When you try to come to this site on December 21st, do you know what you will find? NOTHING! That's because this site is going to close down. You should all know by now that the end is coming. So what will you do? Will you just sit there and lose the friends that are waiting for you at coven-space? Or will you just move all of your blogs and pictures to the new site and say "Hi" to all of your old friends and also to many new ones?
The new site is growing every day, people are all very active, and the site is much faster to navigate. You just can't lose, unless you do NOTHING! Now get busy and come on over with the rest of us! When you get there, look me up! Blessings.
That's right the vast majority of people that used to blog here regularly have moved to the new covenspace and are waiting to see the new faces of old friends every day. Most covenspace members are like me and hate to have old friends never seen again.
The new site is a wonderful place. The best part for me is that it is so much faster than this site! It's also got some very cool features. The "my page" options are really nice. My own personal page isn't as nice as some of the others, because I can't do anything that involves advanced graphics. And yet my background is a moon over water, (big surprise there) and the the background of the smaller page in front of it is transparent. The headers are different shades of orange and the text is all white. The transparent page, really sets off all of the graphics that I have used in my profile, down the left side, just like on here. You will be amazed at how much you can actually do with the new site.
Yes, you have to get used to it, for any new website requires an adjustment period, but it's not hard, if I can do it, just about anyone else can too. Most of your old friends are already there, but there are quite a lot of new members there also.
So ... moving is simple, you can copy & paste any of your blogs and take them along, your friends are there, new members are added daily, the graphics are very good, you won't miss any of your friend's blogs for there is no hub that limits friend's activities to just ten spaces, it's a much busier forum now than it was here, new features are being added regularly ..... isn't all of this incentive enough to make you want to move? Think about it .. what have you got to lose if you move? What will you gain by staying (this site will disappear on Yule)?
This year my family will not be celebrating Thanksgiving in the usual manner. I know that most people simply consider this day to be "Turkey Day", but in our family it was always a religious day. When I was still a christian, I can remember being outraged when, as time passed, god seemed to be less & less important to the general public. Due to that I have, for a couple of years, tried to think of a way to change it.
Well, I really enjoy watching the old episodes of "Northern Exposure" and as I was watching one episode recently, it dawned on me that I loved the way that Thanksgiving was being celebrated on the program. But was it even a real idea or was it just something invented for TV? Even if it was just an invention, it was an idea that was worth setting a day aside for. The idea? Day of the Dead. A day to remember the oppression and horror that the Native Americans suffered at the hands of white people. That, in itself, is a valid historical fact and one that I can really get enraged with. So I started looking and so far, I have found three websites that tell of the "real" first Thanksgiving:
"The first official "Day of Thanksgiving" was proclaimed in 1637 by Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop. He did so to celebrate the safe return of English colony men from Mystic, Connecticut. They massacred 600 Pequots that had laid down their weapons and accepted Christianity. They were rewarded with a vicious and cowardly slaughter by their new "brothers in Christ."
The historical event we know today as the "First Thanksgiving" was a harvest festival held in 1621 by the Pilgrims and their Native American neighbors and allies. It has acquired significance beyond the bare historical facts. Thanksgiving has become a much broader symbol of the entirety of the American experience. Many find this a cause for rejoicing. The dissenting view of Native Americans, who have suffered the theft of their lands and the destruction of their traditional way of life at the hands of the American nation, is equally valid.
A tribal leader of the Kumeyaay Nation of southern California once said that the two most sorrowful days of the year for Native Americans are Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. He could not understand why U.S. citizens in this day and age still celebrate the two days of Native American catastrophe with all the knowledge that has been forthcoming in the past few decades about the Native American holocaust.
On Thanksgiving Day, many Native Americans and their supporters gather at the top of Coles Hill, overlooking Plymouth Rock, for the "National Day of Mourning." Text of Plaque on Cole's Hill "Since 1970, Native Americans have gathered at noon on Cole's Hill in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning on the US Thanksgiving holiday. Many Native Americans do not celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers. To them, Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands, and the relentless assault on their culture. Participants in a National Day of Mourning honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples to survive today. It is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well as a protest of the racism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience."
So I now have an alternative to the usual Thanksgiving and one that truly is significant. I will be decorating using symbols of death such as: skeletons, skulls, deadhead pumpkins, and usual the usual fall decor (minus the turkey). So some of my Samhain decorations will still be approriate, besides we love the way the house looks and are having trouble with what to do about Winter Solstice! {smile}
Please do not misunderstand and think that I am ridiculing whatever plans you may be making for a traditional Thanksgiving to observe all of the blessings that you have received from whatever diety you may worship. I am a total believer in each person doing what is right for them as long as no one is harmed in the process. This is just something that to me is very significant and I wanted to share it with all of my friends.
If you are reading this you are still at the original covenspace and are already being missed by a large amount of people! Moving over to the new site is very simple and easy, the only thing about moving that takes time is setting up your new page and moving your old blogs. I'm simply waiting to do much to my page since I am at both sites, plus another and also have many things other than the computer sites to deal with. But I have taken time today to move blogs and sort out a few things.
As for the blogs.... simply go to your list and copy & paste the ones that you want to be at the new site with you. It's a lot like looking through a family photo album and seeing where you were in your past and where are now in the present.
It's easy. you'll have a lot of the same friends, there will be new friends, you are being missed! Come on ... follow your friends and make your own unique way to the new coven-space!
I'm going to keep encouraging all of you to move. I made a list of all my friends here and am keeping track of each friend to try to get them to move, for each friend is that important to me. If you aren't my friend here, why don't you move to the new site and look me up? I love to have friends and not just to boast about having a big number. I believe in communicating with each friend and i don't care if I have 50 or five hundred I will find a way. I have always said that I would rather have a few friends that I am close with than hundreds that never speak to each oher.
So ..... don't keep putting it off .... get moving! We are all here waiting for you!
Yesterday, Morning Rain had a very interesting post and from it I came up with a question of my own and wanderd if all of you could share your wisdom and facts an the subjects ....
About a year ago or so, I was making my own ouija board. I was making it from a round piece of wood about 22" across and 1 1/4" thick, the wood itself is beautiful in my opinion. I put the letters, numbers, and words on it with a wood burning tool and then I started filling in all of the empty space with simple free-hand designs. But when I mentioned it to a few people at 'Witchful Thinking', I got a lot of advice warning me not to have anything to do with a ouija board. Because those women had more wisdom than I, I heeded their words and have pretty much just set it aside in my room. I gather that the ouija board has this reputation with most practicing witches and I do understand the warnings and the reasons for them. (Please share any insights that you have.)
I have heard that some people do not believe in talking to the dead. If you are one of these people and say you don't believe in talking to the dead ... what do you think about people, such as: Rosemary Altea, John Edwards, James Van Praagh, etc. ... that say they communicate with spirits from the other side of the veil and give other people messages from these spirits? Are they all charlatons that are just out to make a buck from unsuspecting, gullible people? Or do you believe that there is some validity in what these people say that they see and hear?
Thirdly, what is your take on demons? Can they be summoned on purpose, summoned accidently, such as with a ouija board? Do entities such as this, even exist? And if everything in the universe is in balance, what is the opposite equivalent of a demon .... an angel?
