Ranting at cowards

This rant brought to you by the letter W, and is coming from Rowan Pendragon’s blog as a jumping-off point.

Why W?  Because Wicca is not for Wimps!  An Amazon reviewer wrote, in her trashing of Christian Day’s excellent book “The Witches’ Book of the Dead”, the following quote which flipped my switch: 

“Wicca was meant to be a safe not a scary religion.”

Apparently, the reviewer is self-identifying as Wiccan and is frightened by skulls and anything to do with death.  I’m guessing she practices a non-initiatory, straight-from-Llewellyn variety of Wicca that comes complete with glittery hearts and rainbows on her Book of Light (because Shadows are too spooky).  I am *NOT* bashing Llewellyn at all.  They make a lot of information available to people who otherwise might not have found it.

I’m Wiccan.  I had my first experience with Wicca and Paganism in 1984, back in the dark ages before the Internet was in every home, before Starbucks was on every corner, and when any books on the Craft were hard to find.  

My teachers included all aspects of the gods in their teaching, because leaving anything out would have crippled me as a witch and in actuality denied nature.  I think the way one of them put it that stuck with me was “You may enjoy the gentle breezes in spring more than other aspects of the wind, but you have to deal with the terrible storms as well.  We have to talk about all of it or we leave you unprepared to deal with reality.”

A lot of self-identified Wiccans today were apparently taught that everything has to be gentle and kind, and for the greater good of all, or in right alignment with the universe, or some such over-optimistic unrealistic trite expression.  The reason this whole topic twists my knickers to the point where I’ve been verbally exploding expletives is precisely because these poor people have no idea how to deal with an entire half of their own nature.

We are light.  We are dark.  It’s just part of being human.  Our gods represent all of our potentialities, magnified a thousand times.  Death is a part of reality, and being afraid of it (or anything that symbolizes it) is appropriate for 3 year olds, but not for adults.  If someone has their head in the magic sand filled with rainbows and glittery hearts, they’re not in touch with all aspects of themselves and are just begging for the universe to smack them upside the head.  Any religion or spiritual path is supposed to be helping you explore who you are and how you fit into the universe around you, embracing the wonders and mysteries of life.  Some of those are joyous, some are unpleasant, and some are downright frightening.  If you can’t handle that, then you have no business practicing magic or calling yourself a witch.

By ignoring “..the Mother, darksome and divine..”  you ignore part of the Goddess.  Do you really think it’s wise to piss off a Goddess by ignoring Her?  Mythology is full of examples of “dark” aspects of the gods.  I can’t even count how many stories in Greek mythology include a god transforming some poor schmuck into some monstrosity.  Anyone remember Medusa, or Scylla and Charybdis, or Arachne?  Arachne just got the shaft because she was so skilled at weaving.  How about the poor nymph Daphne who got turned into a tree to save her from being raped by Apollo?  

Wicca includes witchcraft as part of its practices, or it did when I learned it and when I teach it.  If you know how to heal, you can probably hex as well.  You might choose not to, and that’s fine, but you know how.  I’m going to say it again – we are light, we are dark, and ignoring that one simple truth will cripple you as a witch and deny some of your power.  This is not a religion for sissies or cowards, folks.

Listening to the Wind

OK, maybe not the wind, except as metaphor for listening to whatever spirits, guides, gods, etc. you may work with or believe in.  As in any relationship, listening is important.  Sometimes the communication is clairaudient (as in, you hear it though there’s no physical person around to say the words) and other times it’s more subtle.

For example… I’ve been thinking long and hard about my life lately, in all aspects – physical health, career, mental health, spiritual, and emotional.  I know I need to make some changes in order to be healthier/happier, and I asked for a little guidance, a nudge in the right direction.

In December, amid the flurry of cookie baking that I kept taking in to the office, I realized that I need to stop eating as much sugar as I had been.  It just does unpleasant things to my body, and when my body isn’t happy it makes magic more challenging because my mental focus is shot to pieces.  Not a New Year’s Resolution, but the timing was convenient because who doesn’t eat too much sugar in December, really?

So, a week or so ago I found the video from Dr. Terry Wahls, where she talked about macronutrient health and how she turned her Multiple Sclerosis from debilitating to in remission over the course of a year with dietary changes when the medicine wasn’t helping her.  It reminded me I needed to get more greens back in my diet, I’d sort of fallen off the wagon.

This week at work has been so stressful (as in, I allowed myself to get stressed out) that I nearly threw a paper cutter across the room one day, and my face went completely red.  I woke up this morning feeling horrible and stayed home and went back to sleep.

Better when I woke up again, thankfully, but needed to get to the grocery store for a few critical items, and while I was there bought some spinach and kale (to make kale chips with, yummm) and one or two other things.

After coming home, I snuggled up with a cat or two and watched “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” on my Netflix .. and then I realized that my helpful guardian spirits were trying to get through to me on this subject repeatedly.  Each seemingly random thing that’s been popping up has been a big green neon sign from the universe to pay attention, nourish myself properly so I can handle the stress better and not kill myself (or someone else) from the frustration going on in my life.  Thankfully, a house didn’t need to fall on me.

So back to daily spiritual self-care, in addition to the physical improvements in self-care I’ve already been making, and putting a big reminder up on the calendar to help me remember.

This time, I listened to the wind before a tornado had to blow my hair back.  Are you listening when you should?

My humble beginning

A dear friend recently suggested that if I wanted to let my blog readers really understand me, I should write out how my life brought me to the Craft.  Some of the story puts certain people in a fairly negative light, so instead what I’ll write about this time is the night… well, keep reading.  Best to narrate than describe, in this case..

It was October, 1979 and I was 14 years old.  The fog had come in thick and heavy, and the moon was full.  We had this great back yard with one end a circle of maple trees that hadn’t quite lost their leaves, and part of the back yard was densely populated with redwood trees.  I heard and felt an odd hum, almost like someone singing below the threshold of my hearing, so I put on a sweater and went out back, down the steps and onto the lawn.

The fog was just above my knees, but the stars were clear.  We lived in the middle of suburbia, but it was completely silent that night.  The moon was so bright it was almost shimmering silver/blue/white in the sky, and it felt electric on my skin.

I was standing in the circle of trees in the fog, staring up at the moon and without knowing why, I lowered my right hand into the fog and raised my left hand up to the moon and said “For this lifetime, I’m yours”.  The fog swirled up my arm and the moon rushed down my hand as I inhaled, and both sets of energy rushed into my lungs and felt like they exploded out of my chest, and I fell over backwards onto the grass, dizzy.

I honestly can’t tell you what my dreams were like for the next week, but I woke up both tired and exhilarated from them.  It wasn’t too long after that when I started accidentally hearing what people were thinking before they said it, and the wind started answering me when I asked it to back off walking home from school, or asked the rain to stop because I didn’t have an umbrella.  High school, after that, was the usual torture for a shy kid but it was also one of the more magical periods of my life.

And that’s how I got started with magic, it took me another 4 years to find paganism and Wicca  

The Magic of Thanksgiving

I don’t think I’ve ever talked with my pagan friends about the magic of Thanksgiving before, and since I’m waiting for the post-pie sugar buzz to wear off so I can go to bed, I figured now is the perfect time.

Thanksgiving is one of the most interesting secular holidays.. It’s full of political opinions about the pilgrims and Native Americans, and lots of my more liberal friends are angry on behalf of the Native American folks who were robbed of their land, culture, and lives.

But it’s also a time for football, where people are usually drinking and having fun while watching their favored team either win or get trounced, with all of the high emotions around whichever way it’s going.

And let’s not forget that Thanksgiving is also a time where lots of friends and families are getting together, having a good time and quietly rejoicing in the company, the food, the traditions, etc.  I know some families also get together and fight, it’s sort of the other side of the coin I suppose.

A small percentage of people are camping out at stores, in the hopes of getting a special deal for Black Friday and buy all of their holiday gifts for the least amount of money.  Some of them have been camping for days, waiting in line to be first/second in the store.  (Just think of all the energy that goes into this one thing, and compare it to ritual preparation.)

Many people are giving thanks for the joys in their lives, or sometimes the lack of bad things in their life, such as "I'm thankful I'm not homeless".  A small percentage of people are volunteering at soup kitchens and feeding homeless and hungry people who have nowhere else to go.

A lot of the "giving of thanks" that goes on this time of year is focused on love and the people we're happy to have in our lives.  Some people are thanking specific deity, some are just "being thankful" without invoking any gods at all.

But all of those scenarios I’ve described amount to one thing – emotional energy.  The seasons are changing where I live, the cooler weather has arrived and the trees are making a heroic farewell with bright red, soft gold, and showering the streets with the leaves that fall.  Emotional energy, changes in nature – all of which a witch can tap into.  We can choose from the vast smorgasbord of energy which wavelength of the energy to immerse ourselves in, and channel it into whatever works best for us.

I’m choosing to focus on the quiet joy of families giving thanks to no specific deity, to amplify and send out in waves of harmony as far as they’ll reach.  Which energy are you going to choose to align yourself with?

Snooze, Lose, do something New

 

Ah, Procrastination..

I’ve been calling my particular brand of Wicca a “Greenwood Tradition” for about 15 years, and I haven’t been writing down what makes it different than standard British Traditional Wicca.  I did a quick Google search 10 years ago, and didn't find anyone else using it, so I kept calling what I do Greenwood.

Now, I’m ready to start the writing project and go public with it.  The catch?  Someone in Canada is already using the name for their tradition, and has 5 covens in the tradition.  I'm certainly not going to pitch a fit about it, they took a good idea and ran with it.  I didn't act on it, and so someone else created a tradition with the same name that appears to be going quite well for them.

So, having learned that lesson and thought about what to rename what I do, I have now updated my Witchvox profile and am posting here for the first time the beginning of the Riverwood tradition of Wicca.

The city I live in has 2 rivers running through it, and a lot of trees, so I honor the spirits of my hometown in the name.  Rivers bend and flow, with calm places and rapids - much like life.  And trees grow, change to adapt to their surroundings, survive lightning strikes, and remain beautiful.

The Riverwood tradition is an evolving thing, changing to adapt to the needs of the 21st century witch, and dropping from the practice things that no longer work.  The focus will be on celebrating the cycle of life, helping the members of the tradition grow and heal from past experiences, and live in harmony with the elemental energies around us.

Blessed Be!

Weather magic myths

I was talking recently with a new friend and made an off-hand comment about stopping the rain long enough to get somewhere dry, when she gently chastised me for even considering it, quoting the line about "not knowing what it may cause elsewhere".

That idea, believe it or not, comes from an old episode of I Dream of Jeannie.  I haven't found any reference predating the show to anyone believing it's true, but that's not the whole basis of my belief that it's just bunkum.

I live in California, on the west coast of the United States.  In the midwest, there are tornadoes and hail storms that we don't have here.  On the east coast, there are hurricanes that we don't see here.  I can have a perfectly sunny day while on the east coast they have 90mph winds with driving rain and homes being ripped apart and floating away.  Their weather doesn't affect my weather patterns.

So, if natural weather patterns on the east coast or in the Sahara Desert have no impact on my weather here, why would anyone expect any weather magic I do to affect my local environment to have a greater impact than Nature herself?  It's not logical, and the facts don't back up the myth.

I have about a 70-80% success rate with the weather magic I've done over the years, and it's stayed pretty consistent.  But I don't kid myself - if Mother Nature decides we're going to have a certain type of weather, and she's insistent about it then there's nothing I can do to change it.  I'm humble enough to know my limits!

I don't expect everyone to believe me, I think some people need external, artificial limits to their belief structures.  But let go of the fear about it for goddess' sake, I'm not going to single-wandedly bring about Global Warming or the next Ice Age.