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When my phone rang one day early in 2004, it was an acquisitions editor
at RedWheel/Weiser. "We like the way you write," she said to me. "Would
you write a book for us?" "Sure thing," I replied. "What would you like
me to write?" "We want a daily calendar book," she said. "Call it
365 Pagan. And put lots of goddesses in it."
So I signed the contract and wrote the book. To meet their deadline, for six months I wrote every morning (which means I wrote thirty or thirty-one daily pages every two weeks), edited (so I could still pay the rent) every afternoon, and did research every evening.
What I found out when I sent them the completed manuscript, however, was that they'd wanted a frothy little gift book. What I'd sent them was a real book, with real scholarship, real history, real writing. It was too long. But when you're writing a calendar book, you can't just lop sixty pages off the end; you have to trim every single day. They wanted 300 words per page, max. I edited each page down to 301 words.
Here's part of the review from Publishers Weekly. I'm pleased by it and hope you'll be intrigued enough to buy the book.
Ardinger's latest contribution to pagan literature is a short-essay book of days jammed with facts about goddesses and saints, alongside an assortment of random pop culture references and personal musings. The author of several books including Finding New Goddesses, Ardinger is a regular encyclopedia of knowledge not only about paganism but more broadly about significant women figures and goddesses in history (think Julian of Norwich, Mother Teresa, and Isis, all of whom make appearances among the 365 days). … Chocolate lovers will surely delight to learn the story behind Lady Godiva (July 10) and those uninitiated into the history of Sophia (December 16) will be happy to learn of her illustrious past.
One thing I discovered in writing Pagan Every Day was that if you've studied enough metaphysics, then you can find a nice metaphysical meaning in nearly anything. As I did for Barbie, Miss Piggy (the Goddess of Everything), and Dirty Dancing. Following are four new days from the book.
People sometimes look at astrology as planets, both good and bad, doing
their song and dance in your life and that’s the way you are. Maybe, maybe
not. We can just as easily find literary quotations that say the opposite.
In
Julius Caesar, Cassius tells Brutus that “the fault … is not in our
stars, but in ourselves.”
Some people object to astrology and find it foolish and unscientific.
Maybe these are people with control issues? Skeptics and materialists who
believe only what they can measure or hold? People who have never had—and
might not let themselves have—a spiritual or psychic experience? I’m not
sure I understand astrology, but I keep an open mind. If ideas have been
current for two millennia and haven’t led to wars or genocide, maybe there’s
something useful there. I’m fortunate to have friends who are astrologers.
When I asked my friend Lilith for a general idea of Aquarius, she said,
“Think Data, in
Star Trek: Next Generation.” Aquarians, she said, would rather analyze
their feelings that just feel them. Because of this, they are “irresistibly
drawn to emotionally expressive people.”
Though we were good friends, the last Aquarian man I knew thought I was
just way too uppity, which makes we wonder if analytical people and emotional
people ever understand each other. This is the stuff of which drama is
made. There’s attraction, expression, conflict, resolution. There are people
having their emotions, big-time, and other people watching them, perhaps
wishing they could be more emotional or perhaps being thankful that they’re
not overly emotional. I’m glad we’re not all alike.
We usually invoke Janus on this first day of the year. He was the Roman
two-faced god of the doorway (ianus), the transition point between the
safe indoors and the outside world, where anything could happen. Roman
weren’t alone in believing that this opening needed to be protected. The
mezuzah, which holds verses from Deuteronomy, is affixed to doors of Jewish
houses, the façade around the doorway of a medieval cathedral is as elaborate
as the altar, and nearly every pagan is taught to cut a “doorway” into
the energy of the circle. As the doorway stands between inside and outside,
so does the turning year stand between an old year we knew and a new year
we don’t yet know. Janus gave his name to January and the Romans honored
him all month. Before he came to the city, however, he was Dioanus, an
Italian oak god whose consort was the woodland goddess, Diana.
Let’s honor Janus, then let him be. Let’s turn to Cardea, the Roman goddess
who represents the hinges on the door. As the hinge goddess, Cardea supervises
our comings and goings. Every time we go through that door, there she is,
the hinge of our busy life. Sometimes she squeaks. Sometimes she sticks.
Could these be auguries? Almost always, she permits us to move at will.
She knows that we will come home again. In your mind’s eye see Cardea at
your door. Expand your vision and see her balancing on the hinges of your
life. Where will you go this year? She’ll be with you. Just so we have
it by heart, let us repeat with Dame Julian of Norwich,
All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will
be well.
In a sermon on “Home,” my friend Beth, a Unitarian Universalist minister,
said that when she first moved to California, she’d say, “I’m going home
to Chicago.” Before getting on the plane to return to California, she’d
say, “I’m going back there.” Home, she said, was “where they knew me when.”
I started out in a blue-collar, Republican, Calvinist family in the Village
of Dellwood, five miles north of St. Louis. Five miles was a long distance
in the 1940s. Dellwood was rural. Remember those sentimental movies about
small-town life in which Hollywood producers like Louis B. Mayer invented
“family values”? That’s where I started. I was the first girl in my family
to go to college and the only one to earn advanced degrees, the first to
get divorced, the first to move out of state. I’m the only pagan in my
family. I wouldn’t move back to Dellwood if you paid me. That’s back there.
Reader, where’s your back there? Where did you start from? Who “knew you
when”? How far away—in miles, in time, in emotional space—are you now from
back there? I changed when I left Dellwood and went to college. What first
changed you? Do you ever go back there? How do they react to you now? When
you “came out” as a pagan, what did they say back there?
If your back there and your home here and now are as divergent as mine
are, how do we reconcile the differences and still keep the love of our
families? Think about your family today. In what ways are you still their
baby? In what ways are you an autonomous adult? What part of back there
will you always carry with you, no matter where you go?
As Latin historian Diodorus Siculus tells us, the goddess of the hearth
protects all who come to her for tutelage, at home or in public places.
The Greeks considered her iconic fire to be so sacred that if it went out,
it could only be rekindled with a sanctified fire wheel. One of the Homeric
Hymns tells us that, alone of all the Olympians, Hestia never took part
in wars. For this, even Zeus paid her the greatest honor and reverence.
Hestia is primarily a domestic goddess, the spirit of the hearth before
which the head of the household made regular ritual offerings. She’s the
goddess of the ritual meal, the best part of which goes to her. We see
an echo of this custom when we save a bite of our “cakes and ale” to return
to the Goddess. If you have a figure of Hestia, it’s probably not her.
Her only true image was glowing charcoal covered by white ashes, which
was how Greek housekeepers kept the hearthfire overnight. Unlike Vesta,
her Roman counterpart, Hestia never appeared in human form. In later days,
she was represented by a flame. A song that was popular during World War
I, “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” wasn’t about Hestia, but its sentiment
captures the idea of the goddess. She is everything homely we fight to
protect. She’s the one we come home to every night. Home protects us. Hestia
protects our home.
Reader, how do you honor Hestia? One way to do so is to light a white
candle and set it near the center of your home. Invoke the goddess, give
thanks that you have a home, and ask for her blessing. Another way to honor
her is to clean house. Not just the fireplace (if you have one), but the
whole house.
Do you want to know what happened in pagan history or in my imagination today? What I wrote about on your birthday? BUY THIS BOOK. You can buy a signed copy from me and you can find it at your local bookstore or on line. If it's not on the shelf in your bookstore, please ask them to order it.