Have you ever noticed how there is something quite sexy about coffee? Hot, rich, velvety smooth coffee…Well it’s not just me. The use of the the Baubo siren on the Starbucks® logo, could be said to be using that lure of the siren to tempt you into their coffee houses.

The double-tailed siren, or Baubo siren, is described in The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects as “a cross between a mermaid and a sheila-na-gig” and “Her suggestive pose, like that of the sheila-na-gig, referred to female sexual mysteries in particular.” In fact, Starbucks® was even forced to change their logo as it was thought to be too suggestive.

To read more about this, check out the article; Mermaid by Heinz Insu Fenkl

For a laugh, check out; The Charge of the Coffee Goddess, written by Sara Fisher on the Cardiff University Pagan society website.

 

 #39 - Virtue - deo's Shadow: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Dr. Brendan Myers returns to talk about Virtue and preview his forthcoming book The Other Side of Virtue. You can hear Dr. Myers speak in person at his upcoming Earth Day lecture at Wilfrid Laurier University, entitled Ecology & Revelation. Dr. Myers will go beyond the slogans of the ‘activist party line’ to explore the spiritual significance of humanity’s relationship with the Earth. His books currently in print will be available for purchase and signing.
Where: Wilfrid Laurier University, room BA101 (Bricker Academic Building)
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
When: Saturday, April 19th from 3 to 5pm.
What to bring: Suggested donation $5

More information: Visit pebbia.com

Visit Dr. Myers’ home on the web: wildideas.net/cathbad

Check out a hot-off-the-press interview with Dr. Myers about his writing and life.

Their baby was born with two faces. But instead of listening to the doctors and running some potentially life-saving medical tests, father Vinod Singh thinks maybe it would be better for the village to worship the deformed girl as a goddess and get the government to pitch some money their way to build a temple. So what happens when your new alleged goddess dies of complications… oops. Maybe she wasn’t a goddess after all. We could always use the temple for parties…

Click here for full article.

Douglas Adams’ satire has never been more biting. In the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Adams wrote about the Earth being destroyed to make room for an intergalactic highway. Now it’s happening for real, albeit on a smaller scale: Sacred land destroyed to alleviate rush hour traffic.

Click here for more info. Thanks to Calciumblue.

 

 #38 - Skepticism, Science and Scientology: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

deò and Mandy get personal in this episode, reminiscing about what drew them to Paganism. What changed in Thailand? Do they still believe in magic? Also, Heather is back with information about the stone Aventurine and you have a chance to win a Kellianna CD and wands from 2am Altars. Plus, can you see deò as a Scientologist? Hear the story of how it could have happened. And finally, what’s the deal with Quantum Mechanics? Does it really do what Oprah says?

Could the the Roman Catholic papal mitre be a Pagan vestige, borrowed from the Babylonian fish-god Dagon?

… Next came one
Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark
Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off,
In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge,
Where he fell flat and shamed his worshippers:
Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man
And downward fish; yet had his temple high
Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast
Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon,
And Accaron and Gaza’s frontier bounds.

- Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Dagon: described as god of the Philistines, is mentioned heavily in the Bible as “the Zeus of the plough.” The earliest mention of Dagon is from ancient Sumeria in 2500 B.C.E, translated from the Mari Tablets which discovered by French archaeologists in the 1930’s.

For more images, check out neocrisis.com

Yes it is stereotyping to the extreme, but you have to admit - it is pretty funny!
(Thanks for sending it our way Tahlea)

I’ve done a lot of research into the four elements (earth, air, fire water) in Paganism, Greek philosophy, and other ancient perspectives the world over. In some cases, people have taken the elements to be the basic building blocks of the physical world (rather like the modern elements that you’d find on the periodic table). Obviously, as moderns, we can no longer endorse such a perspective. However, many Pagans seem to keep the validity of the elements by saying that they represent the states of matter. This is fine and good, but it seems a bit ad hoc. There is a third way to interpret the elements, and that is as symbolizing phenomenological properties. This was always my favored approach. I was happy to find the following in Kalupahana’s “A History of Buddhist Philosophy”:

While it is true that the first four dhātu represent the basic material elements (mahābhūta), to which is added space, there is here no attempt to deal with them as purely objective phenomena; they are almost always defined in relation to human experience. Thus earth represents the experience of solidity, roughness, and so on; water stands for fluidity; fire refers to the caloric; and air implies viscosity. (p.73)

Of course, Pagans can add to this the experience of certain emotional states, both as felt from the first- and third-person perspectives, and the experience of various other correspondences. The elements, then, become a powerful symbol set of a phenomenological language. They are ambiguous enough (owed to their vast associations) that, when used in a ritual context, they speak to non-rational, purely experiential mind. They summon ‘feelings of feelings’, rather than explicit and well-defined concepts.

I’m marking some undergraduate papers on Buddhist philosophy, and while browsing the web to try to find an online version of the Pali Cannon (the Pali Text Society seems to jealously guard the entirety of the translations, but you can find some here) I stumbled upon this treasure: Over 500 audio talks on Buddhism and meditation. Enjoy!

Sacred spirit journeys? So out.

Cheerleading? So in.