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Book Review: A Survival Guide for Life by Bear Grylls

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
bear-grylls-survival-guide-to-life-book-cover Bear Grylls shares the wisdom he’s learned through life in A Survival Guide for Life. Life can be difficult at times, in A Survival Guide for Life Bear writes how to not only survive these times but thrive in them. His positivity in this book is inspiring and infectious.

Bear gives advice like:

  • Have bravely to face your fears.
  • Failure is the key to future success. If you’re failing your making progress towards success.
  • Set your goal and focus on the journey not the destination.
  • Be the most enthusiastic person you know.

Over the 72 short chapters (each chapter being 2-3 pages at most) there isn’t a single wasted word. That said, I would have preferred Bear to tell more of his personal story.

He quotes people he admires including the famous, friends, colleagues and the bible.

When I bought A Survival Guide for Life I didn’t realise that he was a Christian and initially it didn’t bother me. However as the book progressed the tone was preachy at times and at one point he even recommended that the reader sign up to an Alpha Course. I also felt like he was atheist-bashing at some points. His religious views made me physically sigh on more than one occasion.

The presentation of A Survival Guide for Life was excellent. A good selection and use of fonts, as well as spacing created a consistent style that was pleasing to the eye of the reader.

If you ignore the Christianity in A Survival Guide for Life, then book is great. The wisdom he imparts is the sort of life lessons we should be teaching all children in our society. His his upbeat tone is captivating and makes it a joy to read. A Survival Guide for Life by Bear Grylls is available to buy on Amazon.

Review soon,

Antony



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Saturday 2 August 2014

Import: 5 Pagan Origins of Christmas

By Journalism, PaganismNo Comments

Christmas is a Christian festival, but a lot of its traditions originate from the older pagan festival of Yule. Yule or the Winter Solstice is on 21st December; it is the shortest day and longest night in year. From this point on days will begin to get longer. Pagans come together celebrate the return of the sun or re-birth of the sun God.

Lets have a look at 5 Christmas traditions and discover their pagan origins:


Norbert Christmas Tree 2012 Decorated
1. The Christmas tree

The evergreen Christmas tree started with the pagans. They saw evergreen as symbolic of the eternal cycles of nature: birth, life, death and re-birth. The re-birth always being seen as a result of the sun’s return.

I remember decorating the Christmas tree when I was little. My mum would let me and my brothers decorate one side of the tree and then put that side against the wall. Or she’d let us decorate it and then strategically move all of the decorations to where she wanted them to be, before visitors began to arrive. As we got older, she simply refused to let us decorate the tree at all. Did anybody else’s mum do that, or was it just mine?

The decorations, like the round babuls in colours of red and yellow and the lights (before electricity candles were used) are all seen by pagans as representations of the sun God.


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Christmas Presents

2. The Presents

Pagans gave presents long before Christian’s came along, but on New Years Day rather than at Yule. The presents were often small and symbolic of a blessing for the year ahead.

Christian’s didn’t start giving presents until relatively recently. In Britain due to poverty and culture, Christmas presents didn’t commonplace until around the Victorian Era. There are records of wealthy people giving presents before then, but it was only some people and these were the upper classes of society.


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(Image Credit: Paula McManus @ Flickr)

3. Father Christmas

Father Christmas or Santa goes back to the Christian Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas had a reputation for secret gift giving to children and for valuing children greatly.

But what show his pagan roots are the colours of his archetypal dress. When I think of Father Christmas, I think of Miracle on 34th Street. I imagine the scene in which Kris is putting on his suit for the first time. His red suit with white trim, black belt with golden buckle, his black boots and of course his red hat. These colours: red, white and gold are all associated with the pagan sun god, who is believed to be re-born on Yule.

mistletoe-4

(Image Credit: Sandlewood19 @ Flickr)

4. Kissing Under The Mistletoe

This time of year, mistletoe always seems to find it’s way to the office Christmas party. Hung in some precarious doorway, it can lead to an awkward moment of avoiding eye contact and pretending you’ve not seen it or to a drunken Christmas snog with the hottie from the IT Department.

Mistletoe’s pagan origins are as a symbol of fertility. Yule was a festival of fertility, by the very nature of it being the festival were the life-giving sun God is re-born. Often pagan’s would give mistletoe to those wanting to conceive.


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(Image Credit: Steve Bird @ Flickr)

5. The Humble Robin

Every year I receive at least one Christmas card with the humble robin on. His pagan associations come from his striking reddy orange chest, a symbol of the sun and also in his ability to fly. His ability to fly means that he can leave and then return, very much like the sun God.

There you have it, 5 Christmas Christian traditions that originated from paganism. It’s not just Christmas that has pagan roots, Christian festivals throughout the year have pagan traditions and elements integrated into them.

Have a great Christmas or Yule, whichever you choose to call it and whatever religious belief system (or not) is.

Published by: The Gay UK on Tuesday 24th December 2013.



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Tuesday 24 December 2013

Import: FEATURE: Coming Out of the Broom Closest

By Books & Authors, Creativity, Gay, Journalism, PaganismNo Comments
Rivington - A Place of Bewitching Beauty I’ve come out of two closets in my life. First through the rainbow-coloured door – coming out as gay. Then out of the broom closet – coming out as pagan. Every time I’ve come out as pagan, I get asked the same sort of questions. Here are some of those questions and my responses:

What is it all about?
Paganism is a nature-based religion, so as a pagan I have a reverence for nature. Paganism has a dual aspect of divinity – meaning we have both a god and goddess.

This god and goddess duality symbolises balance that can be seen in all aspects of the world and universe. We cannot have life without death, happy times without sad times, etc.

Unlike most other religions we don’t have a bible or other book that tells us what to believe. What pagans believe is much more individual to them. But the two big focuses in paganism are nature and individual responsibility for our own actions and omissions.

Paganism has values that encourage equality, respect for all living beings and empathy for others, so generally pagans are very accepting of gay people. Acts of love, pleasure and beauty are important to pagans regardless of the sexuality or gender of those involved.

Do you worship the devil?
No…we actually don’t believe in a devil.

The Druid Circle Cumbria Do you have a Church?
Nature is our church. Some of us like to worship, celebrate and practice on our own; whereas others like to get together with other pagans.

Covens are closed groups of pagans usually consisting of a maximum of thirteen people. They have a High Priestess and a High Priest as leaders of their group, kind of like priests/vicars. Coven members will teach one another what they know, including the initiates (those new to paganism). Rituals, rites, magic, music and dance will all be taught within the closed coven circle.

Pagan moots are much more open. They are open to anyone and usually held at local cafes or pubs. Some moot organisers will arrange for talks on a range of pagan topics such as: herbs, crystals, healing, ghosts/other spirits, etc. Organisers usually ask for a donation or minimal charge to attend these fascinating talks.

Samhain-2012-4 Is magic like that on Charmed? Or like Willow on Buffy The Vampire Slayer does?
No…sorry. But it can be equally effective – it just works in a different way.

Imagine I cast a Spell for money. Money won’t magically appear. But I might see a job that I can apply for that’s better paid than the one I’m doing.

Just because I’ve cast the Spell, doesn’t mean the job is automatically mine! I still have to apply for the job, go to the interview and WOW the interviewers. I have to work hard to achieve my goals – like everyone else.

What’s the difference between a Pagan, a Wiccan and a Druid?
Paganism is a broad term to describe lots of different paths that have the same principle beliefs. Wicca, Druidism and others paths may have slightly different practices but share the same principle beliefs and are therefore are all encompassed under the term paganism.

Think of it in terms of Christianity. Christianity is the over-arching term, but within that you have the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and many others all with the same principle beliefs but with slightly different practices.

So you don’t celebrate Christmas?
We have our own holidays, many of which coincide with Christian holidays. But our big celebration is Samhain or Halloween, which to pagans is like Christmas and New Year rolled into one.

We are all individuals. Personally I celebrate Christmas with my family, because they do and because it’s a positive time for all. It’s the one time of year my family takes the time out to spend precious time together, to eat, drink and be merry – oh and of course there’s the presents!

Where can I learn more?
The best gay pagan book I’ve come across is Gay Witchcraft by Christopher Penczak. Christopher Penczak is a pagan gay man who wrote this for gay men. It even has a section on gay deities.

Other non-gay books I’ve learned a lot about paganism from are: The Real Witches’ Handbook by Kate West, Elements of Witchcraft by Ellen Dugan, Witchcraft: Theory and Practice by Le De Angeles and Everyday Magic by Dorothy Morrison. There’s also a myriad of information on the internet –just do a Google search.

Published by: The Gay UK on Tuesday 17th September 2013.



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Saturday 14 September 2013

Book Review: God Believes in Love – Straight Talk about Gay Marriage by Gene Robinson

By Amazon, Books & Authors, Gay, History2 Comments
god-believes-in-love-cover There’s been a lot of talk about gay marriage recently, not just in the UK but internationally. So when God Believes in Love: Straight Talk about Gay Marriage by Gene Robinson arrived from Publishers Group UK I couldn’t wait to read it, which is what I did over the festive period.

Now before I start the review I feel compelled to say upfront that I’m pagan; but I was raised as a Catholic as so much as my brothers and I all went to Catholic Schools and we attended Church on special occasions (e.g. Christenings, Weddings, Christmas, etc.). So with my Christian childhood in mind, let me tell you about this book…

Firstly it’s presented really well – hardback with parchment-like paper and a easy to read font. On the back cover there’s a quote which instantly sparked my interest from President Barack Obama which says:

“My friend Bishop Gene Robinson has long been a voice for equality – not with anger or vitriol, but with compassion and faith. He has been guided by the simple precept that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.”
– President Barack Obama
(From: God Believes in Love: Straight Talk about Gay Marriage by Gene Robinson, 2012)

Gene writes in a conversational style throughout the book making it feel like you’re sat somewhere warm and cosy listening to him speak, a writing style that I found captivating. He starts with an introduction sharing his story of being in love with and marrying his best friend (a woman); having two daughters but later realising that his attraction to the same gender could not be suppressed or changed.

Gene writes that he and his wife divorced and that he later met and fell in love with Mark his husband. In this introduction he explains what marriage means to him, that he and Mark had a ‘Civil Union,’ before getting married (after it was made legal for them to do so) and the he later became IX Bishop of New Hampshire. It is a heart warming that he chose to share his life experience and I have a huge respect for him doing this as it would make most people feel exposed & vulnerable.

Gene answers ten questions commonly posed by those against gay marriage:
1. Why Gay Marriage Now?
2. Why Should You Care About Gay Marriage If You’re Straight?
3. What’s Wrong with Civil Unions?
4. Doesn’t the Bible Condemn Homosexuality?
5. What Would Jesus Do?
6. Doesn’t Gay Marriage Change the Definition of Marriage That’s Been in Place for Thousands of Years?
7. Doesn’t Gay Marriage Undermine Marriage?
8. What If My Religion Doesn’t Believe in Gay Marriage?
9. Don’t Children Need a Mother and a Father?
10. Is This About Civil Rights or Getting Approval for Questionable Behaviour?

Gene’s answers are intelligent, insightful and obviously well thought out. His knowledge of gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans history and civil rights activism was fascinating. I thought I was well educated on gay history, but he conveyed some history of which I was unaware.

Gene recognises that straight people need to advocate for gay people and encourages them throughout the book to “get to know us,” listen to gay people’s stories and believe them as their truth. He asks them to try and imagine walking in a gay persons shoes.

Gene examines the meaning and context of scriptures used to condemn homosexuality which would help any gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans Christians accept their sexuality within their faith.

Gene discusses the concept of marriage and it’s evolution over centuries; this chapter of the book was absolutely engrossing. I’ve never really looked into marriage as a concept or how it’s developed over time.

Gene shares his vision for the future; where the State recognises marriage regardless of the sexuality of the people involved legislatively (giving them the same benefits, rights and protections) and that Church’s role (regardless of religion) is to invite God to bless and be a part of the marriages. Gene states that religious institutions need to look at their own stance on homosexuality and the issue of gay marriage.

Gene concludes with a chapter on God Believes in Love stating that to selflessly love another is how God feels about us his children. He encourages all to love your neighbour as you would want to be loved.

Now you’ll notice throughout this review I’ve referred to the author by his first name, Gene. That’s because by the end of the book I feel as though I’ve made a friend; one whose educational, non-preachy and represents the best of human spirituality.

If you’re undecided about gay marriage whether you’re gay or straight or merely interested in the topic you’ll love God Believes in Love: Straight Talk about Gay Marriage by Gene Robinson which is available to buy on Amazon.

Review soon,

Antony



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Wednesday 2 January 2013
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