Hina-matsuri or Girls' Day in Japan

My Mum thinks that the games I play are a waste of time and perhaps that is true to some extent, but being in constant severe pain, they do tend to save my sanity.  Beyond that, however, from time to time, something is included in the online Facebook games that reminds me of the things I love most in life.

Festivals always have been important to me and I have been working on a book about Festivals throughout time and throughout the world for some time.  One of my favourite Festivals is Hina-matsuri, a Japanese Festival that is centred on dolls.  As a lifelong collector of dolls, it makes me happy to see beautiful collections, even if I do not own them myself.

Today, Family Farm Seaside, a game that I play and for which I write an ongoing guide, released a time-restricted Mission called 'Doll's Day' based on the Hina-matsuri Festival.  It reminded me that this is the time of year when Japanese households bring out their treasured Hina-matsuri dolls for display until 3 March.

The actual dolls are known as 'hina-ningyo' and represent the old court of the Emperor and Empress.  They can be extremely detailed and valuable although there are contemporary inexpensive dolls as well for those who are not fortunate enough to have inherited a set of hina-ningyo.

I am one of those who displays a card similar to the one shown above.  It is from Japan and very beautiful in its own fashion although it cannot compete with a real Hina-matsuri display!

Generally, these dolls are passed down from generation to generation.  The Festival also is known as the Peach Blossom Festival or 'Momo no sekku'  and peach blossoms are dedicated to the dolls on display.  It is a day for the females of our species and girls are honoured and it is hoped that their prayers for good health and fortune are heard.

The traditional Hina-matsuri display is arranged on a red carpet and usually involves five or seven tiers.  At the very top are the Emperor and Empress.  Below them is the level for three court ladies or 'sannin-kanjo'.  The next tier is reserved for five court musicians known as 'gonin-bayashi'.  Below them are two ministers known as 'udaijin' and 'sadaijin'.  On the lowest tier of a five-tier display are three servants.  Other items, such as cherry trees and peach trees and small dishes of festival food are included in the more elaborate displays.

Why is the hina display based upon the court of the Emperor and Empress and, beyond that, figures from a specific historical period?  In fact, in many cultures, the Emperor or King was considered either to be descended from a God or to have a divine right or divine blessing in the authority wielded by him.

In Japan, the Emperor was believed to be the descendant of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu.  After the arrival of Western influence in the form of Commodore Perry, there was a strong movement to purify Japanese culture from ALL foreign influences.  I believe that the traditional hina-ningyo represent part of that philosophy.

The Sun is the symbol of the power of Life itself in most ancient cultures.  Amaterasu was a very powerful and quite interesting character apart from that power, much like the Goddesses of ancient Sumer and Canaan.

The ancient Japanese philosophy of vitalism made the Sun Goddess particularly important.  Light and fire are purifying influences.  Vitalism in Japan was connected to a belief that Death was an impurity.  Temples dedicated to the Sun Goddess, for example, had to be rebuilt after two decades because the spirit in the wood would have died at that point.  After purification ceremonies, a new temple would be erected.

Possibly the most ancient 'dolls' or figures in Japan are the Dogu made of clay.  Dogu have been found dating from 10000 B.C. from an era before agriculture.  Here is one ancient Dogu.  I believe it represents a Sun Goddess:

Rays of light form her hair.  The shape of her face is the ancient form of female genitalia, later to become the shape of the 'heart'.  To me, it is fascinating to find similar styles and images throughout the ancient world. 

Interestingly enough, I met Japanese Emperor Hirohito and the Empress Ngaako years ago in La Jolla when he was presented with a special fish by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.  I was fortunate enough to have been friends with a leading professor there and was allowed to attend the reception at a local hotel afterwards.  I remember that there were hordes of protestors outside the hotel where the 'audience' was held.  They were protesting the ongoing slaughter of whales in Japanese waters.  It was sort of an irony and I was a little ashamed to be on the other side of the barrier, although the gala event was something I would not have missed for the world.  When I say that I 'met' him, it was only one of those general crowded meetings like the so-called 'private' audiences with the Pope.

Returning, however, to the grand Hina-matsuri Festival, there are many special items that are part of the traditional display as well as special songs dedicated to the Festival.  Here is one such song:

Akari o tsukemashou bonbori ni 明かりをつけましょう　ぼんぼりに

Ohana o agemashou momo no hana お花をあげましょう　桃の花

Go-nin bayashi no fue taiko 五人ばやしの　笛太鼓

Kyo wa tanoshii Hinamatsuri 今日は楽しいひな祭り

Let's light the lanterns

Let's set peach flowers

Five court musicians are playing flutes and drums

Today is a joyful Dolls' Festival! With the display of dolls from the Court are items are special significance if the collection is elaborate. The origin of the Hina-matsuri Festival is steeped in an ancient practice of sympathetic magic by which all the sins and bad luck of an individual or individuals were transferred to a specific object, leaving the person cleansed and purified.  There are many practices that involve the creation of a boat that is set on fire and set to float down a river.  Originally, the dolls representing the individuals were placed in a boat or simply thrown into a body of moving water.  You will find similar practices throughout the ancient world. The Festival therefore originally was for the benefit of the Emperor and his Court.  As time passed, however, it came to represent a time for prayers for good fortune and success for the girls of the families who celebrated by displaying the Court dolls. The history of the Festival dates back to

DIY Sacraments

In this contemporary era of tradtions stretched to the limit, where the Church actually allows people who have not even been baptised in the Catholic Church to dispense Holy Communion, what is wrong with the act of making ashes on Ash Wednesday for oneself, if one absolutely cannot go to Mass?

I usually go to Mass with my neighbours but they work and if there is a Holy Day on a weekday, there is little hope that I will be able to attend Mass.  So it was today.   I was a little depressed by it all until I began to think about the whole recipe for the sacred ashes.  They are made from the blessed Palms from last year's Palm Sunday and Holy Water and Oil.  Two out of the three I have.  I have Palms from Palm Sunday and a bottle of Holy Water from the Epiphany. I have olive oil and a beautiful polished dish made from an Olive Tree.  What is so wrong with the act of making ashes for oneself on Ash Wednesday in these circumstances?  Is it not better than being excluded from the tradition?

'Memento, Homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris.' 
Remember, Man, thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return.'


I therefore made my own Ashes, although it was more difficult than I expected.  Palm Fronds, even when very dry, even when soaked in olive oil, do not burn well.  I finally bowed to reality and found my charcoal (for incense) and lit that.  Recited the prayers and made the sign of the Cross...  why not?

Best Glass of Juice EVER!

Recently, I am finding morality tales everywhere and this is no exception.  Is it a sign of impending age or a Tolstoy-like turn of mind?  In any event, here is the tale, once again nothing more than unadulterated fact.

I fell in love with Clemintines in England long ago.  In those days, California had its own citrus fruits and although they were good, they were limited in kind.  Nowhere in La Jolla could one find Clementines, even at Jonathan's or Jurgensen's.  Our family had an account at Jurgensen's, which would have meant that I could have carried home an armful of Clementines daily on my way home from school, had they existed!

Well, no one now would conceive of a market, whether a gourmet one or a corner ethnic shop where one could not purchase produce from every corner of the globe.   They sell Clementines everywhere and indeed have attempted to create North American Clementines from Florida and California.  The North American Clementines are NOT authentic in my view, tasting more like a cross between a Mandarin Orange and a Tangerine than a genuine Clementine.

In any case, Clementines from North Africa always are found in our Christmas stockings on Christmas morning and I buy them throughout the winter until they no longer are offered.

Usually, a box of Clementines will last for a month or so, and they are a traditional offering for the Lunar New Year (falling this year on 19 February).  I try to have some at hand when the Lunar New Year begins, but my box of Clementines for some reason had mutated into something bizarre and otherworldly.  The little fruits were as hard as rocks and had become somewhat discoloured.  They had no signs of mould upon them but they were utterly impervious to any sort of normal access, short of sawing them open with a serrated blade.

I did not toss them but some one else did.  Fortunately, because of the extreme arctic conditions here, they had not made it quite to the outside bin.  I found them and decided to try to use them somehow.

I cut one open with a serrated knife and used the old-fashioned kitchen juice implement (shaped like a little dome... predating the various Cuisinarts and such) to grind it into juice.  When I tasted it, I could not believe how wonderful it was.  It was as sweet as nectar.    There were almost a dozen in the box and I used them all.  They made two lovely glasses of juice.

Ordinarily, I would think it wasteful to convert Clementines into juice.  They are so easy to open and peel, so perfect to eat.  In this case, however, I had no choice.  Where some one else might have perceived them as nothing more than rubbish, I possessed the foolhardiness to experiment a bit further... and I found something glorious.  The only problem is that they did not last to greet the New Year in two days!

A Tragic Christmas Morality Tale

To describe a Morality Tale as 'Tragic' probably is redundant to some extent.  When I think of all the Morality Tales that have been written or told throughout the ages, I find that almost all of them ARE tragic.  Whether it is the tale of the boy who was eaten by a Wolf after issuing too many false warnings, or a nursery rhyme involving a boy who kissed all the girls and made them cry only to be unveiled as an adject coward when faced with other boys, they tend to be dire warnings of one kind or another.

This Morality Tale is not only based upon fact but is unadulterated fact at that.  The lessons it provides are practical prima facie, but like the best of Morality and Fairy Tales, it holds a deeper significance.

It starts during the time of the Millenium when people were collecting dolls and toys under the truly foolish impression that they constituted a good investment for the future.  I never thought that was a good  idea and told customers constantly that the only reason to purchase dolls or plush toys was if the buyer or gift recipient actually LOVED them and furthermore that the idea of keeping a doll or toy in a box forever was obscene.

In the World of the 'Collectible Investment', now blessedly defunct for the most part, the only way a doll or toy keeps its value or actually gains in value is if it is NRFB, aka Never Removed from Box.   What this means is essentially that the buyer takes the box, stuffs it into an attic or closet and forgets about it until values soar a decade or so down the line.  These silly 'collectors' believed somehow that values would increase and that, when the time was ripe, they could cash in all the little surrogate people and animals for cold, hard cash.

In fact, many partents were teaching their children to do that immediately after being given a 'collectible' gift.  Boys and girls were bragging about having made a profit shortly after Christmas by selling the Beanie Babies or Holiday Barbie Dolls they had received as gifts.  Needless to say, I did not bring up my daughter in this fashion.  I taught her rather that dolls and toys should be treated with the same care and regard as real people and animals.  When Freya dropped her doll, she would cry out, 'Heart, are you hurt?' and indeed, performed a very heroic if foolish act of heroism one day when Heart fell into a busy road as we crossed and she ran back instantly to rescue her.  Thankfully, that did not end badly..  I was both horrified and proud.

In any case, I seldom kept any doll or plush toy in its original box, preferring to allow them to lead an existence outside of their dark prisons and believing that, if I liked a doll or plush animal enough to acquire it, I should display it somewhere.  Unfortunately, limitations of space, the bane of any collector, ultimately made my displays more cluttered than I would have wished.  Dust tended to land first on the dolls and animals at the back of the shelves and finally, everywhere.

There were a few dolls that I kept in their original boxes.  One of these was a beautiful Christmas set made my Madame Alexander.  It was a 10" couple who represented 'White Christmas', an iconic American film.  During the Millenium period, all dollmakers tended to go wild in producing more 'limited editions' than usual.  Rather than issuing one or two dolls for Christmas,  theAlexander Doll Company issued almost a dozen.   I therefore kept 'White Christmas' in the box for future display in some unscheduled 21st Century Christmas.

Well, as time passed and I became more disabled physically, the entire business of dragging out Christmas decorations for a month only to e forced to take them all back up the stairs after Twelfh Night became increasingly difficult and exhausting.  I tended to use the same boxes of Ornaments and Decorations again and again rather than unearthing special Decorations from the furthest corners of the storeroom. 

We then moved and I gradually began to move the boxes of Christmas Ornaments and Decorations and various other sundry items from the old house to the new.  A year later, I still have not completed this daunting task, partly because I am disabled and partly because I no longer drive and therefore do not have my own car.  It was only recently that I found the box containing the NRFB 'White Christmas' set and carried it to the new house.

So here is the lesson in this particular Morality Tale.  I opened the box today, fully trusting that the two dolls would be as fresh and new as the day they were made only to discover, to my infinite rage and horror, that somehow the Worms with Wings, my eternal Enemies, had invaded and wrecked havoc with both dolls and the pink tissue paper that allegedly was their protection.

I do not know how the War with the Worms with Wings began but I suspect they were brought into the house in an antique camelhair rug from Kazakhstan.  It was a gorgeous hand crafted piece that still smelled deliciously of wet camel.  (Yes, I love camels and I love the scent of the animal as well!   It is NOT a fetish, however.)  To my sorrow, I found trails of moth holes throughout the rug about six months later and from that point onward, the situation escalated.  I had to chuck out so many beautiful woolen and fur items.  They are filthy little creatures as well and will nest even in items they cannot consume.  It took me years to learn their various stages and to realise that the moment of flight is not the moment of greatest danger.  I could write a book on the topic but I am heartily sick of it all. 

When we moved, I made certain to scrutinise every single item I brought to the new house, even when they were made of materials moths could not devour.  I found evidence of them in wooden bookshelves and books, silk flowers and leather handbags... in fact, nothing was safe from their invasions.

Even so, I never imagined that a box that never had been opened would carry moths inside it.  And yet, I opened 'White Christmas' to find the discarded casings of hundreds of the foul creatures.  The pink tissue paper had been chewed in some places.  The fake fur that lined the velvet festive holiday clothing worn by the dolls was covered with their husks.  I did not see any evidence of life, thank God, but it still was an unpleasant surprise.

I have learned how to clean items that have suffered from these invasions and afterwards, I discovered almost no actual damage had occurred to anything but the box and the tissue paper.  The dolls now are displayed in a window and no one could tell they had endured such a horrid ordeal.

What then is the lesson in this Morality Tale?  It is not a new one for me.  My mother has been guilty of the same error many times, especially where food was concerned.  She would save a wonderful chocolate concoction or cake for a future 'special occasion' only to discover it had become stale by the time she decided to eat it.  I have done the same myself... but here, I was guilty of the Collector's Mistake, even though my reasons were quite different. 

The moral therefore is to enjoy anything that is special or beautiful without attempting to save it for some unspecified special and possibly impossible future occasion.  Furthermore, the Dolls and Toys that are displayed can be protected better than those that are locked away from sight.  Moths do not like objects that  are likely to be moved.  They like to burrow into the cardigan at the very bottom of a stack, to find the darkest corner in a wardrobe, to find a box, like this one, that was never opened.

As far as any more profound significance is concerned, well... you can judge for yourself but I would say that where friendship is concerned, there is no point in waiting for some unspecified future occasion to renew ties.  I have experienced so many deaths of my old friends to know that one never can count upon the future.  I regret that I did not make more of an effort to spend more time with those friends, even if they lived hundreds or even thousands of miles away.  The old adage: 'No time like the present' is very apt.  Carpe diem.  Make Hay while the Sun shines... etc. etc.

Freya, Goddess of Love and War and Marital Arts Training

When I discovered I was going to have a girl, I decided to name her Freya.  It's a beautiful name in itself and an unusual one, but beyond that, Freya was the Goddess both of Love and of War, strong and independent, a woman who was willing to do almost anything to save her race, the Vanir and one desired by all creatures.

When Freya was quite young, I enrolled her in a martial arts school.  Tae Kwon Do was my own discipline and I therefore looked for the best Tae Kwon Do school in our area, hoping that we could train together.  When I was a young girl, there were very few if any martial arts schools in the West and certainly there were very few girls who studied unless they were Asian.  I studied fencing and specialised in sabre fencing rather than the epee.  I loved being able to slash as well as thrust.  I loved edged weapons and, drunk upon tales of warriors like the Three Musketeers and Cuchulain, considered a sword to be an extension of the soul.  I never was a violent person but to me, the sword represented perfection.

When I went to University, I discovered there was a Tae Kwon Do club and joined it at once.  One joins far too many clubs in the first couple of weeks at University.  Many girls joined the Tae Kwon Do club at that stage, but most of them simply did so in order to meet guys.  After the first rather grueling lesson, they all dropped out apart from two.  I was one of the two who stayed and the other girl was Sue, who became one of my closest friends.  Both of us found the philosophical aspect of martial arts as seductive as the idea of honing ones own body into a perfect weapon.

Although I loved the concept, it was not in order to fight that I wished to perfect the art, but for the sake of perfection itself.  For some reason, martial arts always appealed to me far more than dancing, although I felt they both had the stame essential foundaton and structure.  Both were physical art forms, but martial arts had the additional component of being practical and of giving the practitioner power.

I was not a 'tomboy' by any means as a child.  I loved dolls as much as I loved swords and daggers.  It was when I saw Angela Mao Ying explode into action, however, in cinema, that I realised how utterly feminine and still deadly a great martial artist could be.  She was beautiful and dainty and yet an incredible force.  

So why did I want Freya to study Tae Kwon Do?  Well, for a start, I wanted to share something that gav me intense joy and satisfaction.  There have been few activities in my life that allowed me to experience what is sometimes called 'bliss'.  One was riding a carousel and another was Tae Kwon Do.  I hated team sports in school.  I loved fencing, almost every sort of folk dancing and tap dancing but I never liked ballet.  In school, I was a bit of an outsider, different from the others and therefore subjected to cruelty.  I was much younger than the other children in my classes.  I graduated from school ultimately at the age of 15.  While other girls were able to go out with guys, I still was treated like a child.  It was only when I went to University that, despite my age, I was treated as an adult and the difference in age became irrelevant, apart from my own naivete.

In my academic circle, I often was resented, even at University for being too articulate, for having been a child prodigy (and still a bit of a prodigy on occasion).   There was an edge of hostility often in the behaviour of guys who tried to chat me up.  At Tae Kwon Do, however, I experienced a sense of belonging.  The guys were my comrades.  We struggled together and triumphed together.   I always longed for a brother as a child but it was only when I joined the Tae Kwon Do club that I finally had brothers.  It was wonderful.

Freya was an only child.  I did not want her to be awkward with boys.  I wanted her to be able to have friends who were boys as well as friends who were girls.  I felt that Tae Kwon Do would give her the opportunity.  That was another reason I wanted her to study martial arts.

Many women either study martial arts themselves or enroll their daughers in martial arts in order to give them a source of protection from attack.  I myself experienced abuse at the hands of men but that was not part of my reason for studying martial arts or for wanting Freya to study.  I did want to 'empower' her, to give her a sense of confidence in life, but it was more of a spiritual sense of empowerment that would encompass every aspect of life.

Freya now has her third degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and teaches at a Karate studio.  When I watch her, I see in her all the beauty and power of the Goddess Freya.  I know she is far more humble but even so, I hope it has given her a sense of her own grace and beauty as well as power that should be second nature now.

Originally, I had hoped to be able to train with Freya, but I became physically disabled and was unable to take that journey with her.  I always did try to distinguish between my own goals and those of my daughter, to try not to impose my own desires and ambitions upon her.  I am really happy that she chose to continue with the art but I know that her vision may be entirely different from mine. 

The Etruscan Principle of Auguries, telling fortunes from the flight of birds or behaviour of cats and grippers

From the early 19th century, those who heard of the Etruscan tombs and or visited them became fascinated with the mysterious civilisation.  It is mysterious primarily because few written records remain, even though the Etruscans were, to some extent, the ancestors of the Romans who founded the great Roman Empire.

When I visited Tarquinia, I immediately experienced a sense of enchantment similar to that of Ludwig I of Bavaria and Robert Graves as well as a host of other artists, princes and ordinary tourists.  For a start, I love underground places and entrances to the underworld or other world, whether they be barrows, tombs or caves.  The way that the Etruscans laid out the tombs with a dining table and seats for the living visitors as well as the dead tenants appealed to me enormously.  There was something exquisitely peaceful and positive about the whole business, despite the 'presence' of the winged demons who guarded the door to the other world.

That is not the topic of this post, however.  It is rather the extraordinary reliance of the Etrusans on auguries of every sort, whether the flight of birds, the entrails of a sacrificed animal or the appearance of a meteor shower. 

Today, I had an experience that I would consider to be rather Etruscan although I wonder if I should attach any significance to it. 

Over the past year, I slowly have been trying to salvage all of my possessions from my former abode.  Decimated by moths and often almost inaccessible beneath other possessions, valuable clothes often are found only after I have removed 'work' clothes, mainly because work clothes were used on an almost daily basis and the more valuable clothing was seldom worn.  In any event, I found a few of my good cashmere leggings and was able to rehabilitate most of them.

There was a brief period when cashmere garments, especially when mixed with other textiles, were relatively inexpensive.  Fabricated usually in China, one could purchase a fair number of items on sale for a ridiculously low price.  The downside of this sometimes was the colour of the items.  Living in a climate where winter could be bitter and in a room that did not have proper heating, I really was not that concerned with the colour of leggings and bought whatever was available.  As the years passed, I tended to wear the weird colours and kept the black or charcoal pairs for special occasions.

There was one pair in particular that I wore often, despite the fact that the tie at the waist broke immediately.  The tie was made of the same fabric and woefully inadequate for its purpose.  Unfortunately, the openings for the tie were extremely small and all I could find to replace the fabric tie was a rather unattractive length of string.  It never worked perfectly although I continued to wear it.  Ultimately, however, I put the leggings aside, when moths and time left multiple tears along the seam between the legs.

At first, I left those leggings behind but recently have been rescuing clothing that was not my first nor my second choice.  I decided that one way to empower my rather battered soul would be to mend or rehabilitate as many of my damaged and ruined possessions as possible.  Some things are possible.  Others are not.  I had to toss some beautiful antique rugs because of the moth invasions.  The leggings, on the other hand, infinitely less valuable but possibly equally irreplaceable at this point in time, could be mended.

I first shored up all the holes, using simple thread rather than matching wool.  One could not tell the difference honestly, which made me regret that I had not performed the action sooner.  I then ordered some narrow elastic cord online.  This morning, I spent over half an hour threading it through the very narrow channel at the waistband.  The results were everything one could wish and I was rather proud and pleased. 

Let me mention here that one of the reasons I decided to mend the leggings was my inability to find any replacements at a reasonable price.  Cashmere is not as common as it was a decade ago and is very expensive now as well.  In searching online, I found some extraordinary goat wool leggings from the Ukraine that looked like Pan's legs but nothing in cashmere,  I rather fancied the mythical leggings but they were rather expensive actually.  Ultimately, I decided it would be more practical to mend the rather pedestrian leggings I owned.

At this point, I had to go downstairs to feed the cats.  I decided not to change my clothes.  After all, the leggings, even if cashmere, were very old...

Half an hour later, I tried to help Ashleigh onto my lap and his claw became caught in the lower part of my leggings.  He began to struggle and tore a hole in them!

What is the significance of all this?  Is it some kind of cosmic statement that one really cannot fight against the ravages of Nature and Time?  Is it a warning not to bother with my damaged possessions because there is no way to win this fight?  Or is it nothing more than a little coincidence.  The hole was very small.  I was able to mend it in a few moments and the casual viewer cannot tell that there was any damage.

Later, I dropped my grippers on the landing.  When one cannot reach very far nor bend very far and one needs some kind of aid, what does one do when the tool one uses is dropped?  Again, what sort of augury is this?

Perceptions of Organised Religion

I have met far too many individuals in my life who, having been brought up in a strict religious atmosphere of one kind or another, whether at school or at home, have rebelled completely against the entire business of religion, discarding the spiritual along with the organisation itself.

When people tell me that they are religious in their own way but 'do not subscribe to organised religion', I once felt that I could understand that point of view but I soon realised that my own was quite different.  I believe that organised religion serves a number of purposes and that we ought to USE the religion rather than allowing it to use us.  To say one does not believe in organised religion is rather like saying one does not believe in public transportation or hospitals or banks.  I do not trust any of them but they all have their uses, as does organised religion.

Without the organisation known as the Roman Catholic Church, there would be no soaring cathedrals and exquisite little churches and much of the great art and literature of the Western World would not exist.  Why on earth would one not wish to take full advantage of the beauty offered in the name of the Church without allowing it to take control?

One can worship God at home or in a garden, but there is nothing quite like a magnificent 'House of God' whether that be a Cathedral, Church or Mosque.  Furthermore, in the best circumstances, the energy of a group of people united in worship is quite powerful.  Sad to say, most of the time, much of the congregation or audience is not really concentrating on God or worship or using any spiritual energy at all.

Fundamentally, I believe that, at the very heart of Christianity is the ancient mystery religion of the Sacrifice of the God and I therefore believe that the Roman Catholic Church offers the most powerful experience of this mystery in Holy Communion.  Transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is true magic and anything less is less potent.

In like fashion, I find the traditions of Muharram and the weeping over Imam Husayn to be one of the most powerful experiences in Islam.  It is a practice that is limited to the 'shiani 'Ali' or Shia but it, like the crucifixion of Christ has its roots deep in the ancient world.  The weeping of women over the death of a God is one of the most potent communal magical acts.

Why on earth would one not wish to have life enriched by these incredible traditions and mysteries?  Why would one shun Cathedrals and Mosques, turn away from the extraordinary unfathomable face of the Divine and slam the door on cultural and spiritual practices that have belonged to humanity in one form or another since the very dawn of Time? 

I do understand how one might rebel against bigotry and strict adherence to any set of rules or regulations but to me, that is not the heart of religion.  That is simply the sort of thing that human beings do to place control over others in their own hands.  I therefore ignore it.  I believe that priests and Imams serve a function but it should not be treated as anything that interferes with the working of the individual soul and heart.  I find my own morality.  I choose what to follow in any spiritual tradition and in doing so, am free to sample more than one religion and  find the common threads that link them together.

I know this is a topic that I consider again and again but the reason I am thinking about it now has to do with the Runes and the Mysteries of Dionysus.  I have been studying the Runes for about three decades now and none of the explanations of their meaning ever convinced me totally.

It is the same with the mysteries of Dionysus.  I have read book after book on the subject but although they are filled with explicit and detailed accounts of this and that, they do not appear to find the very heart of the religion.

I do believe, like Joseph Campbell, that all religions are linked and there is a fundamental eternal Truth out there.  Even the worst religions and cults have a kernel of this truth somewhere, however much dross overpowers the gold.

The real problem with the Runes and the literature that deals with it, is Christianity and the way it dominates our thoughts in the Western World, whether we actually be Christian, atheist or belong to some other religion.   The way History is written, Christianity spread like a wildfire, instantly dominating the cultures it touched.  It evoked strong opposition in some cases but even when it did, it still was given an importance it may not have possessed at that point in time.

I read an interesting book that declared that it really was a toss-up at one point soon after the death of Christ whether Christianity or the worship of Mithras would triumph.  That struck me and I would go further in fact to state that Christianity NEVER would have achieved the significance it did were it not for the long history of mystery religions in the West and the worship of Dionysus, Adonis, Osiris and Attis.