I thought I’d be alright today
I thought I’d be alive today
Give me your eyes, I’ll show you things
You never dreamed you thought you’d see

I found myself in a light I’d seen in sleep sometimes or mescaline
And like the sun you can’t stare into very long without it blinding you

I thought this light would comfort me
I thought it would be easy
But there’s a tugging at my sleeve
So much baggage I brought with me to leave

Something so big I can’t understand from trying to I would go mad
So i hurry back to little earth for another life, another birth

Another life another birth

Mother?

-Toad the Wet Sprocket

I’ve really neglected this blog over the past couple of months while I’ve been tossing around new ideas, coming to conclusions, and maybe even figuring out what I actually believe, what I don’t believe, and why.  I haven’t really written about my experiments with and (possibly) final thoughts on Druidry.  I haven’t written about my experiences with trying to find meaning this Christmas without Jesus in my life, or at least without an obvious place for or a settled idea of what Jesus means, if he means anything at all.  I haven’t written about the frustration, anger, and tension in my family over the religion issue that has once again come to a head in the last few weeks.  I haven’t written about the intense series of conversations I have had about Self and no-self and how they may have brought me back full circle, in a sense.

There’s so much I haven’t written and things are moving so fast that I don’t know if I’m realistically ever going to write them, which is kind of sad, I guess.  But that’s just the way it is.

The thing is, I may have found Byzantium, or at least the closest thing to it that exists.  In any case think I may be ready to move beyond this blog and all it represents and into something new, into a whole new paradigm and a whole new phase of my life.  Things are in the process of changing, and I am as certain as I can be that they will never be the same again.  If you’re interested, follow me over to my new blog, because this one may be sitting in the harbor for a long time to come.

For the last few days, my beautiful and sexy wife and I have been watching Sabrina, an old Audrey Hepburn movie from the 1950’s.  In one scene, Hepburn’s character makes a failed soufflé at a cooking school in Paris.  The next day I woke up, filled with the urge to cook a soufflé myself.  In particular, chocolate.  In particular, to impress said beautiful and sexy wife, whoc like most beautiful and sexy wives, loves chocolate.

Unfortunately, it took me several days to gather the requisite ingredients and equipment (finding a soufflé dish is trickier than you might imagine, especially if you’re not interested in paying a bajillion dollars for one at a specialty cooking shop), but this morning I baked a lovely chocolate soufflé which we ate for brunch.  It was light, fluffy, and sinfully delicious.  I was so impressed with myself (and the product of my endeavors), that now I want to bake another one, perhaps cheese.  Thus, the title of this post.  It has bitten me.

Incidentally, I am a devoted Audrey Hepburn fan, and currently own twelve of her movies on DVD.  I intend to own them all.  We also have a large picture of her in our kitchen, which I got from a guy who was moving out of his apartment here in the building.  The picture belonged to his girlfriend, and he personally hated it, and when I commented on it, he proposed to give it to me and tell her that it was destroyed accidentally in the move.  I went home happy.

Also incidentally, the movie amuses me because of the obvious early 1950’s portrayal of capitalism and business as virtuous and beneficial, which is interesting to me because we have been discussing the Red Scare and its effect on Hollywood in one of my seminar classes at law school.

By the way, here’s the recipe I used.  It was easy; you should try it.

I’ve been moderately interested in Asatru for years, and as a Mormon I even often said and thought that if I wasn’t Mormon, I’d be an Asatruar.  But I don’t think it’s the direction I’m going to go, for a couple of reasons.

1. I don’t actually believe in the Norse Gods.  I don’t believe in any kind of literal polytheism (which means real Paganism in general is probably not going to happen–I’m more pantheistic or panentheistic in my ideas about what God is, if God is anything external to us at all). Furthermore, while I think the Norse Gods and Norse mythology are cool, and even compelling, that doesn’t translate in my head to the calling to follow and honor the Aesir as a religious practice.  Maybe if I had some kind of mystical experience with Odin, I’d feel differently enoh about it–perhaps even enough to overcome points 2 and 3 below, but since mystical experiences for me do not seem to be particularly forthcoming, there’s not much I can do to make myself believe something I don’ believe.

2. I like Vikings and Norse myth, but not at the expense of everything else.  I don’t really want to live a Viking-flavored life because I am a contemporary person, and I’m happy with that.  I don’t really feel constant yearnings for the past.  Formulated differently, this point is closely connected to my general dissatisfaction with the idea of Reconstructionist religion.  I’m not an ancient Norseman, so why is the religion of the ancient Norsemen the right religion for me?  Plus, I’d honestly feel like I was always LARPing.

3. I have serious problems with the “Folkish” strand of Asatru.  I realize that it can be phrased or looked at in a way that might not sound like overt white supremacy, but when you listen to the rhetoric of Folkish people like Steven McNallen, it winds up sounding an awful lot like just more racist tripe.  I also realize that there are plenty of universalist heathens out there (and there’s a kindred of them near where I live even), but I’m not necessarily comfortable self-identifying with a movement that has ties to white supremacy and neo-Nazism, even if it’s just be broad association.  The question is “am I willing, even in the broadest terms, to be in the same club as those people?” and the answer is no.  Especially given points 1 and 2 above.

There are a lot of things I like about Asatru, especially the heathen virtues, which I think are a more realistic and pragmatic ethical system than that which is offered by a lot of religions.  And like I said, Norse myth is extremely appealing to me.  But not so much that I think it’s the one way for me.

The problem with procrastinating blog posts on a blog like this one is that I wind up moving three or four steps past an old thought in my head before I write that old thought on the blog, so it seems pointless to write it for public consumption when it’s not even what I’m thinking right now.

This is fun.  I’m kind of tired of writing essentially the same angst-ridden religion blog posts anyway.  I kind of wonder if it’s not time to either 1. expand the scope of this blog to start talking about other things, or 2. start a new general-purpose blog.  I have one over at Blogspot, but I don’t like Blogspot, and I haven’t kept up with it in a really long time and don’t really feel like starting it up again.  It’s mostly politics anyway, and I’m just not the angry fiery liberal I used to be.  Anyway, here’s today’s ten:

1. “Cry of the Black Birds” - Amon Amarth
2. “Ancestor Cult” - Machines of Loving Grace
3. “Caleb” - Sonata Arctica
4. “Learning to Live” - Dream Theater
5. “Kullervo’s Youth” - Jean Sibelius
6. “Any Colour You Like” - Pink Floyd
7. “Little Lies” - Fleetwood Mac
8. “Amazing” - Aerosmith
9. “House of Sleep” - Amorphis
10. “Move Over Darling” - Doris Day

This seems more representative of what I’m listening to right now, except for the random Aerosmith song, not a particular favorite of mine.

My friend Bryant has been posting iPod Ten posts: you put your iPod on shuffle and post the first ten songs that come up.

1. “Beyond The Dark Sun” - Wintersun
2. “Papa Loves Mambo” - Perry Como
3. “Asteroid Belts” - The Lord Weird Slough Feg
4. “No Pain For The Dead” - Angra
5. “The Sacrifice” - Symphony X
6. “Farewell” - Kamelot
7. “A Swinging Safari” - Bert Kaempfert
8. “Anthem” - Kamelot
9. “The Human Stain” - Kamelot
10. “The Lady Is A Tramp” - Vic Damone

None of these are really favorite songs of mine, but the bands/singers certainly are favorites.  Lots of Kamelot there, but I ahve like four full Kamelot albums on my iPod right now, so that’s not really a surprise.

I have some posts I’ve been wanting to write that I’ve been procrastinating.  The new semester has started, and my beautiful and sexy wife is in her busy season at work (as well as fairly far along in pregnancy), and there’s been some extended-family drama.  That’s all to say that I haven;t had time really to sit down and compose myself enough to write about some of the things I’ve been thinking about.  I haven’t fallen off the earth, I’m just kinda busy at the moment.

So, I thought I was going to be sent to Iraq with my National Guard unit this month.  Turns out it’s not happening.  If you have any experience with the military, you know how things can change at the last minute.  Anyway, I mentioned in an older post that I was reluctant to make any big decisions because of the upcoming mysterious, major life-changing event, and that’s what it was.  Now it isn’t happening.  So life goes on, and I no longer have an excuse for resting on my laurels.  But what do I do now?

We haven’t been going to church for awhile, and I have long stopped praying (since it started to seem mechanical and pointless).  Do I start again?  Do I give Christianity another go?  If so, what kind?  Back to Cedar Ridge?  Back to Grace Episcopal?  Just be a Christian on my own and don’t worry about church?  What does becoming a Christian even mean?  What does one do?  Becoming Mormon is a fairly regimented process: you take the missionary discussions, you read the Book of Mormon, you pray to know if it’s true (and get Your Testimony), you attend church meetings, you commit to live the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity, you get baptized, you get confirmed, you get the priesthood, you go to the temple, you get callings, and you endure to the end.  It’s all extremely structured.  I know how to become Mormon.  But I don’t know how you become Christian.  At what point do you become Christian?  What’s the right motivation for becoming Christian?  What does “being Christian” look like?

Do I even want to be Christian?  Right now, the answer feels like no.  Especially since Christmas is over.

Do I start a candidate year with the Ancient Order of Druids in America?  Do I want to?  Do I really want Druidry as a belief system?  Is it all just New Age flakery?  Do I want my whole life to be Celtic-y?  Do I always want to be thinking about ancient times and yearning for the forest?  Not really.  After I’m done with law school we’re moving back to New York, where we’ll probably stay.  I like the woods and nature, but I also love the city.  I feel compelled to be environmentally conscious and take care of the earth, but I actually think in many ways urban living is the best way to do that (it’s certainly more sustainable than suburban living).

There are a lot of things about Druidry that I find very appealing, but do I want to color my whole life with that crayon?  The answer feels like no?

Do I abandon the journey and just get on with life without God and without religion?  I’ve been sailing for awhile and it doesn’t seem like Byzantium is anywhere in sight.  I’m kind of getting tired of looking for it.  My main roadblock is clear (I was nervous about making any hasty decisions with such a major punctuation mark on the horizon), so what do I do?  Hinduism?  The Qur’an?  What?