Tuesday, July 30, 2013

In Which I Become a Doggy Chew Toy

So, during the diocesan sex-abuse shakeup, the Diocese of San Diego hid a bunch of properties from the federal courts. One of them was a desecrated church near the Pauma Indian Reservation in northeast county. The church had once been El Centro Guadalupano, but the priest went nuts (?!) and became a Pentecostal. He tore out the altar and tabernacle and installed a full-immersion baptismal pool in what had once been the sanctuary. The Diocese threw him off the land. He sued for ownership and lost. When the Diocese had to hide the property lest it be seized and sold off for sex abuse reparations, they gave it to Fr. Joe of Father Joe's Village (kind of a Boys Town for homeless people).

Fr. Joe has a friend, Susan, who is a Druid. He asked her to be caretaker of the building and its four acres of land. Susan has moved into the ex-church and is offering the property's use to different pagan communities for their rituals. Birgit and Liz, the older ladies (they are a couple) who run our kindred and John the Archdruid immediately accepted the offer.

On Saturday, we went to go do some cleanup, remove the cross from the front of the building, paint over "Centro Guadalupano" on the facade and have a first ritual. Not long after we arrived, Susan came out with her two doggies, one of whom is a pit bull. I stood still so the dogs could get a good sniff, but neither of them seemed interested, so I turned around to walk to the table where we were about to plan out our tasks.

I heard a growl behind me and the pitbull snapped at my left hand. He punctured the skin of my inner left wrist as if it were rice paper. I yowled and Susan hastened to tie the dog up. The wound was deep, and took a couple of seconds to fill with blood. As I watched, I noticed the white gleam of tendon underneath. My friends were alarmed and bandaged the injury. Liz brought me coffee. I did manage to help do some cleaning, but not a lot. The bandages soaked through in an hour, so I took them off, replaced them with a gauze pad and tape, and buried the bloody bandages at the foot of Odin's tree.

Ultimately I cut our stay short (I'd driven a couple of people) and after dropping off my passengers I hastened to the ER at our hospital of record, the UCSD in Hillcrest. I received good care as always, although it was a little surrealistic being checked in by a transwoman. She wasn't being a very successful one; she looked and sounded like a man in womens' clothing, despite the curly blond hair pulled back in a ponytail.

My wound was examined, irrigated, bandaged, and I was given Keflex and a tetanus shot since the last one I'd had was in June of 2005 in Basic Training.

No idea why doggie attacked me. Susan says he's going to be tied up whenever people are on the property now; this can't be allowed to happen again. A while after I was bit, Susan gave me some turkey and we went to go visit the dog. He took the turkey very nicely and let me pet him. I told him he was not allowed to bite me ever again. It was just weird; animals usually adore me and the only time I've been bitten before was not that bad and because I was a child teasing the dog.

The wound is healing.  Today I was able to push open the door of my pickup truck without pain.  Saturday is Freyfaxi for our kindred, and I am relieved to know the pittie is going to be on a chain.  This is strange for me, because I've never been afraid of dogs before.

Freyfaxi is a feast that isn't celebrated in Denmark, but Sven is elsewhere that weekend so we don't have to have that discussion.  I like it because I'm fond of Freyr, even if he's not one of my regularly-invoked gods.  Coverage of that ritual will be up next.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Save the Bees


Bees are necessary for pollination as well as honey and wax production.  I didn't know too much about it, wanting to hear from an actual beekeeper rather than some hippie or Natural News who pull "information" out of their butts.  Well, here is an Ontario, Canada beekeeper discussing the topic. 

http://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=959722

The takeaway?  Nicotine-based pesticides, and a humbling sight of a man who truly loves his bees and lives with and among them.  The bee is sacred, and we are dependent on it.  I will do what I can towards saving them; planting organically and writing to government representatives and agricultural companies.

Monday, July 1, 2013

A boast!

It's not a talk on heathenry or Asatru, but I've put in my application to do a presentation at the 2014 Pantheacon.  In  keeping with my Mexican background and residence in the American southwest, I am going to do a talk on Santa Muerte, because I've been interacting with her since 2006 or 2007 and I just love her.

I'm going to be talking about her obscure origins, why she became popular, why her popularity is spreading and her law-abiding as well as criminal devotees. 

Now to pay my registration fee and wait for room reservations to open up.
 
Isn't she pretty?  Oh yes she is.