Damn Ants


Those who know me and have followed my blogs know that ants have haunted me since a Vision Quest way back in 1999. During the preparations of the Vision Quest and after the actual three day Quest, the ants ate me alive. They found me walking, sitting, in the sweat lodge. They were everywhere.

At the time the Quest leader told me I had "issues" with community that were "unresolved." This insight was not really remarkable. I have been weird pagan since the day I took the title. Time and age have seem to make my condition terminal.

A few months ago when I was in the midst of sending off query letters and preparing my book proposal for review, I had a serious invasion of ants into my home. Those, again who know me, will tell you I am a bit of a neat freak and after that initial invasion I took some pretty serious steps to avoid throwing out an entire container of cat food because of ants again.

Members of FWTI and my friends began to encourage me to look into the Ants-Dia connection and try to decipher what I was being told by spirit. I blew them all off. The very nice apartments we live in had been having lots of invasions and I knew that I was not the only unit in my building having problems. Surely this was not a lesson, other than insects once again reminding me how insignificant humans are in comparison to their complete dominance. I also took a small hiatus to deal with some traveling I was going to do and prepare my son for school.

A few weeks ago my son came in to tell me my heather and ivy pots by the front porch had been invaded. He wondered what I was going to do about. I told him I would speak to the ant guy when he came again and have him bait the pots to kill them from within. This time, my own spirit quietly asked if I knew what was up with the damn ants and I dimissed it telling my spiritual being that it meant that ants were particularly bad this year in Georgia.

Today, I was inspired by AJ Drew. He said things I have only wished I could have said. He called names and he stood up and took a stand. I was awestruck. I was goaded, finally, into unashamed action. I quickly did what I could to support the bold jesters made by AJ Drew writing a blog of my own and spending the majority of my day writing letters and making proposals to my own communities about Drew's Blog.

My son came home from school and started his afternoon ritual of MythBusters and snacking while I finished up what I was doing before 5 PM, homework time. Suddenly, Tree Bear gave a shout and I ran into my pantry to find a second invasion that far outstripped the first. Mind you, this invasion had to of occurred between this morning when I prepped my family for school and work and 4:30 PM, roughly nine hours. In that time, the ants had invaded my spices, my cereal, attached themselves to the outside of the syrup and honey jars and attempted to make entry into the various containers sealed against their onslaught. Luckily, the cat food was spared.

The ants marched from one corner of the pantry up the wall, around the ceiling and descended in small rivers to attack various locations of nutrients. Grabbing the can of ant spray, my son ran from the room screaming, "Their DOOMED!" and I began to madly spray, moving boxes and obstacles out of my way trying to find the source of this onslaught. As I did, I realized what they meant.

At first I was angry at the Lady and Lord. Were they telling me they gave me this big mouth and didn't want me to use it? They saw to my education and spent the past four years guiding and leading me so that when the time came I would not speak? Then it occurred to me.

The words of AJ Drew were like honey or sugar water to me. He had spoken them, crafted them and exposed them to the world and I had swarmed onto them like the ants had the syrup jar. In turn, I had boiled my own sugar water, purifying and editing my convictions and sent them out to the invisible communication lines on the world wide web. AJ Drew was a scout sending out the sent of conviction and universal truth, I had picked up on it and done the same.

As I sprayed I realized that the ants, no matter how often they invaded and I beat them back, would return. In fact, they were in a way like truth, pesky and undeterred. Further ants spurred action. You could not see thousands of ants invading your home and do nothing, action was required. And even after you had finished your eradication, the ants caused you to smack and scratch yourself worried that one or two had escaped your wrath to exact some kind of small biting revenge.

Ants were then, my call to action. They were saying, "Don't delay - do something - NOW!" It wasn't some scolding of the gods that caused them to invade it was Spirit's way of asking me to act, to speak, to do.

I will send off my proposal by the end of the week. I get the message. I will act. I will speak. I will do.

There is one other lesson. The lesson of what sheer numbers have the power to do. You cannot help but stand in awe, inactive for a period of time as you realize just how many ants have descended upon your pantry. The Neo-Pagan Community could take a lesson for this. If we as a group make a unified movement, support AJ Drew for example, there is little that will ever permanently stem the tide of change. There isn't a psychic ant spray strong enough.

Maybe now they will stop invading?

Gender Roles Article, Abuse Masking as Spirituality

I started this morning writing about gender roles that was prompted by a FWTI member sending me the link to an article by Rose French of the Associated Press. French wrote an article entitled: New Seminary Subject: Homemaking. In this article French discusses the new seminary track for women that teaches them how to be good wives. I pressed this news worthy event into an article that discusses gender roles and how we got to these radical extremes.

As I wrote I remembered a website that was discussed at dinner at the Harriett Austin Writers' Conference. I looked up the website for Christian Domestic Discipline and found to my horror that it was not some joke. CDD is a real theology that uses the Bible to justify the spanking of grown women who have been bad. Their husbands decide what they have done that is wrong and the number of licks, either with a hand or a belt, they deserved. I read the site in my research and the blog of some of the women who practice this type of Christianity. I was physically ill. (I have struggled with linking to the site and have decided not to. If you want to verify what I have said, I encourage you to Google it. I couldn't bring myself to provide a link to their twisting of Christian doctrine.

I am continuing the write the article about Gender Roles and feel I have found some measure of commonality in AJ Drew. I am taking a break today however to draw attention to Drew's fight and lend my whole hearted support.

Ritual Abuse is Wrong.
It doesn't matter where it is instigated from.

Introduction: This blog is in response to a blog written by AJ Drew. The blog just below this one is a brief account about how I came across this blog originally. The next blog down is AJ Drew's original blog entry. The blog after that is the response given by Gavine and Yvonne Frost. Please feel free to repost this blog entry. Please include the short bio at the end of this blog and the links it provides.

I admit it. I am part of the problem. My name is Lydia "Dia" Crabtree and I am a pagan pacifist.

It is true, I recycle everything I can. I Bring My Bag to every grocery store and chide anyone who will listen about the obscenity of using plastic or paper bags that destroy our Mother. Of course, the little voice in my head says, "Tree Bear is why you finally started doing it. It is his continue vigilance that keeps you green." Tree Bear is ten. Who wants to look inactive to a ten-year-old? It is also true that I am a full time minister without a paycheck and have dedicated my life to FWTI. I am also a full time mother tending to my son and my Husband Priest. I vote. I founded the 1st Women In Black chapter in Chattanooga, TN. I tell stories to children to educate them about the Mississippi Mud People the white man destroyed leaving only their Mayan like mounds as a testament to their existence.

I am still a pagan pacifist. I have kept silent about the important things. It is easy to recycle for the most part. It gives you a sense of importance and the right to be a little condescending to the rest of the world. I suppose being a minister is some how noble; however, the financial strains I place upon my family by not taking a "real job" weigh upon me everyday. I tend my Family Coven and, in truth, they tend me, more than most would believe. I have founded chapters of important movements basking in the reflected glory of those who had already done the hard work. I have told stories and held my tongue when it came to the morals they really teach us about dominance and conversion.

I have done a small fraction of what I could do.

There are things that are wrong.

You know it. You can feel it. Don't deny this! Over time you can desensitize yourself into believing anything is right; however, it doesn't justify the wrongness of the act. Wicca has made a fine art of desensitization. First, something reasonable, however, outside the accepted norms of society is proposed: Sex is not bad. Sex is good and sacred. This deviation is needed to further the social evolution of our society. Then the idea that sex is good evolves into the idea that having sex with lots of people is better. This idea is more a personal choice. In the Craft we value our personal choices and quickly agree to not discuss the promiscuity in our religion. After all how many partners you take is a choice you make.

Then overtime, if having many partners is ok doing other sexual things that society deems inappropriate is ok too. Suddenly, many neo-pagans find themselves in triple X situations that have some how been justified by their spiritual path. I am reminded of the ritual I once read on line where the "Priestess" gives oral sex to the Eastern Guardian who climaxes and says, "Blessed be." Then she moves on to the Sothern Guardian and does the same. If you were to ask the creator of this ritual, as I did, why this is an appropriate ritual and what occasion it is to celebrate other than the erotic pleasure of the participants, you are likely to hear what I have: silence. There was no answer because no thought had been given to the question. It is this erosion of clear value and deliberate action that leads to children suffering ritual abuse at the hands of their caregivers. This lack of thought slowly erodes the participants sense of wrong.

Are the activities they are engaged wrong? Do they loose sight of the value of children because they have chosen to do these things outside of general accepted spirituality?

Most certainly not!

It is because they have not given much thought to their behavior and what motivates that behavior in the first place.

They do not know what they really believe or why.

This leaves room for people to move in and warp what could be good, holy and sacred. They justify their views with anthropology, use big words and carry themselves with an air of confidence and knowledge. They display in short all the signs of any good cult leader. They depend on their audience being undereducated and most importantly unsure of themselves. Just like any predator they hope that their justification will muddle their victims minds and make it easier to take advantage.

It has been working quite nicely.

Most of these leaders show the tale tell signs of cult leadership. Instead of standing on the facts, they wind a response that is well written and obscure. No one can really be sure of what they mean. They are as slippery as a wet fish out of water and they thrash about splashing condemnation on any who would try to hook them. They work on common fears of parents. Suggesting good parents want the best for the children and only good parents want their children's first sexual experience to be positive. Then they finish up with the solution that they and they alone have discovered the best way to introduce children to sex.

I have heard this argument before. Given by a registered and convicted sex offender about why he was soliciting sex from a twelve-year-old witch. He wanted her first experience to be spiritual and sacred, he told the parents when his plan had been thwarted by the girl's sister and family. Surely, they wanted it to be good for her too? It makes me sick. Using the Goddess religion as an excuse to violate a burgeoning Goddess. The child was traumatized, forced to lie to her parents, lost weight and contemplated suicide. Explain to me how this sexual predators manipulation of her was sacred, holy or right?

If a parent can get a hold of real love for their children, then logic and psychology can help them defend against the other Frost arguments. Basic psychology teaches us that children are developed from two types of influence: Nature and Nurture. Nature is a reflection of the physical things past on to children in DNA. I would argue that some of these inherited things are spiritual in nature. I am a seer because I was born in a line of seers. My son is a seer because he is of my womb.

Nurture is the type of influence exerted upon children by the physical surroundings. Their attitudes, opinions and beliefs are shaped by the exposure they receive to the society they are raised in. This nurture includes the immediate family's beliefs and it also includes society's influence upon the child, what they pick up from television, public or private schools, radio, the internet, people they meet in the neighborhood, clubs and organizations.

I would even go so far to say that in Paganism there is a third influence. I call it Spiritual Remembering: the influence of our past lives upon our present situations. It is possible that our child might have lived in some culture where adolescent sexual initiation occurred. Depending upon the affect in that lifetime upon that child, it may have a positive or negative influence upon them today.

That said, we do not live thousands of years ago! We live in 2007. In this time, magical parents have a duty to balance these three influences: Nature, Nurture and Spiritual Remembering. I do not believe that it is psychologically sound in 2007 to perform adolescent or pre-adolescent sexual initiations. This does not take into account the emotional, social or spiritual maturity of a child. Further it completely disregards that child's interaction with the outside world. Our children do not live in a vacuum. After hundreds of years of evolution both physical and social, our collective consciousness has come to the conclusion that children should stay children as long as possible. Healthy adults have been born out of stable, safe environments where exploration that is natural leads to discovery. There is nothing wrong with learning about the physical act of sex as a teenager with your first infatuation. In this day and age, it is the most healthy way of discovery.

This is not to say that sexual education is not important. My son's questions about sex have been answered honestly and frankly whenever they occur. He has already been taught about when it is appropriate to hold hands or kiss. I have already talked with him about "No means No." He has had talks with me in the car, at dinner and other places about sex, contraception and the emotional experience of love making. He is ten.

The talks haven't been graphic. They haven't been forced. They have just occurred in the natural course of raising a child. I have been bold and I have not flinched from being a mother who encourages her son that sex is natural and wonderful. He wants to run around naked in the house, I do not stop him unless company is coming. His body is beautiful. His penis is a gift from the God. He is coming into manhood and my husband and I have been his willing guardians as he has developed.

You don't need sexual initiation to ensure that your children's first sexual experience is good, healthy and benefits their emotional and spiritual development. You do not need to give up parenting of your child to some Coven to ensure their safety and spiritual development.

What you need, is a clear sense of what you believe, an open heart and an open mouth. Having these things is not just for the benefit of your child. It is for the benefit of your spiritual well being. The warnings in your heart should be enough to steer clear of the heresy taught by predators.

Lydia "Dia" Crabtree has a Bachelors of Science Degree in Psychology as well as concentrations in Journalism and Theatre from North Georgia College and State University. Further, Crabtree has extensive training and experience with battered women and survivors of incest. She has spent the past four years researching earth based spirituality from a Family Coven's perspective. She is the co-founder of Family Wiccan Traditions International and a moderator on Family Wiccan Community. She is actively writing her first book: Family Coven: Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft.