"The VA SAys" BFD

VA accepted the pentacle BFD It will still be a fight to see it on a stone or to see a Wicca or pagan officiate at a funeral in a military cemetary as in Indian country they cannot seem to find a buddhist to officiate at one of their burials...My father after spending weeks getting pamplets exhorting him to find christ before he died needed to suffer a christian chaplain at his burial... Buddhist are just too exotic down here in Indian country..The VA has never ever accepted in conservative parts of the country any religion but Christianity and barely tolerates Judaism.. In liberal parts of the country they just keep their mouths shut and do the chrisitian thing... This is the truth of the VA...Here where I live they do not even practice bare civility when speaking to you, the Hospital Chaplains...My husband told one he was pagan and believed in a higher power for his trouble in explaining his belief He got an AT LEAST YOU BELIEF THAT as though he were a Spiritual Slacker///And that is what we are viewed as by these christian soldier chaplains as spiritual slacker in danger going spiritually Awol and thus should not be encouraged as we are a Bad Discipline risk.... Then you just have the stupid VA nurses and doctors who see a pentacle on your neck and refuse to run tests on you in the Emergency room and send you home to come back on Monday.. In the process pissing off your primary doctor who doesnot know you wear a pentacle...Before Hillary it was impossible to get good care at the VA if you were a Woman,,But the Clintons took care of that...Now with the Bush administration it is Hard to get good care if you Belong to a religion not of a Montheistic Bent...The back lash of being a AcKnowledge Pagan and in the VA system is not worth the aggravation and Possible dangers of lax medical care.. But maybe now we can give them the bird by having a pentacle on our graves, but like I said I will believe having a pentacle is possible when I see one where my father is buried and If it is true and they honor the law without digging their heels in... Then I be buried there and my husband also, but like I said when I see it in action then I will believe it.. merry part from the provinces.... Bad point: Just because they say you can do it does not mean they will put it on the the stone or keep it on the stone.... The VA promises veterans bullshit every day you are in the system it does not mean they are going to give it to you.....Disabled VEt realitiy lesson one...

Wicca Wicca witch

I just read an article about a protest in gathering about the Pentacle on gravestone for veterans as a disabled Vet I have decided to donate my body to science to give back to the universe practical use and good from my worn out husk...But the main reason is I live in a part of the country were even if They allow a pentale at my gravestone in VA cemetary I doubt my wishes will be honored and I do not want my husbands last memories of be of me be revolving around legal wrangling and Government High-jinks the VA Admin can not be trusted and lie bald face to veterans, family and ultimately to the law.... Their concern about the veteran is gauged by which party is in power and how liberal or conservative president and appointees are...If liberal dealing with them is not extremely hard or exhausting and sometimes they are helpful without even being asked... If the conservatives are in power and the director is overly religious help medical or any other is hard and being a Minority religion sets one up for abuse.... No I do not want my last days remembered as my husband needing to spend them arguing with whatever martinet is in charge of the VA Cemetary about what gets chiseled on my gravesstone...I would rather he remember me as sarcastic bitch with a rapier wit who would only back down if he asks me to, but would really fight for social justice. no matter what. My fight is mine and if my husband was the Vet I would fight to the death for his pentacle but for him I know my death would be hard enough for him to deal with.... Well anyway in the article they talk to an executive that works at Llewellyn she is described as doing wiccan rites but not a wiccan... I am certain that this is a misguote, but if not, is not doing wicca rites yet not being a wiccan or pagan or not Identifying or qualifying at least a pagan or goddess-worshipper a bit like a person going to catholic mass and having communion but telling people no I am not a Catholic... To such I have kind i have developed a bitchy attitude it is like, "shit or get off the pot" to be blunt....We do not need outsiders to view us as Diletantes and Dabblers in the occult that will not get us taken seriously or reverse discrimination. I would rather see an devout ascerbic goth or ren faire Maid gushing about the beauty a Wicca and the evils of discrimination than have my religion charcterized as the dabblings of yuppie new agers... Believe me there is a Conservative writer who charcaterizes us as this all ready a religion made up by the spoiled youth of the Elite. Instead of one of substance practicised by the devout chrsitian poor in america and believe me that kind of thinking sells amongst the yahoo's in the bible belt...Shabby social theory to explain and justify paranoia works amongst people in uneducated states like the bIble belt..... So I would rather have a Lady Moonbeam and Meadow as an example than some hip, slick and cool person with well scrub demeanor of a christian pop singer any day. I grew up in the heyday of the hippie to me pagans were hippies and Jewish intellectual feminists I loved them both and I see nothing wrong in being counter-culture, conformity is the death of spirituality. merry part

oh pretty star

I have been working this past week on getting and meditation and ritual room together and so I have been painting. I have been running around today and picking up odds and ends for the room... I will never cease to be amazed at the way the pentacle is being marketed in this part of the world... If you slap the words Lone Star on the packaging you can have the pentacle plastered all over an object. If a soldier dies defending the US... Heaven Forbid he get it on his tombstone. Last year we drove through Dallas and saw pentacles all over freeway overpasses, But heaven forbid Bush do the right thing and make the VA put a pentacle on heroes graves. Factoid seven: Spring is returning and planting will begin for the emotionally diabetic anti-factiod: No one in government wants the war too end it is just to profitable at the taxpayer and civilians expense.