I caught this from blinovitch

[capri0mni]

Look at my userinfo page, pick one of my interests that you find intriguing or confusing, and I'll explain it to you.

Repost this in your own LJ so other people can do the same.

Comments

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

What's the Mudcat Cafe?

(By the way, you need to fix the spelling of 'liberalism'. Unless it's supposed to be spelled the way it is, and then I'll have to change my mind and ask about that one.)

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Thanks for catching that typo. It's fixed, now.

The Mudcat Cafe (http://www.mudcat.org/threads.cfm) is an online forum + information source dedicated to folk music and blues (and BSing, too).

A lot of professional musicians post there, as well fans and casual passersby, too. I'd say the folks there are the other anchor of my online community, alongside Doctor Who fandom.

I've been posting there since about 2000, I think.

[blinovitch.livejournal.com]

hippotherapy?

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

That's the medical/technical term for therapeutic horseback riding -- more than just getting some "poor handicapped kid on a horse" for fun and giggles, it's using a horse as a tool/aide in physical therapy -- incorporating the movement of a horse's back into the exercises, etc. -- like aquatherapy is doing exercises in water. And on the plus side, you can also learn actual riding skills at the same time.

Haven't done it in over 6 years, though, and I miss it. :-(

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

I've heard lots of good things on Quakerism, the Inner Light thing and all, so would love to know more about your personal take on it and what aspects of it interest you:).

I'll put this on my LJ again, I seem to remember you asked about corsets last time:D...

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Oooh... My thoughts on Quakerism (Officially called "The Society of Friends"). That's a whole essay right there -- it deserves its own post, which I shall put up, soonish.

But the short answer: my father and his siblings were raised rather loosely as Quakers. His parents both attended Germantown Friends Meeting (which is basically silent meditation unless and until you are moved to speak by the God Within). And when he was in school, he went to the weekly Thursday Meetings the school held. After he left highschool, he basically dropped out of all formal religion, but still kinda kept the philosophy.

My mother was agnostic/atheist -- don't know exactly what religion she was raised in -- might have been Catholic (the only thing she ever said about her church, growing up, was playing hide and seek with her brothers and sister around the belfry, which was supposed to be off-limits). But she picked up on Quakerism from my dad, and really latched onto it, particularly the doctrine of Inner Light, and how that makes all people equal. And, she, basically was the one to teach me about it.

And it seemed logical, to my young mind, that if the Spirit of God/Inner Light was in all humans, just by the fact that they're born, it seemed that the Inner Light must be in all living things... and then, all things, period. So I've been pantheist/psgan for a long time.

But even though I now identify as strictly Pagan, theologically, those Quaker roots -- especially its focus on simplicity -- makes attending Pagan worship services uncomfortable for me. All the focus on ritual, actions and words, gets in the way of my mind getting to the quiet center. But, Quaker meetings vary greatly around the country. In the Midwest, and the South, they tend to be very Christ-centric, and even evangelical. If I could find a Pagan circle that could just be quiet, or a Quaker group where speaking of and for the Goddess would be welcome, I'd be happy...
---
oops. there's your essay....

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

The mini-essay is wonderful!:D No need to apologise.

And yeah, there are lots of Pagans who have the need to be silent. Associated with the element of Earth, anyway, and also Hinduism and Jainism agree that there's a divine spark in every living thing.

Simplicity is a good thing, unless it's taken too far. Like in my Lutheran upbringing, blah. The biggest church in Lahti is a HORRIBLE modernist (BRUTALIST) piece of crap--it's all brown tiles, it makes it look like it's toilet/shower room tiles, all cold hard edges and whiteness, a bare wooden cross, blah. The only way I could find Divinity was looking out of the window to the tall trees, and when everyone had to stand up and read out the Apostles' Creed, I murmured a Pagan one. "I believe in Mother Almighty" and so on.

And yeah, I'm with you on the silence thing. I may just have ADD like Ryss and Gord, so find it hard to concentrate for a long time. Silence is important in the Feri Tradition, I think you might like it. It's really rigorous and hard though and relies on daily meditation on the inner Light and a few rituals. If you and I ever met, I'd gladly do a ritual as simple as possible with you--I'm a firm believer in what's called Bhakti (ecstatic devotion outside scriptures and rituals) in Hinduism, and simple rituals. Some people like complex ones and it's great that they work for them, but with my dyscalculia I always have to check compass directions every time I do a ritual, because I can't tell which direction is which (esp. bad with left and right) just like that--I have to think. Right now I'm facing North, heh, my computer is where my Altar should be, if I were a hardcore Traditional Wiccan. But I'm a Feri and Reclaiming-influenced Witch, eclectic Wiccan, and Indo-Pagan:)...

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Well, what I really want to do is to reconnect with my own roots, and the heritage that's already in my past, rather than going on a search for another new (to me) tradition.

And there are, already, real, honest-to-goodness Quaker Meetings that accept and embrace Paganism and non-theism (as evidenced in the discussion on this (http://community.livejournal.com/quakers/166763.html) post in quakers).* I just need to get meet them; there seems to be a group in Maryland, one state north of here...

*someone just posted some new comments to that thread, linking to <a href="http://quakerpagan.org/>QuakerPagan.Org</a>, though it doesn't look like there is much there (I think there are fewer Quakers in the world than there are Pagans, actually, so the overlap would be even smaller than either); after a bit of digging around, it looks to me like it's centered out of Britian. Just thought you might be interested. ;-)

[kiri-l.livejournal.com]

sets that wobble

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

I got that from jekesta. She made a persuavive argument, some time ago, that there is no excuse for a television show to have sturdy sets -- that any show that spends time and money on elaborate backdrops is taking focus away from where it should be: the actors and the story. And when sets wobble, they remind the audience that this is make-believe, and encourages them to engage in their own make-believe.

Primarially, this is in defense of older Doctor Who stories, where the wobbly sets are a popular whipping horse. But it also holds true, I think, for other genres, like sitcoms -- the set of The Honeymooners, for example, vs. Everybody Loves Raymond.