Pneumatised!

This is an update to let people know of the change in date for the Reiki Two course. Please see the information below:

LEVEL TWO (OKUDEN)
Saturday, June 9, 2007
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
(one-hour lunch break at 1 p.m.)
Saturday, June 16, 2007
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
(one-hour lunch break at 1 p.m.)

The Level One course dates remain the same as stated in my previous post. For course descriptions and other related services, see “Reiki Courses and Other Services” on my website. Contact information can be found there.

Cassandrah
Reiki Shihan/Teacher
Brigid’s Flame

MM,

After about three weeks straight of finalizing some stuff, I’m offering reiki courses for levels one and two. Please see the scheduled dates and times below:

LEVEL ONE (SHODEN)
Saturday, May 5, 2007
9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
(one-hour lunch break at 1 p.m.)
Monday, May 7, 2007
6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

LEVEL TWO (OKUDEN)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
(one-hour lunch break at 1 p.m.)
Saturday, June 9, 2007
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
(one-hour lunch break at 1 p.m.)

For course descriptions and other related services, see “Reiki Courses and Other Services” on my website. Contact information can be found there.

BB,
Cassandrah
Brigid’s Flame

MM,

Aside from reiki, Wicca, and martial arts, what else am I studying you may be wondering.

It’s funny how following a spiritual path leads you in all sorts of directions. For one thing, I seem to have gone full circle and I’m studying more about my heritage and genetic roots. Thus, I’ve been studying a bit of China’s history and culture as well as Cantonese.

Cantonese is the dialect of Chinese most similar to my own (there are reportedly hundreds of dialects, but they are probably dying out as the Chinese government made Mandarin the official language, which is taught in school), and is the one most commonly spoken amongst North American Chinese people. Mandarin is being spoken more often by the next generation in China since it is forced on them in school. Basically, Cantonese was the most common language in China before the rise of communism there. With the upheaval in China in the mid-twentieth century, many Cantonese speaking Chinese left the country and went to North America. Thus, Cantonese is what you are likely to hear amongst the older generation North American Chinese – those who immigrated here as well as the first generation North American Chinese like myself. However, there are also many Chinese who left who spoke one of the hundreds of different dialects, like my family. My mother speaks Cantonese but in the home she speaks what I just call Toi San, after the name of our hometown in China (the town is now a small city called Taishan, which I hope to visit one day). Because the town of Toi San was fairly large, there are quite a few speakers of Toi San as well. Cantonese is very similar to Toi San, the major differences being the consonant sounds at the beginning of a word or syllable. Since I do hope to visit China one day, I thought I should learn to speak the more common dialects, plus you really can’t learn any other dialect of Chinese unless you grew up with it. Since Cantonese is closer to my dialect, I decided to learn that first and then Mandarin later. This is just the spoken language. The written language for Chinese is the same. The written language for Chinese (composed of characters) is unique in that each syllable is written not as it sounds like, but as the idea. Thus, the characters do not inform you as to what word needs to be sounded. You read Chinese as if you were looking at multiple pictures. Because the written language for Chinese is the same regardless of the dialect spoken and nowadays you can only learn to read and write using Mandarin, I will have to learn Mandarin just to make the learning to read and write Chinese easier.

Cantonese is both difficult and easy to learn. The easy part is that there are few actual sounds in Cantonese. There are only six consonants that may be used at the end of a word/syllable, and there are many homophones (words that sound the same). However, because of the many homophones there needs to be a way to distinguish between them. This is done by using tones, though you might be able to determine the correct word by the context. This is where the difficulty lies. The ear needs to be trained to hear the difference in tones. Those who are tone-deaf will definitely find Chinese challenging, and I’m not sure if there is sign language for Chinese – I imagine that would be difficult.

However, it is said that is easier to learn Mandarin once you know Cantonese, but it’s harder the other way around.

Writing Chinese is fairly easy. There are rules for how to write the characters. Each character is comprised of a “stroke”, and each stroke must be written in a specific order. These rules for stroke order are fairly straightforward. Once you have that writing Chinese is easy. It’s the reading that is difficult. Because each word/syllable is represented by a different character and the character does not give you any idea of how the word sounds, you have to be able to see the idea the character represents. It is said that to read a standard Chinese newspaper, you need at least 1000 characters. About 3500 characters are probably used. A well learned individual should know about 5000 characters. A good Chinese dictionary consists of about 50,000 characters. For someone new to reading Chinese (and I am despite being Chinese, I grew up in an English society so I never had any need to read in Chinese), it’s quite a feat to learn just 1000 characters. The neat thing though is that the characters were based on images of what the characters represented. Thus, if one studies how the character for a word came about, it’d be easier to remember. Yay for me, loads of studying to do still.

I’ve also picked up a book on hieroglyphics, which is about reading and writing in Egyptian and Mayan. Hieroglyphics is commonly associated with Egyptian, but since hieroglyphs just mean “carved writing” it applies to Mayan as well. Egyptian hieroglyphs are like Chinese characters in that they depict the idea. However, Egyptian hieroglyphs also represented a sound. But they represented the sound that was part of the Egyptian word that is depicted in the hieroglyph. Ah… interesting. Because some hieroglyphs represent both sounds and an idea, there is a hieroglyph that indicates which it is – sound or idea. This is called a determinative. There are quite a few hieroglyphs, but surprisingly it’s fairly easy to read Egyptian hieroglyphs once you get used to it. You just have to get used to the different hieroglyphs and you can just use a reference book to look up the ones you don’t know.

Languages are interesting. They tell you much about the culture you are studying, and part of the reason I’m studying the different languages is because of this. I also find written language can be artistic, especially Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese. The other language I would like to learn is Irish Gaelic. It would give a more authentic and personal feel for Celtic rituals to be able to read the Irish texts without translating.

Speaking of art, I’ve decided to study up a bit more on drawing and painting techniques since I’d like to experiment a bit more with my watercolour pencils and crayons. Art takes a lot of patience and time because it takes a while to get used to a technique. Plus, there’s also the fun of experimenting and seeing what you can personally make up. I can spend a good night just playing around with the colours – mixing and blending just to see what comes out.

This is just what I’ve been studying lately – and I still haven’t gone through my reading list and work load yet.

Okay, back to reading… oh, um… yes, the Spartans and King Leonidas.

BB,
Cassandrah
Your local renaissance woman
Brigid’s Flame

If you haven’t seen the most recent episode of Battlestar Galactica called “Maelstrom”, be warned – spoilers follow.

When I first heard about a remake of the original Battlestar Galactica TV series, I was ecstatic. First, Lucas makes a second Star Wars trilogy (something I wished for after I saw Return of the Jedi in the theatres oh-so-many years ago), then I get to see a re-telling of Battlestar Galactica with better special effects.

Now though, I’m truly disappointed. What started out with a bang with a spectacular mini-series and excellent first season has turned into, to steal from Katee Sackhoff, “90210 in space”. Apparently, she’s been a tad disappointed with the show as of recently. According to a Sy Fy Portal article, Sackhoff was “critical of is Kara’s tendency to bed hop, which reminds her more of a soap opera plot than something found in science-fiction.” Sackhoff reports that Ron Moore specifically said “we are not doing 90210 in space”, but in her opinion it’s turned into that. She’s not alone in that thought though. I’m patient if a sci-fi show throws in one or two “soap opera-ish” episodes here and there interspersed amongst loads of climactic battle scenes (for example, the Stargate SG-1 episode where Teal’c moves into an apartment and gets involved with a lovely young lady – who happened to be played by Erica Durance – but then at least in that episode he gets accused of murder and the N.I.D. try to interfere, and in the next episode we get back to the sci-fi), but enough is enough. Battlestar Galactica has tossed in soap opera episode after episode. We don’t even see “toasters” anymore – that Raider in the last episode was supposedly a hallucination of Starbuck’s and therefore, doesn’t count. I mean, come on! I thought the main thrust of the show was about the battle between cylons and humans – life long enemies. Maybe if the producers focused on that a bit more rather than worrying about the ratings and how to build up the characters, the show will get back on track – and the ratings will come after.

Then the next thing you know, they go and do the worst thing possible (short of killing off Lee ‘Apollo’ Adama) – they kill off Starbuck. Yes, that’s right, the “rock ’em, sock ’em, ‘I’m gonna get that toaster!’ chick” has left the building. “Wait? Say that again?” Starbuck is gone. That fact was brought home with the last scene of Admiral Adama tearing apart his model ship after he puts on it the mini-statue of the goddess Aurora that Starbuck gave him. Angry and upset, the Admiral tore apart the model ship that Starbuck wanted him to finish. Unfortunately, us viewers don’t have a model ship to destroy as well – to take out our anger and disappointment at how badly they ruined Starbuck’s character.

Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace was the archetypal female warrior. She’s strong, tough, and you don’t mess with her because frankly she doesn’t give a damn about the rules – she’ll hit you even if you’re the X.O. She’s the best Viper pilot in the fleet pulling off feats that no one else can, even saving Lee’s butt a few times. She’s also managed to escape cylon capture (reference “The Farm” in season two). Then the writers turn her character upside-down by portraying her as an emotional mother with the first episodes of season three (though the child really wasn’t hers). Of course though, her experience as a “mother” is supposed to change her and she is more in touch with her emotions. Then, all seems fine with Starbuck for a while until the most recent episode, “Maelstrom” where Starbuck is having dreams about her old apartment on Caprica and, in particular, about that painting she made that looks like the “Eye of Jupiter”. A man who looks like the cylon Leoben is in her dreams and is supposedly leading her to her destiny, which as it turns out in this episode is to fly into a cloud and blow up with her ship from the pressure in the atmosphere. In “Maelstrom”, Starbuck is a teary-eyed mess and it is revealed that she was abused by her mother. By the end of the episode, she forgives her mother for the abuse as somehow she can see her mother on her death bed. Then Starbuck wakes up in her cockpit and tells Lee that she isn’t afraid anymore. She doesn’t eject out of her Viper, and then it blows up while Lee watches nearby not able to do anything.

There are few things as inconsistent as a warrior committing suicide for no good reason. A warrior may sacrifice herself for the explicit purpose of saving someone else, but a warrior is not suicidal. In this episode, Starbuck commits suicide just because she has a destiny? The Starbuck that we know and love wouldn’t do such a thing – no way, she’d say “Frak that!” Warrior archetypes have too much self-preservation to just give up and commit suicide. They may give up their lives trying to save someone, but that doesn’t mean they court death. What happened with Starbuck in the last episode was just out of character and basically non-sensical. In the episode previous to this one, Starbuck was giving her new “nugget” hell for not showing up for training on time AND out of uniform. Basically, the writers and producers want us to believe that somehow Starbuck went from being a warrior to someone who runs back crying to Mommy. That is how we are supposed to remember her? Sheesh, perhaps the producers need to read some Joseph Campbell – maybe look up the Celtic goddess Morrigan and the Norse goddess Freya while they’re at it.

Aside from Starbuck dying in “Maelstrom”, there are many things that were just wrong with that episode. First off, it’s another soap opera episode consisting of flashbacks with Starbuck’s mom who as it turns out was abusive to Starbuck. Second, Starbuck forgives her mother. What?! There are some things in life that are unforgivable, abuse is one of those things. To forgive an abuser is to accept abuse, it gives it validation, it says it isn’t at all wrong (is that really the message we’d like to say about abuse?) The character of Starbuck as a strong woman would not have forgiven her mother – again, she’d say “Frak that!” and she’d move on. There’s a difference between accepting what’s already happened to her and accepting abuse overall. Third, there’s the cylon Leoben again. Er… wait, it’s not Leoben? He’s there to help her cross the river between life and death. So, Starbuck’s spiritual guide is personified as the cylon who abused her? I don’t know about anyone else, but my spiritual guide isn’t someone who abused me. Fourth, why was Starbuck even written as an abused child? Just because a woman is strong doesn’t necessarily mean she was abused. Some people just have strong personalities, they’re just born that way. Some people are less resilient. Some people who have been abused aren’t strong at all – they can’t stand up for themselves. So, why is there this assumption that since Starbuck is a strong woman she must have been abused? That’s a stereotype. (Actually, this is a problem overall in the show. Strong women are portrayed as having been abused in some form or another. Or for a woman to become strong, she has to experience abuse such as in the case with Sharon who was raped while being imprisoned as a cylon.) Fifth, Starbuck was a poet and a painter. Apparently, this was supposed to imply that she was moody, subject to depression, and potentially suicidal because all poets and painters are. Another stereotype.

Granted, some of these issues with the show have been apparent earlier on, but I’ve been patient (bored, but patient) hoping the show will get back to its roots and not turn into a major sci-fi soap opera (sci-opera?). I’ve also been patient hoping that Starbuck’s character will switch back to the warrior archetype, but I guess I was wrong. The producers had one chance to “fix” Starbuck, but now they’ve blown it (literally, as her ship blew up). What’s next for us? Helo turns into a moralizing something-up-his-butt bastard? Please not! I’m liking Helo and Sharon right now. Supposedly, Lee is to turn against his father and the President over the issue of how they are treating Baltar. Does that not sound like a plot from The Young and the Restless? Oh dear. I keep hoping for the cylons to return and for some more climactic space battles. I guess we’ll find out next week on “90210 in Space” if the producers have heard my plea. Come on, let’s blow up some more toasters! (Or can’t they afford them anymore???)

BB,
Cassandrah
Brigid’s Flame

Other articles on Battlestar Galactica:

Starbuck: Is She or Isn’t She?
Major Cast Member to Depart
March 4, 2007: Mother, May I

Happy Pig Year!!!

Yes, I realize this blog entry is a little late, but better late than never.

Chinese New Year’s was on February 18, which brought in the year of the pig. Pig years are 1911, 1923, 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, and 2007. The next pig year is 2019.

Some people are already familiar with the Chinese zodiac and know that each year is represented by a different animal or sign (in order, rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig). What people may not know is that the month, day, and hour of birth is also represented by one of the twelve animals as well. In order to determine your luck in life, the Chinese would take your full birth date and time, then look at different variables in your chart.

As with modern Western astrology, each sign is associated with a different element. However, there are five elements in traditional Chinese philosophy – earth, fire, water, wood, and metal/gold – instead of the four commonly known air, fire, water, and earth (which come from Greek philosophy). (Note also that the Chinese elements are different from the Buddhist elements. The Buddhist elements consist of the four elements from Greek philosophy plus aether or void, which tends to be more commonly used in Western occult practices than the traditional Chinese ones.) Also just like modern Western astrology, the Chinese signs get along better with some signs than others. Signs four signs apart get along best, basically a trine aspect like modern Western astrology. For example, oxen, snakes, and roosters will get along with each other.

Now, I did mention that your birth month, day, and time are represented by an animal as well. This needs to be calculated (I have yet to find a Chinese astrology program that does calculations for you.), but can be done with the correct tables. For example, my Chinese signs are ox (year), sheep (month), dog (day), and ox (time). This provides more insight into my personality as well as my “fortune”. The year represents heritage (what you have inherited from your ancestors and family), the month represents supporters (people who were part of your upbringing and influence you), the day represents self (your personality, basically – you!), and the time represents production (your life accomplishments including whether or not you will raise a family). Putting this all together, Chinese astrology is more complex than how it is currently used.

A good book to help you determine your Chinese astrological chart is The Traditional Art of Chinese Fortune Reading by Peter Shen. The book uses tables and charts to help you draw up your own chart, but it is well worth working through to find out your “fortune”. In my chart, it says I have seven “fortune stars” of “major income” and two “fortune stars” of “lucky money”. Guess that means I have to keep working for my fortune!

May the stars shine on you!
Cassandrah
Brigid’s Flame

Okay, I’ve already seen the movie, Blood Diamond starring Leonardo DiCaprio and I thought it was an excellent movie. The movie touches on a subject hard core and pulls no punches.

Then of course, Valentine’s Day rolls around (and I won’t even get into my rant on how Valentine’s Day is a Christian pervertion of a pagan tradition and how morbid it actually is since it’s on the day Valentine died) and there’s a bulletin on myspace.com about why you shouldn’t buy a synthetic diamond, although there is an extremely good reason why you should. Here’s my response to that bulletin:

In actuality, synthetic diamonds are marked synthetic so buyers can tell the difference. This was imposed by the major diamond corporations, so that people can get a “real” diamond. In fact, a synthetic diamond looks as good as any “real” diamond. Contrary to what people may say, it does cost to make a synthetic diamond because you still need a diamond piece to begin with. Though once you make one diamond you keep one piece out of a batch to keep making more.

Is the cost of a diamond what really matters? Is the value of a diamond worth more than life itself. See Leonardo’s new film, Blood Diamond, and then do some more research. The actor has stated in interviews that he will not buy a “blood diamond” (also known as a “conflict diamond”. (Kudos to Leonardo for standing up for something important! Note that obviously the movie would alienate many movie-goers and not pull in as much profit, yet he took the role anyway.)

The ring that my beloved gave to me does not cost as much as a diamond, but is worth much more than the dollar value attached to it (it cost around $350). My ring is an iolite stone set in silver with gold embedded in the silver (not gold-plated, but solid gold pieces). The stone itself is a beautiful indigo stone that tends to change colour according to the lighting. Sometimes it’s violet, sometimes it’s black. On top of this, the ring was completely hand-carved and shaped. They didn’t use a mold to make it. Because they didn’t use a mold, no one else will have this ring. It’s one of a kind and over time will probably be worth more, especially when the jewellery who made this isn’t around anymore.

A diamond is a diamond – you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. I’d rather have the ring I have than any blood/conflict diamond – I value human life and my conscience more than any over-rated mass-marketed product (that is used to help a major corporation get richer while the rest of us struggle just to have a decent life) . If you really must buy a diamond, do the opposite of what De Beer’s intended and buy the synthetic one, the one labelled “conflict-free”. Your conscience will thank you.

Cassandrah
Brigid’s Flame

MM,

I finished reading The Forest House by Marion Zimmer Bradley. She’s a great author, I have to say. Although the book seems to be another Romeo and Juliet type romantic tragedy, there’s still a twist at the end that I was not expecting. Compared to other fiction writers, she can make a fairly boring story intriguing with the way she writes. Somehow I suspect that even though I thought the story for this novel boring, it will stay with me a long time.

I started reading book six (Lord of Chaos) of The Wheel of Time. I made it through the 72-page prologue and into chapter one. Though now I’m distracted from it because I decided to start reading Ian Irvine’s fantasy serial, The View from the Mirror. I’m on book one, The Shadow on the Glass. I decided to read this serial because the story is interesting, though as Nathan likes to point out every so often, Irvine isn’t a great fiction writer. Nonetheless, I still find myself intrigued because I want to find out what happens to the main characters. Basically, Irvine’s book is the opposite of Bradley’s above – great story, but not the best writing.

I also found copies of David Eddings’ books, The Diamond Throne and The Ruby Knight from the serial, The Elenium, in our laundry room. (We recirculate books we don’t want through the laundry room.) I’ll get into that serial at some point too.

I put aside The World’s Religions for a bit since I have to review my WCC stuff, but I’ll probably get back to that book every so often because it is such a good starting point on other religions. I also finally found a good little book that covers the history and culture of China. It’s China: Its History and Culture by W. Scott Morton and Charlton M. Lewis, second edition, published in 2005. Thus, it’s fairly up-to-date.

I finished reading Gardner’s Witchcraft Today. Interesting, what “ol’ uncle Gerald” has to say about witchcraft. Definitely worth reading for anyone interested in Wicca – the tradition of witchcraft he started. Now, I have to read The Meaning of Witchcraft, and strangely enough, I saw it at the used book store last week. Of course, I snatched it up. I just haven’t had time to get into it yet. Plus, it’s good to vary my reading material so I don’t get too bored with one topic!

BB,
Cassandrah
(Too much to read, too much to do, and not enough time!)
Brigid’s Flame

MM,

This year started out busy for me.

First, Nathan and I were treated to a visit from his brother. He came to stay with us during the New Year’s weekend. Thus, the last part of 2006 was spent showing our visitor around the city and taking him to a few places.

Public ritual on New Year’s Eve (yes, the WCC was open) was a Compitalia where we paid tribute to the Lares (sort of like Italian fairies) of our physical boundaries. We did this by having a pig roast, then leaving some of the food at the boundaries and doorways. A very simple ritual.

After the ritual on New Year’s Eve, Nathan, I and our visitor went to hang out at Tamarra’s place. She always holds a party on New Year’s Eve for the WCC community. This year was busier than in previous year’s, so we ended up leaving after the fireworks show. (Lucky us, we have a licensed pyrotechnic in the community who’s more than willing to display his talents. 🙂 ) Since Nathan’s brother had to leave in the early morning to get to the airport on time, we went back to the apartment early and toasted in the CST New Year. 😉

On New Year’s Day, Nathan and I had to go out for dim sum with my mother and family, pretty much a tradition in my family. Because of all the craziness during the holiday season, I ended up spending the first week of January resting and recuperating (puttered around the apartment, read, went walking around the city some more). It was fun though having a visitor to show around the city. (I probably should have been a tour guide.)

Public ritual on the 7th was a sort of meditation. Being Summoner, it was amusing watching everyone sprawled out on the temple floor half asleep. Haha… peace at last!

Last week, I went to my group ritual and the women’s group ritual on top of the public ritual. The group ritual was an interesting one to Janus. (I knew he’d show up sooner or later!) We tossed a coin to determine if we needed help from the past or the future for the upcoming year. I got tails (past), which means I need to look to the past to see what needs to be done. This sort of makes sense as there is so much I still need to finish. Hehe… I guess I laid a good foundation already, but I just need to keep building.

The women’s group ritual was a Trimestra ritual. It is one of a set of rituals that were written to correspond with each stage of pregnancy that a woman goes through. It is one of the major female rites of passage in the Odyssean tradition. It’s a lovely ritual – each time I see the ritual performed the energy is amazing. The mother-to-be always seems to sparkle and shine.

Public ritual on the 14th was another little meditation. We were given rocks in which to tell one secret, then we were to bury the rock as soon as possible. It was interesting. Being Summoner though, I didn’t really pay attention to the meditation. I did get rid of my rock though – buried it on my way home.

Yesterday I went out to the public class. It was a class on elements, and I thought to compare the notes I have with the class. This way I have an idea of what topics to teach for each class. Plus, it’s good to refresh my mind every so often. I need to sit down sometime and review the notes for all the classes (52 plus because some class topics don’t come around every year). I’ll probably end up typing up a whole set of teaching notes that are separate from the student notes I took.

I managed to make it into the do jang last Thursday in the early afternoon. It was nice to be able to just concentrate on some things that we don’t practice much in class. I worked on my stances and hand strikes, even my elbow strike. I worked on the form of my kicks and blocks. It felt good to be able to do that. I will be trying to get into the do jang in the afternoon more often this year. This will give me training time even if I can’t make it to the evening or weekend classes as much. I haven’t been running much – it’s been so busy, and so cold on the days I feel like running that there’s no motivation. Hopefully in the next month or so, I can get back into it. I haven’t been to the gym in a month. At the very least, I was able to do some push-ups and light weight training at home. Free weights are always handy. I hate missing the do jang and gym so much that sometimes I get up and do some things around the home.

I still need to set aside some time to review the stuff I have to teach for reiki. I have a teaching plan, but just haven’t gotten around to finishing my teaching notes yet. I’d like to read over my reiki manuals again before I start teaching. I also have to get some supplies. Hopefully, I can be set to teach before spring sets in.

BB,
Cassandrah
Brigid’s Flame

MM,

I have finally gotten around to starting my section on Wicca on my website, Brigid’s Flame. As with the rest of the website, I will be adding more to it over time. For now, please read the introductory page to Wicca and a Wicca-related article, “Raising Power in Group Rituals”. I am currently reviewing some books that I’ve read over the past 6 or so years that are related to Wicca, witchcraft, paganism, and the occult. I hope to have this book list available on the website soon.

BB,
Cassandrah
Brigid’s Flame