That hazelnut song-ritual-snack-thing

Because I'm just that kind of pagan

The hazelnut thing follows a ritual schema with which you may be familiar from your own religion:

• Pick a sacred thing.
• Is it something you can eat?
  • If not, pick an edible thing that can stand in, symbolically, for the sacred thing.
• Say something about how the thing, or what it stands for, is sacred.
• Pass it around and eat some.

In this case, we fill in the schema as follows:

• The sacred thing: songs and stories
• The edible thing: hazelnuts
• The thing you say: "Nuts From the Hazel Tree" by catsittingstill

Welcome to my religion ;-).

The Chanukah story

I may be getting over my profound ambivalence about Chanukah.

( Click here for a rant explaining the source of my ambivalence about Chanukah. )

What we need is a version of the Chanukah story which abstracts over just some of the details, not all of them. Like this:

There's a light in each of us. Sometimes, people will ask us to hide our light. They may threaten us with exclusion if we let our light shine, or with violence. And we may sometimes give in, and hide our light, and it may even seem to go out entirely. At times like this, we may look within, and take stock of the inner resources that we have for the rekindling of our light, and they may seem inadequate. But, if we dedicate ourselves to letting our light shine, in order to increase the light in the world, then whatever we need to rekindle our light will be given to us, in the form of the very resources we already had, but thought were inadequate.

That's much better, isn't it? Moral of the story: Let your light shine. If anyone tries to tell you not to, kick their ass. I'll help.

I especially like how this new version encourages me to integrate my Judaism with a wishy-washy, cosmoplitan paganism — hey, that's my light, I'm gonna let it shine. At least it's not a state-sponsored, monomaniac-pandering cosmopolitan paganism. That would be wholly evil.

Annie Patterson. Ursula K. LeGuin.

If you're like me, these names appear on the covers of books that you own and cherish.

So, it's pretty nifty to see them appear together, as they do in the liner notes to Annie's new CD — right next to my name. That's right, Annie Patterson, co-editor of Rise Up Singing, has, with permission from Ursula and her publisher (and me), recorded my round setting of the verse of "The Creation of Eä" which appears on the frontispiece of A Wizard of Earthsea.

I haven't heard the recording myself yet, but I'm told it's lovely. Needless to say, I'm very excited. What with this and being nominated for a Peggy, it's starting to look like I am, in my own small way, hitting the big time.