Letting Go

Majestic elephant ears impossible to believe without a photo. A week later and a hard freeze and there is almost nothing left. So I get out my small hand clippers and cut into the stem that tried very hard to be a trunk. It takes ten or more cuts to get through it. Water seeps onto the clippers, the blood of the creature freely given. Sitting and cutting it into smaller pieces for the compost pile, I find several leaves inside, wrapped around and around, ready to unfurl in case the season turned out to be longer. But it never is much longer. Winter creeps up regardless of the global warming. It knows its time is spent and has no regrets. It lets go without a whimper or sigh. The human gets all sentimental. Sadness and joy envelop him as he understands one more slice of the mystery! Meanwhile the elephant in Africa does not wonder about her ears, but drags her mate to the elephant graveyard. She will visit him again and again, wondering what became of him, as she watches his carcass get eaten by the carrion hunters, and his bones whiten in the sun. Finally she too will let go, seeking solace by hiding in the big green leaves of her home in the foliage. [7234]

The Catholic vote

For some reason I have been listening to Catholic radio lately. I don't know why exactly. I grew up as a Catholic and I always felt a certain respect for the intellectual integrity of those in authority. Yes, doctrine was important, but I was lucky enough to be among Catholics who welcomed critical thinking and argument. I guess they felt confident enough in their faith to do so. I must say that lately I have been terribly disappointed in that respect. Maybe those who go on the radio are the most conservative of the Catholics, or maybe Pope Benedict has moved the Church further in a weird direction, I do not know. When I was a kid, most Catholics I knew were Democrats. There was an understanding that the Democratic party was for the "little people," the working people, those who wanted some fairness, some government protection at times for the greed and influence, the brutal disregard for human rights of those with the money and power. Justice was an important moral principle.

Now it seems that the Catholic hierarchy and their spokespersons on the radio have simplified things. Now we are told that there is room for disagreement on most moral issues. For example, a Catholic can believe that it is morally acceptable to, unprovoked, invade a sovereign nation with the most deadly military force on the planet and kill thousands of civilians, and then occupy that country for six years, or a Catholic can believe that it is morally wrong to do so. A Catholic can believe that it is morally acceptable for the state to execute a man in cold blood or a Catholic can believe that it is wrong to do so. A Catholic can believe that public policy that rewards greed and creates the condition of 45 million people without health insurance is morally wrong or a Catholic can believe that it is morally right to do so.

However if a lab technician discards embryos, a Catholic has only one choice. He or she must believe that the technician is a murderer. If a 14 year old girl is brutally raped by her father and takes a "morning-after pill," a Catholic has only one choice and must believe that that girl is a murderer because she took a chemical that made her uterine wall inhospitable to any conception that might have taken place. The Catholic is of course able to decide whether it would be morally acceptable to execute the lab technician and the girl or not.

If a man forms a monogamous bond with another man or a woman with another woman and wants to sanctify that union, the Catholic must condemn this and must insist that it be criminalized. The Catholic has no other choice. In some unknown time and place, God has decided to be absolutely clear about homosexuality and abortion and the Church bears witness to that, but has decided to allow everything else to be a bit gray and ambiguous. And the Church becomes upset when people question that or when people say, "Are you kidding me?" I never thought I had to leave my brain at the door of the Church when I was a practicing Catholic. Now it seems that Catholics are asked to do so. [7129]

Intuition

It was a long trek. Flight from Fredericton, New Brunswick to Toronto went uneventfully, even the process of getting my luggage, going through customs, re-checking my baggage, then going through security again. Taking the long trip by bus to the gate where I was to fly to Cleveland. Then the problems arose. Flight to Cleveland cancelled. Trip back by bus to customs back into Canada, wait a long time for bags. Call 800 number to try to get a different flight, knowing that I will be charged 69 cents a minute because I am using a US cell phone. Thirty minutes, some hope, then the call is dropped. Finally get luggage, turn in customs card, pull luggage and briefcase a long way again, find special phones to talk to Air Canada, finally get new flight. Check bag, but have to carry it through customs again, turn in another customs card, then need to go through security again. I walk into the area and see a very long line. It is like the lines at Disney World, weaving around and around, passing people each time around. I am tired, weary.

I notice a guy with a T-shirt that says Namaste on it and something about when I am in that space and you are in that space, we are one. I think of nodding and giving him the Namaste gesture, but I do not. Then I remember to breathe. I remember to notice the higher self and check with it. There is no exhaustion, no weariness there. I realize that the higher self is excited. About what? All these people from different places on the planet. This is Toronto after all. There are many people here that I have never encountered in the flesh in this lifetime. I learn from the Higher self that many of them are folks I have known well in other lifetimes. There is a big party on the other side as the higher selves of all these people interact. It would give them the greatest joy to experience some interaction here on this plane.

The Namaste guy passes again and I bow with hands joined. He responds and comments about my T-shirt, which is about spiritual healing. He says something about the connection and walks on. There is a huge smile on my face. I tentatively check out folks as they pass, not wanting to intrude, knowing that most would have no awareness of their connection. A woman notices me and smiles. She asks what has struck me as funny. I respond that it is a bit difficult to explain, but the connection was established, and there is much joy on the other side.

The connection for me ebbs and flows. The body is still tired and weary, and must be attended to. The higher self knows this and does what it can, but on some level doesn’t really care. A little discomfort is certainly worth it for the amazing thing that has just happened. Plus, it is excellent practice for this little human to learn to breathe and to follow my intuition even when there are some minor obstacles

I picked up Paulo Coelho’s book “The Witch of Portobello” and discover it is all about intuition, which was the topic of my workshop in Fredericton. A super question I have been playing with is this: “How would my life be different if I always consulted with my intuition and followed it, always?” I haven’t finished the book yet but it appears that the main character Athena comes close to this. She does end up murdered but there is much more to it. [This is not really a spoiler because this fact is revealed on page two of the book.]

I am writing this at a point where I have just one more flight to get home and it too has been delayed. However I do think I will get home yet tonight. Due to the last delay, I had time for supper and I ordered a Portobello mushroom sandwich in Athena’s honor.

Any Paul Coelho fans out there? What do you think about my super question? [6429]

Preparing for Trip Part Two

Dream: We are working on a problem: falling down through the atmosphere. I point out that there is the factor of increased wind resistance, for example a billowing skirt, or ultimately a parachute. Someone brings forth a very large blanket-like thing. It looks like it was crocheted. There are small holes. I am told that it would work for 700 people falling.

Wake and doze.

I examine the crocheted canopy. I look at it very closely and I see that there are countless stories woven into the fabric. Stories of people’s lives: struggles, joys, lessons learned and not learned, experiences, rich experiences.

Perhaps my story is in there. Perhaps I am in the process of weaving my story in.

There is this problem you see. Every night I travel through many realms. I attend schools. In some of them I am the teacher, in some the student, in many I am both teacher and student. As I get ready to wake up, it is as if I am ready to “jump out of a perfectly good airplane.” I need a chute, a canopy, to soften my fall so that I will remember something of who I really am. As each morning approaches, I try out a different parachute, a new idea on how to soften the fall. However, each morning I wake up into a dense complicated troubling world. The chute fails to open and I forget. The energy, the information dissipates. I am immediately caught up into the drama.

It is getting better though as I am remembering to breathe. I can breathe in the memories that do get through. I breathe in the crocheted canopy this morning. I am thankful for the many beautiful stories woven into that fabric. I breathe them all in this morning as I prepare for my trip north and east.

My destination is Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. The third North American Conference on Spirituality and Social Work. [6391]

Preparing for Trip Part One

Herodie and Blaster-Fye were playing in the garden when the call came in. Instantaneously they were at their posts ready to help. Their assignment was to report any changes in the main dude’s nightly ritual. He often sat with his wife in his lazy boy watching these strange British movies that she got at the library, mostly odd-acting private investigators, aristocratic landowners and bored women coming of age. Around 9:30 or ten he would announce he was going up stairs to bed. Once up there he would invariably check his email and often get involved in some correspondence or other, or get distracted by something on the Internet. Before he got upstairs, they were at their posts waiting in his room. Herodie liked to float near the ceiling and she occasionally got a glance at one of the bats living in the walls. Blaster-Fye stayed near his desk, as he was fascinated with their Internet systems.

When the human came in the room, Blaster-Fye could see Neocyd floating above his left shoulder and she reminded him that this night might be different as the human was indeed very tired. He just might decide to go right to bed.

Neocyd was a true creator and she had actually been a human once, but she had no intention of going through that experience again. It was a long time ago and she had integrated that aspect of herself during the time of Jeshua. The truth be told she had recently considered becoming embodied again, but she loved hanging around the human and she figured that she got all the experience she would ever want watching and learning from him. She especially had relished the changes in him during the last decade and loved to watch all the beings who hung around just at a distance hoping to learn from his experiences. Just then the human took a deep conscious breath and Neocyd could actually feel the breath going in and out. This strengthened their connection and she imagined herself taking a deep breath with him.

She was delighted by Blaster-Fye and Herodie’s enthusiasm. They were what humans used to call sprytes. They were mostly connected to the Earth realms and their consciousness was playful and a bit hyperactive. Their desire to serve was of course without question and their loyalty to the human was lovely to watch.

Just then Herodie seemed to disappear for a moment and then reappeared all excited. “He is going to sneeze,” she said and sure enough he did, loudly and enthusiastically. Neocyd always wondered where she went to learn this; she suspected she went to what the humans would call the near future, but how she knew to go there at that moment Neocyd had no idea. Whenever she asked, Herodie would just laugh and jump up and down with delight, as she could do something that Neocyd could not.

The human did check his email, but he was done in less than five minutes and got ready for bed. Neocyd was excited because she so enjoyed her encounters with the human once he fell asleep. It was so much easier to communicate with him then, and he was starting to get used to her being there and seemed to actually find some comfort in her presence, although she could not be sure that wasn’t wishful thinking.

The human was leaving the next morning on a trip across lots of human Earth space to what the humans call another country, Canada. Hundreds of angelic beings have of course been working on this trip for months. There were only a few people who would be attending whom the human had encountered in this lifetime, but a large percentage of the attendees are folks whom he had known in other lifetimes. Dozens he had known very well and had worked together for many lifetimes. There were at least seven of these individuals who had met with the human prior to his birth and had made elaborate plans for meetings in the event that such a potential were to take place.

When the human fell asleep, it was truly delicious. He grabbed Neocyd and they traveled together. They met up with dozens of entities all excited about his trip. They had long conversations with the higher aspects of a few people that were determined to meet and spend some time together in human form at the conference.

There were three entities, Necyd didn’t now their names, who watched and prepared for the human’s trip back into his human form. Sometimes it happened so quickly and so preparation was essential. Tonight was a bit different though because the human had been working on a project of remembering more of what took place through the night. He had been working with others on a plan to soften the blow of waking up and had planed to out it into practice tonight. He thought that the parachute metaphor was appropriate and so he developed this elaborately with many others. He wove together many of their stories as well as hundreds of his own past life aspects into a sort of energy field and thought he could download it into his human self just prior to him waking up. He always underestimated the difficulty of remembering. It seemed so easy when he was here. Neocyd knew she was influential in some ways, but he was a master, an angel in human form, and she always respected that.

When he did wake up, he was able to hold on to the tapestry image, and it seemed like he did in fact breathe some of the download into his consciousness. He really wanted to be able to actually remember details of his journey, but Neocyd didn’t understand why that was so important, as it seemed clear to her that he took it in deeply whether he remembered it or not. She wondered again, is it time to go through that again? Things are certainly different, better in many ways, but there is still lots of suffering. The level of consciousness was clearly much higher and the new energy was flowing in faster and faster. Watching the human as she has, she has felt some of it. Is she ready to step into her mastery, but to hide it from herself? Maybe, if the human perfects the waking transition process? Anyway, no hurry; she has her project now of serving the human. It is sufficient for now. [6391]

Purple Irises

I sat on my front porch swing this morning and read the newspaper. Every so often I stood up to look at the beautiful purple irises just below the porch. I soaked in their beauty. Their beauty is amazing to me. It is a blessing to be on earth in this body and be able to experience this.

When I return to my head I am even more amazed. How is it that this flower is so pleasing to me? How did this happen? From an evolutionary point of view, it makes perfect sense that this flower would be attractive to the bee or butterfly that pollinates it. Otherwise it would not exist. But I am not that bee, nor am I that butterfly.

Is it pleasing to me by chance? I could believe that if there are only a very few flowers that are. Is it attractive to me because it increases the chance that I will plant it in my garden? That seems to be too much of a leap to me, although I do not pretend to understand well how "the survival of the fittest" process works. Is it pleasing to me because I share the "pleasing gene" with the bee or butterfly that pollinates it? Now there is an intriguing thought.

It appears that the bee is also pleasing to the iris. The iris does not repel the bee although it may attempt to repel other insects that could have more "sinister" intents, such as to eat it. Am I pleasing to the iris? Does the iris like the fact that I stand up and view it from time to time? Could it be that the iris likes me because I like it? Does my consciousness and the iris' consciousness merge in some way? [6253]

Pivotal Moments in Life Series, first story

[I was backpacking in Scotland when a friend told me how to find Captain Billy and that he had a story that would fit well with my “Pivotal Moments in Life” series. His story is the first I collected for this project, and the one that propels me today to continue working on it.]

When I walked in the bar I could see him over in a corner table. There were several saltshakers in front of him and he was trying to balance one. When I called his name, he glanced up at me with squinty eyes, his head turned one way. He was a stocky fellow. His beard was scraggly, and his skin was an odd reddish gray color.

I told him who had directed me to him and he let out a sigh.

“Get me a bottle of whiskey, and I’ll tell you a story.”

Relieved, I went to the bar, procured the bottle and two glasses and set them in front of him. He poured and took a big swig before beginning. His voice was higher and more precise than I had expected.

“It had been a rough couple of weeks at sea. We hit a bad storm that lasted three days. When it finally let up the ship was pretty beat up. We took our bearings and set off for the closest port where we could get decent repairs. We were at it a couple of days when another storm hit and this one was much worse. We were lucky to get through it alive and when we took our bearings, we spotted land. The island was uncharted, but we decided to check it out, as our fresh water reserves were low.

“I took three of my crew in the boat and we headed for shore. When we got close we spotted what looked like a person sitting on the sand. As we got closer, I could see it was a child. When we landed, I went right for the child. It was a lad. He was looking right at me but made no sign of seeing me. He was the skinniest boy I had ever set eyes on. I could count all his ribs. He was wearing a tattered pair of shorts but no shirt. His skin was caked with layers of sand. I could see patches of red and black where the sand was wearing off, and I realized he had been sunburned repeatedly. I noticed some large shells by him with water in them. Realizing he must have found fresh water, I barked an order to my crew to go find the inland stream.

“It was as if my words brought him around. He looked right into my eyes with an intensity I had never before experienced. I quickly looked away so he wouldn’t see the pity in my eyes.

“That’s a lie. It wasn’t pity I felt but fear. Believe me when I tell you that in my many adventures I have seen things that a man shouldn’t have to see, and remained fearless. But that day I was scared, and to this day I can’t tell you why.

“The boy caught my eye again and spoke. There was the slightest of smiles on his face. These were his exact words. I will never forget them because they were emblazoned into my heart and remain there today:

Captain, left to my own devices I would act girlie, be cheered by the sun, and build sand castles.

“I thought the boy must be delirious, but he spoke with such precision as if he had been practicing the lines for months, and perhaps he had. I glanced up and down the tide line and saw the remains of countless sand castles, as far as I could see.

“You’ll be asking me what became of the kid, so I’ll tell you what I know. He had been the only survivor of a shipwreck three months before we arrived at that island, and his parents and three aunties were killed. A nice family adopted him and his new dad was a fisherman. I stopped in to see him a couple times, but he didn’t have much to say to me, and I could tell that his new family didn’t want me around, as I reminded them of things they wanted to forget. You can’t blame them for that. I heard a story that he ran off to go to sea at sixteen, but I don’t believe it. I suspect he went inland and got away from all that salt and sea. That’s what I would have done, had I been him.

“So you want to know how this has changed my life? In lots of strange ways. I look at things different. I may be seeing a sunset or an ocean liner, and the colors are wrong, or the size. I can’t rightly explain it. But mostly it’s people. When they talk I listen carefully, as if what they say must have some hidden meaning. Usually when people talk they have nothing to say. I know that. But I find myself listening all the same. Has it helped me? A few times it has. I found that women like a man to listen, and I have got close to some lovers I’ve had. But mostly, I end up avoiding people. Once in a while I think I see that kid when I know it’s someone else. I dream about the boy a lot still. I see him wake to the rising sun and turn his face to it, smiling. The sun that almost killed him! And I see him building those cursed sand castles, designing new ones every day, knowing they will be destroyed when the tide comes in. And I see him smiling when it does. And I see him at night, when the stars come out. He dances around the beach, cavorting around like a girl.

“The thing is, I haven’t been able to get the boy out of my head. He was a survivor. He found water and a way to carry it. He found food, at least enough to stay alive. He caked his body in sand to protect it from the blazing sun. The boy was barely eight years old. How did he do it? What was his secret? I ask the question, but I know he already told me. I just can’t understand it. Was he telling me he was happy? He was all alone on that God-forsaken island. How could he be happy? How could he smile at the sun that burned him? How could he keep building those blasted sand castles day after day and watch them wash away? And what in the hell was that girlie thing all about?

“Can you give me any answers?”

I took a drink of the Scotch whiskey and sighed. He had drunk most of the bottle and I had only a short glass. I had no answers for Captain Billy, so I thanked him, stood up and walked out of that bar. [5925]

The Golden Compass (review)

Phillip Pullman wrote a captivating trilogy called His Dark Materials which include The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Eyeglass. The first book was recently made into a major motion picture and so has gotten a lot of attention. The movie stars Nicole Kidman and it won the BAFTA film award for best special visual effects. Prior to seeing the movie, a friend of mine told me he would not see it because the author had an agenda of spreading atheism to our children and he could not support such a thing. I saw the movie but was unable to discover anything sinister about it. In fact I was so captivated that I decided to read the entire trilogy. This is, by the way, exactly what Catholic League's Bill Donohue has warned against. Our kids would be so enthralled by the movie that they would want to read the books and would get indoctrinated into atheism. Well my daughter did check it out from her school library but was little interested in it, but I was amazed by it.

My excitement grew throughout the books. The Golden Compass is so incredibly creative and fresh, in both the book and the movie forms. To bring to life the notion that our souls can live outside our bodies in the form of various animals, called daemons, is beautiful, delicate, and invigorating all at the same time. The character of Lyra is so captivating, yet her heroic adventures are so alien but feel so true within the heart. The Subtle Knife brought in such a believable character,Will. I have seen such self-sacrificing boys and girls inside of adults, those who fought battles that should not have had to be fought at such a young age, those who cared for parents and younger siblings with grace and strength, with resilience and power. Pullman understands so much about human life and about mythology and history. A knife whose blade is so subtle that it can cut through anything is of course the knife that separates you from me, me from myself. This is the Eden story. This is what we as humans chose, to quote Genesis, “the knowledge of good and evil.” By cutting up the universe into pieces, we were able to step into the world of polarity. God was able to see Itself. This is the so-called “fall from grace.” This fall from grace is of course our true grace, that which makes us human, that which makes us grownup. We are able today to look into the eyes of another and we think we see the other, but of course we get a glimpse of ourselves.

There are multiple universes, parallel universes, sitting on top of one another, unbeknown to the inhabitants. There are, of course, scientific theories and mathematics that support such an idea. At any rate, in the story, Will is able to use the knife to cut a window into other universes and then to step through.

In the third book The Amber Spyglass, Will learns that whenever he cuts another window, a way out is created for Dust (dark matter) to escape, thus robbing all sentient life of their very sustenance. At the same time, a ghastly Specter is created, one that literally feasts on Dust, but not on the Dust that floats around us, but the specified Dust within an adult being. It sucks the person dry of all which makes him or her sentient. It is the ultimate vampire, and, of course, difficult to defeat. It will literally eat an adult’s daemon, which is strangely the accumulation, the personification of Dust. Perhaps Dust is consciousness itself, God-energy.

Each new cut makes it more difficult to re-member our oneness. And yet, through an ironic twist, one window is allowed to stay open, and that is the window that Will cut to free the ghosts from the land of the dead so they might return to the oneness. The metaphor the “make-like,” as the mulefa would call it, is strained here, perhaps beyond the breaking point. So the knife itself is “willfully” so strained, and falls to pieces, thus permanently separating Will from Lyra.

But what disturbs me most is Pullman’s preoccupation with sacrifice. I think he gets the final sacrifice correct. Both Will and Lyra are willing to sacrifice themselves to come and live in the other’s world, but they both reject this sacrifice because they know it wouldn’t work. Each would be resentful of the other because neither would be complete or full. Each must live in their own world.

What I don’t get is the sacrifice of the daemon. In order to go into the world of the dead, Lyra (and Will too but he didn’t realize it) must leave her daemon behind. She must sacrifice her own soul in order to keep her promise. Of course she gets her soul (Pan) back and in a more powerful witch or shaman like way where he is freer to travel further from her body. However, there is something that is unsettling about it to me. This sounds too much like Kant for my liking.

There is a wonderful scene in The Amber Spyglass. (278) They are traveling through the suburb of the land of the dead, following a murky stream to Pullman’s version of the River Styx. They come across an injured toad. Tialys (the little spy) suggests they kill it to put it out of its misery, speculating that it is in pain.

Will says, “If it could tell us, we’d know. But since it can’t, I’m not going to kill it. That would be considering our feelings instead of the toad’s.”

Doesn’t Lyra do the same when she betrays her daemon, betrays herself in order to appease her own guilt in regard to Roger? Is this really a model to strive after? In my mind it doesn’t fit the theme of the book. To create the “Republic of Heaven” one must be honest with oneself, one must honor one’s own daemon. It is possible though that there is a piece here that I do not understand. The witch Serafina Pekkala explains that all witches go through this process as young girls. They leave their daemon behind but do not sever from it, and as a result, their daemon can roam further from them than other sentient beings. But I am not so sure that the witches provide very good role models either. They are fierce and jealous and have strange wars that make no apparent sense. When they offer themselves as lovers, they expect the man to comply, and if one refuses her, she feels totally justified in putting an arrow through his heart, as was done to Will’s father.

So I must remain unsatisfied in regard to the self-sacrifice issue. In regard to the God-issue, I am much more satisfied. Although Pullman does get just a tad preachy in the last few chapters, and the “Republic of Heaven” metaphor is a bit strained, the lack of a Creator fits well with my theology. According to the story, the first angel pretended to be the creator and set himself as the “Authority,” demanded to be obeyed and posed as Yahweh. We all know that god, jealous and immoral, vindictive and arbitrary. As Jung so aptly pointed out, Job revealed himself to be more ethical. The scene with the “Authority” aged and frail, sad and feeble, locked away in his crystal prison, was beautifully executed. He, like those he imprisoned in the world of the dead, is freed to spread his molecules throughout the universe. Pullman is critised over and over for "killing God" in the movie. Well first of all he doesn't kill off God but "the Authority" the God-imposter. The book leaves it open as to whether there was a creator or not. Even the angels do not know. I like that detail. For those who do believe in an after-life, it is refreshing to think that those on "the other side" may in fact be as clueless as we are about this question. I think the text will support the notion that Pullman, ultimately, showed "the Authority" more mercy than "The Authority" showed us humans. He has Lyra show empathy and pity to the aged creature. Lyra, the Liar, who becomes Lyra Silvertongue for tricking the bear who cannot be tricked, who later learns from the Harpy to tell the truth, is the one who shows pity on the Authority. And to that we must be thankful to Pullman.

Ultimately, however, I must confess to be disappointed by the third book. Pullman doesn't quite pull everything together. There are too many unanswered questions in my mind. All the talk and buildup to the necessity of Lord Asriel getting the knife in order to defeat the Authority is apparently dropped. The Authority doesn't need to be defeated because he is sterile, ineffective. The one needing to be defeated is his general Metrodon. And he is much too easily seduced by the beautiful Mrs. Coulter. She and Lord Asriel do sacrifice themselves to throw the powerful angel over the cliff into the abyss. Here is that sacrifice thing again. O.K. Perhaps that redeems them from the terribly abominable things they did to get the power they so much sought?

Going back to all the online criticism of Pullman and his work, what I don't get is that he is somehow promoting evil. We of course view the books through the eyes of Lyra and Will. Neither one is ever enthralled or taken in by Mrs. Coulter or Lord Asriel. Even though at the end, both Lyra and Will do fight on the side against the Authority, they never accept the idea that the ends justify the means. They would never go the way of Lyra's parents. The road they choose is an ethical one. They choose life, and to live it fully. They choose to refuse to put immediate pleasure and desire above the good of the community. But they have generally always chosen thusly throughout the tale. So it is certainly not a surprise to find them acting ethically at the end. And to do so without having to believe in a creator god is not so awful. After all they do have angels and witches on their side.

I have even read some online criticism of Pullman that he is somehow promoting irresponsible sexuality. This falls in the face of Will's father who refuses the overtures of a beautiful witch and ends up the target of one of her arrows because of it. Here is a guy who found himself in another world and could never return to his own, to his wife and child. A beautiful witch creature offers herself to him, no strings attached, and he refuses her. Will is impressed by this as he can return home and tell his mother that his father was never unfaithful. This is a promotion of unrestrained irresponsible sexuality? Give me a break.

And unless I am forgetting some important detail, there is no apparent creator god in the Narnia Tales either. So I really don't care if Pullman hates my beloved C.S. Lewis' work or not. Despite my criticisms of "The Amber Spyglass" he has clearly pulled off an excellent yarn. [5442]