Quick Announcement February 4, 2010

Hi all of you,

Here is just a quick announcement that I just set up a new blog. Both of these blogs will remain online and active. This one will remain the more analytic blog with thematic posts on current topics or those about religion, society, culture, paganism and all that. The other one (to which you can find the link on the right or on my About page) will be a more personal account of my life especially about knitting and all the less serious stuff I want to write about. =) I hope you’ll find both pages enjoyable.

Tradition February 1, 2010

A blessed Imbolc to all of you.

Now finally that time of looking back is over, isn’t it? I just finished my little Imbolc ritual and feel so full of energy (which I desperately need, but that’s a different story). It is the time of taking action, time to go outside, make your thoughts reality. Every day now is longer than the one before, lighter, too, it seems, and every day is so full of creative potential. Isn’t that great?

You might be right in pointing out that winter is not over yet. Well, I agree, they forecasted a lot of snow for tomorrow. But they also said it’s the peak of winter now and that it will get warmer, at least a bit, soon. It is a time of transition – like so many of our holidays are. It is between winter and spring right now. Have you felt it? Smelled it? When it thawed last week, I mean, and the sun was actually shining, I felt spring coming. And I have heard other people saying it too. It is that kind of weather that lures you into wearing sneakers instead of winter boots and the lacy hat instead of the wooly one and then you return home in the evening with cold wet feet and red ears and grudgingly accept that, yes, it is still winter. But still… there is this hint of change.

So anyway, I wanted to use the Imbolc-entry to think a bit out Transition and Renewal and what those things mean to a religion. Very fitting, don’t you think? The past two weeks I have been studying about the modern Jewish movements. I’ve read about how they came into being in the 19th century (no, true, not all of them) and what they want, think ad do today. To the first Jewish reformers the questions were all about how to live a Jewish life within a non-Jewish society that quite suddenly in some cases gave them rights and made efforts to accept them as equal. To them their traditions were in the way, making them too different. Also in the general spirit of rationalism some began to question the Thora and its Mitzvot. Anyway, I didn’t want to go into detail too much here. In the end there were three major movements, the Reform that broke with a lot of traditions and wanted to change Judaism in accordance to the modern times, Orthodoxy that broke with no traditions as they viewed them the essential characteristics of Judaism and the Conservatism that was kind of in the middle and moderate, changing some things but very cautiously and with a lot of respect for tradition.

In Judaism tradition seems to be very important but what are traditions really, what is “tradition”?

Once again I’m quoting the OED

“4a. The action of transmitting or ‘handing down’, or fact of being handed down, from one to another, or from generation to generation; transmission of statements, beliefs, rules, customs, or the like, esp. by word of mouth or by practice without writing.”

and, interestingly enough:

“6.a. Among the Jews, Any one, or the whole, of an unwritten code of regulations, etc. held to have been received from Moses, and handed down orally from generation to generation and embodied in the MISHNAH.”

The literal meaning is “something handed down”. Traditions in a way are things of the past, brought into the present by repeating them. Look how you say “keep traditions alive” as if they were some kind of entity. Traditions are, as stated above, statements, beliefs, rules, or customs. They are things you ‘do’ and by doing them they stay alive. But you don’t only do them for the sake of doing them but usually you teach them to the next generation. But there is the notion that they have the right to exists just for the sake of existing. It’s not so important why you do something, if it’s a tradition you still do it. Sometimes traditions become so detached from their meaning or purpose that that knowledge is lost.

Traditions come in all kinds. Family traditions, traditions of a social group, and of course those that interest me most, religious traditions. I mentioned Judaism and said that traditions were important for that religion. This is mainly because there is this vast number of rules in the Thora and the Talmud. This makes Judaism more a matter of how to live and act in the right way than to believe the right thing. Of course, additionally, Judaism is a very old religion and had a lot of time to develop traditions.

Pagan religions are usually said to have little rules. Usually the Wiccan one “An harm ye none, do as thou wilt.” is called the only fixed rule to which  most pagans adhere. Still, pagan religions focus more on the right behaviour than on the right beliefs. This is largely because in Paganism there is an aversion against doctrines. But if you ask Wiccans or pagans how to become a witch, they’ll usually answer along the lines of “you’ll simply have to act like one.” So even though we largely object to doctrines and prescribed rules, there are some that most would agree to.  Respect nature and all living things, take responsibility for your actions and then to some, honour the gods, honour the festivals, know yourself.

At this point I’m asking myself if pagan religions might in the course of the next few hundred years, or even thousand years, develop certain traditions and rigidly hold on to them? I’m not sure about this, but I don’t think so.

Of course pagan religions are very young. To most of us it’s up to us to set up traditions. And I think it’s important that we do so. A religion without traditions, would be a religion without rituals, or rather fixed rituals. I think such a religion is unlikely to survive. People need traditions to hold on to them and to feel connected to the deities. Religion, by some, has been defined as regulating the chaos, structuring it, giving humans stability in an unstable world that is full of uncertainties. Traditions give structures and make it possible to hand down contents in a concrete form. Especially children need them because of their symbolic values to even understand or learn their religion.

How does one set up traditions, and is something that I do already a tradition or do I first have to hand it down to the next generation? I’m trying to do this. I’m trying to establish things I can, one day, hand down to my children. I have to say that I am worried about raising children in the Pagan way because it might be hard for them at some point of their lives and I also don’t want to force them into a religion. Still, I do believe that I need to teach them what I believe. Right now I don’t think I’m in the position to teach anyone anything about my religion. I know what I believe but I still experiment with the way I live my beliefs. It’s hard to be a member of such a young religion with such loose structures but the freedom oh, the freedom

Winter December 18, 2009

Finally it’s winter. Complete with temperatures below 0°C all day and snow. The first snow in Münster fell Wednesday night. I was in Cologne on Wednesday with my best friend and when we got back the city was covered in a thin layer of snow. I couldn’t stop smiling. I’m superstitious with two things: walking below ladders (or rather not walking below ladders which sometimes leads to adventurous climbing in the narrow aisles in the uni libraries ) and snow. Day with snow are good days. It makes me feel like it fell for me alone, just to please me and make me smile and tell me something. I’m not sure yet, what it’s telling me this time though I do have ideas ^^

Well, I just wanted to present some pictures I took

London November 27, 2009

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that  life can afford.
Samuel Johnson

Now I come to my last part of my travel. From Oxford I took a train to London. I have to say travelling by train in England was very pleasant. I think this was when I felt most independent. Especially when I arrived at London Paddington and had to find my way to the right tube. I love the tube. I don’t know why, really… it’s noisy, dirty, drafty… but still I was sitting on the train there and was just smiling to myself, thinking. I’m in London.

London makes me happy and again I can’t explain why. It’s just a feeling that I get … =) The hostel in London was quite amazing. It was a building from the Victorian area and the furniture and decoration really made you feel like you just travelled in time. On the other hand that’s about the only positive thing I can say about that hostel. There the bathrooms were on the hallway and it was a 6-bed room and people were really inconsiderate. But anyway. Back to the wonderful bliss that was London.

I started by going to King’s Cross. I planned to see the 9 3/4 platform but the whole thing was under construction and I simply walked down the one platform. It’s a huge hall under which all platforms are and just the size of it was quite breathtaking. But I didn’t stay long. Then I went to Covent Garden. I was hungry and I knew exactly where I was going to go. In the one hall where it’s more like on a jumble sale, right in the back on the left side there is a little snack bar. There I got a jacket potato. I had been looking forward to this simple thing the whole time. I think there is nothing on this whole world that tastes better than jacket potato. Then I sat outside Covent Garden on the stairs in the sun and ate. Covent Garden is a wondrous place =) Unfortunately the really beautiful things are expensive but the atmosphere alone is worth a visit. There was a Captain Jack Sparrow actor and even a small orchestra playing… it’s hard to explain… you need to experience it!

The rest of the day I spent at the National Portrait Gallery which was really cool. I saw a lot of paintings that I had already seen in class before. Astonishing when you really think you know a painting and then stand before it and actually see the layers of painting.

The rest of my little trip was uneventful. The next morning I left rather early, without breakfast and then had the best coffee of my whole life before I got on the bus to the airport. On the bus I was rather anxious that I would be too late as we were stuck in traffic for a bit but all went smooth.

Travelling alone was a gratifying experience. It was nice to be able to do just whatever I wanted without having to consider a companion. If I have learnt one thing this year, it is that, if you want to wait for the perfect time to do something or if you wait for someone to come with you, you will never do it. So just do it. I know now that I can do the things I want on my own.  And that I need to, as well.

recent knitting November 25, 2009

let me present: my first pair of socks =) yay

and here they are again, almost finished:

and also recently finished this wonderful scarf:

it’s incredibly soft! 50% bamboo … I love bamboo… I only want to knit bamboo now =D

Oxford-3 November 23, 2009

Well, I have a few more pictures to share

Christ Church College: the cloisters with a modern fountain and an olive tree of which you can see the tips of some branches on the right

the fountain

the amazing Harry Potter staircase – walking up those was incredible

one of the best pictures I shot, I think. view from the staircase into the Tom Quadrangle. See those gentlemen in black? They were watching, making sure everyone behaved. You weren’t allowed to cross the quadrangle for example, let alone step on the grass… they look very British I think

 

a window in the Cathedral; St. Katherine of Alexandria in the middle. I came across her in Book Studies before. She was a martyr in ancient Rome but is known for arguing in favour of Christianity with 50 philosophers who all converted to christianity because she argued so well. She is said to have been educated well and is patroness of female students and of the arts and see how she holds a book in her right and a quill in her left? ^^

Christ Church college was what you’d call a tourist attraction. There were a lot of people and they also charged the highest price of all the colleges though I don’t remember how much it was exactly. It was still worth it as the Cathedral is quite impressive. It might have been the biggest church I’ve been in. It feels like it. Of course also as a Harry Potter fan it’s a must-visit because of the staircase and also the hall which was the model for the great hall in the Potter films.

I do think they did a great job with the paper guide to the college. It told you exactly where to go and what was special about it. Much like a real guide.

After Christ Church I went to Merton college which couldn’t have been more different =) It was free frist of all, small and cute and almost completely deserted:

I think this has to be my favourite picture. I love all these arches.

When I was in the chapel at Merton there was someone singing. It was so beautiful and serene… One of my favourite moments but then the door made noise when it shut and the singing stopped and then an embarrassed looking woman showed up ^^ I smiled at her but she left.

all for now

The Unique Perspective from Within the Broom-closet November 21, 2009

This semester I am taking a class on Neopaganism. This time again, like three years ago when I had a class on New Religious Movements, I chose as my presentation topic Wicca. I had planned to do something different but I somehow still wanted to make sure the right things were said and the religion was presented in the right way. So there I was, and not alone. I worked together with a nice girl I didn’t know before and our presentation yesterday was a success. The seminar in itself is a bit of a challenge, as you can maybe imagine, but at the same time a wonderful experience. It is a good feeling that there are teachers, researches and students who look at Neopaganism just like they would look at any other religion.  Nevertheless I ’stayed in the broom-closet’ as you might say and did not identify myself as a Pagan. And I do not plan to openly do so.

The broom-closet is not a place I feel particularly well in. These past few years I have tried to treat my beliefs as openly as possible. I have my great best friend who is helping me, as you might find us in our favourite pub discussing pagan issues in a normal manner. I have grown used to using terms like ‘magic’ in public. I think our situation will not improve if we all stay hidden. We need to get the public to notice us and have a tolerant, if not good opinion, on us. And I think the first step towards a normal relationship with the mainstream culture is an open attitude on our part.

My experiences have generally been positive as well. Mostly people react interested, or they do not much care. The girl I held the presentation with yesterday asked me last week when we were working on all of that, if I also was interested in it in my private life. I had brought books to show her, one by Scott Cunningham, so I was kind of expecting her question. I answered truthfully (as I always will do, a question deserves a truthful answer) and ever since she has been treating me just like she did before and we still chat about all kinds of things and sat next to each other in the other lecture we share. It has been years since anyone reacted negatively.

In the academic discourse it is different, though. On the one hand I do not fear judgment or negative reactions there, especially not in a Religious Studies class. We all have been trained to be objective and keep a distance both to our own beliefs as well as to the belief system we are studying. So why not just say, ‘I am Pagan, you can ask me whatever you like.’ Well, even though people are generally tolerant and hold the opinion that every religion is just as good as any other and also that every religious belief is valid as long as there is one person who believes it, they do have opinions. They especially do so about things like ‘magic’. Now, if I had identified myself as Pagan, there would have been an important factor in the discussion: politeness.

Take the comment one of the girl made after our presentation:

I don’t want to offend anyone, but what do they do, if it doesn’t work, because let’s face it, it’s magic, it doesn’t work. They can’t really believe it will work.

I do have the feeling she would not have said something like that, if she had known that I was Pagan and practiced magick. She might have hinted at her opinion (she is not a nice-nice girl, if you know what I mean… very opinionated and out-spoken… as a reaction I simply smiled… I was there not as a Pagan but as the objective presenter) but she would not have said something like that, so as not to offend me. It simply is a different thing, offending someone ‘out there’ or someone who just presented some of her own beliefs and the history of her beliefs and is sitting right in front of you. It is so much more interesting to see what people really think.

There is another reason why I did this topic and did it the way I did it: It is simply a good way to practice this kind of double distance I described. It is important to be able to take a step back from what you belief and try and look at it from a neutral point of view. I think I did it well. And maybe I will tell her later on that I am Pagan… we’ll see. I will not keep it a secret. I discussed that girl’s attitude with my co-presenter afterwards and she found it weird, too. I also noticed another girl’s interested glances … interested, not judgmental … as I talked about how it is sometimes easier to stay hidden because of people like that. I enjoyed that immensely. Talking openly about my faith and people being just normal. This was a very enjoyable experience.

This ‘interested looking’ girl is a muslima, wearing hijab and I also have this fascination with hijabs … and sometimes I wish it was as easy as that. You wear a hijab and everyone knows what’s going on. We are on opposite ends, aren’t we? We Pagans want to be taken seriously and want to be seen but it is difficult to get in the right light and muslimas want to be taken seriously and treated fair and are so easily visible but still not always in the right light…

Oxford-2 November 5, 2009

Yeah I know I’m lazy … but here I am and on it goes.

Oxford day 2. Maybe time to comment on the Hostel I stayed in in Oxford. I chose the one that belongs to the yha which was in the end a good decision. It was a bit more expensive than the other two would have been. One of those would have been just over a nightclub though and I don’t think I would have slept much at all Not that this one was a quiet place… no … there where at least two school classes staying there. One from Germany and one from the Netherlands and they were insanely noisy and running along the corridors … anyway =) We had a bathroom on our room there which was very nice. I don’t like it when I have to cross the hall to shower. The furniture and deco was all very simple but well, I just were there to sleep after all =) The breakfast was nice but the dining room was crowded with teenagers wearing more makeup than I ever owned in my life…

Well, I left the hostel early on that second day, around half past 8 :p I wanted to be at Bodleian Library as soon as they started selling tickets, which was at nine and I still needed to buy water. The library was amazing. I got my ticket from a very nice man and then, as the tour would only start at 10.30 I visited their exhibition on book binding. It was … breathtaking. I mean I studied all the theory about binding and about things like gilding and such and I have seen early printed books from the 17th century but they were nothing to those books they had there. All that splendour! Bindings with gold and ivory and gem stones, binding made of silk or even vellum (a kind of parchment), I didn’t even know you could actually do that! And they also talked about the purpose of bindings, how they could tell much about what kind of book it was, who it belonged to and if it was maybe just a copy to show off. It was so nice to read that familiar language of book studies. The Book as a physical object… my professor’s favourite phrase =) at times I thought she could have written the comments =) (she didn’t … but she also was in Oxford during the break, was it vacation or work…? I don’t know)

The tour of the library was great as well. It’s good to know that I can follow a tour guide speaking in English that well. I don’t think she knew I wasn’t a native speaker. The others were I think. Also I was by far the youngest  participant ^^

this is the Divinity school, maybe the most amazing room I have ever set foot in. The ceiling alone… so pretty =) It was used as a setting for the Hospital Wing scenes in the first Harry Potter movie, do you recognise it? =) What was also such a pretty room was of course Duke Humphrey’s library but I can’t show you a picture of it as we weren’t allowed it shoot photos. It is a place of study after all. It’s history is interesting… The room was built over the Divinity School when Duke Humphrey who was the Henry V’s brother gave his private library to the university in the 15th century.  Those were more than 281 manuscripts. Most of the books though were confiscated in 1550 during the English reformation when all traces of Roman Catholicism were to be moved from the English Church. Some books got burnt, some were sold. The tour guide said that only eight books of that original collection were known to have survived. Another little anecdote she told us was that during later centuries it happened again and again that books got lost when students took them home and never returned them. The library decided at some point to take measures against that and started to bind the books to the shelves with chains and to forbid the taking of books out of the rooms. And it also made their readers sign a kind of oath making them swear that they’d never remove books from their place. Until today, when you want to become a reader of Bodleian Library you have to sign that oath =)

After the tour at the Library I went to Blackwell bookshop which was very interesting. Waterstone’s in London is bigger I think but this one was far more charming.  It had three stories and the upper one had steep ceilings and in general it was rather narrow and felt… cosy and old. What was really surprising though was their basement room. It was huge. 10.000 square meters! Full of books of every kind of subject imaginable. I walked past all the subjects that interest me, Philosophy, Religion, Sociology, History Really amazing, google Norrington Room and be amazed

After Blackwell I visited another small college: Balliol and then I started searching Alice’s Shop of which I had read in my travel guide. I walked past it first as it’s so small and inconspicuous ^^ It was a really small, charming shop and only sold items connected to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I thought very long about what I would take, they had such great stuff. I got a bookmark and a small bag with characters printed on it in which I now keep my small knitting projects.

Then I turned across the road where Christ Church College is but more of that later …

war memorial garden and Christ Church in the background

Oxford-1 October 13, 2009

Hi again!

I’m back in Germany since two weeks actually and have spent a week only relaxing and now classes have started again. Everything is still rather quiet with not much workload so I can put all my England experiences into an organized tale Luckily I took the journal writing very seriously.

Well, I left home really early in the morning on Tuesday 22nd September as my flight was scheduled for 6.30 and the car ride to the airport takes an hour. It was an exhausting day … but everything went rather smooth. We had a very small plane that wasn’t even full. It was a tiny bit scary as it was a propeller driven airplane and made a hell of a noise! Luckily the flight only takes an hour =) and it also was a smooth flight and I don’t much mind flying What was really fascinating was that 6.30 in Germany was pitch-black night and 6.30 in England was morning sunshine. I guess that happens when you try to put something like time into standards.

Also fascinating was to witness dawn from up above. To see colour creeping up into everything. Slowly everything turns from shades of grey to colours. It was beautiful.

The journey from Stansted to Oxford was the longest it terms of time. I took a coach (it was the less expensive alternative) and it was a three hour ride. But the coach was comfortable and it had air conditioning and the driver was sweet. It was my first time on a british street, driving, not crossing it it was weird ^^

From this first day I don’t have any pictures as I had left the batteries for my camera at the hostel. I started with St. Mary the Virgin – the University Church. A very pretty church. And I walked around it a bit – I like walking through churches as I kind of still like the atmosphere and the architecture. Then I climbed the tower and had an amazing view over the city. The viewing platform was just above the clock that you can see on this picture and you could walk around the whole tower.

Then I visited New College which actually was my favourite college and I wish I could show you pictures  that I made myself… The cloisters (every college had its own chapel and cloisters as Oxford University has always held close ties to the church and in medieval times you coud only study Theology, Law or Medicine there and you had to take minor church oaths), anyway, the cloisters were very small and in a simple way very, very beautiful. Also they filmed scenes for the fourth Harry Potter film there.

I spend the rest of the afternoon hunting for something to eat (I ended up at McDonald’s :p), got something to eat and drink from a supermarket and then called it a day. I was exhausted

Wat struck me at this first day was that you always have a picture in mind of a place you want to visit. And from my travel guide book I kind of had the picture of a quiet, medieval city in mind. Of course Oxford is a normal mid-size modern town with shopping centres, clothes stores and McDonald’s. And it was packed that first day and I wasn’t really prepared for that. In a way though it is a bit like Münster … You walk into a side street of horribly noisy High Street and then into a college and there it is, the Oxford I expected. And Münster has these green, peaceful corners as well.

Well, more during the next days

In case you wondered ;) September 18, 2009

Well, I have been silent for a while, haven’t I …? So I thought I’d give at least a bit of an update of what I have been doing. Sadly I’m not ready to post any real post, I’m kind of not … inspired … but I think I’ll soon write something.

So, what have I been doing? I had to papers to write (one on Working Class Women Readers in the 19th century in Britain and one on The Druid in the Role-Playing-Game System DSA ) it was a lot of work, especially as I’m not used to writing two papers during my break but there’s the prospect of graduating soon so I sat down and worked.

I also have been knitting A LOT with which I don’t really want to bore anyone with as I’m not that good really  but maybe I’ll think about uploading some pictures.

Another nice little story is that I started volunteering at our local library in town. I feel there I can do something for my hometown and work on my social skills and learn about working in a library. It’s a very small one and I’m only there one afternoon a week and once the semester starts I’ll have one Sundaymorning a month and every other Friday. But I really enjoy all of it =) and all the people I met there! ^^ like my former teacher form primary school who I have wanted to tell that she almost ruined my life for a very long time but I’m just too much of a coward to talk to her… and she doesn’t seem to recognize me.

All in all though it rather feels like my life has been but on hold again. Next week I’ll be on vacation finally (in Oxford and London) and then I’ll plan my next semester and probably make some changes and hopefully I’ll be more inspired by then

~Sarah