The fall often does this to me. My mom explained it the best when she said that in the fall, it’s as if transperancies (as in, on the old-style overhead projectors) are placed upon our time and world now; transperancies of the past, far-reaching, and sometimes even of the future.

I can feel the veil thinning acutely. My dreams have been vivid, many of them “travelling” (astral) in which I wake up feeling like I haven’t slept at all. Shielding is an absolute must (I “invented” two new visualizations that came to me suddenly when sheilding: one, being in a transluscent, lusterous white oblong pearl that is hard to negativity and permeable to positivity, when I wish it, as even that can send me into sensory overload. The other one is being within a seed, a grain seed, that only splits when I wish it to.), and sometimes, I find myself feeling so incredibly sad it’s like my heart is literally breaking within me. Why? It’s not depression, or specific “sad things” happening. It’s hard to explain. It’s the time. I feel both joyful and excited, like a kid preparing for a Halloween party, and sedate and mournful, like a Priestess prepearing for a funeral rite. I suppose I really am both.

The past has been coming back to me in a real and sharp way. A picture, notes of a song, etc instantly plunge me into a memory. I heard “Ave Maria” today, and while it always is so beautiful it is mournful to me, it reminded me of a past lost, opportunity missed, and I felt my heart twist and my very soul cry.

Welcome to the world of an empath. I know that the pain of feeling etc is the counter-balance to being able to see and sense things others cannot, or rather, choose not to. It’s been like this since I was small, and has grown more and more the more I learn on my spiritual path. I learn both the tools of protecting myself and the real pain of “knowing”. That is partly why at Initiation, it is often said that it is “better to parish on the blade then to enter the circle unprepared”…if you are unprepared or flippiant about your path, the shadows could well eat you alive. It doesn’t mean “unprepared” in the sense that you have to know everything and understand all; quite the opposite. It means be prepared to step into the abyss and accept all that is there. You will have beauty and purpose beyond measure, but the balance of this is shadow and pain, as that is the essence of life and nature itself.

Some think the pain and shadow are “prices” to pay for having the good things. I used to think that way. I don’t anymore. I see them as simply a balance. In nature, we enjoy the beauty of the turning leaves, but they turn the tree barren and lifeless-looking and hearald the end of summer and the beginning of the autumn. The young laughing God has to grow old and wane in power, and finally die. But He has to do that to be reborn. So do all of us. There’s no “evil”, “karma”, or “price” in any of it..it simply Is. Light and Shadow, Pain and Laughter, Old and Young. None “better than the other”. Just..Is.

I wouldn’t trade being a Priestess for the world. I know that this is what I was born to, what I was meant to do. By being a Priestess, I choose to accept the pain and the light of living, and by sheer understanding, in moments of clarity, it makes both equally beautiful.

(originally published July 30/08)

I recieve these meditations daily at work, I find that they help me focus. They are availiable at www.whitebison.org, if you wish to check it out.
Today’s especially spoke to my heart. 
 

Great Spirit, allow me this day to be humble. Allow me this day not to seek attention, but to live quietly and keep my focus and attention on serving You.

Learning the "…To Keep Silent" portion of Wicca has been and is a challenge for me, but I think it is a worthy one, especially when I see that "witch wars" and one up-manship in our community is far too common. .  I’m not leaving myself out of that equation, but that is one reason that I stepped back into the shadows of the local community. Too much gossip, heresay, backstabbing, etc. It can become toxic. People out to prove who is a "real" Witch and who isn’t rathar than worrying about their own spirituality. This is not meant towards anyone here, just a general commentary. I’m not good at sitting back and watching (as a Leo, we tend to want to take charge, and I seem to have the inborn desire and aptitude for leadership which is not entirely a bad thing at all, if tempered), but sitting back and observing the "community" from the bleachers rathar than the stage seemed to give me the insight I needed. I’m proud to serve my community as a Priestess, and actually found that since I’ve become "quieter" during my descent to the Second Degree, that people have more sought me out rathar than the other way around. I don’t hide it, just don’t offer too much information to everyone (see one of my previous posts , last week, about my thoughts on wiccan mysteries etc.) . Moving into what the brilliant Starhawk coined "dropped and open attention", observing the world around me from a centered point, has given me a differing perspective. Maybe some people don’t need to go through the Descent process when we move away from others for a time to find ourselves, but I did, and it has served me well. The Priestess-path is isolating, but there are beacons along the way.  I think that this Old Wisdom about the Medicine Man applies to us in Wicca, too. 

I’ve found that the people that
"proclaim" the loudest often dost protest too much..they are looking for attention for a reason. I’m not immune from that category, either. Silence and patience are twin virtues that are huge struggles for me. But, I think in a society (beyond wicca or witchcraft, meaning North American society as a whole) that largely values itself on who is loudest, who is most popular and "out there", there is something to be said for those who watch and sit and keep it all in balance, like the Medicine Man. I’ve been trying to apply this lesson at work. Normally, at a new job, I’m there like a dirty shirt and making myself known. A wise manager I once had told me that sometimes it’s best to come in quietly, observe, don’t rock the ecosystem and learn from what is around you. This isn’t being passive, it’s giving someone else’s space and ways of knowing respect.  Knowing when to speak and when to listen are still challenges for me, but I am learning. I’m learning to find the value and peace that is quietness, because quietness and silence are normally things that admittedly make me uncomfortable and I want to fill them up with words. It was actually a wise Jesuit (Catholic) priest that told me once that if we can’t be comfortable with ourselves in the Silence, then something within is wrong, because we hear all the truths in silence.  I read that Medicine people don’t belong to themselves, they belong to the people and that is why thier lives often don’t feel like their own (I read this in a brilliant book called "Stolen Life: the Journey of a Cree Woman" by Rudy Wiebe and Yvonne Johnson, truly an amazing story but very graphic and "real" , could be a trigger for many as it involves discussion of abuse.). I think too often society tells us to be out for our own glory, and those that quietly serve the community get lost in the sidelines. Or do they? I think of them as the "ritual keepers" (I can’t remember her term, but that is how I thought of it) that Starhawk described in one of her books (It was either "Twelve Wild Swans" or "Spiral Dance"..I think the former) , which is when a Priest/ess, normally veiled, is asked to sit just outside the ritual and to hold the energy of the Circle and to ensure that things are flowing smoothly. Traditional Aboriginal practices have this, too, at a Pow-Wow, called an "arena director"..this used to be an elder , normally a grandmother, that would sit and watch everything, and make sure that the protocol was being followed. This was seen as being as the Eagle, sitting from a vantage point and watching. I’ve learned a great deal from starting to immerse myself more in my Native culture. Traditionally, Native people didn’t make idle conversation or feel a need to. They only spoke if they had something to say.
 A lesson that I need to learn dearly. 
Well, that is my "deep thought" for the day. I hope that your day goes well.
Namaste, Ekosi,Meegwetch!!

(originally written on Dec.1, 2008)

One of the things that disheartens me most about the Craft is the “Witch Wars” and nit-pickiness that seems to plague our numbers. I’m aware that this happens in every group, but I think that the Craft seems to, from my personal experience, have a special challenge in this regard.

Part of the reason is that we have no confirming, central hierarchy. For example, in Roman Catholicism (where there also is spirited debate), a well-versed RC can always check the official teachings of the Church, straight from the Pope, and while these can be debated, these are Catholic teachings according to dogma and tradition, so really these are the “final word” according to their faith. There is no “Wiccan Pope”, which I think is a good thing (can you imagine??), so therefore the teachings and traditions of Wicca, what makes a Wiccan Wiccan (can you say that ten times fast? ), are really and truly, open for discussion. The problem is that, some people cannot discuss this civilly, or get very hung up on the fact that their version of the Craft is the “right” version, and other people are deemed “fluffy bunnies” or just plain “wrong”. The conundrum is..in the Craft, unless someone is blatantly practicing against our rede and moral code and harming others or themselves, there really IS no “right version” by our very nature, that we are non-dogmatic. This leaves a lot of people scratching their heads and bickering, and admittedly, it puzzled me, too, on first entering the Craft. Especially as I came from a Roman Catholic environment, where it is clear what the teachings and beliefs of the Church are (although, individual mileage varies, as it does in any religion).

Generally, whether we are from a religious background or not, in mainstream North American society, our minds are trained to think in a somewhat linear, emperical fashion, no matter how liberal we may be in our thinking. We prove things through science. There is “hard evidence” for much of our reality. We have set societal norms and laws that are rooted in linear, patriarchal thought.

So, it is a big stretch for all of us (myself included) to wander out of that box and come to a way of thinking that is non-linear and encompassing that is the Craft. Trying to think of the Craft as another philosophy, in which there is a central confirming voice or example to compare everything by, is impossible, because it doesn’t work that way. It’s a practice and a religion that thinks differently. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, while drastically different in teaching and practice from one another, have a common thread..they are rooted in the same tradition. Ours is not. We are shamanic, dynamic, non-dogmatic (I sound like I’m breaking into the chorus of “Greased Lightening!” , but I promise, I’m getting somewhere with this.), and non-linear. We don’t have holy writ, scripture, or an emperical type religion. Our true teachers are nature, the earth, the spirits. This type of “knowledge” cannot be tested with a yardstick or studied under a Bunson Burner. Yes, we do have traditions of Wicca, some more rigid than others, but none of these are deemed “better” or “more Wiccan” than others, although some might think them to be, by our very roots and nature..our true teacher is ourselves, and therefore, this makes our beliefs relative.

The reason I’m contemplating this, not for the first time, is my forays into open Wiccan online communities recently. I am remembering why I retreated. The rudeness, nastiness, back-stabbing and arrogance seems to be prominent. I’m trying not to sound judgemental here, but really..I am opinionated. I spoke up when I disagreed on the forum (Wiccans Together, I can’t provide the link at work. But so far, it’s striking me more as “Wiccans Bicker”;with a free-for-all death cage match for the masses to watch.), but I don’t think I was rude or lofty, I made an effort to be polite. But it seems that some Wiccans or Pagans seem to feel that our “Do what thou wilt” code and independent spirit (both GOOD things) give absolute license to be rude and nasty to all and sundry, to brag about one’s own achievements (one person went on about how they “personally know” someone that knew Gerald Gardner, and therefore incinuated that they have the “straight goods” on his life. . Gasp! Well, color me impressed..I guess that MUST make them right then. Whoops. Here biographers have been arguing about this for fifty years, but Joe Schmoe on a website has all the information! Start the presses!!! Not only is this information next to impossible to confirm, but that doesn’t make his information or stance any more “right”. Because there is no “one true and right way” in Wicca. Gardner himself admitted to forming his Tradition from a variety of sources that went before him; The OTO, Crowley, Estoric texts, etc etc. And Gardner was a human. So was Alex Sanders, and Aleister Crowley, and so is Starhawk. All may have wisdom, but they are not the “Grand Pooh-Bahs” of Wicca or Paganism. Gardner might be the “Grandfather” of the modern Craft movement, but this doesn’t mean that he didn’t mess up. It doesn’t mean that some of his teachings don’t need to be scrapped and restarted, or can’t be. We’ve come a long way, baby, since the 1950′s. That doesn’t mean we should chuck out the proverbial baby with the proverbial bathwater, but insisting that Craft is only Craft when it is “Gardner stamped” is ridiculous, in my mind. Then the innumerable Wiccans and Pagans across the world that practice differently must all be wrong, and this religion is far more dogmatic than I thought.

Using this person’s “logic”, then the only Crafters that are getting it right are Gardnerians. And even then, this is going back fifty years. I doubt things stayed stagnant and marched on in an unswerving line for those fifty years. In fact, I know they didn’t, and history backs my claim. (although I don’t “personally know” anyone that knows Gardner, so I could be wrong…sorry.). Maybe my bickering here comes across as hypocritical in light of how I feel that Crafters are just too nasty and back stabbing in many cases, but this is a vent. This is only a vent. Had it been a real post and repsonse on a forum, I would and have been much more polite. . I need to blow off steam, and realize the pure irony of this post.

Then, always comes the question, “Well, what makes Wicca, Wicca, then, if it is so loosey-goosey and “do your own thing”"? This question was posed to me by my mother after I first became interested in the Craft, over ten years ago. It left me tongue-tied because, at the time, I couldn’t really answer it. She said it sounded odd that someone could just call themselves “Wiccan”, technically, yet really have a hodge-podge of whatever beliefs they wanted, because no one would confirm or deny them.

There are commonalities. Such as the Rede, The Threefold law, the observance of Sabbats and Esbats, etc. But these milages also very. A prominent HPS and teacher, Phyllis Curott, for example, does not believe in the Threefold law. Some Wiccans do not observe all the sabbats.

I think until we have the Church and Pope of Wicca (in which case, run for the hills, Ma Barker, because I can just imagine what that would look like!) We can speak to what our commonalities are as Wiccans (in general) and what Wicca is to us, but there will always be someone that disagrees. And by our very nature, this has to be okay, otherwise we’re going against the very grain of our foundations, which are non-dogmatic. I think that is largely what defines the Craft. We have no dogma. We have beliefs, but these are up for debate and discussion.

Unfortunately, it seems that many people have not yet learned to put on thier “listening ears” and “polite voice” on online forums. Or in person. I stopped going to many local public events because they felt more like gossip fares or Witch n’Bitches and ceased to be about the Goddess and God for me. I would leave feeling disgruntled and disoriented. That said, I have Wiccan and Pagan friends in the city I dearly love (and yes, you are the ones on my LJ!!!), and yep, sometimes we disagree with eachother. But I deeply respect their viewpoints . I may not practice or agree with them, but I respect them, and I try to show that. I have, on occasion, inserted my foot firmly into my mouth and said something deemed insulting, as we all have, but I try not to make that a regular practice.

Another stitchy-bitch…The rampant hatred of Christians that seems to be plaguing many Pagan and Wiccan communities. I was a moderator of a very popular and large Wiccan website ( Celtic Connection) in the mid-nineties. I often chuckled at how people on there complained about being persecuted and misunderstood by our Christian friends, then would have the audacity to completely trash and belittle the Christian religion. Sometimes, this came out of hurt..for example, many had come to the Pagan/Wiccan religion from having really bad and even abusive encounters with the Christian church. I “get” that. But painting the whole religion with one brush and feeding the Christians to the lions (metaphorically, I hope), they were doing the exact same thing that they were accusing others of doing to them! Or, the insistance that Wicca was somehow “better” than the Christian religion and calling Christians fools or idiots or “sheep” for what they believe. NO, NO, NO. Sure, there are some blind followers in Christianity..but there are also many in Paganism or Wicca. Christianity is every bit as valid and every bit as beautiful as Wicca is. The paths are just not for everybody. If people stay in that little dark corner of the “We hate Christians” club, they don’t make peace with others, or themselves, and are just propagating the myth that Wiccans are bad, nasty people that hate Christians. I know when I first encountered Wiccans online and was still clinging to a lot of my vestal Christianity (or , more properly, seeking the path for me.), I was appalled at the sheer nastiness towards Christians and it made me wonder if maybe all of the “preacher characters” I’d heard WERE right, that this path was evil because they seemed to hate Christ and Christians so much. Thankfully, I met other Wiccans that were nothing like this and set me straight, but it was very interesting to get that perspective straight off. Also, the belief that we Wiccans are somehow more “Speshal” or “Smrt” than other religions bugs the heck out of me. Some of the most brilliant minds in the world are/were Christian..CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, JRR Tolkein, for example. Christians aren’t all money-grubbing evangelists driving around in cadillacs, or backwoods hillbillies that “don’t know better”. I was raised in a Jesuit Catholic Church by some of the most intellectual elites I’ve ever met to date. You could disagree with a Jesuit (if you wanted a spirited arguement!) but you couldn’t call them “Stupid” or “Hicks” by a long shot. The same way we are not all “Wanda the Wacky Witch” stereotypes, waltzing about town in walking Witchy stereotype, nor are Christians. To get respect, you have to dish it out, too. This doesn’t mean I respect everyone that is a Christian. Far from it. I have serious issues with the likes of Falwell, Buchanan, or Hinn. But so do many Christians. What I’m saying is a generalized respect has to be there if we are ever going to get anywhere. This is how wars start. Intolerance, Rumors,Prejudice…think of the Witch hunts. Not really much different, at the base level.

This all brings me to a positive note. I am amazed, given all of the nastiness that often floats on online forums (Wiccan and non-Wiccan, sectarian and otherwise. Put a computer in front of people and it seems they think that that gives them the license to be as rude as they please, in many cases). , that my coven and tradiiton, which is primarily online, is so overwhelmingly positive. I’m not saying it’s “better” than anyone else’s, so no ruffled feathers, please. I’m just amazed that our flare-ups and arguements have been kept to a bare minimum. I see that as through the sheer effort of our High Priestess and Student Council to try to make our environment as positive as possible. And they do! That’s the amazing thing. It IS possible to have a friendly environment and to have people that have differences of opinion. We are an eclectic tradition, so we have many people from many different backgrounds and beliefs. Our community is also an online College, so not everyone is part of the tradition but may be there for the learning opportunity. And seriously…it is one of the most positive environments I’ve ever experienced. I’ve seen this in real life with my dear Wiccan friends, too. We often disagree, but can be civil about it. I’m not saying we all need to be passive, smiling drones who agree with one another (creepy…shades of Stepford), but we can learn to debate and have differences of opinion in a civilized manner.

I think that if there was to be a downfall of the Craft (and there won’t be, or at least, it is highly unlikely), it would likely be caused by..ourselves. Our own bickering and in fighting and back stabbing. It needs to stop. Wiccans and Witches are progressive and dynamic and different, and there is room on the Goddess’s lap for all kinds of children.

It’s time to wake up and get that. and that’s Priestess Yemaya’s sermon for the day.

(((dusts self off, steps down from soapbox..))