I have gotten into a few big arguments on one of the pagan forums I joined. And it's always the same jerk, and twice it has led me into a depression. And those two times have always been about animal cruelty.

The basis for his arguments is insulting me, with "tree hugger" and "animal lover." I hate those terms, because they were labels that were created by jack-asses who have nothing better to do than insult the people who actually have hearts. And brains.

What I hate the most is that now I've been wondering if there is just something wrong with me, for believing that people are too quick to kill instead of trying to solve their problems, for believing that we don't have to be cruel about how we deal with animals feeding on livestock (his argument was that he was too lazy to spend a few minutes, or even seconds, talking on the phone with wildlife experts who would compensate for lost livestock and take the predators off his hands). His response was that it's quicker to just kill the animal (namely coyotes and wolves).

So that's it. Instead of "wasting" a few seconds, he prefers to waste a life. A life that could have cubs. A life that could mean something to someone. A life that could be saved, if it got to the right people. Or, at least, a life that could be dealt with in a cruelty-free way.

And then, he made another thread, saying that nature is a bitch and that nature is trying to kill us. He then proceded to call the majority of pagans "super liberal, vegeterian, PETA loving, tree hugging, super-anything-that-ever-breathed activists."

He has attacked me and my own opinions on there so many times and I just can't believe that none of the mods have done anything about it, except join him in provoking and attacking me.

He doesn't accept other peoples' opinions at all, just attacks them. And I normally don't judge people who are online, but let me tell you; someday, I'll be famous for having invented the magical hand that can reach through computer screens and slap people on the other end.

I asked Achilles, yesterday, if there is something wrong with me, for caring about animals.

I've tried before to kill an animal, but I couldn't do it. I wanted to understand people, I wanted to understand killing for enjoyment. But I couldn't do it. I tried to be cold and heartless. I tried to enjoy it or at least be able to do it. But I couldn't. And it was a mouse. Just a mouse.

But was it "just" a mouse? I could tell that it had feelings. It was a living, breathing thing, just like me. It had two eyes, just like me. It had a nose, just like me. It had ears and a mouth, just like me. It had almost everything I had--except that I don't have male parts. xP And, more importantly, it had a heart and a brain (I can't think of any animal that can't live without those!), just like me.

It doesn't live as long as humans live--in the wild, probably one or two years. Is that the only reason that its life is less than mine, that if I kill it, I should be happy that it is dead and not at least a little thoughtful about it? If I kill it, it doesn't deserve a prayer, it doesn't even deserve a thought, a simple thought?

There is something wrong with me.

I have morals. I don't believe in careless killing or causing unecessary pain. Most of all, I have empathy.

There is something wrong with me. I can't enjoy killing or seeing things suffer. I look at both sides of the war between predators and farmers, instead of just the farmers'. I look for alternate solutions that would work for both sides, instead of just jumping to killing the animals without a second thought.

First Howl Of A Half-Breed

All seems hopeless.

He is standing in front of me,

watching,

waiting.

He's expecting something.

I turn my head away,

reject his unspoken request.

His eyes narrow expectantly.

I close my eyes,

listen to his footsteps

as he leaves.

I can feel him turning back,

one last time,

watching,

waiting.

I turn my head back,

just for a moment.

There are others around;

black wolves with golden eyes,

they are the color of the darkest night.

They howl,

their songs echo unendingly.

I wince when I hear them;

memories of vicious taunts,

of personal attacks flood my mind until all other thoughts have vanished.

"Wolf!" they would shout,

and they would laugh.

Dozens of them would shout at a time.

They knew before I did

and they punished me for it.

Wolf.

That was the last thing I wanted to hear.

The last thing I wanted to be reminded of.

I open my eyes and watch as, one by one,

the wolves begin to disappear.

I am back in the narrow tunnel,

below the trapdoor that took me here.

I can't breathe;

there is no air here,

this far into the abandoned temple.

"Howl!" my guardian shouts,

"accept yourself for what you are,

before you ask the acceptance of others!"

He had read my mind.

He knew what I was afraid of.

I struggle and raise my head.

I try to make a sound,

but it comes out as a dry whimper.

I try again;

there is even less sound this time.

Gathering any strength I might have had left,

feeling the ever familiar warmth of my guardian's presence,

I lift my head again.

The howl is a song of power,

of rebirth.

The gods can hear the howl;

I know that they are watching,

listening.

I howl again,

my howl is joined by another.

I don't recognize the voice of this howl,

but it is pleasant, soothing.

A light breaks through the roof;

the trapdoor has been lifted.

Several pairs of hands pull me up, out of it.

I breathe fresh air.

I pant as I am embraced by all of them,

and try to break free.

I look back to the entrance of the trapdoor,

thanking my guardian for his help. 

Copyrighted to me. You know the speech.

Just A Girl

Tell me I'm worthless.

Call me a "little girl."

Treat me just as you would treat

the common "whore"

or an object for your pleasure.

Tell me that my only purpose in life is to

make babies,

clean the house,

do the dishes

and feed your sorry mouth.

Tell the whole world,

when I challenge you to a race,

that I am "just a girl."

And when I outrun you,

your friends will insult us both, "you were just beat by a girl!"

Call me a tom boy,

call me weak,

call me a sex toy,

call me a geek.

Tell me that I'm not as good as you,

after I've beet your sorry @$$,

and plunged my sharpened blade,

bitter with the prejudice and stained with my soul's blood

into your pitiful heart in our battle of prejudice.

Tell me that women cannot be honorable

after you've gunned down

hundreds of lives, raped

and destroyed the lives of innocents and shown no mercy

when I have taken mercy on the weak, the ones you slaughtered.

Call me impure,

call me unholy,

call me a "tree hugger"

call me pitiful.

Tell me I'm not good enough

after I've cleared the battlefield and destroyed

the soldiers of hate,

the generals of sexism

and the thug of a king, too good for a queen.

Tell me God cursed women

because Adam was gullible

and "tempted" by a bone-girl to

eat from the tree of the thing God does his best to hide from us--

--knowledge.

Tell me women are weak

after you've pushed an 8-pound baby

out of your "privates",

bled 6 days out of every month,

and have been pressured by millions of other women to be anorexic.

Go ahead--tell me that I am inferior to you.

Every step you take,

I am one mile ahead of you.

Prejudice is the weight that holds you back

and presses me forward.

You can tell me that I'm

nothing more than a toy, a gift to you from God.

Well, I hate to break it to you--

this toy isn't playing with you,

and no toy, to my knowledge, has ever had as many feelings and thoughts as that of the woman.

You can tell me

that I am just a girl.

Do you know what you are, in the eyes of your enemies?

Just a boy.

Just a silly boy incapable of facing the truth--Eve is a fantasy.

I can tell you anything,

I can tell you that I'm better than you--

but I'm not.

I can tell you that I'm right and you are wrong--

but I will never repeat the harsh words you have so carelessly thrown at me.

You can claim that you

are superior,

but I can claim that you are

weak-minded, prejudiced

and full of shit.

This is my dedication to the closest friend/soul guardian/god/father that I will ever have, Achilles.

He is exactly opposite of me in nearly every way except for a few personality quirks (in fact, I think that he may have had the same sort of wolf-rage that I go through, but I'll explain that another time).

He is tall, strong and fearless, where I am short, skinny, weak and fearful (see my posts about my family). He is confident (sometimes even arrogant) where I am not. He is a bold warrior where I am a secretive, sly magic-user (hehe, that's kind of like Caramon and Raistlin from Dragonlance!)

Achilles is everything that I am not. Really, I should be the last person he would ever want to "take under his wing." He should be interested in young, strong, healthy boys. He should be interested in warriors. So why is he interested in a thin, weak young girl who is almost exactly the opposite of him? Is it, perhaps, because his brawn and my brain go well together?

I don't know why he even cares for me. I've doubted him for years, but every single time I begin to doubt him, he sends me a sign! He proves himself to me so much that there is no denying him. He goes farther than most gods do. Instead of using me or playing with me like a game piece, he lets me live my own life, but he never lets me die. I hurt so much, I go into depressions, I am sometimes suicidal. But I can't even kill myself! In fact, there are so many things that have happened to me that should have killed me. I should not be alive right now, it's just not possible.

But according to Achilles, it is.

He didn't choose me out of love. No, the real reason he watches over me is because another god said that I had the potential to do something great in my life, that I could have an impact on the world. I still don't believe it, though. Well, not always. I am not a confident person, really, so the thought of me doing something so important and great is beyond what I can expect of myself. But, anyway, another god was originally supposed to take me. But that god would have changed my future, and so Achilles took me in.

And it is my belief that he put a part of his soul into me. A part of him lives in me, and so that is how I am protected.

I'm not invincible, so don't anyone think that is what I am trying to say. But I am protected. And Achilles is my protector.

Achilles has done and said some things in his life that I disapprove of. He has made quite a few mistakes and done things that are by far not the kinds of things that would be acceptable in today's society (as screwed up as our society is), but you know, after thousands of years, I think Achilles might have had time to think about them. XD Certainly he is protective of me as a father would be protective over his daughter. Achilles certainly seems to hate teenage boys (every time I fall for one, he has a tendency to send them running! There's only one boy he hasn't done that to, and that was my friend Jon.)

So, to Achilles, I have this to say:

"You have been my father when I had no father. You have been my inspiration when I was down on my luck, wishing just for the pain to end. You have been my family when I had none. You've been my friend when all of my friends have abandoned me. And now.....now you are my guardian. I realize now that I have a bit of you in me, a part of your soul. I thank you, my father."

Blessed Be, everyone (haha, that's the first time I've said it.)

I'm really going to be a lot more active in Paganism now than I used to be. You see, I have long felt like I can't really do anything like meditations or spells because of the small, bad place I live in and the small amount of room, the large amount of gross things (I don't know where to begin) and lots of other huge restrictions.

Well, my dad gave me two CDs for meditation music and I listened to them both. I recently got a new bed set, so I made my circle on my bed (because I can't do it anywhere else, and now the circle looked nicer and more formal and inviting) and I (because I can't light the incense) took out all of the incense out of the box and just set them down so that I could still smell them, although they weren't lit.

I did my first really big meditation today and cast a spell completely of my own making.

You see, I don't have a familiar. I have two cats and a dog, but I don't connect with any of them, and there's nothing special or magical about them. Sure, they're cute, but they're not really "my" cats. They're just.....pets. I love them as you would a family member who you are distant with, but the only one I really love on a more personal level is Champagne (no, I did not name him.)

But yesterday, I was trying to make yarn dolls. Most of them fell apart, but I made a really nice brown one. He was so soft and lovely and I've always been good at art and crafts and magic. Whenever I make something, I always put just a little bit of myself into it. I always put a little of my soul and love into it. Sometimes there is a bond, but sometimes there isn't.

I started making Raistlin charms after the character in Dragonlance, Raistlin Majere. No, he's not real, he's just a character in a book. But I made the charms not for the character, but for the properties of the character. I made them to give something to the owner of the charm. Their magical properties are inner strength, intelligence, strong will and magic. I made plenty of them.....but I only felt a strong connection with one of them. And that was the only one that worked for me. But, when I gave different charms to different people, theirs worked for them, but would not work for me. So, it is my belief that no matter how much you might make of something, sometimes there is a bond to it.

I bonded with the cat, who is now my familiar. I named him Merlin. Today, I made a circle and played the music and kept rose incense out. I made a special prayer to the Goddess and the God, and an additional prayer to my soul guardian, Achilles. Although the Goddess and the God are closes to me, I've always bonded better with Achilles because his presence in my life was much stronger and more out in the open. I'd refer to him as almost like a fatherly figure to me, and also as a best friend (I have a few best friends: Feralas the elf, Furtoth the faerie, Merlin the cat and my parents).

Today's spell wasn't a written spell. It is weird, really, because I just seemed to know the words in my heart. I just knew the spell, yet it was never a written spell and no one had ever given it to me. It was made by me, and therefore I managed to create one of the best magical creations I've ever made: Merlin, my familiar, my friend.

I like to sit down and cuddle up in blankets, with a nice book and some hot tea and read with Merlin on my lap or on my shoulder. <3