Celtic Thoughts

December 19, 2009

2009-12-19T21:04:14Z

So I got two of the three books that I was supposed to be getting. They were the ones that I ordered 2 weeks ago, and the one that has not arrived is the one that I had ordered one month ago. Go figure. One of the books that came today was Myth by Laurence Coupe. This is one of the books that I needed for my research into myth so that is a good thing at least. The book is about the myths of gods, origins and heros and to illustrate his points the author is going to use examples from myths and writings from the twentieth century. The book was written and published this year so it is very new with references that we as modern readers would recognize. I've decided on the two books I'm reading next. The first is The New Comparative Mythology: An Anthropological Assessment of the Theories of Dumézil by C. Scott Littleton and the second one is of course Myth. In a few days I'm also going to order an e-book version of Myth: A Short History by Karen Armstrong, I'm not going to wait around for a month for a book to arrive when I can download it right away in e-book form. Ok I am done being grumpy for the day.

December 17, 2009

2009-12-17T16:12:37Z

Ok, so I'm kind of glad I have a box in the US to send all my purchases too from Amazon and other places so that I can get it here in Kuwait, the problem is that it takes 3 weeks for anything to get from the US box to my home here in Kuwait. Now I've been waiting for some books I ordered 6 weeks ago and they have been en-route for over 4 weeks now from my US box. I'm so ANGRY about that. I could just order through DHL but that means double the amount of the purchases and that I can not afford. More and more now I am buying whatever books I can through e-book sites, the problem there is that the books I want most of the time are not in e-book form and Kindle is not something that I can get here in Kuwait. If you look up the word frustration in the dictionary you will see a picture of me.

I finished Myth - A Very Short Introduction and posted the review of it on my site and ordered my notes from it so that I can use them in my essay.

I have a 3 day weekend and I'm planning on starting a new book but have not decided on which one yet...

Book Review: Myth - A Very Short Introduction

2009-12-17T15:40:43Z

Myth: A Very Short Introduction by Robert Alan Segal

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Please read my in depth review of the book: Myth- A Very Short Introduction

Book Review: Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland

2009-12-16T14:03:47Z

Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland by Malachy McCourt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Please Read my short review of the book at my website: Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland

December 13, 2009

2009-12-13T20:13:33Z

It's been a busy few days. I just finished reading the book "The Modern Construction of Myth", which totally gave me a headache but I persevered. The book once you strip away all the fancy words the author insisted on using was pretty jam packed with good information for people who want to study myths. I've also read "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell. Through my study of the first book I got a better understanding of the workings of why Campbell thought the way he did. I don't agree with everything that Joseph Campbell says (nor is his work really related to Celtic Mythology except in generally) but if I want to study the theories of myth then Campbell is a must read. Now I'm reading "Myth: A Very Short History", which in my opinion is a very good summary of the theories of myth. This will focus my thoughts for my essay later I think.

I've also been reading fiction and organizing my fiction books in pdf form (the ones that are not Romance reading since I've already done those).

Book Review: The Modern Construction of Myth

2009-12-12T12:45:30Z

The Modern Construction of Myth by Andrew Von Hendy

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
3.5/5 Please read my review at my website: The Modern Construction of Myth

Book Review: The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

2009-12-11T15:53:27Z

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
For my review of the book please see my website : The Power of Myth

Busy...Busy...Busy

2009-12-10T06:33:12Z

Whew! What a morning and it is not even 9:30 am yet! I woke up 15 minutes late today and that kind of put my day off from the start but I still managed to get to work on time to punch in lol. Makes you wonder what kind of driving I did this morning huh? It is a pretty cold day today and I finally got to wear a Jacket today. Not a good thing for me, I hate layers of clothes and wearing Jackets means it is too cold which means that my arthritis will be acting up more often now. Winter sucks...

So I got to work and as soon as I got on my computer I started with my number one mission and that is to review Jason's book EVERYWHERE I can think of. I started with my own site (which I am proud to say is actually linked to a lot of OTHER sites and I didn't even know until today when I was checking where all the traffic I was getting came from lol, people actually LINKED to me!), from there I added a link to the review on Goodreads, then on to Druidic Dawn, and one of my yahoo groups which has a book review section. Then I went to Amazon and added my review there as well. I also added it to Barnes and Noble and went to add it to ABEbooks only to find my review already up there as they kind of take it from Amazon. Then I couldn't think of anywhere else to add my review so I think my work is done lol. I guess you can tell how much I LOVED the book lol.

Well I'd better get back to reading my other books lol.

Book Review: The Salmon in the Spring By Jason Kirkey

2009-12-10T05:40:19Z

The Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality by Jason Kirkey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Please check out my review at my website : The Salmon in the Spring

December 8,2009

2009-12-08T06:03:50Z

So yesterday was an interesting day for me. I finished reading Sacred Narrative and uploaded my review to my site and then I found Jenn's reply with her notes on my outlines for my essays. She is so sweet to do that and I had a funny conversation with her, I hope she doesn't think I'm too crazy lol. I also talked to Willowwind, I have to say I've been a little remiss in not contacting her of late.

I was looking through some of the books I had and noticed quite a few missing and decided that some of them needed to be replaced, so I put them in my cart at Amazon, so that I could buy them at the end of the month or the beginning of the next either way it will be the end of January or the beginning of February before I get them and one of them I need to write my essay...I hope I can find a PDF version of the book some where to tide me over. It is A short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong, if anyone has a PDF version I can borrow please let me know. I found it on a website but the damn thing will only take Paypal which I can't use here in Kuwait...

I'm getting a little impatient for my new book load to arrive, one of the books in that batch is by my friend Jason Kirky and I REALLY want to read it. Like yesterday! It has been 3 weeks since I ordered it and it is still stuck in my US box and has not come to my Kuwait one, sometimes I have Aramex...They can be so bloody slow.

I'm starting to read a new book today called The Modern Construction of Myth and in tandem with that I'm also reading The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. Of course in between each chapter I'm also going to be reading my nice empty headed fiction books. I wonder if I will have time to eat, sleep or do anything else....meh who cares, I'm happy this way lol...

Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth by Alan Dundes

2009-12-07T13:38:44Z

Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth by Alan Dundes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
For a review of this book please check out Sacred Narrative on my blog.

December 6, 2009

2009-12-06T18:16:27Z

I didn't sleep all last night because I was not very comfortable in my bed, my arthritis was making it very difficult for me to sleep on either my left or right side and then I couldn't sleep on my back because my neck hurt. At 6:45 am I could stand it no longer so I got up and took my time dressing for work, mainly because it was too painful to move my shoulders.

Work was totally boring, but I did a bit of reading in Sacred Narrative, and mainly the essays were about cultures more then myths at this point but it is still extremely interesting. I learn about the different theories of myths with examples of each theory. I have to say though Celtic mythology from what I have read of the stories seem to be a mix of all the stories or they seem so now maybe when I re-read them later I'll get a clearer picture.

I think I ate too much today and probably will feel the effects all night lol, oh well.

United States Ties to Uganda Anti-Gay Bill (VIDEO) - The Rachel Maddow Show - Air America

2009-12-04T18:17:35Z

United States Ties to Uganda Anti-Gay Bill (VIDEO) - The Rachel Maddow Show - Air America

Shared via AddThis

And here is also a clip from YouTube

Totally messed up my day and sent me down memory lane hence the music choice. I never really understood the song when I was younger I just liked the music but now I get it. ALL OF IT.

Arthritis and other things...

2009-12-03T23:25:41Z

Its 2:17 am and I'm about to go to bed. I never went to work today (I better make that yesterday) because as soon as I woke up I realized that I could not move. My shoulders were stiff, and my knees were not working and my finders were not even flexing. Not a good thing if I was planning to drive so I called in sick and took my arthritis medication and stayed in bed until 1:30 pm.

I had managed to write out outlines for two essays that I planned to write, one on defining myths and the other on a beginning look at celtic mythology, yesterday. So today I sent them over to Jenn for some feedback since this is one of her favorite subjects. I told her I was not in any hurry though because I was still reading the books I will need for writing the essays.

I read two more essays in the book Sacred Narrative, one was the problems of defining myth from the point of view of Classicists and the second was the problem of defining myths from the point of view of biblical scholars. Needless to say the second one was very interesting lol.

I finished organizing my fiction books and will be working on my non-fiction books next but I will be taking a break from organization before I do that. I noticed that today while I was organizing the rest of my fiction pdfs I was not doing it as neatly as I did the other books. I guess it is burnout lol.

How Do You Know When...

2009-12-02T14:40:38Z

Work today was a bit mundane. I wrote a little report on the progress of the station work (which is not much and very late lol) and then went to do my own thing.

I checked my emails, and then I settled down to read and take notes. I read two essays from the book Sacred Narrative, one was about Nature myths and the other which was VERY interesting was about the theories of mythology. I took notes both for my essay and my review of the book. That pretty much took up most of my morning. Mostly because I was thinking on what I was writing and how that would fit in with what I had in mind for my essays.

Yesterday I managed to finish organizing the major part of my pdf files. I still have a few more fiction books to organize and then I will start on my non-fiction books.

Back to Work

2009-12-01T09:27:26Z

Well, today is the first day back to work after the Eid break and it has been pretty quiet with really no work on my desk. I spent the time working on personal things instead.

I started the day by checking out my emails and I found an email from my pen pal waiting for me. I wrote back to him about my week and discussed a few issues that I had seen on the news this week. Then I added a book review to the Druidic Dawn community. It was a shorter version of the book review I wrote for "The Celts: Bronze Age to Modern Age".

Then I started reading a new book called "Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth" . I have to say from the introduction and the first essay in the book I'm already intrigued and at the same time scared, I didn't realize how hard it was to define a myth! I started taking notes for the review I'm going to write and also for an essay on mythology. This essay will be the first essay in a series I plan on writing about mythology generally and Celtic mythology specifically. The first step will be a definition of mythology from my point of view based on what I have read about mythology and why I chose this definition specifically. From there I will move on to Celtic mythology and the analysis of a few Irish myths (which is the basis of my spiritual path).

Well time to go home lol.

Holiday Almost Over...

2009-11-26T09:20:56Z

but not quite lol. I'm still off for four more days. So what do I have to show for the time off? Nothing much. I did finish The Celts and also did some organizing on my PDF collections. It is a never ending job that...I’m always getting new books and downloading from the internet and they are all over the computer. I’m up to the letter (J) in fiction authors. I have not touched my non-fiction PDFs yet!

I’m currently reading Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth plus a few other books that are fiction. I’m slowly trying to get myself back to reading non-fiction books. I want to get back to writing about Celtic mythology and analyzing them whenever I can. I've been side tracked enough I think...

The Celts : Bronze Age to New Age

2009-11-23T14:05:35Z

The Celts: Bronze Age to New Age by John Haywood

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
For a full indepth review of the book please see my Website

Daily Grind

2009-11-21T17:06:00Z

Tomorrow starts my Eid vacation and while I'm happy not to go into work I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the time. I seem to mostly be lazy and that is pretty much it.

I read two more chapters from "The Celts" in the last two days but have not studied anymore Irish.

I finally got the two books I pre-ordered from Amazon, I don't know why I bother to pre-order when things take forever to get here. What used to take one to two weeks now take up to a month to pass through customs. It used to be that packages marked books just pass with only x-ray inspections but now they open the boxes to check that they really are books.

I spent most of today and yesterday organizing my library of PDF books and I'm not done yet, I'm only up to the authors that start with the letter E. I didn't realize I had so many PDFs! Oh well...

Reading, Writing, Studying and Other Things

2009-11-19T06:55:19Z

Well, I'm at working today but I have next week and two days from the week after off because of Eid-Al-Adha. I'm glad, work is definitely a little boring these days. On the plus side when I am at work, I get things in my personal life done lol.

Yesterday when I responded to a post on Celtic Nation I got a reply from Tearlach which gave me a few ideas on books that will help me with my studies into how to write a solitary personal ritual. I was not even looking for that really I had responded to something else on the list, so I'm happy about that.

I have the first of my reviews up on Chrissy's site Read All Over and I've just submitted my second one as well, today. Right now mostly my reviews are about Paranormal books, maybe I'll branch out into something more later lol.

Between yesterday and today I've read two chapters from The Celts by John Haywood. The Book has 16 chapters and tomorrow (or today who knows) I'm going to start on chapter 11.

I'm going to start studying Unit One in both Learning Irish and Basic Irish. Both units are going to be very easy because pronunciation and spelling are the two things I've done very well in, in my Irish language studies. Yesterday I ripped the CDs that came with Learning Irish because my computer at work couldn't read them. So now I have them in MP3 format so I can listen to them anywhere I want.

It Has Been A While

2009-11-17T06:52:38Z

It has been a while since I wrote and really nothing much has happened since. I've been doing a bit of thinking lately and mostly keeping away from being on the computer all the time. I've also been doing some reading. A little bit of good and lots of bad lol.

Well, to start off, I just submitted my first review to Chrissy's website Read All Over, and it is the first book in a series I am reading by Lynn Viehl. I'm glad I'm going back to review books because that will make me choose a little wiser instead of choose what ever is handy to read lol. I've got tons and tons of books both in PDF and paperback format. So I guess I will be doing lots of reviews.

I'm also still reading The Celts by John Haywood which is proving to be very informative. It's relatively new having been published in 2004 and has a lot of updated information. I'm savoring it and writing my thoughts on each chapter so that I can later on upload them to my own website and also Chrissy's I think because it is a book that should be read if you are interested in the Celts. I have to read two chapters from it today.

I was also thinking yesterday and have decided to go back to studying Irish again. This time I'm not going to stick to one book though because I get bored so fast. I'll be using a few books that I have and this way I hope to maximize my learning experience.

I also think that I need to do a little more research on how to write CR friendly rituals, and if anyone has any ideas or books they can recommend please let me know...

Trying Out New Programs and Other Things

2009-11-08T07:00:07Z

Honestly I've been using Ubuntu for a while now at work, but today I'm trying out the new programs I've installed on it after updating to the latest version of it. Right now I'm trying out the program that connects me to Live Journal without having to connect to the site itself. I just open this program type whatever and upload it. I'm very impressed with the latest Ubuntu edition (9.10). It has it all including the option of Virtual Box which lets you install a windows option inside your Ubuntu for those programs that can only work on windows and you just can't do with out, which in my opinion are very few. So far I'm only using it for iTunes. There is an option like it in Ubuntu but if I want to use my ipod then it has to be iTunes, if I had a normal MP3 player then I would not even think about installing virtual box.

So work is being annoying as heck. Now because our project is entering its last phase we will be having weekly meetings instead of monthly ones, and those meetings will take place every Wednesday. This means that I will be staying late at work on that day and I really hate staying late. I get caught in the afternoon traffic jams which mean that I will be even later getting home. I'm not going to complain (Officially) though because I'm happy to have a job in the first place.

So I finally picked up a more serious book to read this week and so far I'm enjoying it. It is a fresh new way of looking at Celtic history. I decided to start out with history because it is a favored subject and will ease me into the more serious books that are piling up on my desk at home lol. I've been reading fiction for over two months now.

At home I'm also cataloging all the books I have on PDF format. It is taking very long though, I'm not even finished with the A section yet! Then I want to catalog my paper backs and hard covers. Sometimes I buy copies of books that I think I don't have only to discover that I have them already! Goodreads is good but it does not give you a copy of the list of books (at least not in a format that my computer understands.) besides I don't just want printouts of the books, papers get lost.

Samhain 2009

2009-11-02T07:33:22Z

I decided to spend my weekend and Samhain on my own in the desert especially since the weather was slowly cooling and at night it's actually cold in the desert. So on Friday afternoon I took my tent, two tables and my stuff from my altars and went to my favorite spot in the desert. I spent most of Friday afternoon getting my supplies from the vendors close to the desert and then setting up my stuff and by the time it was 9 pm I was so exhausted I fell asleep (I still get tired sometimes and the weather was cold enough to actually make me sleepy).

Saturday morning I woke up and set up my two altars inside the tent, one altar for the Gods and Land spirits and the other for my ancestors. Then I made breakfast and ate it, and sat down to just meditate for a bit. It wasn't that I was meditating on anything in particular but it was more like I was relaxing myself. Time kind of sped away from me and I came back from my meditation to realize it was mid-afternoon, so I made some lunch and then went about setting up for my Samhain celebration. I made some apple cakes and some bread, by the time I was done it was already around sunset and had a fire going so I extinguished it and re-lit it again when the sun set.

I then when to my altars and meditated a little bit then thanked the Land-spirits for the help they provided during the year, and made an offering to both the Gods and the Land-Spirits from some of the bread that I had made. I left it at the altar I'd made for them (my altars were out side the tent by the way). Then I went to the altar I had made for my ancestors and set the apple cakes out for them as an offering and sat down to meditate.

While I was meditating I saw one of my ancestors that had visited me before, she is from my mother's side of the family and she did not look to happy. When I asked her what was wrong she said that I had gotten myself lost and that I needed to get back to where I needed to go. It was something that I had been thinking about a lot in the last few months. I lost focus and had gotten myself side tracked from my studies, and my readings and by association my path. I had not meditated in a long time nor have I been making my offerings regularly. Even my mornings have gotten messed up where I used to wake up early to sit at my altar, meditate and connect with my Gods had stopped completely in the last month or month and a half, so I knew what she was talking about.

After I thanked her and came out of my meditation, I sat down to do my yearly ritual of looking at my last year's list and making up a new one for this year. The most important thing from last year's list I had already done. I had finished my studies at NOD and the rest were common sense things that will be carried with me to this year as well like my determination for knowledge, spirituality, and not complicating things that are simple, to give to my community as much as I can, to follow my heart and soul, to learn more Irish, and to try and give everything my best. I then wrote my new list out.

Here is my list:

1.Continuing on my path for knowledge, spirituality and getting more on the practical side of both, which means going back to my old routine in the morning and my offerings as well as learning more about rituals and how to write my own.

2.Not complicating simple things, and to follow my heart,soul and intuition more as well as giving everything my best.

3.Giving back to the community I live in and looking at more ways to help the environment.

4.Go back to learning Irish.

I finished my list and did a little divination (I'm comfortable with the tarot even though I know the Celts never used it) and then sat down to eat the feast with my ancestors. After I finished I picked up what was left of my meal and all the other food that I had not eaten and packed it away. It was around 1 am so I decided to go to bed. The food on the altars was left out of course.

On Sunday morning I woke up around 6 am packed everything up and got into my car and on the way home to shower and go to work I dropped all the access food I had at a food kitchen for the poor. The food I had left out on the altars was all gone by the time I woke up and surprisingly the altars themselves were not harmed or damaged in anyway, like the food just disappeared even though I heard the animals eating it at night. How cool is that?!

I have to say that the two days I spent on my own were great, no outside distractions no Internet, nothing. I don't have a lot of access to the Internet now and I'm thinking this will be a good thing for me because maybe now I can concentrate on what is really important. I can meditate more and take care of things that I have been putting off.

Updates

2009-10-20T08:13:17Z

Lately I have not been in the mood to do anything but just sit and read things that are not food for thought lol. I have not been feeling up to engaging my brain at all. I'm not sure if it is because the winter is coming or I am just feeling to restless to sit and concentrate or if it is a combination of both. I'm more inclined to think it is a combination of both.

The weather is going to be amazing this October 31 and my trip to the desert is all set. I took the time off from work and will be gone for 3 days. I need the solitude to think and assess. I like to do that every year anyway, but this year I feel the need more for some reason. Perhaps because I made a lot of decisions this year that I want to think upon now.

Book Review: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

2009-10-07T09:48:45Z

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can't believe I almost didn't buy this book because of all the negative reviews I've read. But now that I have read it I think I finally understand all the negative reviews.

The book is written in the usual Dan Brown style of lots of uncomfortable facts/beliefs that make people totally uncomfortable if they are even slightly religious. And it does not mean that you have to be Christian to be uncomfortable but all other book religions will work.

The book uses the masons as a template of giving these facts/beliefs and that makes it even harder for the people who read to except especially with all the propaganda about the Freemasons. I can not say I am an expert on them but I do recognize a lot of the things in this book about them as truth. Also the book talks about how spirituality and science can actually be combined so that we get the maximum benefit from both which is something that most pagans know and most scientists argue against and another something that the people reading this book might find offensive.

Putting the plot of the mystery aside, which was good in my opinion,the book is an exercise at challenging ones ideas and thoughts and at trying to grasp some truths that mystics and older scientists have known all along. You'll need to read the book if you want to know what these ideas and thoughts are.

I highly recommend this book!