(I broke this up so I didn’t lose steam and get bored, then never finish. Here’s a link to the first part)

So I left off the last post in my early twenties. I had just had a major falling out with Wicca and was on a hunt for something else. I was delving into the wonderful world of Celtic spirituality.

So I dove into all things Celtic and even hung out with some Reconstructionists. I considered Druidry but it also was not for me. I did learn a great deal from my Druid and Recon friends however, about scholarship and also about filling in the gaps.

My boyfriend at the time was disinterested in spirituality but for some reason had the book “The Way of the Shaman” by Harner and I borrowed it. Actually, I stole it because I never got around to returning it, bad me. The study of Shamanism fell beautify in place next to my love of anthropology, archaeology and mythology. I read as much as I could, especially on the subjects of Celtic Shamanism and Seiðr magick. More of the Matthews and also some Mircea Eliade, Tom Cowan, Peter Berresford Ellis, Nikolai Tolstoy … even some of the not so great stuff like that book I won’t name where the author references the Irish Potato Goddess.

Then I found myself mostly alone, living at the edge of Northern Alberta, at the edge of a large provincial wildlife reserve. In a double wide trailer (plus addition and sundeck), 3 storage sheds, a rotted old cabin, two falling apart outhouses, a small bog, a stream that fed it, a little hill, a rabbit den, and rather a lot of wild raspberry bushes. I was in the bush, in the forest. Just myself with the dogs, and the ravens, the owls, the deer and the rabbits. As well as the occasional elk, cow, horse or bison that broke out of their enclosures at nearby farms and wandered onto my property.

So it was time to buy a field guide, or two, or three. Identifying the plants, trees and birds on my property and learning all I could about them because a big part of my study and practice. My parents had raised me to love the outdoors, Mom in the garden and Dad in the wild. So I built upon what they had taught me. All while cursing myself for not paying better attention to Mom in her garden. Bush craft, foraging, wildcrafting, hiking, back country camping, these are skills to be learned and arts to be practised.

Oh yes, dear reader, that is rather a lot of different subject on the span of just a couple of years. I am very much a multitasker and something of a butterfly, flitting form one subject to the next. I am the sort of person who has a purse book, a back of the toilet book and a coffee table book. Often they are on different (though possibly related) subjects. Just as I may have two or three different crochet projects on the go, I have two or three different subjects to study on the go. It’s just how I like to do things. Call me a Gemini!

However…

I was being pulled in “different” directions: My heritage and the love of folk lore, folk magick and mythology, my love of the land and animals, and my interest in shamanism and spirituality. Surely there was something that embraced all these things and more? Of course there was.

While hanging out with a friend of mine, we dropped by her grandmother’s house for lunch. Her grandmother was from Italy and practised Stregheria. For how long I do not know, maybe her whole adult life. She inquired about me and my beliefs. While struggling to explain the place I was at she smiled. She called me a witch (a label I had temporally dropped using due to my fallout with Wicca), a young Wise Woman. She said I was like a Strega, but surely my own people had names for such things? What were they? I didn’t know. Being a child of an immigrant family (from England, on my father’s side) and descended from people who came to Canada during the Scottish Highland Clearances (on my mother’s side) I was suddenly filled with shame that I had no knowledge of such a title. Surely it was simply witch or wise woman?

Witch. Wise Woman. Cunning Man. Völva. Herb Wife. Spae Wife. Fairy Doctor. Folk Healer. Hedgewitch.

Hedge Walker. Hedge Crosser. Hedge Rider. HEDGEWITCH. Oh gods, YES!

The last 7 years or so have indeed been a whirlwind.

Shamanism, Seership, folk magick, Traditional and Historical Witchcraft (don’t get me started!), the Cunning Arts, all additions to the menu.

And then of course, there has also been learning to code websites and forums, how to run SFM, Joomla and WordPress. How to record, edit and publish a podcast.

Homesteading, animal husbandry, basic herbalism, horse back riding. Hearthcraft, kitchen and cooking magick. Simple sewing and mending. Container gardening!

How to drive across the USA on a tight budget. How to drive across Canada on a tight budget. How to live out of an RV. How to drive an RV, towing a ford bronco, through Houston Texas on the fourth of July and not die of a panic attack.

A little of this and a little of that.

Basic wood working and wood burning to make my own staves.

Beading and simple jewellery making.

Runes, tarot, various forms of divination. Only to go about creating my own system!

Crochet? Why not? Maybe just enough to make an afghan.

Making gourd rattles and bell branches.

Move to a new place and learn a new landscape. Do it again … and then again.

The tambourine? Sure what the hell!

Hand spinning on a drop spindle. As if I don’t have enough to do!

All the chants you learned out West? Yeah they either aren’t sung out here or are sung in a totally different way. So relearn the old chants and learn new ones too!

How about a pet first aid certification to go with all that hands-on knowledge you gained on the farm and in the kennel and stable?

What’s next? Basket weaving, scrapbooking, glass blowing, Anglo-Saxon poetry? Pottery? You never know.

Yes, I am a jack of many trades and a master of none.

Maybe I don’t have as much to show for it as someone who picks something and specializes right away. Or someone who commits to one initiatory tradition and works their way up the ranks. Or a PhD or something.

Maybe I’ve had to read books twice or thrice to really get them. maybe some books have been set aside for the day I can read them again and understand. Maybe some of them I never will. Maybe knowledge doesn’t sink in as fast for me as others. Maybe I am often better figuring it out by doing, building, by screwing up and trying again. Maybe I’ve fumbled a lot along the way. So its been a long journey and it’s been three steps forward and then one step back and I still have so far yet to go.

But I tell you what: I have a pretty fucking broad base of knowledge and experience. It’s a little spotty here and there and maybe it’s not very deep in some places. I like it that way though. I like being the woman who has been places and seen things and knows a little bit about everything. The kind of chick who can go digging in her storage room and come out with just about anything … and has a rough idea of how to use it too.

Sure, I’m 30 now and have been officially practising and studying for half my life. Maybe it is time to pick a specialty or two or three.

Maybe I already have.

You just don’t know it yet.

*cue evil laugh*

Related posts:

1. The Course of My Studies Part One
2. Horned God Devotional
3. To Fly By Night

“At the very dawn of religion, God was a woman. Do you remember?” – From: When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone, 1931 – 2011

Like many Pagans, Merlin Stone’s book was amongst the first I found. Interestingly, I find that many Pagans my age or younger have, in fact, not read this book; as well as others like it such as “The Wise Wound” for an example. I was not like many of my generation’s young Pagans in that my very first book on Paganism did not come from the hand of Silver Ravenwolf.

This is a blog post I have been considering writing for a little while now. I was also considering reading it for the podcast, but I worry it might be boring to listen to. So, in honour of the memory of such persons as Merlin Stone, here goes …

My first literary foray into Magick, Witchcraft and Paganism came from fairy tales of course; Jack and the Bean Stalk, Disney, Mom reading ‘The Hobbit” to us. Like many children I played witches brew with mud and crud in the back yard, tapped stones with my sparkly cheerleading baton to wake the fairies, pretended I could control the wind and wished I could change into any form I desired in the blink of an eye.

There was also a small amount of traditions and lore passed on from family members and friends of the family as well. Not outright pagan and witchy things, just the sort of things you pick up coming from an immigrant family or coming from farm folk and outdoor enthusiasts. Things are done this way because they’ve always been this way, or because someone’s grandmother did it this way.

This is how you tell which direction you are facing, this kind of moss can be packed into wounds, don’t mess with the well-head you idiots.

The cat likes to sleep in the lavender patch because it’s soothing.

These are moose tracks and those are deer tracks.

The little witch gets hung in the kitchen because she’s always hung in the kitchen.

You can climb the oak tree kids, but not the rowan.

You can eat these berries but not those.

Fill the hollow with compost, then top soil, add some fish guts and transplant the local wild rose on it.

The previous owner must have planted the juniper bushes by the door because they protect the house, but your mother thinks they smell like cat piss and so she’s digging them up for her water garden.

Never wash a teapot with soap, use salt.

Place a miniature house in the garden and don’t let it fill with debris.

Place a miniature well in the garden and you can put pennies in it to make wishes.

Scatter clippings of dog hair and bits of yarn in the yard in the autumn for the birds to use as nesting materials.

Don’t mess with the forsythia hedge, the chickadees live in there.

Rub butter on a cat’s paw so it can always find its way back home.

The kind of random lore, superstitions, rules and customs passed on to a child by an outdoorsman father, by an elderly neighbour or a gardening mother. Stuff that one must do or not do, but the explanation for why may have been lost to time.

I also adored fantasy and sci-fi when I was young. Now-a-days I read maybe two or three works of fiction each year. But when I was a pre-teen and teen I read voraciously. My mother found herself desperately searching for books to give me to read, as I was reading at an adult level and yet there wasn’t much material available to me at the school library. The public library often actually frowned upon some of my book choices, preferring to only allow 12 year old to borrow books from the teen and children’s section. So, Mom let me choose whatever caught my eye in her own substantial library of fantasy, romance and science fiction. Being a permissible mother in some areas, she didn’t bat an eye when I read the Clan of the Cave Bear series as a pre-teen. I remember the first time I opened the hard cover copies of these books and found there the maps in the first pages. Maps that had little drawing of prehistoric artefacts, such as the Willendorf Venus, and little factoids about them. I was entranced, though I knew of Paganism (both ancient an modern) in a vague way somehow those maps brought it to life and made it more real.

I developed a love of myth, legend and (of course) more fairy tale, as well as history and archaeology. I was the only child in my 6th grade class reading introduction to Greek mythology books, or books about the pyramids of Giza, Neolithic cave paintings or Easter Island. I would rush home after school to watch documentaries on TV in these subjects and more. (Remember when channels like A&E, Discovery and so forth were kind of smart and played more shows about history and religion than people with OCD?)

This was encouraged by my parents who, along with me, dreamed of my growing up to become a historian, anthropologist or archaeologist someday. This was also very much encouraged by my mother’s common-law husband at the time, who was both a high school teacher and Pagan-friendly, having had many Pagan friends in his life (he has passed away now). Before the guy’s mental illness became unbearable to live with, he would photocopy pages out of texts books on mythology for me to read, loan out books from the library that librarian’s did not believe a 13 year old could read and so forth.

We did get dragged by Mom’s partner to a couple of summer solstice celebrations and small gatherings and such. But I remember for the most part being bored, there wasn’t a lot for a teen to do. The kids stuff was too childish and there just really wasn’t a lot of content for teens. My main memories from these events include things like walking in the woods, flirting with one girl I liked and getting bored with chanting very quickly. As well as doing our best to avoid the boys, who riled up by the sexual displays and nudity of the adults, stalked us girls like horny wolves desperate to convince us to let them touch our boobs.

By my mid to late teens Mom had married a new man. A man whose first wife had been a good old fashioned Feminist Witch (she passed away from cancer). He still had most of her library and allowed me to read to my hearts content. Books like “When God Was a Woman” by Merlin Stone, “The Wise Wound” by Penelope Shuttle & Peter Redgrove, “The Language of the Goddess” by Marija Gimbutas& Joseph Campbell, “The Body of the Goddess” by Rachel Pollack, “The Beauty Myth” by Naomi Wolf, “Psychic Self Defence” by Dion Forune, “Drawing Down the Moon” by Margot Adler, and the “The Spiral Path” by Starhawk were all just sitting there, waiting to be devoured. Oddly, I didn’t wind up a hardcore feminist or a Dianic Wiccan! Actually, maybe it’s not that odd. At 16-ish there’s a lot of content in these books that went over my head at the time. This is why it’s good to re-read things years later.

The internet was around at this time, but still somewhat new. Many of my friends didn’t have it in their homes yet and were jealous of my (dial-up) connection. So yes, I do in fact remember a time before you could find Witchcraft and Paganism on the internet. I have officially dated myself!

When I was 17 I met a young man in his early twenties who had been practising for a few years long than myself, he introduced me to some of his friends and from there I received all kinds book suggestions and such. I was also told to avoid website son Wicca because they were all terrible! I spent a summer looking over the shoulders of these slightly older Witches and Pagans before it occurred to me that they probably shouldn’t be having such close relationships with minors (such as myself a couple of my same aged friends). This was when I started in on the typical 101 studies, Scott Cunningham and Raymond Buckland for example. I remember trying to get through “The Necronomicon” (hehehe), “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” and Colin Wilson’s “The Occult” at this time too.

Ronald Hutton’s “Triumph of the Moon” came out when I was 19, I remember reading that and becoming quite interested in the history of modern Paganism. I then read whatever I could find about or by Dion Fortune, Doreen Valiente, Gerald Gardner, Robert Cochrane, and the Farrars. Crowley thwarted me (and disgusted me). “A Witches Bible” by the Farrars had to be read twice in a row, the second time with a notebook, dictionary and thesaurus (I read it again a few years later and was amazed at how I struggled with it, but hey I was 19-20 when I first read it). I made a valiant attempt at the tarot around this time.

In my very early twenties I met up with a teaching coven, Alexandrian based. This was when I came to a couple of realizations:

A) I knew rather a lot more than most 21 year olds.

B) Still, I knew next to nothing.

C) An 18 year old can understand something like (for example) “The Sea Priestess” only so much.

D) Wicca (of any size, shape or flavour) was NOT for me. Full stop.

E) I didn’t really know what was right for me (aw shit)

I went back to my first love: Mythology. Somewhere along the way I realised I knew next to nothing about the mythology of my own heritage. I knew Greek, Roman and Egyptian very well, but somehow Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and such had escaped me. WTF? So I dove in. Finding suggested reading lists on Druidry, Celtic spirituality and Celtic Reconstruction websites and working my way through the books that were recommended by the most of them. One book I tried reading was “The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Wisdom” by the Matthews, which for the most part went over my head. I needed to back track and focus just on history, lore and myth.

(This is getting long, so stay tuned for part two in a few days. Also this post is about study, not practice, which is why practice doesn’t get mentioned much. Okay.)

Related posts:

1. The Course of My Studies Part Two
2. Horned God Devotional
3. The Devotional

Just as the Pagan Community attracts people who are free thinking, artistic, interesting, open minded, creative and spiritual; it can also attract the odd drama queen, womanizer or person who believes that they are a reincarnated elf from the planet Zooboo. Every religion and spiritual movement has its crazies and fanatics. Our fringe element might throw paint on a lady for wearing fur, dress like a vampire, create gossip and drama at a ritual, or go to class carrying a Druid staff. Far better than shooting abortion doctors, blowing up buildings and protesting soldier’s funerals, I daresay.

The modern Pagan Community, the whole of our religions and spiritual and magickal paths and traditions (our religious body, if you will), is very much in its adolescence. We had a tremendous growth spurt in the last decade or two (or three) one that is now somewhat reaching a plateau. We are at that stage where a young person begins to spend rather a lot of time looking into the mirror, poking at blemishes, agonizing over outfits and finding one’s social skills to be somewhat lacking or in need of maturation. We suddenly find ourselves large, gaining influence and even some respect, a little taste of real clout here and there. Some of our organizations are thousands strong; we are creating our first seminaries and building temples. And we are also turned inwards, dragging into the glaring light our blemishes, our difficulties and fretting over what is to be done about them.

We are not a religious body that believes itself to have all the answers, to be any single true path. As such we have both the privilege and the responsibility to navel gaze and to face those blemishes in the mirror, rather than gloss over them or pretend they do not exist. In order to continue to grow well we must bravely open discourse about what is to be done about our internal problems and how are we to put our best foot forward into the arena of world religions. When you hear podcasters converse about the role of gossip in Paganism, when you read blog posts debating the merits of trained and paid Clergy, (and such things) this is what we are doing. It can be difficult, it can be painful, but I feel that it is necessary for the maturation of the Pagan Community and the religions, traditions and paths we hold dear.

I firmly believe in my heart of hearts that our Community and growing religious body, who we are and what we do and what we offer to the world, is well worth our shortcomings and misgivings. And that we will rise above many, find solutions for some. And be stuck with others for good … because we are still just people after all.

Do we need years of study (academic or otherwise) in order to receive respect in the Pagan Community? Perhaps we should not. Respect can be earned in many ways and we deserve the basic respect all people should be afforded (especially from a religious body that often sees the divine in everything and everyone).

Is there elitism in the Community? Yes, sometimes there is (maybe often). We stem from Mystery Traditions; many of our traditions still are such. Where there lies such things there will always be those who feel you must have achieved X and Y in order to be worthy of Z. This too is one of those things we as a Community can gaze at in the mirror and decide how to grow with it or whether we wish to out grow it. One must also keep in mind that there is social hierarchy and elitism in all facets of human interaction. We as human beings like our pecking orders. You cannot fully escape such things any place you go where there are people. Yet, while we do have some troubles with the whole “You’re not a real Witch” phenomenon, there is also a whole counter-culture for that. Sharing circles and ritual groups and the like where all are of equal value and bring what they may to the table. The Pagan Community may always have a little of both and a lot in the middle.

Should we study? Should we practice? Should we give greater respect to those who dedicate much time and effort into deep study and long practice, into thought and action? Should we strive to be “Smarty Pants Pagans”? Consider the alternative. Look to the news channels that right now broadcast reports of people who wish to take a way a woman’s right to choose, make gay marriage illegal; ban the building of mosques, and those who call their own president a nigger. Such is the result of religious, cultural and political institutions that promote ignorance and not academics, arrogance and not self examination, blind following and not active practice. You’ll have to forgive Brendan and I (and those like us) who dare to climb onto soapboxes and demand better from our own co-religionists.

Must we mix politics and social activism with religion? Some do and some do not and some more than others. The fact of the matter is that the history of modern Paganism is deeply entwined with feminism, environmentalism and the like. For some this is a vital part of their spiritual journey, for others not so much. I would say that this should always be a choice each Pagan, Heathen, or Witch must make for themselves. Never compulsory but perhaps encouraged. Religion and politics make strange bed fellows, but the fact of the matter is that they have always slept together and still do to this day. Else we would not be debating the merits of gay marriage in some countries, now would we? Those of us lucky enough to live in more secular nations might find the need not so great, but those who face difficulty, even persecution, in their country due to the invasive mix of religion and politics might want to consider how their religion informs their politics. After all, if all the other religious folks are voting by their own spiritual beliefs, how can we hope to affect change in politics by keeping our spirituality out of it? I will always shake my own finger at anyone who dares to say that all Pagans must be feminists (or some such thing); just as I would also shake my finger at someone who said that all Pagans must not allow their spirituality to inform their political and social views.

Should the Pagan Community as a whole unite? Could it do such a thing at all? How would this work, how would it look? These are, right now, questions without answers. Once again, we are in our adolescence, a youth that is going through a deep existential crisis. These are questions that we MUST ask, examine and discuss. Our Community and religious body is growing so fast in so many ways it is as if we lay the tracks just before the train rolls over them. We must begin to ask “where does the train go to, what is the destination?” I do not expect consensus on a large scale on this issue to come forth within my lifetime. Yet I do feel the responsibility to lay down enough track that future generations can make good choices and not derail the train.

We fear the loss of our individuality with unity. I say we need to learn to be unified individuals. We need not follow the path of the Abrahamic religions; one ideology for all. We have been so indoctrinated into this culture of monism and dualism that we do not even know how to practice pluralism anymore. This is something we must strive to learn. Or rather, re-learn. In the days of the ancient Pagan cultures it was common for the average citizen to practice their spirituality (more or less) as they saw fit under their own roof. The head of the household often acted as priest or priestess for the family. They attended large cultural and public festivals and celebrated in the manner of their own tribe, city or culture. They paid or gave offerings to temples or the religious caste where the Clergy there performed specific rituals for specific purposes, sometimes with an audience of the public and sometimes in privacy. People choose who their favourite deities or ancestral heroes and spirits were, a smith honoured Vulcan, a homemaker Vesta or Juno, and they venerated them accordingly. Why not take such a model, combine it with what we have now, and use this to lay a foundation, to lay those train tracks? Plant the seeds and let grow a varied and beautiful garden.

Where do we go from here? I do not know. All I can do is help lay those track in front of the train, shout from my soapbox, and hope the generations that come after me are benefited from my efforts and that they do a better job than I have done.

Related posts:

1. Horned God Devotional
2. The Course of My Studies Part One
3. Defence Against the Dark Arts (When You are Locked Out of the Circle)

My fellow bus mates became very upset that the bus driver did not want to make friends and socialize with them. They were angry that he refused to listen to the usual “Pagans are not Satan worshippers, we are good people” spiel.

It go the point that most of them had all piled up at the front of the bus demanding to know why the bus driver wouldn’t accept the fact that Wiccans and Pagans are good people too! “Why didn’t he join us for meals and talk to us?”

The driver kept repeating that he was just a bus driver and it wasn’t his job.

The Pagans grew more and more insistent and upset. Sad and angry the bus driver did not want to be friends or hear about how they are good people. “Why won’t you validate us?’ they cried. “You monotheists are all the same! Judgmental!”

The driver was getting so distracted that the bus began to swerve on the hiway. I climbed my way into the aisle of the bus and hollered at everyone for their attention.

I said:

“Guys, he is just the bus driver. He is a professional. It’s his job to get us home not make friends or learn about the Lord and Lady. He doesn’t give a shit what you believe.”

They all turned and looked at me, pouting. I waved my fist in the air and shouted; “Everyone doesn’t need to accept you! Now quit distracting the driver before you get us all killed! Stupid assholes! Sit down and shut up!”

Related posts:

1. Now You Do It! *poke*
2. Crones
3. My Soap Box

So, Project Pagan Enough is a movement, a cause, a Harmonious Riot that includes bloggers, podcasters, pagans, non-pagans, me, you, and the whole pagan community. It is my hope that the Project Pagan Enough logo becomes a beacon of progress and change for those of us living a magical life. By putting the Project Pagan Enough icon on your podcast’s site, blog, or other website, you’re making a set of promises:

1. You are pagan enough, despite how you look, act, smell, dress, believe, or are.
2. You recognize that others are pagan enough despite their appearance, smell, manner of dress, belief, practice, or other aspect.
3. You recognize that you can have an academic debate on the finer points of belief or practice, but that it does not take away from someone else’s level of being pagan.
4. You welcome, befriend, and encourage others in the pagan community despite their appearance, dress, or other physical or superficial characteristic.
5. You promise to treat members of other faiths, despite the faith, with honest-to-goodness fairness, equality, and grace, not judging them or their faith based on the actions of fringe members of their same faith.

Like the points of the pentacle, these 5 tenets of Project Pagan Enough work together and will, I hope, launch our community into a new era of tolerance, love, and all of the qualities we like to think we have.

You may copy the Project Pagan Enough logo for your own website – below – but please make sure to link back to the original blog page to allow others to know what promise you’ve made to the community at large.

Related posts:

1. Pagan Values: A Pagan Community Statment on Sexual Ethics
2. My Soap Box
3. I Just Keep Telling Myself

What’s your Path?

I am a Hedgewitch. Meaning I am a shamanic practitioner of folk magick (that’s the short explanation). My spirituality is Celtic/Anglo-Saxon Paganism. I started in Wicca like many do, but have moved further away from it more and more of time. I am not however a Wicca-basher like many non-Wiccan Witches are.

Do you have an altar?

Sometimes I use an altar and sometimes not. An altar is simply a workspace to me. I have laid out elaborate altars on tables, simple altars in dirt, and none at all. Sometimes I use my stang as a kind of portable altar, but that is not its only purpose.

A shrine?

I have shrines, many in fact. I like them. One in each room of the house, some simple and small. The main one in the living room is the largest and has the most “stuff”, it also receives the most attention. Right now I have no shrines outdoors, partly due to it being winter and partly due to being trapped in an apartment. Which I hate, I miss the country life so very much!

Do you believe in deities?

I believe in the gods as surely as believe in the air we breathe and land beneath my feet. You could call me a poly-animist (which I suppose is rather like pantheism but it just doesn’t quit fit the bill)

What form of spellwork do you do?

Whatever is needed. Folk magick, low magick, whatever you wish to call it. I am not a big fan of categories.

What tools do you use?

Many and varied. The longer I practice the simpler they become, trading in fancy crystal for plain rocks, silk ribbon for homespun thread.

Who is your favourite author when it comes to your chosen path?

Most of the books out there on Hedgewitchery are crap.

Nigel Jackson, Eric de Vries, Owen Davies, Nigel Pennick, Andrew Chumbley (to name a few) have some books that might interest.

I do enjoy some of the more Wicca-ish books sometimes, and there are a few good Kitchenwitch and Greenwitch books out there that are worth reading as well. I like Arin Murphy Hiscock.

I also enjoy books on Shamanism, nature of any sort and folk lore; I’m a big history and eytmology nerd as well.

Related posts:

1. The Course of My Studies Part One
2. The Course of My Studies Part Two
3. Horned God Devotional