Blessed Beltane!

I'm thinking that if I gently tie ribbons to the cats' tails, and carefully use laser pointers for them to chase, I might persuade them to make me a lovely Maypole. Or not.

In other news, I am glad that the American Veterans Affairs Department has recently approved the pentacle as a symbol to be used on the headstones of fallen soldiers who practice the appropriate faith. This, to me, means that pagans are gradually becoming more accepted in society, and that's great. The more tolerance the better, I say. The only thing that niggles at me a bit is that, because of almost of the items I've read on this (including this funny one), people are going to assume that every time they see a pentacle, that person is a Wiccan.

Now, I don't want to get bogged down on the "labelology" here, but I'll give you an analogy. All Baptists are Protestants, but not all Protestants are Baptists. Similarly, all Wiccans are Pagan, but not all Pagans are Wiccans.

I, for example, am not Wiccan. Wiccans have set structures, beliefs, etc. I'm an eclectic pagan, which means I don't neatly fit in any particular slot. I don't fall entirely within the Wiccan parameters, so it's not actually correct to call me a Wiccan.

Ultimately, I don't think it matters to me a whole lot. I can count on one hand the number of people who've even seen my pentacle. But there are others out there who will get all bent out of shape over it. (Some pagans are pretty uptight. It really is like a lot of other faiths out there, and why not? We all have the "human factor" in common.)

On that happy note, read this. It has a lot of "inside jokes", but it's still pretty funny to the uninitiated.