Call For Submissions: Frey Devotional

I am putting together a devotional anthology for Frey (because I love Frey!) with the working title “Honey, Grain, and Gold.” I am looking for:
1) Prayers to Frey, of any kind. Under 100 lines.
2) Poetry for/about/from Frey. Under 100 lines.
3) Frey-relevant rituals, of any kind. Under 2000 words.
4) Frey-relevant recipes.
5) Essays about your personal experience of Frey, or your devotional activity towards Frey, or how honoring Frey has changed your life, or similar topics. Between 500 and 5000 words.
6) Devotional songs for Frey, either with sheet music, or with a recording you can send me.
7) Traditional songs (past copyright or with permission) that you find particularly Frey-relevant.
8) Frey-related images suitable for printing in black and white, such as images of Frey, photos of Frey/Vanic altars or ritual items, or exceptionally inspirational nature/farm/grain photos. (The original must be at least 300dpi at final print size. If you didn’t make the image yourself, I need some kind of documentation of copyright permission.)

Please do not send me writing that complains about or criticizes other people’s spiritual beliefs or practices.

Send submissions to Joshua: joshuatenpenny@yahoo.com. Files can be Word doc, Open Office, plain text, or pasted into the email. Include your full legal name and your address, so I can send a release, and what name you want used in the book.

Thanks, and please pass this along wherever you feel it is appropriate.
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And just a reminder, if there is a deity that you’d like to see a devotional for, and you’ve got some material for it but are scared of organizing the anthology yourself, send me an email. Asphodel Press is always looking for more deity devotionals, especially for gods besides Odin and Loki – they have enough! Also collections of prayers and rituals. (And don’t think that we won’t publish your devotional because we don’t know you or because we don’t like your god.)

-- Joshua Tenpenny

...from Thursday the 14th of January to Thursday the 21st. On the 14th we'll be presenting at PLAY in LA. On the 22nd we're going to Phoenix for Southwest Leather. For the intervening period, including the weekend, we will be out there with nothing to do. Raven would very much like to fill our time with virtuous occupation, because he's that sort of person, and because it's very rare for us to be out there, and we don't know when we'll be out there again. We'd be willing to travel as far north as SF, if there's reason, but probably not much further.

So we're looking for suggestions from people in that area who are leatherfolk, or Pagan, or transgendered, or any other demographic who might be interested in Raven (and perhaps myself) speaking or giving classes or Raven doing readings, who are part of a group who'd want us (or have a dozen friends who'd commit to coming), and who'd be interested in helping us set something up ... or who can at least point us toward likely organizations that you've had dealings with and who would be OK with us contacting them.

We would be needing transportation (we're flying out and wouldn't have a car), a place for us to sleep with a real bed, a door that closes, and no smoking or pet hair, a chance to sell books; speaker's fee or workshop fees are quite reasonable and negotiable as Raven has this thing about accessibility.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, let us know.

--Joshua

Raven and I will be doing a 2-week tour of private classes and readings through some southern states, starting Wednesday. While our days and some evenings are spoken for, we still have some free evenings. If we are going through your area and you want a reading from Raven (and are willing to come to our motel room), or if you would like Raven to give an evening class to you and a few of your friends (ideally without us having to travel too far), drop him an email. He can do Pagan classes, or BDSM, or sex/spirituality.

Here's where and when our free evenings are:

Friday, Oct. 2: Williamsburg VA area
Saturday, Oct. 3: ditto
Sunday, Oct. 4: ditto
Wednesday, Oct. 7: Winston-Salem NC
Friday, Oct. 9: Hagerstown MD
Saturday, Oct. 10: Hagerstown MD
Sunday, Oct. 11: Sidney NY

Class fees are negotiable; talk to Raven. Readings are paid in barter. You can talk to me about what we need most; Raven doesn't handle that.

We may also be in the LA-to-Phoenix area in January; we'll post more on that when we know.

--Joshua

So, to recap, Raven and I were were both pleasantly surprised to see that service-based relationships predominated at the Master/slave conference. There also seemed to be a great many people who acknowledged on some level the M/s relationship as a spiritual calling of some kind, or as something akin to monasticism. Also, there were a whole lot of folks who think that romantic love is not compatible with an M/s dynamic, and no one seemed to think romantic love is an important thing to have in an M/s relationship.

Aside from the fascinating sociological observation, what this prompted Raven and I to reconsider our options with regard to fining other submissives.

So, pass the word. Raven and I are interested in finding an FTM service-oriented submissive who lives in or near central Massachusetts, who can find fulfillment in being in service without romantic love. Anywhere on the "trans-masculine spectrum" is acceptable, though a hormonally transitioned or transitioning FTM would be ideal, regardless of gender identity or surgery. We are open to a "no sex, no SM" service relationship, but we prefer someone who's hot for FTMs & likes getting fucked. Extra points for being a heavy masochist. They wouldn't have to be a Pagan (although that would be great), but they would have have some interest in the process of M/s as a spiritual path. Moderately heavy manual labor is a necessary part of the job, so they would need to at least be able to carry fifty pounds, walk on uneven terrain, and shovel manure.

It would be part-time, with a firm commitment to coming to our farm twice a week. (Sometimes for fun, sometimes for work, but at least eight hours a week. No long distance.) There is definitely the possibility of a live-in position in the future, but being part-time indefinitely is fine.

So if you know anyone who would be interested in being one of Raven's boys, email him at cauldronfarm@hotmail.com and put "FTM boy" in the title.

-- Raven's Boy, Joshua

Raven & I just got back from the M/s Conference in DC, and we actually had a pretty good time. We were there to promote Alfred Press (www.alfredpress.com) or latest POD publishing collective for books on "living and loving differently" - mainly poly and D/s relationship stuff. It went really well. We had been intending to publish Jack McGeorge's ODS household manual later this year, but his death changed our timetable. Amazingly, we were able to get it done in two weeks, and sold almost 75 copies at the conference, raising over $800 for his family & funeral expenses. He had been very active in the M/s Conference and Master Taino's Training Academy, and they dedicated the conference to him. I am really proud to have been part of making that happen.

On a more personal note, Raven and I did a lot more networking and socializing than last year (thanks to Christina Parker, for the most part), and learned a lot about this M/s community. I would really call it a community, being roughly comprised of the many MAsT chapters, the organizers, presenters and regular attendees of the M/s conferences, and their loosely (or closely) affiliated leather households and training programs.

M/s is Master/slave. Given that, I had assumed what would distinguish the M/s folks from the BDSM folks who do D/s would be the degree of control. I had assumed in this community, one would primarily find relationships where one person had a very high degree of control over all or most aspects of the other person's life. That wasn't the case at all. The degree of control varied widely between relationships, and didn't seem much higher (on average) than what was found in among D/s folks. And besides, the degree of control wasn't how they defined their relationships as M/s.

What defined the relationships was service. No matter what degree of control was involved, this community seemed to characterize M/s relationships as one where the bottom rendered meaningful non-sexual real-world service of some kind to the top, even if only part time, and the top took a certain amount of responsibility for some aspect of the bottom's development. A fair number of the relationships were non-sexual and some didn't have any SM play, and while that was seen as a little unusual, no one seemed to question whether you can make an M/s relationship work without it. The general attitude seemed to be, "Of course you can. That isn't what M/s is about."

Wow. I certainly have seen many relationships that look like that, but I was not at all expecting this to be the predominant community relationship model in what was called the "M/s" community. It totally blew my mind.

Okay, I have more to say on this, but I have to go to yoga.

-- Joshua

I graduated from my Shiatsu program on Friday. Happy day! No more driving to Quincy 2-3x a week. The director of the school has asked if I will TA the point location classes in the Fall. I'm honored but no - it is Friday nights and I am already booked. She'd have to switch it to Tuesday night if she wants me that badly. She also liked my term paper so much that she asked if I'd come in next year to teach it as a workshop. Whoohoo. (It was on treatment strategies for Rheumatoid Arthritis in Asian bodywork.)

Elizabeth got me a credit-card sized digital picture viewer, which now has many pictures of the dog and two pictures of Raven holding baby livestock. Bella got me a silver chain for these rings E had gotten me a while back. (I'd been wearing them around my neck on a string.)

And Raven got me a Weed-Wacker! (Or perhaps it is some other brand of gas-powered string-trimmer, but whatever.) Bella picked it out, and I love it very much. Some folks used it to mow the Labyrinth over the weekend, and this morning I whacked down vast quantities of plant matter. Yeah! The doggie area is no longer a jungle. The thistles in the north pasture have been shredded. The huge lush patches of ground ivy and catmint (which the sheep will not eat) have been mowed to bits. I mowed my way through a full tank of gas. (BTW - big thick jewelweed is super yucky to mow. Slimy gobbets of plant matter flying everywhere. Blegh.)

-- Joshua

I love the internet.

Raven has been joking for a while about how he is the Evil Overlord of the Transsexual Empire, so last year I made him a shirt saying that. He began recruiting Minions and Hench-beings. Fabulous.

So I decided he needed a webpage for this.

Evil Overlord of the Transsexual Empire

-- Joshua

So this is an email we weren't expecting...

Raven was emailed by the casting director of "Wife Swap", saying they are looking to feature a Wiccan or Pagan family on the show, and would we be interested. Um... No. I only have a vague idea what the show is about, but I'm certain we don't want to be on it.

However, if anyone wants to look into it, here is the info. You get $20,000 for participating. They are looking for a Pagan or Wiccan family, with two parents and at least one kid aged 7-17, all living together.

-- Joshua

( Her email... )

Finally, after all this time, the Giant's Tarot is printed and ready to go, along with its lovely little book. We are thrilled, and we want to thank all the artists who contributed to this project. The deck is available on Asphodel Press as a limited edition, and nowhere else. It's only $30.

http://asphodelpress.com/ntshamanism.html

Send it around and tell people about it!

Artists, please send your mailing addresses to Raven at cauldronfarm@hotmail.com if you want your free copies.

--Joshua

So, it is official that Asphodel is running the main ritual at this year's Free Spirit Gathering, June 16-21 (Tuesday-Sunday) in Darlington, Maryland:
freespiritgathering.org. Registration is $160 for the weekend (cabin or tenting) if you register by May 31st, more if you pay at the door or come earlier in the week.

FSG is a fun gathering. The programming is very good - not just the usual chakra crystal healing and intro to candle magic. They've got fire spinning classes, drum making, brewing, singing, and and assortment of sexuality workshops. You expect to see bellydancing workshops at these things, but how many festivals have classes on the sacred nature of the Cha Cha and Rhumba? It is all very cool.

We'll have a cabin full of Asphodel folks. I'm not sure how many more beds we have left in our cabin, but folks can tent near us or be in a nearby cabin.

Elizabeth, Alex & I will be coordinating the Asphodel Kitchen for folks who don't want to eat at the dining hall. The dining hall food isn't bad, but it is expensive for cafeteria food and not so good for folks with dietary restrictions. I've done this in the past, and it works out really well and is a lot of fun. I'm asking folks to contribute $10-25 per person per day (sliding scale - you decide based on your appetite and wallet).

Raven has been spending a lot of time working on his dollhouse. I'm taking pictures of it, room by room, and posting them to Flikr. Check it out!

Cauldron Farm dollhouse on Flikr

-- Joshua

I took a few pictures of Raven in his big fluffy white coat with the little fluffy white dog. She was a very sleepy puppy. I assure you she was yawning, not trying to eat Raven's face.
( Fuzzy Puppy Love! )
E has a very cute picture of her here may post a video as well.

-- Joshua

As some of you saw at Imbolc, THE PUPPY IS HERE! Her name is Kojka ("kosh-ka"), which means "birch" - because she's white.



She's super cute and very friendly, and we are enjoying her very much. Best thing about her - Raven and I are not at all allergic to her! Yeah! She can even lick my face and it doesn't make me itch. This is wonderful.

Shes still getting the hang of sleeping alone. She'll sleep through the night just fine... provided I'm with her. Since I need only the smallest excuse to sleep with the dog, that is fine with me. (Wow! A dog I can sleep with, and still be able to breathe in the morning!) As of now, she hardly sheds at all, but that might be because she doesn't have her full adult coat yet. She's very calm during grooming.

She's a little shy. Down the road from us in both directions are barky dogs. The ones by the intersection might continue to be a problem, but I think when Kojka gets a little bigger the yappy cocker spaniels to the south of us won't seem so scary. Unfortunately, for now she refuses to go for a run in either direction down the road. With difficulty I can persuade her to go a little ways, but she starts whimpering and trembling. Going out back into the woods would be a slog through deep snow, not a run. Pity she shows no interest in fetch. Perhaps I'll work on that.


As far as books... yes I have read Karen Pryor's "Don't Shoot the Dog", as well as the two dog books by the Monks of New Skete. (I've also read their book about how they founded their monastery - very interesting. They've got an order of married monastics.) I'm giving clicker training a shot. She got pretty good at "sit" last night.

-- Joshua

Happy news!

We will be getting a dog sometime in the next week or so - A PUPPY! It is a Samoyed - super cute dogs, amazingly cute puppies. Her name is Kojka (pronounced sorta like koshka) which means birch tree. Oddly enough, Raven's daughter decided to buy a fluffy white puppy this month -- an American Eskimo -- without knowing that Raven was also buying one. Kojka is about seven weeks old right now, and the breeder will ship her when airline schedules and weather allow. Maybe this Wednesday, maybe next week.

I am beyond excited. I am puppy obsessed. This is the first time I've ever had a puppy, rather than a full grown dog, and the first time I'll be training a dog to do anything more complicated than "don't poop in the house". I've been compulsively reading dog training and dog behavior books. Provided she takes well to the training, we'll eventually teach her to pull a little sled or cart. W00t!

-- Joshua

I'm posting this for Raven. In June, he'll be presenting at two events in a row - the Philadelphia Transgender Health Conference in Philly, and Free Spirit Gathering in MD. There are only about 3 days between those two events, so it won't make sense for us to drive all the way back to Massachusetts and then all the way back down a day later. This means that we will be in the mid-Atlantic area for quite some time.

Raven and I will be free Sunday the 14th and Monday the 15th. Raven's wondering if any one in the Philly-to-MD area would be interested in hosting classes, given by him, me, or both of us, since we're going to be there and we don't get out of New England very often.

These could be either Pagan workshops (perhaps local Pagan/occult shops might be interested) or kink/BDSM workshops (maybe local kink groups might be interested). He has about a hundred workshops he can do, and his prices are ridiculously low. I've got a few myself, and I assist with many of his. He is often willing to do up to 3 a day, depending on which they are. If anyone is interested, and is willing to bother your local groups or shops, have them email Raven and we'll send over a list for them to pick from.

If it's in Philly, we will be staying with Raven's daughter, the Princess Jess. If it's southwards, we may need someone's spare room to crash in, with a reasonably comfortable bed for two in a nonsmoking house. There is a possibility that we may have our (soon-to-arrive) new dog with us, so that needs to be OK with people.

Thank you,

--Joshua

Asphodel is no longer hosted on the Cauldron Farm site!

It is now at: http://www.churchofasphodel.org

Perhaps this will help with the "Asphodel" = "Cauldron Farm" = "Raven Kaldera" issue we seem to have with folks who primarily know of us via the internet. (Though I find the term "Kalderans" amusing...)

Many of the other parts of the Cauldron Farm website have also been moved, to new sites like ravenkaldera.org, paganbookofhours.org, asphodelpress.com, northernshamanism.org, and holisticbodyworking.com.

I've set up a number of redirects, but if you can't find something where it used to be, email me and I'll try to point you to its new location.

-- Joshua

Our power is finally back on. It had been out since the ice storm last week. We had no running water, but with the stove we did have heat and hot meals, which was better than most folks in town. C&J down the road don't have power yet, because the wires were ripped from their house, but they do have phone and heat.

These aren't pics of Hubbardston, but close enough:
http://www.pbase.com/kirstenmary/big_ice_massachusetts_ice_storm

Being without power for so long has definitely got R thinking about getting a generator. At the very least I'd like some way to have clean water during a power outage. We have a well, so no power for the pump means no water, and the pump would require a fairly sizable generator. (I'd even like a hand-powered pump, but they are actually quite expensive.) Seeing as we also need a new washing machine, and I just got the exhaust fixed on the car... I'm not sure if it'll happen this year.

-- Joshua

Raven and I just got a brand new.... "Hight Speed Chinese Herbs Plant Grinding Machine". It is a large herb grinder from a Chinese medical supply company. It is a lovely little machine, and thankfully easy to use, because if it had more than one switch we'd have to refer to the manual.

The manual... Oh boy. Some favorite selections:
"This machine chooses to use the super-speed electrical engineering kit, and can quickly smash the every kind of medicine material,and smash such as mythic fungus,licorice, pearl...etc., general Chinese herbal medicine the powder does not exceedthe half minute, two cent can pearl powder white wheat flour.
Have The physical volume is small, Weight small, The effect is high, Operation Chien is then, The characteristics of the economy energy.
Proper Chinese herbal medicine of Apply of this machine store, Hospital inside pharmacy The Chinese herbal medicine adds the industrial plant, Science think factory, The powder of the beauty salon and other profession processes."

"This machine is not proper to long hours continuously work, if work the quantity is big, must pause a short moment (few minutes) the etc. fuselage of airplane slightly cool off the empress to continuously use again, then prevented the bearings the hot damage electrical engineering, and suffer the heat at the same time but the influence smash the thing's efficacy of medicine."

In the troubleshooting section (which is titled "Smash the familiar breakdown of machine to produce the reason and expel the method"). If the "breakdown" is "switch on electricity the empress, electrical engineering to send out the small voice, and turn to move very slow or not turn to move", it could be because "smash the thing damp, too much stick to the razor blade". We are advised to "immediately cut off the power supply ( prevent to burn the bad electrical engineering), and take out to stick to the thing".

But that I can at least make sense of. We can't figure out what they mean by "the empress", but we've decided our wonderful new machine must be named "Empress Smash".
( Read the whole manual... )

Some of us nearly passed out doing dramatic readings...

-- Joshua

I read this over Raven's shoulder and wanted to share it...

A Small Semi-Poetic Hymn
To Hela, Who Owns My Ass
- Raven Kaldera

Sometimes I do not like my Goddess much.
Sometimes, even, my voice is raised
In hatred, in wrath, in despair
And yet, of late, the tiny things come to me,
One at a time, the reasons to be grateful
For serving Her. Of late,
I think on how the sky-Gods, the earth-Gods
Take part in politics between those
Who worship them - either to stir up,
Or to make frith, or to teach lessons,
And drag their reluctant servants
Into the screaming fray. Even Flame-Hair
And some darker others, may ambivalently
Turn their gaze and their workers hence.

Yet Her cold gaze
Is set beyond this; She takes no note of such
Tiny things. Perhaps because so few
Revere Her, the importance of folk is not
Counted by their reverence. She casts Her net
Wide and forward-looking; Her eyes seek
The greater plan, the wider implications.
I ask her of community, and She says:

Community is who comes to you
When you open your door and offer to serve
Any who come. Your people are whoever
It is given to you to aid, regardless
Of whether their necks bear hammers,
Pentacles, crystals, or even crosses.
Build the door and they will come,
And come, and come. Be as limitless
As Death, and beyond. Have no foot wholly
In any place, and many more will
Welcome you. Guard your honor,
Do your work, and care only about that,
But care about that deeply,
With an abiding passion
That burns like hallowed flame.

Yeah, I can do that.

So, Lady. If I must be a pawn
Let it be on a wider stage,
A greater play, with a cast of thousands
And thousands more.

You see, I am finding reasons
To be grateful for my Life
Every difficult day of its telling.

This is a message from Raven that I am posting hither and yon. Pass it around.

-Joshua
*********************************************************************************

Speaking for the Dead of my Tribe

Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

For those who don’t know, that holiday celebrates all the transgendered people who have been killed by violence (or in some cases, driven to commit suicide) because of who and what they were. This holiday was started because the numbers of such violent murders are an exceptionally high percentage of such a small minority. People want to see us dead, and many of them are willing to try it themselves.

These are my ancestors, all blood aside. More are killed every month. This is Wrong, a Great Wrong.

Tonight and tomorrow, there will be memorial services in four different places in this state. The Boston and Northampton services will be tonight; Worcester and Springfield tomorrow. These are not transgender-only events. They are for anyone who has trans friends, who feels that this is Wrong.

If you cannot make it to any communal event, then do it on your own. Light a candle, perhaps at 8 or 9 tonight or tomorrow. Tell the Powers that Be that this is Wrong, and it needs to be changed. Put out a plate of food for the Dead. Play music for them. Say their names. (The best resource for the current list of names of the trans Dead is the Remembering Our Dead website: http://rememberingourdead.org.)

If you are in Asphodel, you will be well acquainted with a number of transgendered people. Some may actually be your friends. Keep in mind that all those transfolk beaten to death in alleys, stabbed to death in their bedrooms, might have been any of us. They could still be us, and we live every day knowing that.

If all goes well and our household is recovered from the plague tomorrow, we will be at the Worcester memorial ceremony, and I will sing the new song that I have written for the Dead of my tribe. (I’d like to be able to post a mp-3 of it for free on my website; if there is anyone local to me with a working laptop that will record me singing, let me know. It’s my gift to the living community as well as the Dead.)

In honor of the fallen,

-Raven Kaldera