What activities can COOL members participate in?

Then i'd have to agree with bill, it wouldn't interest me in the slightest (apart from maybe a jolly social get-together)... as a non-american, sitting down to a feast and carving a turkey and other of the traditional thanksgiving foodstuffs would have no relevance to me whatsoever. The word Thanksgiving might be ambiguous... but the traditions behind the named celebration certainly aren't.

I belong to a large (paternal) family of practicing druids.... and i suppose like most that are comfortable with their own religion/ideology.... i feel like Thanksgiving is not only not for me.... but i would be reducing a lot by making the harvest celebrations into a sit-down meal with little actual thanks for the harvest.

Good luck with it tho'!

 

That's it exactly If COOL itself is to be an all-embracing community, then i think the emphasis should be place on marking the actual Day (wether this be a public holiday in your own countries... or simply the rise of the harvest moon during autumn, or whenever the countries optimal harvest time is)... how individual members celebrate isn't really important... be it sitting down to a turkey dinner with family and friends.... holding a ceremony/prayer while burning the chaff off the wheat fields.... or simply wandering in the country alone in quiet contemplation while gathering wild fruit and berries.....

Mark the day.... not the tradition

 

As a Brit I've really no idea how thankgiving came about - I was under the impression it related to something in US history - like we have 5th nov. 'Guy Fawkes Night' - although I can tell you, I don't celebrate it (as they say, he was probably the only man ever to enter parliament with honest intentions )


I certainly don't object to a feast of some kind around the thanksgiving time, but probably better to re-label it, also as a vegetarian, Turkey is def. off the menu for me.

With the saints days I meant more like the church dedicates pretty well every day to a particular saint. But dedicating days to a particual message or anything else would be ok I think.

Also we could celebrate the birthdays of sages we incorporate into the Conscious Bible, as Hindus celebrate the appearance days of Krishna and the rest.

 

If you wanted to keep the traditional harvest feast...just use traditional N. American foods...the ones they taught the settlers to plant: maize, squash (YUM) , and beans

 

I know you were making a point...but please don't use the word heathen...

 

actualy the REAL origen of the american 'thanksgiving' feast, what it was origeonaly in celibration of, was extremely creepy. what people think they know about it now was a myth created about a hundred years after the fact. (it was the aniversary of having SLAUGHTERED the village and tribe (men, women, children and infants) of the people who helped them survive origeonaly. this is a matter of historical record though it has been well obscuired and you would have to dig rather deep and diligently to find it. and find it you likely won't at your local public library)

at any rate, celebrating the passing of the seasons and their generosity IS a good thing, and an exciellent opportunity for people to get togather.

=^^=
.../\...

 

Whyever not? The origin of the word heathen simply means "one who worships on the heather" ..... it was only the christian/roman propaganda that gave the word it's [modern] connotation with "one who is ignorant/barbaric"

I'm proud to be known as a Heathen

 

Most of the Pagans I know who work with Northern pantheons actually prefer the term "heathen" to "pagan". Those that work with the Southern pantheons seem to prefer "pagan".

I'm Gaean, and I don't really give a fat damn what people call me.

 

I just don't like that word...because most of the time its spit out with hatred... that's all...its just a thing...

 

'Sticks and stones....'

I wouldn't let it worry you too much my friend. It's only a word, and there are far worse words even.
I understood the origin of the word slightly differently from Oz - my understanding has always been that it simply meant originally 'one who lives on a heath'. Hence, I suppose, a rustic type, devoid of the culture of the aristos etc in their mansions, who of course, considered themselves above such riff-raff, and certainly superior in the eyes of God.......
And also I used to live briefly on Hempstead Heath in London (btw - 'Hempstead, because at one time that crop was grown there).
And there's Bob Marley's 'Heathen Man'.....

 

I've heard that description too.... and being a good ol' country boy... really like it

SvgGrdnBeauty: Heathen is a word i use a lot, and will continue to use where applicable. I can understand your dislike of the word, perfectly understandable as it is often used as a derogatory term, but if I do use it.... you can be assured that it will be as a postive term of description ... not with the negative connotation with which "heathen" is too often associated.

That's great info! Given the climate in which heather grows... and the culutral use of the word Heath... most intersting...

Ok, i'm rambling and offering little to the discussion subject of the thread... ignore this one

 

Sorry to change the subject again Skip, but I was wandering - now we've got the COOL Books subforum, can we have COOL Music ? Because music is definitely something which is part of most people's lives and their spirituality..

 

.

 

i think pet rocks could be in here somewhere. i know in this age that may seem trivial. they did when they were popular too.

but the thing is, about bringing people togather, without telling them how or what to think, well that was and is the thing about pet rocks.

i mean anyone can pick up a rock, clean it off, paint it and decorate it and make it look like something. but that's just the point. that it IS something everyone and anyone can do. and trade and appreaciate. whatever else our situation at any time or place might otherwise be.

i just stumbled over this in the nostelgia forum but it occured to me there, that it just might have a place here.

=^^=
.../\...