Dunthor.com - Aries 2003

Inga's Celebration Calendar

March 20^th is the Vernal Equinox, Ostara, the First day of Spring and the Sun enters Aries.

The Spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, March 20th, is the beginning of the new zodiacal year. The rise of the constellation Aries indicates the beginning of a new cycle in evolutionary development. The equinoxes are the two times during the year when the dark of night and the light of day are in balance or equal.

The vernal equinox is Ostara, from the name of a German Goddess of fertility, Oestarae. She is the deific equivalent of Aurora, the personification of the sunrise. Her name is where East and Easter both come from. This is logical considering that the sun rises in the East.

A creature associate of hers is Ostara's hare or the Easter bunny. She transformed a pet bird into a rabbit in order to amuse the children who follow her everywhere. Even though the bird is now a hare- she still lays eggs, only now they are brightly colored eggs. Another version has Ostara herself becoming a hare in order to distribute colored eggs in the Goddess' honor. That one doesn't work as well for me, but either way, this is the pagan explanation of Easter eggs.

March 22^{nd -} Kim sent this in: A friend of mine, Linda Conroy, is doing a free herb walk at Discovery Park on Sat, March 22 at 1 pm. nice spring-y thing to do. :)

April 1st is April Fool's Day: "The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year." -- Mark Twain

Here is how the American Embassy explains this holiday: In sixteenth-century France, the start of the new year was observed on April 1st. It was celebrated in much the same way as it is today with parties and dancing into the late hours of the night. Then in 1562, Pope Gregory introduced a new calendar for the Christian world, and the new year fell on January first. There were some people, however, who hadn't heard or didn't believe the change in the date, so they continued to celebrate New Year's Day on April first. Others played tricks on them and called them "April fools."

Apr 3, 4, 5, Thurs, Fri, Sat: GARDEN CENTER Spring Opening Sale

Place: South Seattle Community College Garden Center
Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Contact: Penny McCormick, (206) 764-5323
Link to map: http://www.southseattle.edu/campus/campmap.htm

April 3-27: The BraBall is coming to Seattle at the Atelier 31 gallery- 2500 First Avenue and Wall St.

From Kim: The BraBall is an art project out of California that I have been following for several years. It’s got an interesting story, but rather than repeating it here, I’ll send you to the web site for more info: www.braball.com. I myself have contributed probably ten bras to the BraBall.

April 12 and 13, 2003: Master Gardener Foundation of King County Plant Sale & Education Fair with Free Community Gardening Education at The Discovery Center

New and experienced gardeners in search of a great selection of healthy plants or free help from gardening experts will find what they need at the annual Plant Sale and Garden Fair. Sponsored by the King County Master Gardener Foundation, the sale and fair will be held on Saturday, April 12, 2003 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, April 13, 2003 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Center for Urban Horticulture, 3501 Northeast 41st Street in Seattle, near University Village. For more details, please call the Master Gardener information line at (206) 296-3425, request tape #118.

April 15th is Tax Day: "The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government." Senator Goldwater, 1989

Prior to 1913, taxes were most commonly levied against consumption of various goods and services. Remember the Stamp Tax, the Tea Tax, and others during the Colonial era. It was taxes such as these that helped give birth to the American Revolution.

Inga's Space

I do not want to bring politics or war into this forum. I’d like to provide an alternative to the incessant war coverage in the media so, we have some good humor and then Scott has some news about the new addition to our family. I’ll simply start my column this month with a warning:

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind....

And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry.

Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.

How do I know? For this is what I have done.

And I am Caesar." - William Shakespeare

Now to paraphrase Forest Gump, “that is all I have to say about that.”

A lot of people move in the Spring so I thought this resource might be useful. Click to find pet friendly rentals all over Greater Seattle on the PAWS website: http://www.paws.org/work/apt/

To all those who have whined, “Where is my newsletter?”, I apologize for not finishing the St. Paddy’s day issue. I attempt to make amends by publishing a link to the best traditional recipe (meat substitutes like Boca burgers also work well with this one). Also, I made the Dean’s list! I even have a letter to prove it.

Click here for Sunset’s recipe for corned beef and cabbage:

I was musing about a woman as president and I remembered Shirley Chisolm. In 1968, Shirley Chisolm of Brooklyn became the first African American woman ever elected to Congress. Her unsuccessful run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 made her well known throughout the Unites States.

http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/divine5e/medialib/timeline/visuals/visuals_Civil_Rights_21.html

US Congresswoman Shirley Chisolm said:

It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict,
it is the need to escape from a harsh reality.
There are more television addicts, more
baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts,
and certainly more alcohol addicts in
this country than there are narcotics addicts.

The origin of wine: http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/exhibits/online_exhibits/wine/wineintro.html

Dumb joke: A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small. The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible. The little girl said, "When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah". The teacher asked, "What if Jonah went to hell?" The little girl replied, "Then you ask him".

And proof positive... that Scott does leave his socks on the living room coffee table, despite his innocent, blank looks when the subject comes up at our monthly open houses.

-- Inga Duncan Thornell >^..^<

Letters from our Readers

We think of this newsletter as a community forum. You, our friends and clients, are welcome to participate. We celebrate diversity and we'll print whatever you send in be it Wiccan, Christian, Pagan, New Age, etc., as long as it reflects Love. You may choose a one-time holiday to write about or have a regular column. We'll give you space and a byline! Please send in your own book reviews, ideas for rituals, ideas about stones, your journal excerpts, your experiences and most of all, ask us questions. We love answering questions!

From Peg:

Hi everybody - news for the month of March - I've an art show at a cafe on Capital Hill that will run the entire month of March. If you get a chance, drop by for a latte and see the real thing!

Insomniax Cafe
102 15th Avenue East
Seattle, WA 98112
206/322-6477

It's on 15th & E. Denny - across from the 7-11; ground floor of Group Health bldg.

From Jim:

www.realage.com

Inga notes: This is a cool toy. You can assess your "Real Age," i.e. not your actual age in years but your age in terms of your choices, behaviors, habits and lifestyle. This website was assigned in my health Science class last week.

Here is my result:

40.4

-7.0

33.4

From Trevor: I just had something happen here at work that really made me appreciate being here and doing this job (which is QUITE rare). A young woman (probably late 20's) came in and had an old reel-to-reel audio tape. She wanted to find out what was on it, so I brought it into the studio to see how long it was (so we could determine price). Came back out to the office and told her it was a recording of a gentleman speaking about Africa. She got all excited and said it might be of her Dad, so we went into the studio so she could listen. She immediately burst into tears and informed me that her Dad died about 12 years ago, when she was very young, and since then she's forgotten what he sounded like.

After a bit, I told her the price and when to come back for the CD, and she looked at me and told me that it meant so much that we could do this for her so she could hear his voice again. Then she left bawling her eyes out.

From a knitting book: "Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises." -- E. Zimmermann

From Joe: Don't know if this is an accurate quote, but I love it anyway:

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a crib house whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." -- James D. Nicoll

And

"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment." -- Robert Maynard Hutchins

From Scott: "The only person who likes change is a baby with a wet diaper." -- Spencer Branting, Renton, WA

And also from Scott: "Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -- Jules de Gautier

Here is a film review from Trevor:

UNCLE BOB'S MOVIE REVIEWS

Hello. My name is Bob and I’m a David Cronenberg fan.

[crowd replies] Hello Bob.

Cronenberg films run the gamut, from schlock Hollywood (M. Butterfly) to cheesy horror (Scanners) to Fetish (Crash). So when I heard that he had made a new film, Spider, I was very excited. You see Cronenberg has been around in my life for quite a while. I went through my teen years fascinated by the corporate take-over of life in Videodrome and Scanners. In my early twenties, I was scared to death of doctors by Dead Ringers. Then not so long ago I was shocked and surprised by the virtual realities of eXistenZ. So what is it about his films that radiate with me? I think it’s his approach to the directing job, rather than the film itself, and Spider is only proof of that.

Cronenberg seems to make pictures that are just that pictures. I see them more as paintings than film. We’ve seen him paint renaissance with M. Butterfly. He’s painted in charcoals with Crash. He’s given us a surrealist painting with Naked Lunch. Now he’s delved into the stark, minimalist world of Rembrandt with Spider.

Spider is painted in subdued hues of blues and grays and dirty whites. It’s the story of a washed out life. Spider is a man, played impressively by Ralph Fiennes, who is arriving at a half-way house for the mentally ill, which is run by an intolerable woman. Spider was placed in the institution when he was a boy because he realized his father had murdered his mother and replaced her with a prostitute as his maternal role. We see through the eyes of Spider himself as he heals his past, or attempts to. To rationalize, to understand.

The tagline of the film states: “The only thing worse than losing your mind, is finding it again.” This line made me want to see the film mostly because I expected a Cronenberg film of alternate realities and trick endings. What I got was something more heart-felt and calm than I would have ever dreamed the director could provide. Somber at times, even difficult to watch, Spider is a tremendous effort on Mr. Cronenberg’s part, and a successful one at that.

When sitting down to write this, I had to ask myself if I would recommend it. My answer would be that, yes, this a great film, but it is not for everyone. If you want to see a film that will easily pass your 95 minutes away and help you forget the world outside, this is not the film to see. If you want to see a film that might make you think about yourself and how your conscious and sub-conscious deal with reality, check it out.

If you are a Cronenberg fan, definitely check it out. Then come to Inga's monthly open house and introduce yourself. -- Uncle Bob

Inga: I also have decided to include various political items that you can easily bypass if you wish:

New Bushisms at: http://www.thetruthaboutgeorge.com/

From Joe: Satire at http://www.thespeciousreport.com/2003_dixiechicks.html. Yes it is satire; unfortunately she didn’t really say this. Here is what she really said:

Statement from Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks

March 14, 2003

"As a concerned American citizen, I apologize to President Bush because my remark was disrespectful. I feel that whoever holds that office should be treated with the utmost respect. We are currently in Europe and witnessing a huge anti-American sentiment as a result of the perceived rush to war. While war may remain a viable option, as a mother, I just want to see every possible alternative exhausted before children and American soldiers' lives are lost. I love my country. I am a proud American."

From Diane: This is pretty interesting... The guide to weapons in the US arsenal (AKA where your tax dollars are spent!)

http://channelevents.aol.com/newsflash/weapons/

The Duncan Domain

We have a new family member, a four legged and furry one. It always happens shortly after the loss of a family member to old age or sickness, despite our fervent protestations that it will not. We start talking about how it will be nice to have a smaller family; a less stress and work sort of thing. Sounds good logically but apparently, our hearts never agree. And so, the Universe and our higher selves conspire and next thing you know, along comes a synchronistic event for us to recognize and then make a choice about whether or not to act on it.

For years, I've been donating cash to the western Washington edition of Muttmatchers Messenger, a publication containing pictures and bios of animals that are in foster homes awaiting adoption. They mail me a copy each month and it's become a long standing tradition in our household to skim through the pages and see who I'm sponsoring that month. "Hey Inga! I'm sponsoring 2 cats, a dog and a turtle this month!" So the February / March 2003 issue arrives and I can't find my name anywhere. This is very odd and I take another slower, more methodical pass through the pages. I finally find my name under the bio of one animal, a 3 yr. old, black female German Shepherd named Shiloh. As I look at her picture, I feel that unmistakable twinge of synchronicity. Realize that I look at this paper every month and I want to bring home at least half a dozen animals every month. If I had a farm with a big barn, I probably would. I feel a loving bond with all animals and they all deserve a good home but I've never felt compelled to take any action on what I see in the paper. So I just take satisfaction from the sponsoring that I do. That is, until now. I keep the paper open to this dog's photo during the weekend and look at it often, struck by her beauty and the bond I feel. Inga, too, is awed by her but by Sunday night, we shrug it off as we are not really capable or willing to bring a dog into our cat oriented home.

I go to work on Monday. As I turn on the fountain in my office and perform the grounding ritual I do each day, I am suddenly aware of a spirit presence. I focus my inner eye on it and to my surprise, it is a black German Shepherd. I reach out to her mentally and she is, indeed, the dog I am sponsoring. I sense the deep affection we share and it feels like we've known each other for a very long time. She stays with me throughout the day and I find her company to be very comforting, much like that of my spirit animal, a grey wolf. This continues for several days and I report it to Inga. Upon coming home one evening that week, Inga tells me that she's called the foster home and learned all about this dog. At first, I'm excited to hear the details but then I get concerned about where all this activity is taking us. Are we getting a dog? That would be a huge change for us and our household and something we must not do impulsively. After much discussion, we decide to go visit her up at her foster home in Arlington just so we can see what is so special for us about this particular dog. Where's the harm in that, right?

We drive up on a Saturday and enter the foster family's home. We are briefed on the history of this particular dog and told that she’s been brought back by two other adopters due to her being “too scary”. I’m not deterred. I’m often told by dog owners that no one can pet their dog as it jumps into my lap and demands to be petted. We are also coached about this big animal’s behavior upon meeting people for the first time. She comes straight at them at high speed, snaps her jaws right in their face and then gives them a big, sloppy kiss, all of which most humans find to be quite unnerving. Thus informed, I kneel down about 12 feet away from Shiloh’s dog crate and brace myself as her foster mom opens the door. Sure enough, Shiloh hurtles toward me like a runaway freight train, loudly snaps her jaws precisely an inch from my nose and then thoroughly slobbers me while making happy dog noises. After this ritual greeting, she sits before me and as she and I make eye contact, I can feel the mutual recognition. We already know each other as spirits and now we are meeting physically for the first time. It is joyous and there is a lot more kissing and hugging. So much for scary.

As she has a pretty serious limp due to a bone chip in one of her elbows, her foster mom tells us how much Shiloh loves to go for rides in the car and suggests that we do so as part of our getting to know each other process. We three pile in the cab of our truck and off we go into the countryside. We marvel at this beautiful creature as we drive along and every time Inga turns to look at Shiloh in the back of the cab, she gets a big, sloppy kiss from a very happy dog. When we return to the foster home, we discuss the various issues of owning a dog as well as her medical issue with her foster mom, a professional dog breeder. As long term, dedicated cat owners, it is recognized that we may not have the required skills to manage a big animal like this. We still need to figure how having a dog will change our daily routines and then decide if we are willing to make that change. We come to consensus that a trial run of seven days is in order to see how we all do, especially the cats. We also decide to pay for her needed surgery prior to bringing her home so she'll not have that to deal with whether she comes to live with us or not.

Needless to say, Inga and I both feel a great love for this animal and in turn, she clearly loves us. Our hearts are filled with happiness and joy at the prospect of adding this sweet dog to our family. Meanwhile, our minds are creating all kinds of arguments as to why this isn't going to work or be worth it. Feeling pretty confused at this point, we turn to a tarot deck for some insights. We ask what type of energy Shiloh will bring into our home and we get a Queen of Pentacles. Very cool! For the love and care we give our pets, they, in turn, bless the household with their Chi, their life force. This card indicates some very special energy, indeed. We then ask how she'll interact with our kitties and we pull a major arcana card, The Lovers. And for how the kitties will interact with her, we get a 2 of Pentacles card. So we clearly have good energies to work with. (I'm going to let the images speak to you vs. interpreting them. If you'd like to learn more, visit this site and look up these 3 cards: Learning the Tarot - An On-Line Course)

We start thinking about what a good name will be for her. We run some candidates through a numerology calculator and the one that feels right is Freya. In Norse mythology, Freya is a goddess of love and fertility, and the most beautiful and propitious of the goddesses. She is the patron goddess of crops and birth, the symbol of sensuality and was called upon in matters of love. She loves music, spring and flowers, and is particularly fond of the elves (fairies). Freya is one of the foremost goddesses of the Vanir. The numerology of this name resonates with this Venus energy and so Freya it is.

We go up to Arlington the following weekend for another outing in the truck and our hearts win the debate. Freya is too special to let logic dictate the easier path. We both decide, after much discussion, that we are willing to make changes in our lives to accommodate her as we can sense that it will be mutually beneficial in many ways. Of course, this decision is made prior to bringing Freya home.

Surgery is scheduled and performed. Freya comes home with us from the vet with a big patch of shaved skin and stitches. As I write this, she's been in our home for a week. We've completed our 7 day trial period, as mentioned above, and as we thought, it is a real BIG change for us. We've debated our commitment to adopting Freya every one of those 7 days and our logical minds keep saying that it would just be easier to not do this. Freya's foster mom even tells us that she'll take Freya back and personally adopt her if we decide not to. So we have an out if we want it. But in the end, it is our great love for her that overrides all other concerns. We adore her and we can no longer imagine life without her. We are blessed by her presence.

Inga, Freya and I are planning on going to dog training school in the very near future so we make a better team. And all three of us are looking forward to those stitches coming out so we can go for lots of walks. I also expect it is just a matter of time before Edward figures out how nice it will be to curl up against Freya's warm tummy while he naps. -- Scott Bruce Duncan */:-)

Aries 2003 Edition

About Aries	Letters from our Readers
Inga's Celebration Calendar	The Monthly Dunthor Open House
Stone of the Sign	The Duncan Domain
Inga's Space	New and Updated Pages on our Website