on (intense) experiece, has made me uncomfortable.

I don't mind intense spiritual experience as long as I am left a place for critical judgement. When I am pushed to neglect it and given black and white explanations, I get stuck. Like a genuine Taurus, I don't move an inch.

I'm in my 2nd month (no, not that, my business) and so far everything is going according to long-term predictions.

Running a business all on my own is very time consuming, though it has been a fulfilling work to do. Yesterday I went to bank to deposit some money and my debt is now only 8,000 CZK which means in a few weeks I'll be fine again, yikes!

I did something crucial regarding ADF which was shutting down the Czech Protogrove. Reasons are known  and explained in Czech, and I also told a few ADF officers I trust.

I hope to get back to LiveJournal and my DP materials suring the summer which is usually more relaxed time of the year, though not necessarily when I have to keep up working on the shop.

You may remember back then I wrote how I got a strange divination result when asking "When should I my Dedicant Oath." The response was after I have received a particular Pagan store catalog and ordered a pendant from it. When the catalog arrived, most surprisingly 2 months after I had ordered it, I was cheered.

I dropped a note somewhere I am waiting for the spirits to send me some money to buy a Dedicant pendant and, with the intervention of PayPal I got 666 CZK today. Which is not surprising, at all, considering the identified donator has something to do with Discordia. To make things even more conspicous, the same minute I got another two emails, which were "back in stock" alerts, showing me two of the pendants I have been considering are back in stock now. The spirits gave me two options and out of them I chose this beautiful amber drop with peridot:

This is my three months old draft of the Mental Discipline requirement. I've had clergy read it and I am perfectly aware by now that it has to be reworked to pass. I appreciate your input though, because some told me the essay is very good as it is, it's just not what the Dedicant Program asks for. So, here it is, a somewhat intimate piece of mine.

In the following paragraphs, I would like to introduce the findings I have made during my Pagan years about various methods of mental discipline.

Since I´ve been practising some form of mental discipline for a long time, I have tried to come up with a more complex, specifically Pagan view of my experience during my Dedicant year and sum up the types of mental discipline I have been exposed to and my development.

Divination

I think the mental training method I am most familiar with, and have practised it for years now, is the trance that goes along with divination. I say some type of trance is a must-need for successful divination. The funny thing is even though I value this skill of mine very much, I don´t remember when did I learn it. I suspect it was when I got my pack of Crowley´s Thoth Tarot with a book when I was eleven. I suppose at that age my mind was open to unusual ideas and I was eager to learn.

It came to pass that last summer, at the same time I joined ADF, I felt the need to buy a different pack of Tarot, for the first time in my life. I listened to the call and picked up Psycards, a sort of Jungian archetypal pack done in medieval-like style. Exactly what I needed, it resonated with me.

Today I sit for divination once a week if not more often, and I write down the results and my thoughts on that. It´s an invaluable tool to track the patterns of one´s life and attune more to the net we are all a part of. I can´t imagine my life without divination.

Prayer

Prayer was a totally different topic for me, as I felt very hesitant to pray after I became an apostate from Catholicism. I can remember reading The Mysteries of Isis, reciting the prayer and – phew! – it actually worked. I have prayed to the Dark Mother at time of greatest need, but that was like the limit where I could take it.
Reviving the practice has been one of the major changes the Dedicant year has brought to my spiritual life.1 I now pray sometimes every evening before I go to sleep and I can see the amazing results. I would never have thought that regular prayer to a Deity brings such a visible presence of Their blessing into one´s life. It´s still sort of new for me and I wish to continue exploring.

Yoga

I started doing exercise self-taught from a book some years ago. What yoga has given to me is a much greater sense of bodily connection. Awareness of my body´s cycles such as digestion. One interesting outcome of this new awareness is that my body started to reject meat.

I try to practice several asanas at least once a week. I have to be mindful, because my back condition is fragile.
Autogenous Training (Self-hypnosis)

I was re-introduced to autogenous training this year in spa, where we had regular training sessions to master this type of meditation that is proven to relieve all sorts of health conditions. While the proponents seem to avoid calling it self-hypnosis, I really see no difference. In the basic exercise you concentrate on the feelings of heaviness, then “charge” your body with warmth (energy). Additional sentences can be sensitively tailored to your actual problem (e.g. a steady, calm heartbeat for panic attacks, a calm, cool forehead for migraines). In the closing section you take the raised energy and send it to the weakest point of your body. (It´s funny anyway how mental health professionals write tomes about and cherish the most basic Pagan mental training/healing techniques.2 )

The Attunement

Occultists often spend good amount of time and energy classifying psychic phenomena. My personal understanding is much more holistic and less exact. It encompasses nature awareness, communion with the spirits, healing and even some more obscure stuff, like distant sight and reading the past of a place or thing.

One thing I can tell for sure is that the lines between theological categories get extremely blurry once you get into the right state of mind. Our ancestors were much more immersed in the magical world-view and exercises like sitting behind a tree, trying to feel it, would seem absurd to them.

To me there is just a single attunement (awareness),3 which yields various results depending on the subject of your concentration and the environment. It may come as a vision of the past of the place, a notion of the local spirits, the health of the plants or feeling of presence of other animals. It may concern the emotions of other people, their health and whereabouts. We classify attunement under psychic phenomena, because it brings information and knowledge that would otherwise not be accessible to us, using only the five senses. This knowledge can, for example, concern a distant person or a past event.

I haven´t mastered these skills to the point of beings able to attune when the order is given. (Professional healers and witches can do that.) It comes spontaneously. One important notion I´ve made is that to some people this psychic skill feels like a real curse, because they tend to catch whatever information there is around, typically pain and sense of imminent danger, in such an intensity that they can´t refuse it. I am blessed to have some built-in protection that prevents me from getting this. Which brings me to the topic of possession.

Possession and Inspiration

Possession can be seen a special, more advanced derivative of this attunement skill, when you open the boundaries of your psyche and surrender the sense of self-awareness in order to fully channel a Deity (or some other numinous being). The difference between simple attunement and possession is that you approach the subject of your effort as a being with own personality and will, that will interfere with or take over your own.

If there is one thing we modern people fear, in religious and other context, it´s loosing your will and sense of Self. So, unlike other methods of mental discipline, possession has acquired a controversial reputation among Neopagans. Luckily for us, the state of possession can be described as a continuum.

If the self-awareness of the subject is full, we talk about the state of inspiration. I personally write liturgies in the state of inspiration. Druids see this skill as important to our rites where we perform the sacred arts, since the Call for Inspiration which can be found in many of our liturgies.

When there is a perceivable lose in the sense of Self, we talk about partial possession. I have a reason to believe Bonewits when he writes that “complete possession is relatively rare”.4 On the other hand I have talked to Catholic exorcists and Afro-Caribbean Pagans who consider the phenomenon more spread than we wish to acknowledge.5 It came to pass that when I was recently praying to my patron (Hecaté), I became partially possessed. Unfamiliar with an experience of such intensity, I didn´t know what to do and eventually frightened my flat mate.

So, perhaps it would be beneficial if we shattered some of the lurid connotations the word has acquired and explored the practices of our Pagan ancestors without prejudice. I have once witnessed a young Neopagan shaman to channel sacred poetry and songs and it was pretty much unforgettable.6 On the Lughnasadh ritual I´ve seen that getting immersed into the sacred drama to the point of possession can indeed be a powerful religious experience. On the other hand, I´ve also seen people whom I believe to be partially possessed by powers I would address as Outdwellers. In any case, we as Pagans should definitely deepen our understanding of various mental training methods, their nature and boundaries and always seek them in a pious attitude.

Prophecy

I perceive precognition and prophecy to be the most advanced variety of the attunement skill. It is, in a sense, attuning directly to the world Order (Fate) itself.7 (Known by whatever names in various ethnic Paganisms.) Although common to the world of the ancients, we don´t see many prophets in the Neopagan movement. (Or we just shun the word because of its Judeo-Christian connotations?) I have glimpses of the future, sometimes, but I am no way gifted with prophecy. I rather stick to the routine divination and consulting the Owl-Eyed Lady who knows better.

Ecstatic Dance

Another area relatively unexplored by me is the realm of ecstatic dance, perhaps because I lack possibilities to practice it in a Pagan context. We don´t have Pagan musicians and festivals. The capital city is full of bars and clubs, but the environment is too secular for me, I´m uncomfortable with all the alcohol, drugs and flirting.

I used to do belly dance, but then I left because I felt nauseated by the direction the more advanced students were heading – I felt it has strayed too far from the original intent, which was for me to dance the joy of life and my womanhood, not to perform artificial casino-like shows for the crowd almost naked. I had some deeply odd experiences when dancing, as if I have recalled an experience of me dancing, but more ancient and powerful. I suddenly understood what do Pagans mean when they say they feel they have done this before. I also understood that Bast, my patron, wants me to dance in her honor, but not in secular context. Hopefully I will get the chance to explore this path in the future.

The Ordeal Path

The Ordeal Path, as described by Pagan author Raven Kaldera, is essentially BDSM approached from a spiritual, Pagan perspective.8 I am aware that listing this under mental training techniques might shock some – especially in comparison to the largely accepted methods of meditation, praised even by our mental health professionals and general public, given in the DP manual – but as Kaldera writes “Primitive cultures have used physical and emotional and sexual ordeals in order to achieve altered states a lot more often than we westerners would like to admit. We can utilize some of their techniques, but their contexts are often opaque to us, as we weren´t raised in their cultures. We need to create our own set of ordeal rituals that resound with our experiences...”9

I´ve never been able to induce such state of complete bodily consciousness and relaxation by any other means, and this notion disturbs me. (Should it?) Regular divination, prayer and nature attunement have brought me a great lot of good and as I imagine a lot of deepening of the work lies ahead of me... but I won´t be able to put this topic aside for a much longer time. It has started to call.

Somewhat similar to prayer, I´ve been regular to try entering a regular practice, in this case not because of former stigma, but because of fear where would it lead.

Mental Training and the Path Ahead

Wherever the path will lead me, I know for sure that it will be a full-contact, skin-close experience once I immerse myself fully. Mental training never was, especially in the times of our Druid ancestors, a nicely polished, well-arranged set of exercises to perform and record in a diary.10 Also I doubt the mind was seen as something to be trained separately from the rest. I can see the unfortunate influence of the image of the traditional western occultist and, to a lesser extent, the recent boom of Buddhist-type meditation practices. (I couldn´t think of a Neopagan at the moment who doesn´t have that romantic admire for Buddhism.)
In my overview of various techniques I have noted that while we (I) are skilled in some aspects of Pagan mental training (divination trance, inspiration in ritual context, prayer), some of the more advanced techniques stay foreign to us (prophecy), other are flat out rejected as politically-incorrect (possession, the ordeal path). We are loosing much by separating the mental and the physical realm when talking about mental training (the DP manual talks on several places about “training the mind”). Techniques that are inherently body engaging, like ecstatic dance, are somewhat left aside.11

There is yet much we can reclaim from our Pagan ancestors, but for the start I agree that learning to quieten oneself in the daily havoc is the point from which the more “wildening” techniques can be approached.

1. And I am happy to have The Pagan Book of Prayer proudly standing on my shelf. I needed a good apologetics read to dust off the practice as a Pagan.
2. Take psychoanalysis, for example, where you have to study many years to be “initiated” into a technique that seems to me basically as guided meditations reconnecting you to powerful archetypal images (catatymic imagery).
3. The Greek verb “pathein” as in “sympathy”, or “telepathy” has many meanings, including “to feel” and “to suffer”. I base my personal terminology on this root word. In this essay I use attunement or awareness.
4. Isaac Bonewits, Neopagan Rites, Llewellyn, 2007
5. Naturally, the exorcists take a vastly different perspective of why it´s happening and attribute all evil to “the rise of occult”.
6. Just like many others, I recognized that these things often cannot be taped.
7. This notion was brought to me by Rev. Hyperion in his series on The Unnamed Path, Though it could be argued that BDSM in whole is a pseudo-religious phenomena.
8. Raven Kaldera, Dark Moon Rising: Pagan BDSM and the Ordeal Path, Hubbardson, Massachussets: Asphodel Press, 2006, p. 1
9. That is not to be taken as belittling any teachings of Our Druidry.
10. Perhaps this is where the lack of festivals and personal communion with people of Our Druidry is missed most painfully. I assume this side of mental training is commonly practised on the festivals where drumming, dancing, etc. are common.

Some of you may have come across a certain comment of mine regarding a certain Europe-based Pagan organization and its leadership. Now, after meeting the Pagan Federation International's president, Morgana, I can issue them an

The Official Certificate of Non-Fluffiness Issued by the Dark Pagan Office for the Protection of Morality and Proper Beliefs, Signed Noira

PS. Ok, I'm obviously making fun of something here. First, my website's immensely popular "Fluffy bunny" essay. The icon is mine (except from kidnapping the bunny from somebody's Cafepress). The Dark Paganism reference is pretty obvious to anybody who knows me and the Loki-Hades worshiper I live with plus the black cat.

This is kind of lame, but some of you may not know that I am hopelessly, passionately in love with tables. From this one you can see that I only have left one rewrite (yellow) of my mental discipline essay and performing the oath (left white).

I didn´t finish the Dedicant path till the end of the year, obviously. I still want to finish it though. I think I deserve some sort of recognition for my studies and efforts. But I have to admit things seem less straightforward to me now and I am unsure what the next turn of the path would be.

Let me give you some facts first, and then I can discuss the feelings. It´s pretty obvious that Our Druidry has almost no presence in Europe, especially continental Europe. (If you are wondering about the weird pin, forget it. That´s my own endeavour, soon to end.) Which means several things. Foremost, I need to compensate the need for actual, physical community somewhere else. It´s nowhere close to ideal, but there are some workshops, seminars and training possibilities in continental Europe that I can make use of. The Bonewits tour was enriching.

Second. Foreign contacts, teachers etc. are fine, but we are still talking about mostly distance work done in English. Therefore, local Czech community is of importance, too. We are launching a long-term project in which I am heavily involved precisely because i understand the need for a proper strategy if the Neopagan movement has to survive here. But that´s not going to bring much satisfaction to me in the beginning, and there are almost no resources (elders and teachers) here, obviously if I am considered a prominent leader myself. So that is a supportive reason for doing the distance training.

The rest is not facts, but rather spiritual and emotional omens. When I ordered that Dedicant pendant back in October (?), I didn´t quite expect that the goldsmith won´t respond at all. She is this way, but from the spiritual perspective it says something. in the meantime I made a real progress in my business plan. So I did a tarot reading, asking about the potential of certain projects and I got a very unfavourable omen for "teaching ADF style Pagan lessons". I also specifically asked "Whether i should do the dedicant´s oath with a pendant I choose from the wholesale catalogue, when it arrives." The answer was obscure - Home. In Czech "You´re home" means in slang "you got it". But perhaps it was trying to point me in another direction.

I am getting pretty sure that my patron Athena wants me to open a business. She is ending so many good omens and offers my way that I can´t miss the kick. Anyway, I was asking for support repeatedly. I have the feeling that i should wait for an omen and then perform the oath. I have no idea when that would be. I just follow the road signs. The truth is I need a stable income more than anything, not even my religious studies because the scholarly carrier is not an option here. I can imagine running an esoteric centre and doing religious studies as an endeavour of my own. I always wanted to be financially and materially independent as soon aspossible, and now the progress is good. I have a long-term relationship (two,actually). Skoll is afely on the private IT school with a shiny perspective and Torm has left the corporation for a better job abroad. He really looks so much better than when I had to drag him to the witch this summer and we were thinking he is cursed. My new friend, the very same witch, seems to know her shit well and I have a good chance of success with her a business partner.

Just don´t tell me i shold ask the gods what to do next. I am not a Quaker or Charismatic, first, and second I just don´t think it works that way. I think sometimes you have to keep up with the signs.

I´d like to point your attention to my new essay "A Druid´s Effort to Overcome Fundamentailsm and Violence", where I reflect on my involvement with the campaign "Overcome Fundamentalism, Overcome Violence" of Ecumenical Youth Council in Europe. Don´t miss the campaign´s official newsletter, aptly titled "Fundamental Issues", where you can read - among other things of interest - my essay on Pagan and Christian relations. The PDF is free for download at the bottom of the above linked page, direct download: http://adf.davnyobycej.cz/files/u1/Fundamental_Issues_2-2008.pdf

I submitted to our Archdruid my nomination for the 2nd category of Oak Awards (inspiring external project). I didn´t think about submitting anything at first because of my language weakness, but right now I really wish I receive some sort of recognition for what I have done. If I succeed, it will be a great honour for Davny obycej. The first involvement of a Czech Neopagan in interfaith on international level! When I volunteered to take care of ecumenism and interfaith (besides ADF and Hellenic Paganism) as my areas of duty on the board of directors, I was serious. We´ve just had our bank account opened and oher things will follow.

However, right now what we need more than ecumenical work is diplomacy, some kind or Arthur Shipkowski and the office of member´s advocate. I still need to finish the proceedings with Pagan Federation International and the situation is rather unfavourable... *sigh*. I´d better contact Art!

I'm working on this one! - Noira

[T]he idea, the point, of doing the Two Powers can be many. Some see it as a grounding and centering. Some see it as an act of unity [since] the folk [of the grove] see their roots and branches growing together, and some see it as an empowering, a filling of ourselves with the powers of the Cosmos, as I do. If done well, it can also be all three of these happening simultaneously.

- Rev. Kirk Thomas

During my Dedicant year I found out, to my pleasure, that the type of meditation we call Two Powers is widely spread in various Neopagan traditions and communities. The reason for this popularity, I think, is theological. What I do when I perform the Two Powers exercise is I attune myself to the cosmos, the spiritual structure that lies behind the visible world.

The microcosm relates to the macrocosm, thus gaining more stability (grounding). The worshipper becomes an embodiment of the greater model, becomes its center (centering).

The actual scripts an imagery vary from path to path, depending on how the cosmology is perceived, but the basic pattern stays the same.

It occurs to me that cosmology behind this exercise is what makes it so varied and powerful. For example, I have been to a Dianic circle where, to my surprise, both powers (the heavenly one and the underworld one) were considered of female nature. It was somewhat unusual for me, after indulging in the correspondence lists written by other Dedicants, but it made sense – and it was a completely different feeling when we were reaching out to the silvery moon and the dark waters of life. (Dianics do love challenge all the binary¹ correspondences western occultism, and to some degree modern Paganism, builds upon..)

I have tried yet another version of Two Powers, presented by Rev. Hyperion of the Unnamed Path , which he calls the Tree Meditation, without specific ethnic imagery and it worked for me. I've also seen lots of shamans to use similar imagery and fill it according to their world-view - such as one Catholic shaman who meets saints and angels in the Upperworld!

I myself prefer a more energy oriented approach, reaching out to certain powers rather than faring forth outright to the other worlds. One trouble I have found is that often one already has become accustomed to a certain way of doing the meditation, before joining a specific tradition (in my case ADF). For example, I did learn to ground from my base chakra, growing a root from there when I learnt Crowley Thoth Tarot many years ago. I have a different body-image, so I am somewhat unable to grow roots from my legs. Actually, it feels wrong.

I have always had easier access to the chthonic powers, perhaps because of my Deity affiliations (and my gothic background!). I am a very rationally oriented, civilization bound person with a patron of the same characteristics, so I always need to dip into this source of primaeval, unordered chaos to regenerate.

One element of this meditation which aided me (it was used during a wiccan ritual I attended) was to concentrate on letting the excess power drain, especially send it throught my crown chakra.
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Comment, correct, suggest editing!  Do you think it is too long? - Noira

When talking Pagan theology¹ I think it is important to remember that theology is, at its best, a human effort to conceive the Sacred by the capacity of our intellect. It shall not be mistaken for the Divine. In ADF, we are taught to address the Divine as three general groups of spiritual beings: the Deities, the Nature Spirits and the Ancestors. I will also discuss the category of Outdwellers which is significant for our theology in my opinion, even though the requirement passes it by.

The Kindred

My first subject of reflection is the term we chose to address the Divine in Our Druidry. Since there is no direct equivalent in my native language², I made effort to come to understand the significance of this word´s choice. The dictionary definitions stress the aspect of relatedness which corresponds well with one of the basic tenets of our faith, the *ghosti nature of human-Divine relations.

The first observation of my Divine communion that strikes me is that our categories, the Kindred, are actually a continuum. There are demigods and heroes (deified dead), ancestral spirits that take on form of natural features and lesser local deities that resemble local spirits in the aspect that they are best reachable from specific places. And, lastly, the definition of Outdwellers is more functional than substantial (i.e. depending on the occasion and context).

Nature Spirits

In the world of our ancestors, everything was alive. One of the faults of many Neopagans is that in their romanticized view of nature they omit the heritage of ancient urban Paganism. The household where one dwelt, a safe place within ordered space, has always been the cosmological center, not the Nature.³

Nature Spirits (genii)

Household Spirits (genii domestici	Favourable
Boundary Spirits (terminus)	Favourable if you are inside the territory
Wilderness Spirits (silvanus)	Ambivalent or unfavourable

 Actually, as my favourite pagan author has argued convincingly in Urban Primitive, there is no reason to believe the urbanized space is any less inhabited, quite the contrary. The most common type of a local spirit that comes to my mind is one that dwells in a specific man-made feature, like a statue, well or small sites of religious significance. (Our country is full of such features with its Catholic past and rich construction history.) Modern civil monuments are often animated, too.

I tend to identify Nature spirits with Local Spirits since, it occurs to me, the most characteristic feature of both is that they seems to be tied to a particular place. I live in suburbs of the capital city. Contrary to the idea nature spirits are roaming all around. I conclude they must be tied to the place for several dozen years as it was only in the 1960´s when the forest was wiped.

Some natural or even man-made features are quite prominent and that´s where we get close to a borderline category – local deities.

Ancestors

Ancestors are particularly close to us, because they were once like we are. Perhaps that is the reason why this category has been a source or dispute among various Neopagan theological schools. Our Druidry adopts a very ecumenical approach, including many possible conceptions of Ancestry. Therefore, I will try to stay off the argument and just shortly comment on my observations.

It occurs to me that understanding of ancestry in the United States is very specific due to the country´s history as the land of expatriates. There is not this kind of interest in genealogy and such in Central Europe.

Sometimes, it´s a good idea to concentrate on the purely spiritual understanding of ancestry, like when one has been cut off his bloodlines by being disowned, for example, or rejected. Rev. Hyperion of The Unnamed Path suggest gay men should find their way to the lineage of gay men who are their real spiritual ancestors. (It makes sense if you think a little about procreation principles).

Some local Neopagans take a fundamentalist approach, backed up by a certain New Age philosophy that we ought to worship our actual blood ancestors – even if they are still alive they ought to be paid religiously motivated honor. In response, my Norse friend Lokean writes that the ancestors were honored because they passed the tradition down to us, but we are all converts, therefore there is no point in claiming it is a „Pagan“ thing to honour your parents. (It´s a pretty darn Old Testament thing, adds my inner voice.)

I personally prefer yet another understanding of Ancestors. In my own spiritual experience I perceive the spirits of the dead as tied to the land they once walked. I believe many souls stay close to our realm when they pass away to aid their loved ones. Funerary rites and taking spiritual care of the dying is of utmost importance in my opinion and I would like to do this work one day.

Deities

Deities are a complex issue, so consider my remarks to be only beginner´s notes on the way.

There are basically two types of deities, I found out in my Hellenic practice, greater gods and lesser gods. Greater gods have more important positions in the pantheon and they have a broader area of rule, sometimes being almost omnifunctional.

Lesser gods on the other hand have a tiny area of rule and a narrow specialization, but they are real experts in their thing. I have a relationship with some major goddesses, bu I´ve recently discovered the joy of getting to know some lesser known deities, Hygeia and Nyx.

There are also two Roman gods who seem to me as having a peculiar local spirits quality to them, Vesta and Ianus.

The liminal gods or psychopomps, like Hermes or Hekaté, share some common characteristics with the mighty dead and they are closer to us.

I can subscribe to Rudolf Otto´s observations on the nature of the Sacred. All gods, in my experience, have four faces to show to humans: mysterium tremendum (the fearful one), fascinans (the fascinating one), maiesticum (the majesctic one) and mirum (the wondrous one).

I continue to acknowledge the Black Madonna as a chthonic power, a face of the primordial Terra Mater (see Nature Awareness) and in the actual forms as a local Deity.

I eventually found a Pagan understanding of Jesus, whom I consider a prophet, a magician and a deified Ancestor. Now that must sound rather heretical to the anti-Christian Neopagans, but from the preserved material⁴ it is clear that the Hellenes of that time pretty much accepted Jesus as one of the profétai. It was the exclusivist and universalist claim of Christianity that caused trouble. Also the notion of historicity.

Outdwellers

I wonder why the training doesn't ask the dedicant for an understanding of this category, too, since it's so commonly addressed at various ritual and other occasions. I feel the urge to ask a simple question here:  Who are the Outdwellers and how do they relate to the above described categories?

The answer to the first part is rather simplistic, they are those spiritual beings who are perceived by us humans as dangerous and unfavourable. (The notion of subjectivity is important here since if you omit it, you fall into the trap of erroneously addressing Outdwellers as „evil“, which they are not. Why? Evil is essentially a human-related category. It is an ethical category, at least in my worldview⁵, therefore it has to do with self-awareness and free will which are exclusive characteristics of man.)

The second part of the question, however, is a more complex one. I have the intuition that in relation to the previously described categories of spiritual beings Outdwellers can technically fall into all of them, as this table depicts:

Standard	Outdweller
Typically favourable or neutral. Have explicit public cult. Upholds the Order. Civilization gods and goddesses. The second and third generation of gods.	No explicit cult is known of in antiquity. Today marginal mystery cults. Challenges the Order or lives on its edge. Primordial forces of creation, the elder race of gods.
Good Ancestor Spirits (often tied to the household in some way)	Specters and Unquiet Dead (including, but not limited to, vampires, werewolves, succubus...)
Good Nature and Local Spirits (spirits of healing springs, sacred trees, household spirits...)	Spirits of wild, untamed nature dangerous to man that shall be appeased
Deities (see above)	Tricksters, first race of gods (see above)

The case becomes most clear in the case of mighty dead. In most historical cultures a notion of revenants was present, exorcism were done and precautions taken in order to prevent a dead person from turning into an Outdweller. On the other hand there was an equally spread worship of the good dead, one´s own ancestors who aid the living.

From my studies it occurs to me that even Outdweller gods were considered to be a part of the world order though they acted in a mysterious way. Sometimes the culture lost the reflection during its history and a deity was vilified and misunderstood, like in the Egyptian cult of Set. To discuss the concept of Order and evil in Pagan worlview is beyond the scope of this essay, though. I just wanted to demonstrate my understanding of ADF theology as it has been revealed to my by spiritual practice and analytical reflection of sources. There's much more to be said and I hope do deepen my understanding in the future.
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Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-worshippers and Other Pagans in America, comp. revised and upd., New York- Toronto – London: Penguin Books, 2006 [1979¹, 1986²].

I had the 1986 edition borrowed from a friend a few months ago, but didn´t finish reading it. I remember feeling slightly lost in what seemed to be outdated information. With amusement I read about Isaac Bonewits, who has “just started to organize something”. Also, seven years after publishing of Hutton´s ground-breaking historical work the whole debate about Wicca felt sort of funny.

The 2006 revision finally returned this book where it belongs in my opinion: to every Pagan´s bookshelf. Reading it from the perspective of a young Pagan convert and, possibly, a prospective religious studies scholar, I was both amused, annoyed and caught in some fascinating mind trips at times.

The places where Adler employs a characteristically apologetic style of writing were the sources of my irritation. It may be because I am an intellectual myself, or that I don´t find the forms of Neopaganism I´ve been confronted with particularly representative, but actually, despite my occasional raised eyebrow and furious mental dispute, I think the apologetic value in this book is what makes it so remarkable. This being said, I personally felt that she repeated the same points throughout the first few chapters (i.e. the defence of validity of polytheism, Paganism, witchcraft, ritual and magic).

Now, onto the highlights. I found very useful the outline of the contemporary Wiccan traditions. I appreciate a lot Adler´s contribution on the topic of the so-called “hereditary” or “family tradition” witchcraft. Her conclusions resonated with my own experience.

Unlike some other Dedicants (was it because they were male?) I have thoroughly enjoyed chapter three where she examines the upsurge of Dianic Witchcraft and the impact of Second Wave Feminism upon Neopaganism, which has been immense. The confrontation of the Gardnerian circles and the new, politically conceived Craft, while unfriendly at first, has created a new stream and ultimately transformed the whole Neopagan movement. In the addendum to this chapter Adler returns to the text after more than 30 years. She weights the history and concludes that the spirit of the 1970´s (“the time before Reagan, Bush and a host of other changes” - p. 229) was different from that of the contemporary. Pagan women of today have little knowledge about the feminist fights of their foremothers and little sense for that type of spirituality. Perhaps it is because “Women´s spirituality is now all over the place: books, workshops, rituals, and music. Some of this has nothing to do Paganism or Wicca. – ibid.” I cited this chapter a lot in my recent paper I submitted for the issue about men´s and women´s spirituality we were making in Dingir.

The discussion about trends in Asatru was very well done – and audacious, I must add.

As a scholar I was absorbed in the discussions on the institutionalization of the Neopagan movement and the rise of Pagan studies as a marginal, yet vital discipline.

The appendix itself is worth buying this book, so I would consider networking to be the second prominent value of Adler´s work. Even though it is U.S. based, the magazines listing, for example, is unmatched. Talking cultural biases, it occurs to that certain amount of my initial confusion from this book might come from its coverage. It covers movement unheard of in Europe, like Feraferia, Sabaean Order or Church of the Eternal Source while it doesn´t mention at all many remarkable Europe based organizations, like the Fellowship of Isis or British Druid orders – not to mention the varieties of Neopaganism in the Eastern Europe (though, to be just, Adler provides excellent summaries of many Pagan organizations in the appendix). Looking back at the book´s subtitle more closely, it seems to me though that this minor grievance of mine is actually irrelevant.

Somebody, please tell me that I finally got *the* thing :-)

To be honest, I had trouble completing this essay. There is so many side twists in the story of my Paganism that I can´t seem to find the right thread and weave everything into a pattern – what we so dearly call “the personal narrative” in religious studies. I personally like to use my own term, “personal mythology”. In many ways, my personal mythology avoids any patterns I have seen among Neopagan converts. I was raised Catholic, and yet I wasn´t. I was taught astrology and Tarot in my family and yet witchcraft was out of issue. I became a goth in my teens and there was something inherently spiritual about it. I read a lot of Christian apologetics and theology in order to come to terms with that tradition. Several years after I became an apostate, vaguely identified with Neopaganism, I discovered in sheer wonder that I actually didn´t know anything about the real religion I was supposed to be raised in, and I contemplated if the lack of it wasn´t the single issue that irritated me most as a teenage seeker.

As you can see, I haven´t found the real significance of my upbringing and how it influenced me in my quest for personal religion. Somewhat alike to the woman who once said: “Being raised Unitarian Universalist, I had no tradition to rebel against nor to sink my teeth into.” After I went to the university to study religion I became more appreciative of the fact that I was expose to various spiritualities at young age. The only thing I can say with certainty is that since I have joined ADF and started to study its programme on my own I became much more aware of spirituality in my life. It came in various fashions. When I contemplated the concept of patrons, those who have been with me for years already started talking to me in a much clearer voice. I realized I already have Patrons. One of them was sitting on my desk since I was eleven when I was given that owl statue from a classmate. When I tried to write liturgies I was confronted with the concept of Gatekeeper. My other patron told me she will do the job gladly for me. And that´s how this year has been for me, mostly. Just open your eyes and ears, the Powers are waiting out there for you to listen.

Studying helped me to categorize my experience and thoughts and I adopted ADF theology and liturgics as my own.

The perspective of the vast unexplored realms of spiritual world sends a chill down to my spine. I know I won´t proceed any time quick looking at how busy I am these years. Much of it has to do with simple demographics. Starting a carrier, having a committed relationship and pursuing material independence eats up the most part of my resources, and I realize the financial stability is a necessary thing for any kind of regular spiritual life, especially when there is no established Pagan religion around locally. My altar cost me a lot with all those tools for private and group worship, and I spend countless hours in papers decoding the ADF Core Order of Ritual in order to be able to do the ritual requirement.

I also burned out as a Protogrove GO and became much more realistic about my missionary zeal. When I joined ADF the summer a year ago, my major goal was to, with the aid of an international Pagan organization, establish a local congregation and serve as the glorious example for people and achieve the unthinkable, that is a functional Pagan community in my country. Today, I still think it would a nice thing to have one, but I am also more sure about my vocation which, at this time, is different.

I went through a lot of experience this year. Mountain locked in a spa for one month, I had much opportunity to think about the way I relate to my body and health; seeing my first academical achievements I became certain about my vocation; losing home and property to own relatives I appreciated the value of freedom and genuine friendship.
I found teachers, both in physical realm, books and ideas. The Dianics taught me about the importance of rites of passage and the Divine Immanence, my Norse Voodoo priestess directed me towards the inspirationalist end of the lore vs. spirit argument. I met our vicearchdruid and founder in person within the range of just a few months. I went to an interfaith encounter to face my own anxieties and returned stronger in my understanding. I released all hell loose when I publicly signed myself under a complaint about local Pagan issues. Then, following what I have learnt, I mediated between both sides. Lastly, I met Pagan academics who parted their ways with the institutions and communities of their faith as a result of mindset transformation. I hope to stay. I might wander into the halls of academia, away from Pagan leadership and community, I might run into a prospective business, I might join other Pagan traditions in order to satisfy specific spiritual needs or because they become reachable locally. I will most probably continue to take part in interfaith initiatives and mediate between the Pagan world and the people of Sofia. But I am certain ADF is the framework for me.

Right now, I would identify as “universalist Hellenic (Hellenic in the historical sense of the word) moving towards the inspirationalist end of things, practicing ADF ritual framework as solitary and in the family circle of our polyfamily”. Let me expand on that. The liturgy I developed for household High Day rituals we use now draws from Greco-Roman culture without using the contemporary reconstructionists´s contribution. I prefer to slowly build up my own understanding where fundamentalist reliance on primary sources interpreted through contemporary cultural bias of ethnicity has no place. I rather let myself expose to the ancient names and images and open my eyes and ears to what the Powers what to tell me. And it has worked remarkably for me. (Indeed one of my biggest issues with many recon groups is that they shun anybody who claims to have prophecy.) I address the Kindred in Latin since I speak Latin better than Greek and I embrace the Roman categorization of spirits. I have worked with Hekate and Ianus as Gatekeepers and sacrificed to Vesta, Hera, Hygeia and Athena. I also have certain affinity to the Hellenic Egyptian cults and I remain a devotee of Bast.

Nearing the completion of my Dedicant Path, I already gave some thought to the oath issue. (You can read the oath of my self-dedication I did some years ago here.)

I must say I have a bad personal history of oaths, or perhaps more broadly, formal statements regarding faith and duty, like confessions. I was a practising Catholic (more less) till my early teens, and one of the key steps in my apostasy was perhaps the last time I went to confessions. I was around twelve, I think, and I went to this convent with a 24/7 confession service - booths with light signals, which made me wonder, really since it looked all so modern - and I confessed to what seemed an old monk with very little, if any, idea of a teenager's life. I told him something I regretted, and he went on a sermon on "how it's not the time yet for me and the boys". It turned out to me stupid and insensitive and I never went back, even though I longed intensely for spiritual guidance.

My trauma with oaths and such is that I remember wayyy to well how it feels to say things you don't really mean, being pressed into it. And the feelings of guilt, I have them too, they occur under the most stupid circumstances.... well, some of you may have heard that the local Pagan scene here is not exactly splendid and with some concrete issue the word "cultism" springs to mind. I attended twice a certain retreat, surrounded by a great deal of secrecy, and signed pseudolegal forms and pseudopromised that "I won't speak to anybody outside about anything that took place here."

Well, I did. I spoke to a therapist, because after this event I was really bad. I thought that my feelings of guilt, "betrayal" and shame is the first sign that something is really wrong here.

Blah, that's not what I was going to talk about.

Or maybe yes. I have issues with this requirement, but I think I am on a good way to solve it. I sent a letter with design to one jewel smith who will make the Dedicant pendant for me. I wanted to create it myself, for reasons of specialty, but also for more mundane (arcane?) reasons which are that I cannot wear any jewellery but from this very smith. Everything else just mysteriously breaks, gets lost et cetera. I guess it's the Mars opposition Uranus....

I gave much thought to this pendant and the related Oath. The requirement asks for something "ADF specific" and there is one ADF concept which I like very much and that is the Treefold Duty: Virtue, Piety and Study. That is something I can swear upon. I want these words in Latin engraved around a stylized tree in a circle, which stands for Druidry, ADF and some other things I guess. On the backside, I wanted to have the cup of Hygeia, who is my recent Divine date and a very tolerant lesser deity.

I was thinking hard what symbol or Deity to prefer, and it occurs to me that best choice would be something less "theologically controversial" and something that stays relevant for me in future years. Looking on my health I think this is a suitable choice. Patrons may change, but... also, the symbol (everything depicted, I guess) will certainly charge the pendant with a specific energy. I need to make sure it's a type of energy that runs smooth. I mean, no offence to my patrons, but both the Owl-Eyed lady and the Keeper of the Crossroads tend to get me in confrontational situations by empowering me with a their gifts*.... which help me immensely, but. But. Lesser deities tend to have a rather narrow fieldwork which on the other hand guarantees they are used to getting along with the others.

I have more patrons, I know, but you can't stash it all into a single pendant, not to mention that every stupid letter I wnat to have done adds to the final cost. Since the new statue and the ghost cat running around at home I don't need any more Bast presence around :) BTW our physical cat is in a much better mood since the arrival of her new friend. I will want to get some statues of Hera and Isis, but I am not sure how would they all get along. My primary patrons have cooperated in Noira, ltd. for a long time now, so long that I almost lose the sense of two deities and perceive them as one. Seems they get on very well. I will have the names Pronoia and Enodia made into sigils on the back of the pendant.

I am looking forward for the goldsmith to write back to me!

* - I wonder what some other people, like the Lokeans, would do!

Comparative Mythology by Jaan Puhvel, in Czech edition: Srovnávací mytologie, Praha: Lidové Noviny, 1998. Out of print.

This book is based on transcripts of university lectures, a course in comparative mythology, and it shows. It reminded me of one similar work, The Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety by E. R. Dodds which was also written from a successful series of lectures. The difference with Dodds is that he supplied his text with an exhaustive list of footnotes, which are not found in Comparative Mythology.

Unlike Dodds's at times highly intellectually demanding style, Puhvel employs a rather quick-paced self-confident, witty1 style of writing and also a rather quick tempo. At many places the author expects knowledge of various fields, e.g. etymology, history of religion, classical languages.

This is definitely not a 101 book or an introductory work to the topic of ancient pagan religions. I believe that it would easily scare off a student with no previous background in history of religion or general college-level humanities, who are, however, in a majority if we can trust the research available on the topic.2 For these students, this book is definitely a challenge and they will have to look up references.

What Puhvel is doing in the book is classical comparative scholarship. In order to follow, the reader has to be solidly knowledgeable in the raw material from which the author derives his conclusins. By “raw material” I mean that one has to know what are the Eddas and Vedas are, who Snorri and Saxo are and other such things, because Puhvel doesn´t spend a minute explaining that to you. Currently in 3rd year of Religious Studies, I still have a very vague idea about some of the cultures and myths he treats throughout the book.

I am glad that I made it through this book, because first it allowed me to add a bit here and there to my knowledge of Pagan religions and, second, because it´s the only IE studies book from the list that has been translated to Czech. If somebody came to me for advice, I would sincerely recommend picking up the Pennick´s introductory book if they know some English or perhaps trying Dumézil´s collected works, which have been translated.

1. Though his jokes are probably only amusing to his students and colleagues.
2. For example Margot Adler has found that the most common professions among Pagans were IT specialists and engineers, and this result has been confirmed by my personal observations.

Crowley, Vivianne, Wicca, Principles Series, London – San Francisco: Thorsons, 1997. Out of print.

This tiny booklet might be the best introductory work on Wicca that I would recommend without hesitation to a colleague, parent, civil authority or spiritual seeker. Crowley also does a decent bit of apologetics. I did not encounter any eye-catching factual errors and to my pleasure at some places Crowley takes the effort to describe Wicca within the commonly used religious terminology, thus making it approachable to complete newcomers who might be daunted by an overly Pagan-specific lingo.

I would especially recommend this book over Wicca: The Old Religion for the New Age which, on the contrary, presents and defends a very specific current in contemporary Paganism. The practice discussed in detail in this book, which is not a subject of our review, would relate to the fourth of the four ways of practice outlined towards the end of Principles of Wicca, which are, respectively: solitary traditional witchcraft (hedgewitches), solitary self-taught Wicca (eclectic), self-taught coven work (e.g. as described by Starhawk), ultimately, initiatory coven practice. This was, for me, one of the highlights of the book.

Indeed, in a country like mine, where initiatory coven practice is unavailable at the time, being confronted with some of the apologetic materials from British Traditionalist circles gave me a puzzling, at times even sectarian impression. This is the result of a culture gap, and even in this book one is amused how Anglocentric all the quotations from primary sources are. A foreign reader wonders, if it occurs to Western Pagan authors that some not-so-distant countries might have a completely different history, geography and Pagan roots. I suspect Crowley's goal is to present Britain as a sort of Promised Land for Paganism which she does convincingly.

It is my impression that this booklet introduces a rather general framework, rather than a specific belief & practice system. That was also encouraging for me as a seeker, as I already have a certain way of relating to the Divine in my worship practice. From this booklet – which might speak in an overly universalist way at times, I suspect – it occurs to me that there is no exclusive theology in Wicca and that Wicca is a 100% orthopraxic religion, where the mystical ritual experience is only vaguely categorized in theological concepts.

The appendix, being up-to-date at the time of publishing which is now more than ten years, is now considerably outdated.

So, it´s past Samain and I still have things to finish in my Dedicant Program. I am the kind of person that loves to make tables and progress sheets, timelines and estimates. My initial thought was that I´d submit my DP on Lughnasadh this year, roughly a year after I started.

Two things show...

1. My initial estimate was a bit too harsh
2. I am still quite content with my level of progress

Finishing the DP within a single year was an ambitious plan considering the local resources or the lack of them, to be more precise. It took me some time to get into the basic concepts of ADF like Core Order of Ritual and then I had to reevaluate considerably my enthusiasm about forming a Protogrove. I still manage our website which will bear fruits eventually, I believe.

The things is, I am absolutely desperately out of time right now and I came to realize that I have to sort my duties according to their existential value - and this is just the point where spirituality concedes mundane affairs. The order is like this:

1. Anything that involves monetary compensation = part-time job, writing articles for popular science mags, giving paid lectures.
2. My studies = in order to finish my bachelor´s in 2009-10 I really have to stick too the plan. Which has been going satisfactory up till now.
3. The rest of the time gets divided into things like rest (need far more of that), doing exercise (need far more of that), visiting family, attending Pagan events, managing websites, reading e-mail, psychotherapy sessions... you name it.

The outcome has been that I recently have a permanent red indicator blinking which says "booked" or "busy".

I must look hard at the ladder of values (how do the English call this concept, I wonder) and really truly optimize my use of the limited resources available to me (basically my health, which has never been quite excellent in recent years).

This time, fortunately, it was only a virtual moving. Our Druidry has a new bilingual website at ADF.DavnyObycej.cz.

To gain an insight into Moderation, let´s take a closer look at the word´s Latin origin. “Modus” is one of the words with abundance of readings. Measure, bound, limit, manner, method, mode, way – the importance of this, in my opinion underestimated Virtue, goes way further than “knowing your measure” (common Czech euphemism for not getting drunk).

The root “mir” in “Umírněnost”, direct equivalent of Moderation, used to carry two meanings, and it still does in other Slavic languages, 1. peace and 2. world. It points out to the ancient idea that world is, in its substance, an ordered place, the organised cosmos, Greek “cosmos” being something orderly arranged, a pattern. War was seen, in its essence, as something breaking the divine peace/order (Pax Romana).

The ancients would often add the notion that world, the organized place is, naturally, our place. Thus, the foreign is equalled with the unordered, the wild, “barbarian”. In ancient Egyptian, for example, the sign for “foreign land” was the same for “ill, bad”. The land beyond the reign of Maat is the realm of uncertainty. This is why Egyptians feared most dying on a journey.

Moderation is the complex, subtle force and joined effort of many that keeps the world from falling into chaos. I think moderation is undervalued among our virtues, because it implies mutual dependence. It manifests in person´s health and well-being, for sure, but also in the well-being and “health” of whole societies.

I would say that moderation is the meta-virtue, tying all the threads together. Whatever you do and keep in mind the sacred order, you are promoting moderation. A Kemetic Pagan might say that living with accordance to Maat is the essence of Moderation.

Pagans, when contemplating moderation, mostly “pour the libation to” (Czech saying for doing something just out of habit/necessity) the notion that excessive drinking isn´t beneficial to your health, well, ya know, I do a little bit of exercise, lets move on to something more exciting, like Courage or Honour.

I hope I have the grammar right here, at last. - Seems so.

It´s a weird feeling of inadequacy – rather than Hospitality I want to talk about its dark sides. These dark sides are Exploitation and Self-exploitation, respectively, and they are inextricably bound to each other.

Every self-help books aficionado has heard about Women Who Love Too Much. Unsurprisingly, I´ve been one too. Lead by the quaint idea that since I am the more virtuous one, thus morally superior, I´ve been to various abusive relationships, which left me broken into pieces. In times of my adolescence, I sincerely believed in martyrdom and giving the loved person everything, thus changing him by own example... and scoring points for Heaven. The “change by own example” strategy is a plausible one, save that I wasn´t actually giving a good example to anybody.

A good comparison comes from trade: if you continuously offer something for free or below the fabrication price, somebody gets exploited. The Third World workers, perhaps, so that your chain store might come up with the dumping prices. The conditions of Chinese factories are beyond the imagination of a Westerner who shops in these discount chains.
Nothing is cheaper than a certain basic cost, lest there´s some exploitation going on. I order to prevent exploitation, we must set that basic price and stand firm by it.

The very idea behind Fair Trade – exactly. Also, my core understanding of Hospitality.
We´ve got fairly-traded coffee, tea, chocolate, but I tell you something: we need more fairly-traded people! The women in abusive relationship, like I was, are an obvious example of an unfairly low price people set themselves; other is a completely separate and tedious topic of our treatment of Pagan Elders.

Unlike Third World factory workers, we live in a democratic society which gives even the last of us a reasonable amount of freedom of choice. As women or Pagan Elders, we can always choose to stop the unfair trade, by setting a fair price to our work and to our time. It´s a crucial concept: how can we possibly give a true sacrifice, if we have no idea about the price it has to us?

We do elaborate sacrifice in our rituals with a lot of attention focused on the value of the offering, which needn´t to be material. Yet, in our daily lives, we are selling below the price the most precious gifts we have from the Creators: our souls, our health, our dignity.

Hospitality for me begins with setting the basic value. Only then can we strive for a balance between giving and receiving.

So there I was, at my parents´ place, with all baggage packed, waiting for the tomorrow early morning departure. My mother asked whether I have weighted my baggage and checked the limits. An alarm rang in my head so loud that everybody in the room must have heard it. Of course I have not. Since neither of us cares about dieting, we don´t have no scales at home. 

My bro went downstairs too the car with me, and uloaded my baggage. Roughly 23 kilos. My e-ticket read that second class passengers are only allowed those 23 kilos. My father said I was crazy for carrying so many things and mother advised to scale it down by a kilo at least. And then it got out.

Dad asked what do I need that bottle for and I replied that it´s lamp oil, and I carry an oil lamp and I need the stuff for an equinox ritual. He went out by commenting that "it´s no spiritual freedom if you have to carry such stuff" and "what is an equinox of a holiday - just an unimportant Pagan festival", lamenting in his typical independent mystic´s note. I left the room angry and replied that I only responded "what do I have all that stuff for" and that it´s his opinion only. My mother told him something on the side which I did not hear and after a while to my surprise she came to me and offered to pour the lamp oil in a smaller bottle.

I took the smaller bottle and filled it, and trashed some more stuff to get the kilo down.

The ecumenical efforts seem to be starting well. <wink>