Pagan Parents on the Edge

In this episode of PPOTE Fox and Arrowind explore the power of the spoken word. We read a few selections of poetry from Fox's favorites poets, Gibrahn and Frost, and spend time with each dissecting what the words and images bring to mind as related to our pagan experience. We discuss the power that words have when used in ritual, prayer, and in our everday thoughts. I really enjoyed doing this one as the level of conversation was just right, not to deep but deep enough. In one instance Fox, once again, gives away a little bit about just how differently he see's the world.

In Arrowind's "As of yet Unnamed Segment" She talks a bit about the four powers, an excellent collection of metaspiritual suggestions for the pusuit of the betterment of being.

"What Does Fox Do?" focuses on how he uses the power of words with consideration to rythmn, rhyme, meter, and content to create extrenal and internal magical spaces. He talks about ritual, prayer, and even how the careful consideration of the words we use to define how we think in an everyday mundane way also defines who and what we are on several levels.

The "Podcast of the Week" this episode is "Pagan Chaos Magic" With it's host Kia Dragon. Kia is a friend of the show and someone for whom we hold a special place in our hearts (esecially Fox as there is that whole fatherhood thing going) Kia has been absent from the podioverse for a while and it was great to hear him back again. The show's experientiality is something that Fox thinks is wonderful and not only one of the reasons he listens to the show but one of the reasons he thinks you should give it a try as well.

In the housecleaning segement (you know at the end of the show where we give out all that boring contact information stuff) Fox had a bit of a "light-bulb" moment and has put out the challenge to our listens to come up with a name for Arrowind's "As of Yet Unnamed Segment". Drop us a line and let us know if you have any ideas. We would love to hear them.

The speeding up of what is one of the busiest seasons of the year around the PPOTE household seems to have reduced the show schedule to a one a month kind of thing. There are also issues in the background and we have been contemplating where to go with the show. We are going to stay with the same format but have begun to reconsider hosters, exposures, and a variety of other ideas including, perhaps, a book based on the things we've discussed at length with you listeners. We'll keep everyone informed as we wouldn't want to leave anybody behind as we begin to explore new ground.

Yule is just around the corner and with it usually comes that show dedicated to the season and the inevitable mention of the "Jolly One" himself. The family coven is begining to change and reframe some of ideas of Santa as we move the kids from the vaguely commercial belief to a more Shamanistic approach. I don't think Santa is hanging around car dealerships selling cars, more likely hanging around our hearts giving love and generosity. I hope Yule isn't spoiled for anyone by the commercial mainstreamism of the day and that we remember to let the new light into our hearts and souls this season and have the love and generosity to spread it around to everyone around us.

Blessed Be Foxfire

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In this episode of PPOTE, Arrowind and Foxfire reach deeply into our own personal experiences to talk about spirit encounters that we have had. That's right folks, we tell ghost stories. The personal and somewhat nebulous nature of these events make it difficult to define them in very precise ways. As such, Foxfire and Arrowind do a fair amount of verbal stumbling as we attempt to communicate the essence of these experiences.

In this episode's edition of 'What Does Fox Do?' he talks about his relationship to his books. Research is very important to Fox because, as he describes, some types of information are just not readily available to him from a mental standpoint.

In Arrowind's 'As of Yet Unnamed Segment', she reads from The Crone's Book of Words by Valerie Worth. The selection is the spell 'To Free a House from Haunting'. She points out the importance of incorporating rhythm and rhyme as a way of focusing and increasing the power of spellwork.

The Podcast of the Week this episode is 'The Shaman's Brew' with its host Marcus Leader. Marcus is former student of Carlos Castaneda and as such is full of fascinating information. He is also a friend of PPOTE and a much respected supporter. Currently you can listen to selected back episodes of PPOTE on his show, as he prepares for a new chapter in 'The Shaman's Brew'.

In the end of the show, Foxfire and Arrowind dedicate it to our friend Chamberwolf. It's a bit of an emotional moment for us since he was a dear friend who has now passed beyond the veil.

There has been an odd bit of energy floating about the air in our group of friends. It seems to be suppressing everyone's spirit this year. Perhaps it is just a reflection of the energies about us as they turn inward and become darker. We do so hope that you are having a Happy Halloween and a Blessed Samhain wherever you are and however you may perceive and celebrate the season.

Blessed Be,

Foxfire and Arrowind

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Better late than never, this episode manages to make it to air despite the business of our schedule. In this show, Foxfire and Arrowind ramble around through various ideas we associate with the season of Mabon. We discuss how experiences from our childhood have shaped those ideas, and talk about how we have learned from doing rituals designed for children. We explore our ideas of the second harvest and with Yule right around the corner, Fox can't help but talk about some of his connections to Santa Claus, aka the Northern Shaman.

In Arrowind's still as of yet unnamed segment, she reads a passage from a book by Z. Budapest, The Grandmother of Time. It focuses on the aspect of the Goddess as the Muse, bringing inspiration at the changing of the season.

In What Does Fox Do?, he discusses his work with charms, amulets, and talismans. Fox describes several of these that are very special to him, and how he incorporates them into his metaspiritual practice.

The Podcast of the Week for this episode is The Spiral Dance with Hawthorne. This is a great seasonally oriented show with wonderful music and a plethora of fascinating, insightful, and helpful information to pagans. Hawthorne produces his show weekly and we have no idea how he does it while managing to maintain a caliber that never fails to impress.

The show continues to struggle with varying technical issues and because of this over the next couple of months we will be taking a serious look at how we plan to continue to move forward. We may be archiving episodes and recording past episodes to disc with idea of in some way marketing them. But never fear, we are on a roll and we plan to continue. We hope that you can find your roll and keep the good things in your life going forward in the best ways possible.

Blessed Be

Foxfire and Arrowind

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In this episode, Arrowind and Foxfire discuss the role of emotions as they play a part in our pagan experience. They talk about being responsible for our emotional states as pagans, the role of emotion in ritual, both as a powerful ally and a detrimental force, and share some personal revelations about dealing with emotions in their lives. In a community, sometimes ruled by the passions and powerful emotions, this episode may perhaps give the listeners a new set of tools for understanding and managing these often overwhelming issues.

Fox continues the discussion in his segment, "What Does Fox Do" by describing some of his personal methods for generating and controlling emotional states as a part of his metaspiritual and metaphysical practices. This is good stuff, folks, and is perhaps something we should all think about.

In Arrowind's segment, yet to be named, she reads a selection from The Prophet which speaks directly to the issue of emotions and balance.

The Podcast of the Week this episode is "The Magick Jukebox" with its host David Banach. All the wonderful information out there in the podcast world aside, sometimes you just want to listen to some music, just some music. "The Magick Jukebox" provides this. Fox is loving this podcast and if you just need a musical break, he thinks you will love it too.

It's been a heck of a month around here, with the arrival of Earth, Wind and Fire, the re-starting of homeschooling, and preparations for attending an upcoming pagan festival, but we here at the PPOTE household are thankful that things aren't any more chaotic than they are. The Northeast has been hammered repeatedly by one record-setting disaster after another it seems. The rain doesn't seem to stop and more than one person that we know has been directly affected by the floods. We hope for the best for everybody, and hope that everyone will remember that as Pagans, despite perhaps our differences in views, we are still a community. Hopefully everyone in the community is there for everyone else to lean on in times of trouble if it is needed. Here's a quote from one of Fox's favorite movies, The Crow: "It can't rain all the time." I certainly hope that this is true in more ways than one.

Blessed Be, Foxfire and Arrowind

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In this episode, Arrowind and Foxfire talk about the ideas of sacrifice and offerings. We talk about some of the sacrifices and offerings we had made in our own pagan experience, and some of our ideas of what sacrifices and offerings mean in general to the pagan community at large. Topics include evolution of sacrifices, including animal sacrifice, and the exchanging of energies in these acts. We here at PPOTE, considering the time and effort that we take to put into the show, think of the podcast as our offering to our listeners. By putting ourselves out there we like to think that we create an atmosphere of open dialogue about these types of pagan topics.

This week in "What Does Fox Do?", Fox temporarily loses his mind and responds with the mentality of a five year old. "I like color, mmmK. I like red. mmmK Color is good, you should get some." There, now I've summed up the WDFD segment and you can skip it if you like and if you haven't figured it out, it is about Fox's association with color magic.

The Podcast of the Week for this episode is The Pagan Homesteader with its host Rhianna Stone. In this show Rhianna discusses many topics involved in attempting to leave the Grid, a topic that strikes to the hearts of many pagans, including Fox. In her most recent episode, she reads a selection from the publication Foxfire about the lives of a simpler time. Wow, I really loved that.

This episode Fox is surprised by the unveiling of Arrowind's poetic talents. She is published you know, and she reads to us one of her own compositions, a poem entitled "Odin's Sonnet".

The show is a little late this week due to the distractions of Hurricane Irene. We rode the storm out very well here, despite the local media's attempt to make it seem as if Armageddon had commenced. It became a bit of a local joke that Irene was not that big a deal where we live, and we were stunned to see just how devastating it became in the Northeast. We do hope that our listeners in those areas were able to ride it out well, and if not, we pray for the best for them. As pagans, I like to think that our connection to the natural world around us makes us more aware and prepared for events such as this. I wish it could be so for everyone.

Blessed Be, Foxfire

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In this episode, Arrowind and Foxfire take a turn at discussing our relationship with the classical arrangements of the elements and spirit. We talk about how we experience the elements in the world and how that affects our understanding of them on a spiritual and magical level. We make mud pies, we swim around a bit, take a deep breath and try not to burn ourselves.

Podcast of the week is Another Pagan Podcast with its hosts Scott, Dawn and Teresa, focusing on their recent episode dealing with pets, familiars and spirit guides. Of course Fox has opinions about these things (Fire Sign) as he does about everything else. This is a fantastic podcast from an experiential level with great factual information mixed in. We highly recommend it.

In the segment "What Does Fox Do?" Fox talks about his life-long innate ability to talk with the animals, perhaps a little Dr. Dolittleish, but sometimes it just feels that way. We talk about how an ability to communicate with animals sometimes leads to a broader understanding of the world around us.

Well, we seem to be getting back on track, with three episodes in a row now. We hope that everybody is enjoying this. Once again, in the vein of faking it until you make it, or at least just having the persistence to keep going, we have found ourselves really enjoying doing the show again. It really feels good to be back. Stand back for a moment and take a look around yourself and see if there is anything that you are not doing that you want to be doing, and remember the joy that it brought you when you were doing it. Perhaps that will give you the impetus to move forward in something that is special to you as well.

Blessed Be,

Arrowind

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In this episode Fox and Arrowind discuss how we deal with interacting in public through our Pagan identities, especially those of our children. After an interesting email we received on the struggles of a Pagan parent we decide to talk about the issues of how our children recognize and express their Paganism amongst the public at large. We meander around several ideas and situations that we've had about how to prepare our children for being a public Pagan. We also talk about the idea of raising closeted Pagan children. This is an incredibly complicated issue and while we aren't by any means attempting to say "This is how you do it." We believe that just getting the conversation out there might help anyone facing the decisions involved in this issue.

In this episodes "What Does Fox Do" segment Fox describes some of the healing exercises he reintergrated into his life to deal with his current medical issues. He discusses where these ideas came from and how he has applied them lately. We also touch briefly on Arrowinds application of Reiki upon Fox's problems and some of the interesting results.

This show also sees the return of "Podcast of the Week" although Fox has decided to feature specific episodes of show rather than whole shows at large. I hope that this will lead even more people into a broader array of Pagan podcasts by pointing out what Fox thinks are exemplary ideas and topics presented by other podcasters. This week The PotW is "The Infinite and the Beyond" with host Chris Orapello. In the episode he talks about some of Fox's favorite subjects; Conspiracy Theories and those Occult Nazi's. Chris does his usual fantastic job and my hats off to him for another well thought out and captivating episode.

We are still struggling with some issues from our hoster so there may be some oddities about the physical face of the show until these are solved. Hang tight with us and we'll be doing our best to sort them out. For now just keep this idea in mind which I passed to a dear friend the other day; Tomorrow will come, it will be what it will be, brace yourself with love ,,,

Blessed Be

Fox

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Welcome Back!

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Well, well, well. Welcome back again. In another quick turn around Arrowind and Foxfire talk about keeping a magical perspective in our lives. They discuss how Santa keeps things wonderful and talk about how we have been raising our children to have an ongoing yet reasonable belief in the Jolly One. Fox talks a little bit about how his belief in Santa has been recieved over the years and how, whether he's been hugged in thanks or openly mocked, he's very comfortable about his belief. We go on to talk about a few other things as well but it's mainly about choosing our own perspectives and making them a part of the beauty and wonder that is life.

Directly after Christmas Fox will be having surgery to see if the cancer on his lip can be removed. As such there will probably not be a new years show. Seems weird as the New Years Shout out show has become a tradition. We'll do something, I'm sure as soon as I feel up to talking through a show but we'll have to see how long it takes to heal.

I'd just like to express our thanks to our listeners for tuning in this year. There have been some wonderfully inspiring e-mails. With out you folk there would only be Arrowind and I talking to ourselves and that would just be kind of odd. I spent a very cold night around a flaming cauldron for the Solstice vigil this year and the morning ritual was so wonderful. I hope everybody has as much joy as they can stand no matter how you express this holiday season. So with that I shall wish everyone a

Blessed Yule, Merry Chrstmas, Happy Hanukkah, A wonderful Solstice, all the blessings of the season and a Happy Turning of the Gregorian Calendar (New Years)

Blessed Be

Foxfire

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