If You Need Me, I'll be on my Pedestal

Remember I mentioned that I belonged to a goth meetup group?  Well, we've been having a problem keeping our organizer (basically, the person who pays the monthly fee for keeping the group open).  The group's founder turned the group over to someone else, who in turn turned it over to someone else, who stepped down last week without any notice to the group.  Every time this happens, a huge banner on the main page announces that there are "only X days left until the group is gone forever."  It's like a self-destruct message flashing at the top of the screen.  Very depressing, and it makes me feel like something important in my life is being threatened, especially since we've started to get more active members and are actually scheduling and DOING things.  We've got several fun events being offered over the next few months.

Well, this time I'd had enough.  This group is the ONLY contact I have with goths that are close enough to actually get together with, and I'm not going to lose it!  I contacted four people in the group that I've met and like about a takeover.  I can't afford to pay the whole thing  (I haven't had a salary raise since 2007 but my rent just got raised by $50).  However, if we split the $19/month fee between the five of us, it comes to only $3.80 per person per month.  I offered to use my card as the means of payment (they take automatic payments only), and the others can pay their shares to my PayPal account.  They will become co-organizers, so they get extra privileges on the site, which they should get since they're contributing.  So far, two of them have agreed!  So today I became the official Organizer of the South Bay Goth Meetup group. 

I really don't like running things; I'd rather be one of those that just comes and goes as they please.  So why do I always seem to end up in these situations???  I guess it's because I'd rather take control than have things go out of control.  But I hate the view from the pedestal...  Wish me luck.

My First Blogger Challenge :-)

Well, it happened...  I got tagged in a challenge!  Thank you, Katelynn at The Life of a Baby Bat, for this incredible honor.  ;-)

Hey, I got tagged TWICE!  A second "thank you" goes to Mary Rose at The Everyday Goth for HER tag!  (Does this mean I'm popular???)  ;-)

Rules:

1. Thank the person who tagged you in this challenge and post a link to their blog.
2. Tag 5 blogs with less than 200 followers
3. Wish them to tag more bloggers to keep this thing going!

5 Things I Need Every Day

1.  Chocolate (which I have been known to shamelessly beg for if I've run out)
2.  Music  (even more vital than chocolate, if that's possible)
3. Cuddles with my cats
4.  Makeup (definitely NOT optional)
5.  Private time, especially in the morning when I get up.  Fortunately, I have a private office at work AND a
     room of my own at home, both with doors, so it's rarely an issue.


5 Books I Recommend

1.  Too Many Curses! by A. Lee Martinez
2.  The Time of the Dark series (4 books) by Barbara Hambly  (I consider them to be a single book.)
3.  Sympathy for the Devil by Holly Lisle
4.  Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
5.  The Elegant Witch by Robert Neill


5 Materialistic Wishes for Yule/Christmas Presents

1.  Candles, especially scented ones!  Tapers and tealights are my favorites, but I never look a gift horse (or
     candle!) in the mouth.  ;-)
2.  Jewelry and tops with skulls and/or skeletons on them; partial skeletons would also be acceptable.
3.  A one-year supply of cat crunchies for our nine furbabies.  (Yes, this would be a present for ME as well.)
4.  A $100+ gift certificate for the Victorian Trading Company.
5.  Prepaid airline tickets/hotel reservations for trips to any/all of the places listed below.


5 Places I Wish to Visit

1.  Egypt
2.  Scotland
3.  Ireland (again!)
4.  Delphi, Greece
5.  Crete


5 Adjectives that Describe Me

1.  Friendly
2.  Compassionate
3.  Moody
4.  Helpful
5.  Sensitive (not always in a good way, unfortunately)


Things I'd Say to People About Life

1.  When in doubt, toss some glitter on it!
2.  If you never ask, the answer will always be No.
3.  You ALWAYS have a choice; doing nothing is also a choice.
4.  You are not responsible for other people's emotional baggage; never allow them to make you believe
     that you are.
5.  Life is short, so eat dessert first... AND last!


Tag, You're It!

1.  Eternal Wynter
2.  Linnea Maria
3.  Vampire Rose
4.  Nightwind
5.  Underground for Tea


Okay, now make with the posts already!!  ;-)

Music: Blutengel

Here is another awesome band, once again coming out of Germany.  Blutengel means "blood angel" in English:



What IS it about Germany that produces such incredible music and musicians???  Anyway, I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Behind Your Mask - The video isn't much, but the song is to die for...

Save Our Souls - Interesting setting for a video, don't you think?

Death Cafes, and Some Thoughts about Aging

Have you ever heard of gatherings of strangers in public places to discuss death?  I hadn't until a little while ago, when an online acquaintance posted about going to something called a Death Cafe.  After reading her post I got into one of those reflective moods... 

As you know, our culture does as much as it possibly can to cover up the fact that people die.  Corpses are pumped full of preservatives, then 'prettied up' as much as possible for their funeral; every effort is made to make them look like they are only asleep, so as not to upset their living friends and families.  They are then sealed in metal caskets and the grave itself is lined with concrete, ostensibly so that the ground won't sink after burial (which can happen), but also so that nothing nasty, like bugs or dirt, can get in. Most people just can't bear the thought of a friend or loved one (or themselves) rotting or crumbling into dust, no matter what the funeral prayers say.

After reading Lupa's Death Cafe post, I started thinking about aging and realized that, even though I'm not particularly afraid of dying, I am afraid of aging.  And I worry about the older members of my family as they age.

When I turned 50 last year, I tried very hard not to start thinking of myself as old.  Labels are limiting because our minds have been conditioned to accept them as the truth.  Old is a state of mind, not necessarily an age.  Old buildings, cars, art, music and books are often considered to be 'classics', and I think people should be thought of in the same way.  In my soul, I'm still somewhere between 16 and 30!!  As long as my health is good and my body holds out, I can probably stay in that age range for many years to come.  But for all that, I find myself glaring at my neck and a couple of other places that are starting to show obvious signs of aging, and wishing I had a magic wand...

This year my mother will be 78, and her mother will be 97.  They both use walkers now, grandma's memory is failing badly, and my mother is a later-life insulin diabetic who has also been on kidney dialysis for over three years and is having major trouble walking and standing.  They live in a tiny town about three hours away from me, at opposite ends of the same street but in separate homes.  I'm an only child, two of my mom's three siblings are dead, and their children don't keep in touch, while the remaining sibling lives much farther away from them than I do, and he and his wife have their own health problems.  I worry about my mother and grandmother a LOT, although I will never tell them so.  They are both very independent, and my mother does not want to live with us or anyone else; my grandmother might not mind, but if she did, my mom would be alone up there. 

An extremely large number of my friends and family, including my father, have died of various types of cancer; I've been to many more funerals in my lifetime than weddings.  The other day I pulled up Facebook (one of the rare occasions when I check it) and got hit with a message that a friend I haven't seen in several years was just diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer in both lungs.  This friend is probably 10-15 years older than I am, but that's still not really old. 

All these situations make aging seem like a horrible thing, and the fact that diseases such as cancer are becoming more common contribute to this feeling.  But is it actually aging that causes the problems, or are they simply exacerbated by aging?  Honestly, I think it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.

So what is the point of this post?  Well, it's weird to say this, but I think I'd rather just die than grow old first.  It seems a lot less scary and painful than aging first and THEN dying.  Maybe the movie "Logan's Run" wasn't so far off the mark, after all...

What are your thoughts about aging and death?  Does one seem worse than the other to you?  How do you cope with any fears you have?

Why Roadblocks Exist

I was sitting in a book study group recently while two other members were discussing something slightly off-topic.  While waiting for them to get back to the book, I skimmed over one of the pages, and a phrase caught my eye, completely out of context and on its own:  "why roadblocks exist".  And, true to form, my mind started wandering off onto this new path...

Why DO roadblocks exist?  In the literal sense, they are put up to prevent people from falling into whatever hole or other danger is on the other side, forcing them to detour around and get to their destinations via another route.  If we insist on going through them, we usually get into trouble that we would have otherwise avoided if we'd been wise enough to recognize the warning, or humble enough to realize that we don't always know everything and others sometimes DO know things that we don't! 

This is also often true in the non-literal sense.  We may find ourselves blocked from reaching a goal and have to take a detour around it by doing things differently -- or doing different things -- than we had planned; sometimes the detour results in a completely different journey and/or destination from the one we originally had in mind.  Sometimes we put up our own roadblocks to prevent ourselves from doing something that we either think we shouldn't do, don't want to do, or are afraid to do.  We stand in front of them, either whining and complaining or with a sad look on our faces, and say we "just can't do it".  These self-perpetuated roadblocks are the hardest to get around, because if we admit that they are self-perpetuated then we have no more excuses to avoid whatever is behind them.

It seems to me that the goth subculture came into being because of roadblocks.  When people don't fit in perfectly with the dominant culture/society, they are often either ridiculed and pushed away or simply ignored; in some cases, the non-conforming person turns their back on said culture/society and walks away.  These are obviously roadblocks to being accepted by and becoming part of the culture/society in question.  People often get around them by finding or forming a new group where others like them are more likely to be accepted.  If enough people find this new group and join it, whether or not they are able to fit into the dominant culture/society, a subculture is created.  (Yes, I probably do sound like an anthropology professor analyzing subcultures here.  Well, I am an anthropologist, and right now this is the only place I ever get to sound like one.)

Anyway, my point in all this is that I'm grateful for whatever particular roadblock it was that pointed me toward the goth subculture, and I'm glad that I chose to take the detour.  Otherwise, I'd probably still be struggling to be just another plain old sheep in the flock, instead of glorying in being a shiny black one, and there are a lot of awesome people out there (like you) that I would never have gotten to know.  

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15717#sthash.UBP2ll6E.dpuf

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15717#sthash.UBP2ll6E.dpuf

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15717#sthash.UBP2ll6E.dpuf

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15717#sthash.UBP2ll6E.dpuf

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15717#sthash.UBP2ll6E.dpuf

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15717#sthash.UBP2ll6E.dpuf

Being a Pagan Goth

I am a pagan goth.  This isn't a particularly unique combination, nor is it any more special than any other types of pagans or goths.  There are Jewish goths; there are quite a few Christian goths, although in my experience they aren't always welcomed by mainstream Christian churchgoers unless they hide their goth tendencies.  I'm sure there are Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim goths, although I haven't met any yet.  And of course, there are many goths who are agnostics or atheists.  But what is it that causes so many goths to explore alternative spiritual paths such as Wicca, Asatru, or Shamanism? 

One reason, of course, is that pagan paths are not 'mainstream'.  As with the goth subculture in general, pagans are free to be themselves and follow their own spiritual inclinations, and there are many different paths to follow.  And for some, becoming goth and becoming pagan are both ways of rebelling against either society in general or their families in particular.  But while some people spend years exploring other paths only to eventually return to the one they originally left, others, like me, find that greener grass really IS on the other side of the fence.

My personal journey began at around 36, after my divorce.   My church friends were an incredible support to me during and after my separation and divorce, but I was having a hard time with some of the dogma itself. I was finding it harder to believe that a single, omnipotent male god REALLY runs things all by Himself; if we were supposed to be "made in His image", where was His female counterpart???  Because a male god sure never has periods, or gives birth, or does a lot of the other things women get stuck doing in this life! Yet, according to the church I grew up in, only men can do certain things and hold certain powers in both this life and the afterlife, while the women who work beside them and support them (and raise their children) are still considered to be dependent on the men, and there is no position in the church that gives a woman authority over any male over the age of eleven.

So I started looking at other paths, Wicca being the one that drew my attention the most. I followed that path for several years, even organizing and running my own coven. I have also participated in some Dianic goddess groups, and enjoyed them thoroughly.  However, over time, my searching has drawn me more and more toward shamanism.

Shamanism, like most pagan spiritual paths, is not about hierarchy or dogma.  It is also neither totally male- nor female-oriented, although it does vary from culture to culture; in some the shamans are male, in others they are female, in still others they can be both, and then there are those cultures whose shamans are all transgendered.  But to me, one of the best things about shamanism is that you don't have to believe in 'gods' per se.  Some cultures do, while others believe more in 'spirits', who are powerful in many ways but not, like gods, in ALL ways.

I'm not sure I believe anymore in 'gods' as we define the term, one or more omnipotent, all-seeing beings who can choose to reward or punish us, depending on whether or not we follow their rules.  But I CAN believe in spirits whose powers are far greater than those of humans, yet are on a lesser scale than those whom we term 'gods'.  This would really help explain why some prayers are answered while others are not, why bad things happen to good people, and why sometimes the bad guys DO win.

All of these could be reasons why many goths choose to follow, or at least explore, non-traditional spiritual paths, but I'm sure there are other reasons as well.  Do you follow such a path, and if so, what was it about that path that called to you? 

June: "I'm SO Goth..."

Here's one that had me snickering, once I was able to read it!




For those like me whose eyes aren't used to reading Gothic Script with chunks of the letters missing, here it is with capitals and punctuation added:

"I'm so goth

when I walk into a room

you hear 'Toccata & Fugue in D Minor'.

And here's the YouTube link so you can appreciate the music as well!

Talk Like an Egyptian: Update to the Rosicrucian Museum Tour

So, this is me in the replica tomb at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum during the early part of the tour. We're talking about the weighing of the heart of the deceased when he arrives in the Hall of Judgment. Of course, this picture didn't get added onto the Photos page of the meetup website until AFTER I had posted about it...  

This is the most recent picture of me in existence, so please don't forget to be appropriately impressed! And NO, those are NOT bunny ears sticking up behind my head, it's the headress of an Egyptian god with lots of teeth... 

South Bay Goth Meetup: Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum Tour

My idea of a good time is frequently a little different from other peoples'.  For example, I love museums, but not art or science museums; I usually find those boring.  My favorite museums are those that feature ancient Egyptian artifacts, especially mummies... in other words, dead people.  REALLY OLD dead people.

When I was getting my Master's degree, I did an internship with the interim curator at the  Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum (REM) in San Jose, CA.  For 300 hours over a four-month period I worked at the museum doing various things such as painting props for the artifacts, dismantling and assembling temporary exhibits, cleaning nose prints and fingerprints off the display cases, researching the best type of vacuum cleaner to clean said cases, testing the acquired vacuum cleaner on said cases, directing visitors, answering questions, moving pillars from one gallery to another, and moving individual artifact files from the old computer system to the new one.  And I got to spend a fair amount of time with the mummies.  It was the best job I've ever had in my life, which is why I've been trying to get a job in a museum since I graduated.  But I digress...

Today was my second time hosting a tour of the REM for the South Bay Goth Meetup group.  Last year, we had about eight people sign up, but only three actually showed up, including me.  So it was a rather small, intimate tour, to say the least.

This year, eleven people RSVPed that they were coming, and with the guests that they said they were bringing it came to a total of 20 people on the list.  If everyone showed up, I knew I would feel sorry for the other museum guests, as we would be taking up quite a bit of room in the smaller galleries.  Well, I reasoned, at least I knew we'd be quieter than the classes of school children that are usually there!

Well, turns out everyone did NOT show up. On Saturday night, two cancelled.  By the time I left for the museum on Sunday morning, we were down to 13 people.  When Wendy showed up with her cell phone, we found cancellations from five more, and two ended up being no-shows, so the final head count turned out to be only six.  Whew...

I'm happy to report that we had an absolute blast!  Apparently I'm a reasonably good tour guide, because they kept asking me to continue, even when I was finished with what I'd planned to say in each gallery.  When we finally got to the end, we'd been there for about 3.5 hours!!!  We'd missed lunch long before, and  my feet were absolutely dying, but other than that, it was awesome.  :-)  And we spent quite a bit of time afterwards discussing ideas for more events, including a tour of the fantastic Winchester Mystery House!  But that will be another post.

For those of you who would like to 'visit' the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and see some of their artifacts via the web, here is their website:  http://www.egyptianmuseum.org/