Jeep Stuff

I spent eight hours in Heidelberg killing time while the car shop mounted four tires onto the Jeep. Yup...8 hours. The kicker is that the woman who ordered our tires ordered the wrong size and they didn't realize that until I had already waited *5* hours. They refunded that, found me four tires that fit and sold it all to me for almost a hundred dollars cheaper than I would have paid. So in the end, it was worth it, but eight hours is ridiculous!! I'm so happy to be home. I'm starving.

Pagan Book Section

So we have a fairly limited selection of pagan books here. They get new ones occasionally, but it's usually just the same old basic level drivel that I've glanced through and thrown down in disgust or things that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. Anything that has goth in the title or has the title written in a font not easily read is right out of consideration. Today we had roughly 8 hours to kill so I went and sat down with one of the books that I had no interest in reading, but that they seem to keep ordering copies of, so someone must be buying them. I was reading through and finally managed to put my finger on what it was that made me so uneasy about the book. This book is on druids and the modern druid religion. So why should the first section of this book be on magic and the powers that druids have? It makes absolutely no sense to give someone the axe before they've learned to swing it and it is dangerous!! It scared me actually, because the ethics and spiritual aspects of druidism/druidry were the last section of the book. It seems that more and more books are following this trend. It saddens me. Plus it really makes the whole of paganism look trite. I hate to say this, but when the biggest focus of our beginner books seem to be on "powers" and "magic(k)," then we are missing out on a lot. And we create an environment where people aren't given the tools they need to make positive decisions for the well-being of themselves and others. That's how people get themselves into messes they don't know how to get out of. It is hard to come to any path solely through books and stumbling in the dark; this is even more difficult when those sources you can get your hands on are full of crap and when your religious texts have less guidance for your conscience than Spiderman does there's something amiss.

Incidentally, anyone have some decent suggestions of higher level books to read? I wish I could trim down what I'm looking for, but I'm not sure what it is myself. Maybe if you all make suggestions, I can look and find something that pulls.