Pagan Religions Manual: Its Here!

Pagan Religions: A Manual for Diversity Training (Shamanism Paganism Druidry)

The new Pagan Religions manual, which is the newest edition of my original book, The Law Enforcement Guide to Wicca, has finally been published and is back from the printers. It's been a LONG wait, but we're done. Its going to make its first appearance in British Columbia at the Vancouver Pagan Pride event on Saturday, 13 August (see http://vancouverpaganpride.wordpress.com/ for details).

I Am

Here’s a challenge for my many friends: The knights of my Order all compose an “I Am” statement, a single sentence that summarizes their power, their self image. When several knights recite them in sequence, they become the "Song of Scathach" (check out more about this on our training blog rituals page).  My “I Am” is: “I am the sudden silence of the midnight forest.” What’s your’s?

Kerr Comes to InFest in Ottawa

I’ll be attending InFest in the Ottawa area on the September 2011 Labor Day weekend to teach classes and conduct rituals. You can check it out at: http://www.infestgathering.ca/

Litha Update and Upcoming Appearances

Dear Friends:

Its been a cold season so far and everything in the garden is delayed.

Before Eostre I went through an unprecedented two week flurry of editing activity with my editor Kel from Acorn Publishing regarding my upcoming book Pagan Religions: A Manual for Diversity Training. He assured me that was finishing the editing and this unusual level of activity for him seemed to indicate that he was serious. A few weeks later I noticed that the book had been posted on Indigo/Chapters for advance sales at: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Pagan-Religions-Manual-Diversity-Training-Kerr-Cuhulain/9780971005068-item.html?cookieCheck=1

This took me by surprise as I hadn’t been told about this. Now Litha is on the horizon and as far as I can tell we’re no further ahead. It has been a lengthy and frustrating process and I thank all of you that have been waiting for this book for your patience.

My new book Modern Knighthood: Unleashing Your Inner Power to Master Yourself and the World has been out on Smashwords.com since December as an e book, but now it is coming out as a print on demand book at Amazon.com. I’m just waiting for the review process to be completed. This book completes the cycle begun with my earlier Llewellyn books on Warrior philosophy, Wiccan Warrior, Full Contact Magick and Magickal Self Defense. This is the first and only book to relate the concept of Pagan knighthood, which is all about personal empowerment and self mastery. Modern Knighthood brings all of the philosophy of the warrior together into a new tradition that outlines the cycles of training that interlock with the cycles of the seasons that lead the student to each of these initiatory experiences. Modern Knighthood outlines the 13 Precepts and Code of Chivalry of knighthood, including seasonal cycles and rituals. If you’re tired of being the victim and want to take charge of your life, you need this book.

The other book, which is published under my mundane name, Charles Ennis, is Ancient Recipes for Modern Kitchens. This is a collection of ancient recipes adapted for the modern kitchen, organized into the 8 Sabbat seasons and presented with a brief description of their history. The oldest recipe in there is over 6,000 years old. If you’re looking for recipes for your Esbat or Sabbat, this is the book for you. This is a Smashwords e book.

Some of you are unfamiliar with e books and have been asking me if you need readers like Kindle, Koobo, etc to read it. Smashwords offers multiple download formats, so of course you can easily download these books to any available readers. If you don’t have a reader, you can also download these books to your computer as text files or PDF files to your computer, so you can print a hard copy if you so desire. Or you can download the reader software (free downloads) to your computer to download the other formats.

A few weeks ago I attended Write On Vancouver and submitted manuscripts to an editor: This is the first books in my swords and sorcery fantasy as well as the first book in a paranormal romance. I’m already 20,000 words into writing the second book of that paranormal trilogy and about 10,000 words into book two of the fantasy trilogy.  

I’ve created a new blog for my fantasy writing which I invite you to check out: http://caennis.wordpress.com/ I’ve posted a lot of free information there for writer’s looking for information for their fiction, including police procedural information and a lexicon of the occult with over 13,000 entries. I’m now on Goodreads.com, so if you’re a reader and want to be part of that community, I invite you to check it out and see what I’ve got in my virtual “library”.

I will be coming to Ottawa, Ontario, on the Labour Day Weekend this year for InFest to teach classes and conduct an Armoring ritual. I will also be attending the Sacred Well Congregation Convention in Texas October 13 – 16 to teach, conduct an Armoring, and connect with military Pagans at Lackland AFB. I will be appearing on the Blogtalk “Pagans Tonight”  hosted by Oberon Zell and Ariel Monserrat on Wednesday, June 15 at 10 PM EST:  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/witchschool/2011/05/25/pagans-tonight

As I mentioned in my last note: Our Order of Scáthach has been approved as the sponsors/organizers of Vancouver Pagan Pride 2011. We’ve received approval of the Hawthorne Park site from the city of Surrey. The event will take place Saturday, August 13^th at that location, between 9 AM and 6 PM. If you’re interested in participating by doing a ritual, lesson, performance or you intend to set up a merchant’s booth, please check out our web site at: http://vancouverpaganpride.wordpress.com/ You’ll find all of the contacts there to get you set up.

Just a reminder to anyone interested in studying with us in the Order of Scáthach: We’ve changed our mentoring system so people who want to study with us can check out our mentors on line at our training blog and choose one to work with. We’re also doing Skype conference calls for our on line students to improve their learning experience. Of course, if you're living here in British Columbia or in one of the other locations that we have preceptories, you can train with us face to face.

We’ve been taping lessons to put on the training blog and this led us to create our own YouTube channel. All of the lessons of the Order of Scathach’s training cycle have been uploaded as mini video lessons now: You can visit them through the links on our training blog or go direct to our new YouTube Channel, “Order of Scathach Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/goibhniu13?feature=mhum

And finally, our youth group, Scathách Kids, is now fully operational. Please check it out at: http://scathachkids.wordpress.com/

Hope you have a wonderful Litha.

Kerr Cuhulain
Grand Master
Order of Scathach

Ban Mother's Day

The first appearance of the concept of what became Mother’s Day was Julia Ward Howe’s call for a Mother's Day in the United States in 1870. It was her reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. It was her attempt to get women involved in shaping society politically. Mother’s Day was first celebrated in the US on 28 February 1909.

The first Father’s Day occurred in Fairmont, West Virginia, on July 5, 1908 and was a remembrance of 210 fathers lost in the Monongah mining disaster. Father’s Day was held as a celebration on June 19, 1910 in Spokane, Washington, when Sonora Smart Dodd decided to come up with a male equivalent to Mother’s Day to honor her father, a Civil War veteran who’d raised his children after his wife died in childbirth. Sonora was only 16 years old.

Father’s day almost didn’t happen. The idea was met with derision by many, who felt that it would be another step towards filling the calendar with meaningless promotions. Father’s Day was proposed to the US congress in 1913, but it was not until 1972 that it was finally signed into law as a holiday.

I believe that the fears of those who suspected that these days would just become another useless holiday on the calendar have been realized. I believe that these two days of celebration have been taken over by commercial concerns to create a market for their gifts and cards. It provides thoughtless, self centered people an opportunity to create the illusion that they care for their family members once a year, whether they do or not. Once a year there is this frenzy of buying gifts and flowers to throw at mom or dad to make them think you care, when you haven’t done anything to honour them all year. For me this is in the same category as the Christmas shopping madness, where people try to use one day of the year to prove their love by buying things. A yearly exercixe in pretending to be peaceful and neighbourly, when the next day they return to self centered selfish behaviour for the rest of the year. Shouldn't we try for peace  and love 365 days of the year? Shouldn't we seek to do good will every day of the year like Dicken's spirit of Christmas Present advised Scrooge? If we're truly appreciative of our family members, shouldn't they be special 365 days a year also?

I say ban them both. Who needs them? Not a day goes by that I don’t realize how much I love my wife and hopefully I’m able to show her that every day. For me, every day is daughter day. My daughter leaves me notes and things on a daily basis and not a day goes by that I’m not baking for my family. I'm not saying you should buy cards and flowers every day: Now and again surprising your loved ones with little things is nice. What's nicer is demonstrating by your actions that you care every day, not just once a year. That seems like a much more sincere practice to me.

Kerr Cuhulain

Courtesy

Have you all noticed one very major difference between the terrible tragedy that has taken place following the major earthquake in Japan and similar tragedies that have occurred in other places around the world in recent years? One of the most common scenes you see in news stories of disasters like that is the unruly mob climbing over one another, trampling their fellow men, fighting to grab food and water being dropped off a truck by terrified workers. Another is looters smashing their way into stores and making off with anything portable. Did you all notice that isn’t happening in Japan? Everyone is queuing up politely and nobody is looting. They are all exercising courtesy towards one another, and in doing so making everyone’s lives better, even in such trying circumstances.


One of the most obvious changes that I noticed over the twenty nine years that I did police work as well as the years since that I’ve spent as a police dispatcher afterwards was the rapid erosion of manners and courtesy in Western society. I’ve seen many examples of self absorbed people with no concern for others. No one holds doors open for people any more. People j-walk whenever and wherever they feel like it, completely disregarding oncoming traffic. Fewer and fewer people signal lane changes and the speed limit seems to be when their gas pedal hits the floor boards. I found myself surrounded by people feeling isolated, entirely wrapped up in their own concerns with no thought whatsoever for anyone else. Road rage incidents have multiplied exponentially. The more discourtesy they experience, the more this feeling of isolation and distrust in them grows.

Want to make a difference in the world? Hold the door for someone. It is amazing to me how many people look surprised when I hold the door open for them at the store or at work. Want to make someone’s day? Greet people that you pass on the street. Some people give me strange looks or duck their heads down and look away when I greet them while out walking, but far more respond with a surprised smile when I tip my hat. People aren’t used to having people show courtesy towards them these days and doing so will certainly bring a smile to their face which may last all day. Want to relieve someone else’s stress? Let that other driver merge into traffic in front of you. It’s not going to slow you down and it’d going to restore their faith in others.

Courtesy, in other words showing respect and consideration at all times towards others, is one of the keystones of the Code of Chivalry of the order of knights that I belong to, just as courtesy (rei) was one of the keystones of Bushido. Courtesy is an essential attribute of the warrior. There will be those who try to tell you that nice guys finish last. I tell you this is not so. Courtesy is a sign of strength and confidence. Look what rei is doing for the people in Japan. Courtesy is directly linked to the law of three fold return. You get back what you put out there, and if you’re courteous you will always be the winner. Like largesse, another of the principles of chivalry, courtesy is part of paying it forward. Courtesy is the soul of modern knighthood. In Idylls of the King, Lord Tennyson put it this way: “For manners are not idle, but the fruit of loyal nature and of noble mind.” Modern knighthood begins and ends with courtesy. In his Letters and Social Aims, Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.”

So take time to be courteous. You’ll be glad that you did.

In Her Service, Kerr Cuhulain

Order of Scáthach web site: http://www.dunscathach.com/
Kerr Cuhulain’s blog: http://kerrcuhulain.blogspot.com/
Kerr’s latest Smashwords book: Modern Knighthood: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/34975
Check out Kerr’s daily affirmations: Twitter: @warriorwitch
Facebook: Kerr Cuhulain
YouTube channel for the Order of Scathách: http://www.youtube.com/user/goibhniu13?feature=mhum

Video Coming to Order of Scathach Training Blog

We're going to be adding training video to the Order of Scathach Training Blog to enhance the learing experience for our on line members. Here's some of our knights reciting the code of chivalry of our Order.

In Her Service, Kerr Cuhulain