Modern Day Burning Times

Gather 'round my spiritual brothers and sisters; listen to a story that has been told by those of old, there is a storm brewing, and trouble in paradise is unfolding, the wolves are howling at the door! There are those on the planet who defy the laws of the land, there are those on the planet who know no mercy or compassion, and who has and will cause greater harm!

They gather in their churches and they worship a dead man on a cross, they claim to have the holy word that was written long ago, they use their book against us as if it were made of stone, and they detest our rights as children of the Goddess, they curse our ways, they curse our Gods and they call us names!

They point their fingers and they yell Witch! They point their fingers, and they throw bricks, their ancestors persecuted our Grandmothers and Grandfathers by dragging them to the pyre, they tortured and raped the women of our villages, all because they healed the sick with potions and brews made from the very gifts of Mother Earth.

They justify their actions all in the name of God, they claim to be God-fearing and peace-loving people, but where in their actions is the love? Let alone the peace? Their actions are far from justified, and one day they will stand before their maker, they will have to face their dirty little deeds, my feeling is that the word of the bible and its message has been greatly distorted, twisted by those who choose to interpret it solely to benefit their agenda.

Religious freedom should be granted to all who choose to worship, and no one has the right to dictate the names in which someone else calls God, whether you realize it or not the burning times never ended, and the burning times was not at all about the Witches, it was and will always be about man's greed, his needs to control and to manipulate those who so choose to listen to his lies!

The modern day burnings are taking place as we speak, in fact as I type this message to you, if you are a woman who by chance got pregnant, whether it was an accident through an unplanned pregnancy or perhaps you were raped, if you even consider abortion you are belittled, you are shunned and cast out like a dirty dishrag, you are judged and found to be unworthy of their self-righteous love and the love of their almighty God!

If you are a gay man or lesbian woman you are said to be unworthy to breathe the same air, you are treated as a leopard, and the basic human right to love is denied to you, and let us not forget that it is said that we are the cause of a plague that has been labeled the GAY DISEASE, if this is the case would someone mind explaining to me why so many God fearing Christian women are infected with HIV by their spouses each year?

The bottom line here is that the double standard has and will always apply, I mean come on, how many of those good Christian men force themselves upon their wives after running around all over town and sticking their little Christian soldier into any willing cavity? Be it a vagina, anus, or mouth, their little soldier marches to the tune and never misses a beat, and when Sunday rolls around they go off to church confess and are granted absolution by their clergy counterpart who happens to be male, and who got it on in the backroom of the church with an Altar Boy the night before, now I am not saying that Witches, Gays, Lesbians, and Women in general are free from guilt, but I will say that a Witch tends to live life honestly, and a true Witch bides by his belief, �An Ye Harm None, Do what Ye Will�, I wish someone would take a religious survey of all the men who are locked away in prison for child molestation, rape and even murder, you might find a Witch or two hanging out in the crowd, but it is a given that you will find that the majority of the offenders are God fearing Christian men!

We are definitely living in troubled times, and if we the new minorities, Gays, Lesbians and our sympathetic to the cause, female counterparts do not take action and unite our efforts and energy, we will always be repressed and we will be forever held hostage by our emotional tormenters.

We are suppose to be living in the land of the free, a place where the tired and weak can find shelter, a safe place, a place of unity, a place where brotherly and sisterly love exist, but yet, we are living in a land where our basic human rights are being dictated to us, we are being spoon-fed hypocrisy, and we are being chastised for playing the hand that was dealt us, our land is being ran by war mongers, individuals who are guilty of the worse kind of hate crime, crimes against humanity, if I believed in the devil I would say that Lucifer himself is at the helm, he has his finger on that little red button and he is just waiting for an opportunity to push it, he is itching to impose his judgment upon those of us who are not his kind, well I for one am a proud Gay man, and if my salvation is at stake because I refuse to frolic with the bigots of our society, so be it!

Those of us who are at one with ourselves, and truly strive to find balance within our own lives, and live in harmony with our universal brothers and sisters can lay down at night and sleep with the peaceful knowledge that we have not caused harm to those who oppose us, there will always be an opposition and that is fine, but it is not fine to forbid your wife, daughter, sister or mother the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, it is not right to impose your heterosexual beliefs upon your gay son or lesbian daughter, we all have the right to live our lives as we see fit, we all have the right to choose our partners, our life mates, and if hell really does exist it is the hell that you put us through that we must live with, if I had to choose between death and conforming to mainstream societies confinements, I say bring on death, because death is surely the lesser of the two evils.

I raised myself as a Witch, I choose to be a Witch, it is a choice, I embrace the Mother Goddess, I find comfort in the knowledge of knowing that to all things there is both a beginning and an end, this war that we live in will soon end, and hopefully peace will resurrect itself, the fight that is being fought is not about ending terror, if it were it would have ended by now, there is an unspoken agenda that the powers that be does not want us to know about, and as bystanders we men and women of all races, color , religion and sexual orientation are being emotionally and mentally raped on a daily basis.

We must unite our voices, we must band together because there are power in numbers, we must set aside our indifferences, and we must send a clear message to our captors that we will not be bound by their unjust persecution, there is more at stake here than we realize, when we allow them to take away the basic rights of any one group that leaves everyone of us vulnerable and in a position to lose the few liberties that we have left!

I am Gay and my gayness was not a choice, but I bask in my gay glory, and if I could make a conscious choice to be gay or straight, I'd choose to be gay, I love myself, I love my man, and I love life. I made a commitment a very long time ago to be true to myself, and to live my life out of respect for all that exist in nature, the sad fact of the matter is that I may not agree with those who oppose me, those who would take my basic right to marry whom I choose, away from me, but I must respect their right to believe as they do, it doesn't mean that I have to accept it, like it or abide by it, and no matter how hard they try they will never break me, for the spirit of the gay man and lesbian woman can be closely compared to our brothers and sisters of color who were held captive and used as slaves not very long ago, we too shall endure, overcome, and ultimately win the same rights and freedom of choice that is granted to our heterosexual counterparts, when you think about it being a straight God-fearing man, must be a terrible way to live, always doubting your manhood, sexual orientation, always feeling threatened by your Gay male counterparts, always feeling that you must prove that you are a manly man in front of your woman, all the while knowing that if given the chance you would drop your pants at the slightest of invitations from the little gay guy at work, or the one who lives next door.

It is true that the burning times are still happening and going on as we speak, you can see it in the faces of every man, woman or child who has suffered some form of persecution and all in the name of God, the bible is simply used as an excuse for people to act out, they read a few passages and suddenly they become an authority on the message that Christ was trying to convey, funny, I always thought that the whole point of religion was love, and if that is the message that they are trying to convey, I do not want their type of love, there is simply no room in my life for it, I refuse to buy into the twisted perverted definition of a word whose true definition is all about balance, knowledge, harmony and respect for all life!

I invite you to experience the true energy of happiness, love yourself, love your family, and your friends, accept them for who they are, they may be purple, green or pink, they may be straight, gay or bi-sexual, they may be from here or from a land far away, but the main issue is not where they come from, or even who they love, it is the fact that they are human, they have a beating heart in their chest, and the blood that flows through their veins is the same color that flows through yours and mine, if you cannot love them at least respect their right to live and love freely, and as surely as you grant them this basic human right, the same shall be granted to you.

Blessed Be

Phelan