The Ramblings and Wanderings

Archive for the ‘Community’ Category

Last night I dreamed I was sitting in a grove with a lineaged Traditional Witch or Wiccan.

I am not sure which Path she was on exactly, dreams are like that, but I knew she was hard-nosed Traditional.

We were discussing our different world views and Paths.

She leaned against a large grey boulder or small standing stone and said:

“My Path is like this stone, strong and old; a solid foundation upon which to build.”

Then she pointed to a pile of leaf litter and compost by my feet.

She spoke with smugness when she said:

“Your Path is like a pile of compost, a bunch of different stuff collected in a shapeless heap.”

I was not injured by her words.

I reached out and stirred the compost pile with my hand.

I said:

“Yes. But you can grow things in a compost heap.”

And thus a riot of wild flowers, ivy and herbs sprang forth from the compost and leaf litter.

Covering it with new, fresh, young growth.

I plucked a ripe, red fruit from a Wild Strawberry and asked:

“Can you eat your rock?”

I turned towards her, waiting for an answer.

But she and her rock had been covered over with moss, they had become one.

She could not speak, she could not move.

I said:

“Moss does not grow on a rolling stone.”

I ate my strawberry in the silence, watching the herbs in my compost pile grow.

I am growing tired of wishy-washy Pagan speak:

Well, that is your opinion, this is my opinion.

But opinions don’t really matter, because everyone is different.

Unless you place value on other people’s opinions, that is.

Neither of us is right and neither of us is wrong for anyone but ourselves.

I however do not judge, I simply perceive for my reality is perception.

So just do whatever feels right for you, but only if you want to.

Let each walk their own path.

You may choose to walk with them or not, as that is your own choice.

You choose how things make you feel

No one needs to claim responsibility for their own actions.

Unless they are choosing how to feel, of course.

URGH!

Do people really buy in to this stupid New Age clap trap?

This one is on Witchvox this week and is host to a number of typos, I’m not sure how they got there. I must need a proof reader or something. So here is a cleaner version for y’all:

“This is what happens when you dabble! You can’t practice the Craft while you are looking down your nose at it.” ~ The Aunts from Practical Magic

So why do I have to do all this required reading and research? Isn’t that work? Its so time consuming and the books are hard to read! Why can’t we simply practice solely based upon our instincts and natural talents?

Instinct is only one part of the equation.

Imagine that your spiritual practice was a house. Now, try to build that without blueprints, without a plan, without the knowledge of how to properly the use a nail-gun and electric drill. You could probably build yourself and nice little shanty but it’s probably not going to keep you very warm come winter time. It is also certainly not the four bedroom post and beam home you had hoped for either.

It’s all about balance. It is alright if your spiritual path leans more on the instinctive side than the research side, or vice versa. After all you should build a house you’d actually want to live in. However leaving out one or the other entirely is just plain irresponsible.

An adult doesn’t go into a job interview without having some experience at that job, or without at least doing a little research first, or else they wouldn’t get hired. So a Witch shouldn’t be summoning spirits, ancestors and gods without having a clue as to what they are dealing with and how.

I know a number of Witches and Pagans who practice almost totally based on instinct and natural talent alone. It’s wonderful to be blessed with strong instincts and natural talent, if you have it. However these instincts only Witches will, more often than not, report frightening and bad experiences or a lack of anything “special” happening at all. Why you may ask? This is because instinct and talent is the starting point, not the be-all and end-all.

They go walking into ritual and situations they are not properly prepared for and wind up doing more harm than good. If instinct and talent were all that was required than these instincts only Witches would not be having such bad experiences in the first place.

Working based on instinct and talent is supposed to come after years of research, practice and trial and error. Practicing a beautiful and fulfilling non-scripted ritual is your reward for years of practicing with a script in hand until you don’t need one anymore.

Starting at the 101 level without a script, with out doing your research, is taking a shortcut. It is lazy, immature and irresponsible. It will never be as enlightening and fulfilling as a ritual, rite or Craft that you earned the hard way. There is no such thing as “good enough” in a spiritual practice, especially when that “good enough” means you did next to nothing at all. A spiritual Path is not supposed to be easy and the gods don’t like lazy people.

The gods, spirits and ancestors do not reward people who do not do the work to earn their respect. If you want to develop a relationship with the Otherworld and the Spirits of the Land you have to earn it. You cannot simply show up with your hand out expecting a prize, for no work, like a spoiled child.

This is Witchcraft & Paganism, not a revealed religion. You cannot just show up, sit down, open one book and expect heaven to be handed to you for no reason other than that you are a good person. Declaring “I am here and I am good” may work for monotheism, at least on the surface, because they are on a conquest kick and want as many people to join as possible. Yahweh and Allah just aren’t all that picky, its enough that you are willing to show up and feel guilty for the bad things you do and then try to coerce other people to join too.

Our gods expect a little more from you than that. After all, they put you here and they made you good (at least that’s how you started out as a newborn anyway) so showing up and saying “I’m here and I’m a good person” fails to impress them. Our gods used to be worshipped by people who would sacrifice their very best goat to them and now you expect them to hand the Mysteries over to you because you showed up with Enya playing on your MP3 player? For shame!

You cannot expect your ancestors, people who fought battles with swords, who pushed horse drawn plows, who would walk many miles to the yearly feast grounds, to give you long lost lore for nothing. What we must look like to them, we who are so spoiled and pampered that we whine and complain when the processional to the ritual is longer than 3 city blocks. How can you ask for their aid, protection or knowledge when you are willing to do little more than pour half a bottle of cheap whiskey out to them once in a while? The processional for the Eleusian Mysteries in ancient times took a whole day.

Now I know I am being a bit hard on you here. I do so because I care and also because I myself have learned these lessons the hard way. I was once a young aspiring Hedgewitch who covered herself with too-potent, homebrewed, flying ointment only to have a truly terrifying, mind shattering, life changing experience. The kind I would not wish on my greatest enemy. So I speak from experience here, not a high horse.

Allow me to give you another example from my own experience. I have a staff that I now call my “fluffy staff” made many years ago when I was younger and impatient it is covered with poorly researched runes and ogam, silly markings and glued on crystal beads. Truly it looks like a cheap prop for a small community’s stage production of Harry Potter. I grimace every time I look at it now and vow that one day I will sand it down and start again.

In the meantime however I have spent the last six years slowly creating a most wonderful and beautiful stang. Made of juniper wood from an uncles back yard and seasoned for three years. It has been carefully laid in the sunlight and moonlight, placed in the winds of the great Canadian Rockies, the Kootenays, the wind off the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Carefully carved, each stroke with the knife researched, planned and mediated upon. Lovingly hand sanded over an entire winter until my hand ached. I have loved this piece of wood for the better part of a decade now; I know every millimetre of it better than I know my own body. All I have to do it touch it to enter into a light trance state and it has not yet been blessed.

This stang is nearing completion and will be finished in its seventh year of creation; it will be one of my proudest achievements as a Witch. And it will be a tool far more potent and powerful than anything even an Elder could whip up in only a week’s time. I know all this work and worry, waiting, plotting, planning and research is worth it. I know that when I come into the presence of the gods with this tool in my hand, they will see plainly my dedication to the Craft and approve.

I have learned to earn my right to call myself Pagan, Witch, Priestess and Shaman.  How about you?

“Properly prepared I must always be” ~ part of the 2nd degree oath as written by Gerald Gardner.

Build you up to tear you down

Spitting on their heroes

Tearing you part

Then holding their hands out

What the hell do they

Think that they doing anyway?

*

They say toughen up and deal

If you want to be our leader

Then harden up your heart

And don’t take it oh so hard

Do they not understand?

Can they not comprehend?

It is that very soft spot

That giant loving heart

That makes you willing and able

To be a Pagan leader

*

They say it’s all trade off

Part and parcel for the fame

As if you were Madonna

Riding around in a private plane

*

Why do they do it?

What could be their reasons?

Do they think that they are

Doing the community a service?

Are they stroking their own egos?

Riding on your coat tails?

Or do they just want to see you suffer?

*

Making two whole dollars

For each and every book sale

Speaking at the festival

And getting paid with peanuts

Isn’t all that easy

When you have mouths to feed

*

Buying up a property

Organizing a gathering

Taking out a second mortgage

Promoting and volunteering

Working when you could be

Spending time with the kids

*

And then the people show up

And they have so much fun

Then toss a bag of chips

Out the window on their way out

Leaving you to clean the litter

*

They say you can take it

Even if you hate it

Take the heat and love it

Or get your Pagan ass

Out of the kitchen

*

I can’t help but wonder

How long they could do it?

Would they last a week running fest?

Or teaching a class?

Could they handle all the slander?

From those they are serving?

I know that I am dying

To see them dying inside

And know how it feels

To be hand that’s feeding

Only to be bitten

*

They pick and they snipe

Argue and criticise

Gossip and spread rumours

Then expect you to give them

Everything for nothing

*

They only want what they want

Never mind what they need

Tow the party line

And you must tell them only

What they want to hear

Remember to always cater

To the lowest common denominator

*

Don’t expect them to think

Don’t ask them to examine

Their very own beliefs

Just spout New Age bullshit

That’s all they want anyways

*

And then some day they wonder

Where did all our leaders

Disappear to?

Where have they gone?

What caused the burnout?

Why did they leave us

Hanging in the wind?

*

So why even bother?

What’s the point of doing it?

Why spend back breaking hours?

And waste hard earned money?

And take time off from work?

*

They obviously

Do not deserve it

Respect it or want it

Anyways!

*

Do it for the father

Who hands his teenager

A book on Pagan ethics

*

Do it for the girl who

Is learning about the Goddess

And how to love the body in the mirror

*

Do it for the baby

Sitting in the Circle

Nawing on an acorn

*

Do it for the men who

Carved the Greenman in churches

The herbalists and midwives

Burned for being “witches”

*

Do it for the gods

Who want only to be

A part of our lives

*

Do it for a culture

Steeped in hate and ignorance

Arrogant and proud

Do it

To turn it into something

Worth living in

*

Do it for the planet

Our most sacred Mother

The rocks and the trees

The animals and bees

*

Do it to spite

Those narrow-minded idiots

Who never think to say

Thank you

Or please

*

So be a Pagan leader

Work your fingers to the bone

Expose your bleeding heart

Protect and serve

Give everything you’ve got

Give them all that you are

*

And when they bitch and moan

Just smile and tell them

Congratulations!

You just volunteered!

*

*

(Mmmmmm that’s good satire!)

Plenty of folks with leather jackets and combat boots have good jobs, an education, own a house and are good parents (etc)

Plenty of hippy-types and non-conformists are good, intelligent people

Just because someone is a non-conformist, or just plain ol’ dresses funny, doesn’t mean they are a “have-not” … some piss poor loser on welfare

Just because someone lacks a formal education doesn’t mean they might “drag down” your class

They still yank girls out of school to help run the farm and raise the other young’uns

Education does not equate intelligence

Plenty of folks with less than or little more than their high school diploma can read at a university level

*sarcasm* what would some dumb redneck farm girl know about Paganism? It’s not like someone who spent most of her life working with animals or raising crops would have any idea about communing with Nature or the cycle of the seasons. Nor could anyone who has both been midwife and butcher of animals understand anything about life and death. Nor could someone who has hand raised animals, rehabilitated rescue animals, and was changing diapers and caring for little ones before the age of ten have any experience or knowledge that would make her suited to clergy training or pastoral care.

I own more (non-fiction) books than my dear Dr. Brendan … I miss my books! (They are in storage)

Just because someone doesn’t want a house in the suburbs doesn’t mean they hate people who do … or that they have some kind of a defect.

The majority of people with the highest IQs in the world do not have the kind of jobs you might expect or lead the kind of lives you would think. One of the smartest men in the world is a happy bus driver; another is a biker who plays with radio equipment in his garage.

Most folks with genius IQs refuse to fit into societal norms … and many of them dropped out of school at some point. (Like Einstein)

I respect a formal education; I also respect someone with real life experience, both are great too.

But there are great works in this world more worthy of respect than getting your Master’s degree.  Look at Mother Thersa.

I might not be able to do calculus but I can walk through a stinking, filthy, disease infested puppy mill, take up an emaciated dog in my arm, carry her to the SPCA van and help her deliver her still born pups on the way to the vet … and keep my head clear, my eyes dry and my hands steady while I do it.

I may have never read the works of Socrates but I know how to step into an 8×6 foot pen with a 150 pound dog that has been used and abused in dog fighting and put him on a leash, and teach him about love.

It’s my blog and I’ll bitch about whatever I want to

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