Perspective, mostly a rant...sigh

[cheddarsox]

So, I'm listening to a sydicated radio talk show this morning, and the subject is weird things you've seen in other people's homes and a caller tells about going in to do an insurance inspection of a home, and the people didn't want her to go into a room, but she insisted and then got all bent out of shape because they had a goat hanging there draining blood and a decapitated chicken, etc...

Well...first, they tried to keep her out of there. Second, yup, looks odd, but then, don't most religions look odd to an outsider?

I was raised Catholic, and really, to the uninitiated, a life sized statue of a corpse on an execution torture device at the front and center of a house of worship...pretty weird.

Statues in homes, to which offerings were made, of pretty girls stepping on snake heads, beautiful women carrying breasts or eyeballs on a plate...yup, strange indeed.

Today, my entire living room is full of skulls and skeletons, candles, offerings and incense for the days of the dead. Would creep many people out.

Before we go "bonzo" over someone else's practice...sometimes it might be a good idea to take an "outsiders" look at our own.

I laugh when I hear missionaries talk about how they saved savages from their crude fertility religions by teaching them to worship a dead man nailed to a tree. Who's the savage?

Maybe all religion just helps us tend and access our dark side, but really, none of them are all that civilized.

[aranarose]

That reminds me, I need to get a chicken...

My house isn't that odd at the moment. It's still got a lot of my husband's dragons, but this weekend I'm packing all of that stuff up so that he can take it to his new place. And then I'm cleansing and clearing this place out and making it MINE!!!

Then it'll look odd to other people.

I practice Hoodoo and an eclectic Kitchen Witchery. I have plans for multiple altars, at least one of which will have a real human skull on it, as soon as I can afford. A good quality, clean, legal human skull will run between $400 and $700.

There will also be crucifixes, jar candles, and various relics of saints. Other types of candles galore.

I'll also have a working altar. Most of the altars I will simply place things on and they'll be a place of focus/prayer, but the working altar is where I'll do the actual work of making mojos, hands, tobies, spell lamps, mixing oils, herbs, blends, etc.

So yeah, once that's all set up the way I want, I'm sure I'll get some interesting looks from people.

Doubt I'll ever have a goat hanging anywhere though. Not that I'd never sacrifice a live animal, there are some spells and rituals that call for it (though I've never had the need to use one, and don't anticipate the need to do so) but all that blood would be really messy to clean up, and I think my neighbors might have issue if they saw me bringing a goat into my house.

[Bettie]

As a kid I used to attempt to mummify various dead birds and rodents that I found around the place. All my friends had girly pink bedrooms with Barbies and dolls, and I had a bunch of animal corpses. Nowadays I don't keep dead pets around the place, but I do have skulls, skeletons, giant statues of Anubis etc. My friends take the piss and say my house looks like it's decorated for Halloween all year round.... :lol:

[cheddarsox]

Wow, you two and I should meet in real life. I have skulls and skeletons and bones of all manner of critters in my bedroom. And yup, I have a real human skull, and femur, they are on one of the ofrendas for Days of the Dead right now, usually they are in my bedroom on the altar there.

I have mummified dead pets when I was a kid. I still have a goldfish I did, complete with obsidian inlaid mummy mask and the tiny sarcaphagus I made him!

Looking back, I see that I was practicing my true religion decades before I knew what it was, that it existed, or that there was a name for it and others participated too!

I guess given time and opportunity, the truth will out itself.

Where are you planning to get your skull? I got mine through The Bone Room in california. I had looked on ebay, but the Bone Room is where I ended up. I was pleased with their service. I called during their anniverysary sale a couple of years ago and got a 10% discount. The price has gone up about $150 since I purchased my skull. I'm glad I got her when I did.

We call her Grandmother (she is an old Chinese woman) and the whole family loves and honors her. I have requested that when I die, she be cremated with me.

[aranarose]

I'm probably going to the Bone Room as well. Expensive, BUT I know I'll be getting a real skull. On Ebay, I've found some real ones, but the quality is questionable, and some of the sellers are advertising 'real' skulls for $30. Not likely! The Bone Room also has finger bones, which I need to get some more of, as the last I had were used for a mojo for my sister-in-law who was going to Las Vegas.

ETA: And I just noticed they have raccoon baculums as well, which I need to get a few of!

[aluokaloo]

I wanna see a pic of your pharoah-fied goldfish!

[SphinYote]

OK, so which of you were projecting images of the bones into that weird dream I had a while back? :huh:

Room isn't painted red with red velvet hangings and antique furniture is it?


My animal bones are fewer, but I do have a partial coyote skull. Somehwere there's a mouse skeleton wrapped in a tissue in a box that I'd found in our crawlspace.

Whenever my grandma's cat would catch birds, I always made him release them if they were still alive, but if they were already dead I wasn't adverse to helping him defeather them if they had some nice plumage....

Yote

[Valnorran]

I laugh when I hear missionaries talk about how they saved savages from their crude fertility religions by teaching them to worship a dead man nailed to a tree. Who's the savage?
LOL! Yeah, I've read accounts of missionaries trying to get cannibals to stop being cannibals, then teach them communion - you know, when one ritually eats a god's fleash and drinks his blood? The other amusing one was missionaries trying to teach aboriginal people - who are extremely close to nature and "the birds and the bees" - about the immaculate conception.