Burn it all down, child.

Waxing Hunter's Moon (Age: 9 Days)
Sign: Pisces

Weather: Seasonable, clearing skies

Drought Status: Severe

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Sitting here trying to process everything with respect to the election. Signs of fire and disaster leading up to last night really should have been listened to more on my part. I, honestly, hoped that Trump wasn't going to get the electoral votes to secure the presidency. I was wrong. I am upset. I am deeply disturbed. And, I am angry.

I turned to Loki and asked him what the everloving fuck was going on with this result. His response was initially a rather dry 'Indeed.' Then, after a pause, he said, "Don't ascribe human stupidity to divinity." Unlike the other times where I see humans doing human things that are particularly WTF, he was not amused. He sounded tired. A good number of the other folks I know who have an active devotional relationship with Loki have been getting the same results when they inquire the same thing. This leads me to believe this is most definitely an accurate assessment of his position.

As the anger is rising in me, I note with some dark humor that Trump's victory is on the anniversary of Kristallnacht. It is a date that lives in infamy, to be honest. I now question if we will witness our very own version of this infamy in the near future. Pitchforks and torches may be the only good investment right now as all the global markets drop precipitously on the heels of Trump's victory.

One may wonder what this has to do with the meme I posted at the head of this entry. I am quietly being encouraged to hold on to my anger. I'm finding myself exhorted by so many subtle points right now (and I am pointedly avoiding active participation on social media today, I have been working on my novel instead) to hone it and forge my anger into a weapon of resistance. So, I am in the process of deciding what to do.

Fire cures everything, right? If it isn't cured, you have not applied enough fire to the problem, right?

Public Notice Re: Comments

Hi everybody,

I just wanted to make something crystal clear. You are welcome to comment on my posts. I moderate them to make sure that everything is respectful and above board. I would appreciate if people kept their comments on topic with what the post covers. That said, I recognize that sometimes it is hard to tell if a comment matches the topic. So, I try to keep that in mind with respect to what comments get posted up here.

That said, I do not take kindly to people using this platform to harass, belittle, or otherwise be a dick to people. It is one thing if you have something funny to say. Sometimes, vulgar humor is pretty funny. But, if it strikes me as offensive regardless of how well intentioned something is, I'm not giving you air time on my blog.

Additionally, if any sort of products, services, or other related material goes up on here, it is because I am posting it. If you want to recommend something to me or request a review of something, email me. I have an account that is set up to take messages just from my blogs. I check it every few days. (I'm actually going to do that right after I hit publish on this post.) I am not going to permit people to use the comments on my blog to bandy about some product or service. You don't get free advertising.

If you want to advertise, contact me. We can work out an arrangement. I'll even make sure that there is a Twitter post to the blog entry, provided you compensate me for it. You have any questions or comments about this, email me.

This is MY blog. My blog is a benevolent dictatorship. My word here is law. If you don't like it, don't post in the comments. In fact, I invite you to take my blog off of your reading list. Because if you can't respect me and my rules, I'm pretty sure you're not going to like what I post.

Palmyra, Daesh, and Disappointment.

Waxing Buck Moon (Age: 5 days)

Sign: Virgo

Weather: Partly cloudy, humid, warm

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In case you haven't read it in the news, Daesh (the group known as ISIS or ISIL, though I refuse to call it anything other then Daesh) has laid mines around the ancient ruins of the city of Palmyra. It has been described as holding this world heritage site hostage. A description that, honestly, I agree with. I fear that the Syrian government will not be successful in recapturing the city of Palmyra and that Daesh will destroy this important site. I try not to think about those fears because brooding upon them feeds them more energy and may help this terrible possibility manifest. I confess, however, I am fearful of what Daesh will do.

I have read of what evil people have used magically to bolster themselves and I have no illusions that Daesh is employing some form of magic towards their ends. Seeing what they have done over the last year, I am deeply troubled by what they are engaged in. Daesh is reshaping the landscape of the Middle East in blood to something that only in mouthed words resembles Islam. They are persecuting, torturing, and murdering people who come across their path who do not ascribe to their vision. They are destroying ancient sites that are vital to the history of the region (and the world) because of their objection to the ancient faiths that were practiced there but they are selling off artifacts to fund their campaign of terror. I look at Daesh and I am horrified by what they are, what they have wrought, and what their apparent vision of the future is. 

I look at this extremism and I fear for the people that live under that rule and those who are caught within its grasp. When I look to the United States and I see the growing attitudes of Christian extremism, I feel deep disgust and disappointment. When I see the systemic racism in my homeland being justified as 'biblicaly sound' attitudes, my disappointment deepens. Do I believe the extremists in the US are going to be as violent as Daesh? I don't think that will be an immediate thing but if they gain traction, they will become so. 

I pray for these people to be halted in their efforts to oppress others. I pray that their views will not gain adherents. I pray for justice to be done for all whom these people have harmed. But, sometimes, I feel that my prayers are not enough. When the shooting in Charleston happened, I was not surprised to learn of the gunman's philosophical leanings. It is but another manifestation of the same extremists who bomb Planned Parenthood and similar 'abortion' clinics. It is but another manifestation of the same extremists who think murdering gay and transgender people is a proper thing to do. When these evils are enacted, I feel powerless to do anything about them.

I will confess, I have something of a soft heart. When I read of these tragedies, I grieve for all who are afflicted by them. I despair for the future. And then I pray for justice and healing. I have been feeling of late that my prayers are not enough in the face of this evil. Odin has been strongly encouraging me to apply magic to the problems. Indeed, one of the ways he has been encouraging me to apply magical effort is by way of curses. I was feeling rather squicked by the concept of throwing curses around up until recently.

Perhaps my discomfort with curses came from the 'lightworker' heritage that I bear in my training. Or perhaps it comes from my fears that engaging in such things will bring disaster upon my house (as I had been told in the past by someone that I then respected). I realized, however, as I read of the Charleston massacre, the murder of several young trans-people, and Daesh's latest actions in Palmyra, that my discomfort is something of an attempt to avoid stepping up to oppose what feels like an overwhelming opposition. This is something that is unacceptable. 

So, over the next month, I will be working on spells to hinder and neutralize these evil people. My discomfort must not stop me from acting because it is wrong for me not to do something when I have the capacity to lend even a small bit of effort towards stopping this evil. As I work up these spells, I will post the 'recipes' on here. It is my hope that some of my readers who are comfortable (morally) with taking these actions will join me in doing so. I will be continuing my prayers for justice to be had for the victims and for their healing.

I may be but one person, but I can pray and cast spells with the best of 'em. Aside from this, I can continue to take a stance in my dealings with others that opposes these evils when they come to light.

Broomclosets suck.

Waxing Egg/Pink Moon (Age: 12 Days)

Sign: Virgo

Weather: Clear skies, chilly

Snowpack: gone :)

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It didn't hit me until a few days ago that I was making my way back into the broomcloset and not attending to my children's spiritual education because I was afraid. Now, one may ask what I am afraid of. When I was younger (foolhardy and feisty), I was public about my non-Christian status. I asked questions in an attempt to make sense of Christianity that, among other things, lead to my getting thrown out of a church. Protip: Don't ask the Catholic priest: how he can be sure that god is real when the bible is written by fallible human hands and people lie for power, thus how does he know his scripture is true? I was 12 at the time this happened. That peer who invited me to go to church with her stopped talking to me and her parents were down right frosty towards me after the incident. Go figure. Getting thrown out of a church was a very confusing experience for me because I thought that everybody was welcome in a church and I knew that asking questions was the best way to learn something. It was a matter that had been troubling me and I figured since the priest knew more then I did, he was a good person to ask. Silly me, I was using logic.

That, however, was really tame compared to the harassment I got from my peers. They would do things like talk about how I was going to Hell because I didn't believe in Jesus, that my family was going to suffer because of me, and that my lack of faith was the reason why my elderly great-grandmother died. (It was Alzheimer disease, but I had a hard time grasping that.) Now, you may ask, why did the topic of religion even come up when I was going to a secular school. The problem is one teacher decided to demand to ask us all 'who made you?' one day. My peers answered 'god' and I answered 'my parents.' I had a rough understanding of where babies came from, even in 3rd grade. The teacher flipped her lid, banished me out of her class room with the classmate who she some how learned was Jewish. We spent a good half year stuck in the hallway because of that shit. I think this is part of the reason why I have so much difficulty with multiplication, to be honest.

But, when that little fact came out, all the bullies used it as fodder to harass me. And it got nasty. As I got older and I started trying to make sense of how the world worked and fumbling my way through theological concepts, I had people who would ambush me with this demand that I convert to their faith or go to hell. I was already getting pushed around in other areas. This was one point that I just couldn't get pushed into because I hit my limit. Thus, the harassment got worse over the years. It wound up with things like my acquiring a reputation as a 'whore' after they decided the epithet 'Satan's whore' was good for me. That resulted in a couple of guys from the local collage propositioning me for sexual favors. I was 14 at the time.

Somewhere around when they started in on the 'Satan's whore' business, I fell into Wicca. As I learned about the history and mythos of the faith, I got angry. So, when someone decided to use my 'godless' status as an excuse to shove me into a locker, I grabbed 'em by the lapels and used their momentum to slam them into a locker while telling them quite loudly to stop mocking my religion. I stayed 'loud and proud' for a long time. Heck, I was one of the two token pagans at the Catholic private college I attended. (The other being my best friend. The nuns were wonderful to us. Our peers were apparently afraid of me but decided to physically harass my friend. She didn't let me know about it until years after the fact. I was livid on her behalf. She said it was sweet of me.)

No, I got quiet after I had kids. Why did I get quiet after I had kids, because it was no longer just me and my husband to worry about. And my husband is a big guy, he can handle pretty much anything that gets thrown at him and does it well. But having these two little boys to worry about, I got progressively quieter and quieter about my faith until I all but stopped practicing for a while there. (Loki had some choice words to say about that. Pointedly reminded me the worst they could do was kill me, because they really couldn't do anything else beyond that due to the fact that the rest of the family would step in to protect the boys if needed. He also reminded me that I am a fighter and that fighting was an option. Somehow, I forgot that.)

I guess it was a few weeks ago, as the kids started talking about Easter (actually, I think the itch started closer to Christmas) that I got to feeling angry that they were being indoctrinated passively into the Christian faith. And it hit me that if I didn't give them any sort of grounding, someone else would. And, quite frankly, the variety of Christians around my neck of the woods has been skewed increasingly towards the Dominionist variety. I'll be damned if I'm going to let them get their mitts on my boys. Those folks are dangerous as fuck.

So, I am taking steps to come out of the broomcloset that I found myself in and moving towards actively teaching the boys about my faith. Beloved is indifferent to the subject of religion, though he is happy to support what I say and willing to explain things in the terms of the Norse faith (as much as he understands). I did some divination on this recently. I was told to focus on family traditions and ancestor worship as a way to start the process of their spiritual education. While my household will probably never be one for saying grace before the meal (I thank the lives that give us our sustenance as I am cooking and do my best to honor them through creating the best meal I can each time. It seems to work.) I think we need to have some more formalized activity of worship going on.

With Easter coming, I will be doing something for Ostara. It will be small and the kids are probably going to be happier that they're getting a special surprise rather then anything else. And I'm going to start making active things for honoring the gods that the kids can do. They're not old enough to light candles on their own but maybe the electric tea lights will count. And I know there will be someway to put out offerings as the weather gets nice.

At the same time, I am terrified that the neighbors are going to do horrible, horrible things to us for this. And I am saddened and angered by that fear. Even more so that, on some level, it is justified.

TPE: Humanity

How do you define “humanity”? What is your contribution to the collective space of humanity? How does your spiritual path support this definition and contributions? 
 
I define humanity as homo-sapiens. I believe that there are people who are born with spirits that are not strictly tied to the homo-sapient experience. I believe that the statistical likelihood of someone being born 'other souled' is significant enough that we can not discredit people who state they are having these experiences. The mechanics of being ensouled beings are too fuzzy in our understanding for us to really say there is a hard and fast rule that a person can not have lived previous lifetimes as one of the álfar or some other spiritual being yet to be described.

I don't know what my contribution to the collective space of humanity is. I do my best to be a kind and compassionate woman. I strive to raise my children to be the same. I do my best to stand up and speak on the behalf of those who are voiceless in our society and those who are victims, because I once was voiceless and a victim. I do my best to do what I understand to be the right thing in any given situation and to adhere to my personal code of honor. I also try to remember that other people have their own view upon the matter and take the approach that as long as nobody is getting hurt, then whatever goes.

My spiritual path says in one area that personhood is something that comes with having the ability to make choices. In another area, it basically says if you're homo-sapient then you're human. I rely on the latter because I refuse to deny the humanity of people who are unable to make choices (IE: a person in a persistent vegetative state or someone who has such severe mental illness that making simple decisions are functionally not possible). My spiritual path strongly encourage me to take the positions I do. The input from Filianism exhorts me to be compassionate, kind, and charitable. The input from the traditional witchcraft that I grew up with exhorts me to be responsible for my actions and honorable in my word and deed. The same is true for the heathenry input. All three encourage me to stand up and address injustice when I see it and to keep the greater good in mind when I engage in activities that would impact them.

TPE: B is for Belligerent

Belligerent is not a word most people think of in a positive aspect. Honestly, it is the case of my turning the concept on its ear right now, because belligerent almost always has a negative connotation. You know what else has a negative connotation? Not being part of the mainstream religious set. The farther you move away from that mainstream activity and the more pressure you get from society to bend back into their comfortable norms. The problem is, the norms are comfortable for THEM and not YOU.

When confronting this as a young woman, I got angry. Then I got belligerent. When people did things like called me Satan's whore, I didn't just shrug off their comment. I got right back in their faces and challenged them to prove it. I demanded that they produce evidence that their accusations held water. This lead to a few narrowly avoided physical confrontations and my locker being the target of theft several times. It was, however, something that I just couldn't 'ignore' them and hope it would go away.

People say that if you ignore bullies they'll go away. That's not exactly true. They'll keep at it until they are satisfied with the damage they caused. This means that they'll escalate the harassment until they get the reaction they want out of you. I got belligerent and dug my heels in when I hit the point that the harassment became unmanageable by non-confrontational means. I had people tell me that I was getting angry over nothing, but they weren't in the position of having people telling you all the time that your way of life was wrong and that you deserved what you got (and worse) because you simply weren't Christian. They weren't in a position where they had to struggle with the question of if you said or did the wrong thing, would the bullies go after your younger siblings. (That happened once. That bully had the misfortune of taking on all three of us at once due to that. And we didn't fight fair, we fought with what ever worked. My only regret about that instance is that we didn't draw blood from that little shit.)

Sometimes, you just can't be passive. Sometimes you have to dig your heels in and get ready to fight. The trick is recognizing what battles are worth waging and what ones are not. In the USA, there's been an uptick in the 'conservative' Christian rhetoric. It has lead to people who just want to practice their religion in peace being the subject of harassment that goes beyond someone spitting on your and having terrible things to say about you, your family, and what their opinion of your afterlife is going to be. People are being told that they can't have a church because its not some flavor of Christianity. People are being told that they can't participate in public prayer because they're not part of that accepted group. There are people who are dealing with their lives and livelihoods in danger all because they're openly practicing their religion.

I wish it was as simple as screaming Odin and beating the piss out of the biggest jerk in the room. But we're not kids in the schoolyard anymore. And anyways, the schoolyard has become a more dangerous place over the years. A shoving match and a few punches have been morphing into collective beat-downs. (Do a few google searches on the topic of violence in schools and you'll find evidence of it. It's repulsive.) Now, we have to fight smarter. We have to take the fight into the courts and press it as high and as far as it will go. We have to take the fight into the larger community and reveal the bigots for what they are, generally the western equivalent of the nutjobs who are out there as terrorists in the world. When it becomes necessary to defend ourselves with force, we must always make a point of never being the one who starts the fight and always being the one who finishes it.

We need to get angry and be belligerent. Nobody is going to ride to our rescue. We have to do it ourselves. And if we don't do it, how much worse is it going to be for the next generation? Because these kinds of problems don't just go away. They fester and get worse as time progresses.

TPE: Divinities

Old Wolf Moon (Age: 27 days)

Sign: Capricorn

Weather: Just above freezing, partly cloudy,

snow total around 4 in

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I am a polytheist. I believe in many gods. I worship many gods. I am involved with many gods. Some of what I do looks like a study in paradox. I believe and work with a goddess of a monotheistic religion. At the same time, I believe and work with the gods of the Nordic pantheon. And I have passing interactions with deities from pantheons that I don't generally involve myself in. (At times, those interactions I try desperately to avoid but get boxed in on that front. And I'm looking at you, the lwa. I know you've got eyes on me. Here's your public acknowledgement, as I agreed not long ago to do.)

Some may think that my involvement with a deity of a monotheistic religion would negate the polytheism. That makes the mistake of assuming that only one religion is correct. As strange as this might sound, all religions are correct. So, is Ragnaroc going to happen? Yep, so is Armageddon and a laundry list of other things. They all manifest differently. The upheaval you see in the world is partly due to that manifestation. (Oh, on the point of doomsday scenarios, they have happened, are happening, and will be happening all at the same time. Because gods experience time differently then we do. So, all of the endings are happening at the same time as all of the beginnings. And all the stuff in the middle still happens to.) 

We can't constrain the gods to human perspectives. This would lessen them and reduce their stature to projections of ourselves. I'm not saying that archetypes are not important and useful. And I'm not saying that there are not large scale projections of ourselves out there. (Look up egregores and you can get an interesting view on how that little trick works.) But gods go beyond the level of egregores. Egregores are limited in what they do. They operate on the basis of how they are programmed. Gods, on the other hand, are like cats and will do what ever they damn well please, regardless for how humanity wants it to go.

They are intelligent, sentient forces that create, sustain, enliven, control, and destroy universes. To some extent, our universe is a single thing. But we must acknowledge that there is an aspect of the universe that is accessible only for the individual. My experience of the universe is different from your experience of the universe, which is different from the experience of someone ten thousand miles away. And all these experiences are different from that of a blade of grass, an animal, or protozoa. And if you are an animist, there is the myriad of things traditionally considered not to be alive by Western thought (this tradition going back to the Enlightenment, if not a bit earlier) that have their own experience of reality. Somewhere, in the midst of all this soup of experience, gods move through it all. 

And the 'truth' of reality and its relationship to deities is a murky thing to puzzle out because we have no way of knowing all the information on our side of the relationship, let alone begin to comprehend anything of the deities and their side of the relationship. It is a mystery. Some people get afraid when this mystery is pointed out. I find comfort in it. It tells me that somewhere in the universe, there is a meaning to what happens that goes beyond pure causality. Given that my experience with deities has been generally positive, I am inclined to think that meaning is something positive.

Rant re: Your Native American Totem meme

Waning Wolf Moon (Age:  18 days)

Sign: Virgo

Weather: bitter cold, lake effect snow

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I've seen this meme flying around Facebook. I'm pretty sure it is on other social media platforms too. It is a click-quiz that proposes to determine what your "Native American Totem" is. I've seen several variations of this meme over the last few years (if not longer) and I am rapidly hitting a point where I want to poke people with a stick for posting it. I recognize that all things Native American are popular in fashion and pop culture right now. Their version of Native American chic is a repulsive lampooning of these dignified cultures and should be rejected.

I can understand if someone who is fairly new to the idea of animal spirit guides latches on to the idea that the Native Americans know more about it then the rest of us. It is intimidating to start researching spirit guides, especially when you come at it from an angle that doesn't seem to have much going on from your background (for example Asatru doesn't really have an official line on animal spirit guides). It is tempting to use something from another background because it is 'ready made' and can theoretically be applied by most anyone with a minimal amount of research.

There is, however, a big problem with that. It is called cultural appropriation. This is when someone assumes elements from another culture into their own activities with out any sensitivity or consideration for the original source of the material. A fine example of this, with the Native American cultures, is the use of warbonnets as a fashion prop. For the cultures that warbonnets originate from (and by the way, the Native Americans have multiple cultures and its an idiot who thinks there is only one), a warbonnet is both formal military dress and military honors. Wearing a warbonnet as a fashion statement is like putting on a full formal USMC uniform with a bunch of ribbons and medals that you not only haven't earned but you're not even remotely attached to the USMC and wearing it. Sadly, however, there are people who feel that stealing things such as warbonnets and wearing them for fashion are appropriate because the cultures they are taking from are 'defeated.'

There is a lot wrong with the idea of stealing from another culture. It is even more offensive when you are doing so from one that has suffered mightily at the hands of the 'dominant' culture. It is rubbing salt into those old wounds after forcibly reopening them whilst denying that there is anything wrong with that behavior. It is utterly callous and disgusting to do so. Now, there are ways to borrow elements from another culture with out engaging in cultural appropriation. When the elements adopted are done so from a position of respect and scholarship, it makes it possible for the person adopting those elements to do so in a manner that honors the original culture.

Now, some people may be wondering if an animal spirit guide is the sole property of the Native American cultures. While the concept is heavily influenced by how scholars (both professional and hobbyist) interpret the concepts from Native American cultures, the modern take on animal spirit guides really has developed into something different and unique to our time. While it is tempting to say that these ideas are for the really serious modern shamans, the modern understanding of animal spirit guides is fairly accessible to most anyone. The people who apply the label 'Native American' to these concepts (which are what is pretty much always shown in these memes) do so out of an attempt to 'legitimize' the concept by associating it with an older culture and earlier era.

This, however, is not necessary. I have friends who are modern, urban shamans that work with animal guides all the time. They don't paint things in the terms of 'Native American' anything because they don't need to. What they are using works with out any need to 'legitimize' it. While they recognize that there are some common elements between the animal guides of Native American cultures, they own the fact that what they are working with is a product of our society and era, of our culture. And that is more then ok.

I just wish that more people took that approach, to be honest.

The Frosts, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Accounting.

I have held my piece with regards to the issues surrounding Marion Zimmer Bradley because I felt that others who were far more knowledgeable and eloquent had addressed them better then I could have. Then, just today, I learned something about the Frosts that made me feel chagrined to have considered their work useful and daring to recommend it to students I had in the past.

It has come to my attention that the Frosts had written an initiation ritual intended for family covens that involved sexual activity for pubescent children in their highly influential work The Witch's Bible. Their supporters insist that the ritual is misprinted and that the Frosts did not intend for the ritual to include children. In all kindess, I cry bullshit on that argument. This is a book that has been reprinted many, many times. Not once of those reprints had been amended to correct the supposed mistake. The Frosts have had ample time to see and correct this 'error' and have not done so.

Indeed, their failure to correct the 'error' and their arguments that said work should be allowed to persist in its original form and be considered within the merits of 'tradition' lends one to believe that ritualized sexual abuse is condoned by the Frosts and that they believe such should be perpetuated within the Wiccan community.

This is absolutely not ok. Sexual abuse is one of the most heinous and insidious of crimes perpetrated against children. Abusers force children to participate in sex acts by ways of creating situations where the child sees no other choice. The children are not free agents in this activity but doing so under duress. Additionally, abusers who choose sex crimes as their method of abuse have the great impetuous of the social stigma that is attached to sexual abuse to force their victims to be quiet. This is in addition to what ever threats might be made or what mind games are played to coerce the victim to keep silent.

The use of initiatory rituals to force sexual activity of any sort upon another person is a direct violation of one of the most central tenants of Wicca, perfect love and perfect trust. The initiate trusts the initiator with their welfare as they prepare to undergo the rite. They trust the coven they are joining with their safety as well. Forcing them into sexual activity is repulsive and a violation of that trust. It also makes a mockery of that claimed 'perfect love' that the coven would say they extend towards the initiate.

Some people will claim that I am a 'lapsed' witch and that my positions on this 'traditional' initiation are a reflection of how far I have 'fallen' from the craft. I name those people fools and supporters of this kind of abusive behavior. It is possible to initiate someone into the craft with out forcing any form of sexual behavior upon them. If we look into the history of modern Wicca, we find that old Gerald Gardner was initiated by having a basin of water poured over him.

We have a responsibility to the younger generations of witches who are being raised within the Wiccan tradition (and all other pagan faiths) to secure their safety and create an environment that promotes their well being. The intersection of that which is holy, magical, and mundane should be a place of safety from the beginning. Only when the initiate has reached the age of consent and agreed to it, should sexual activity become part of magical or religious ritual.

If this position makes people declare me some sort of apostate or otherwise have forgotten my faith, then I wish them the luck of it. I will continue to maintain a position that the safety of children is more important then the pretty rituals you would devise. I don't care what your arguments are in favor of this. I reject them all and declare them to be anathema.

What have the Gods done for me?

Waxing Sap Moon (Age: 9 days)

Sign: Cancer

Weather: Warm, fair skies, flood 

watch due to snow melt

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The lovely and admirable Galina Krasskrova posted a series of questions on her blog at her website. In an effort to post more frequently on here, I will be using these questions as blog prompts. There may be some cross posting between this blog and Veiled Witch. It is my hope to be updating according to the moon phase. Right now, however, I wanted to make up for a bit of lost time by posting today. Another post will come on the full moon as well.

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What wealth have the divinities brought into your life?

Oh my goodness, I have no idea where to begin answering this question. Pretty much all of the good that has come into my life has been either the direct fruit of the work of the Gods or something I have done as a result of their urgings. I think the first of all the list to come to mind is my very life. I was in a terrible relationship in high school. The young man in question was physically and emotionally abusive. After an incident where he had raped me, I missed my period. Looking back on all of that now and what happened to my body, I now realize that I was pregnant.

The God took me into his arms a short time after I realized this and I miscarried. This miscarriage happened at the same time I realized that I could not stay with this young man (whom had asked me to marry him and planned on giving me an engagement ring when he came home from basic training for service in the Navy) because he was going to kill me some day. The abuse continued to escalate with him as time went on, you see, it started out with comments and then progressed to sexual abuse. And then the sexual abuse began to include things like him threatening me with a hunting knife and telling me that he was going to carve me up if I left him.

I honestly believe that this realization and miscarriage saved my life. I am most sincerely certain that they were a result of the Gods actions in my life. Additionally, I believe that their intervention is why I graduated college. I had an exam for a class that I was in danger of failing that I needed to pass in order to graduate. A freak hailstorm happened at the time I was working on my exam. I then found out later that I not only passed the class (which I had assumed had to have been by the skin of my teeth when my professor announced this to me) but that I had passed the exam with a perfect score.

I also attribute the fact that my little book has been successful to the Gods as well. It was at their encouragement that I wrote it. It was also as fulfillment of a promise that I published it. To not only have learned that my little book has been helpful to others but that it has been cited in scholarly material, it has left me completely astounded and profoundly grateful.

On Kitchen Witchery.

Southern Fried Witch had a blog post that a friend of mine linked to on FB. I read it and at first I was amused. But something about it troubled me. As I read it again, that unsettled feeling deepened and then I realized I was starting to get angry. I've been thinking about it and I think I figured out just what about this makes me angry. It's two things here.

The first is the implication that if you use anything other then what great-gramma did, you're not a real kitchen witch. Boxed dinner and kitchen appliances are forbidden from the menu of a real kitchen witch, if you go by what this person has posted. I suppose it makes everything better by how they prefaced this with 'in our tradition' but I'm still hopping mad.

Great-gramma would look at you as though you've lost your bleeding mind if decided to forgo the use of a crock pot. She would be ready to either laugh you out the door or possibly whup you with that wooden spoon you're so fond of if you tried to say that time saving devices like a breadmaker were bad. She might agree with you on the boxed dinner front but this other business, she would be mad at you for being a fool.

It's nice and such that Southern Fried Witch won't stoop to buying chicken stock. It's real nice that they even raise their own chickens and I assume slaughter them as well. Who knows, maybe they even use the pinfeathers to make their own pillows. That's neither here nor there. Products like chicken stock don't make you less of a kitchen witch. Boxed dinners don't either.

You go back about a hundred years and you'll find that those people that Southern Fried Witch are holding up as the gold standard of domesticity (and therefore of proper kitchen witch behavior) would have considered giving their eye teeth for the technology and conveniences we have today. We live in an age where we're blessed with things like microwaves and refrigerators. Our stoves are vastly superior to the ovens of the past and not just on the basis of how quickly they heat up. They're a lot safer.

When was the last time you heard of somebody catching on fire while cooking dinner? It's not that common. It's actually really uncommon. There's a reason for that. Modern technology is a lot safer then what was used in the 'good ol' days'. You don't need to stick your hand in the oven to check if it is hot enough for your baking. You don't have to question if your food is going to spoil before you get to use it on the off chance that a hot day makes the ice in the icebox melt faster.

And let's not forget the wonders that we have outside of the kitchen. Want to get those fabrics nice and white? Well, you can either bleach them out in the sun which takes a lot of time or use bleach. What about cleaning up the home? That right there can be a major act of magic. Vacuum cleaners are wonderful things, as are laundry machines and dryers. Do you want to give those up or sneer at people who stoop to using those devices because they're not 'real' enough for you?

For some kitchen witches, there isn't the time to make that homemade chicken stock. Some of us have small children and tight schedules that require we use those newfangled modern things that Southern Fried Witch would look down their nose at us for. It doesn't make us inferior. It just means that we have different lives and different constraints we're working in. What Southern Fried Witch fails to recognize is the privilege that they have in being able to raise their own chickens and cook lots of stuff from scratch.

It is not as easy as they make it sound to own chickens and mind the house. I grew up in a home that we did that sort of stuff. Lots of people don't live where they have the luxury of being able to own a pet, let alone some sort of livestock, like chickens. It's not because they are lazy. In some cases, it is because that's what they have to do to afford where they live. In some cases, it is because they don't have the means to support a pet or the knowledge to even keep fairly simple (in the grand scheme of things) livestock like chickens. Southern Fried Witch is casting stones at people that they have no grounds to do so because they don't know what those people are living with.

And that is shameful. I'm pretty sure that great-gramma would pin Southern Fried Witch's ears back for that. By the way, speaking of shameful, the fact that Southern Fried Witch tacks on at the end of their post that they've put out a book followed by a backhanded insult to the people who would read said book is repulsive. When you spend a full blog post talking about how people who depend upon books for their knowledge basis are inferior kitchen witches (or inferior witches at large), you give up the right to advertise and solicit customers for your book. You don't piss on your readers and then expect them to step up and shell out their hard earned cash. It doesn't work that way.

I am beyond disgusted. I am beyond disappointed. I will confess, I am damn near livid over this. I hadn't heard of Southern Fried Witch before now. If I had stumbled on to the blog before now and never seen this garbage, I'd probably read the blog and even look for new interesting recipes. This, however, is something that I can't condone.

I am a family tradition based kitchen witch. One of the things that my tradition taught me was you catch more flies with honey then you do vinegar. Treat the readers with respect. If you can't walk a mile in somebody else's shoes then at least give them the benefit of a doubt until they have proven otherwise. Last time I checked, the culture of the South encouraged a measure of civility and grace. Southern Fried Witch failed to exhibit that. This Yankee is pointing that out and encouraging everybody else to give them wide berth. 

That awkward moment...

That awkward moment when you realize that you fall down on the hard polytheist side of the ledger rather then the soft polytheist or soft-ish side.

I now understand why the deities have been so amused with me of late. I have been struggling with this idea of soft versus hard polytheism. At one point, I even was questioning my spiritual path. And then I had this startling realization, the gods are truly unique and separate beings from each other. This makes the whole matter of Dea even more confusing, I confess. It was the question of if a person has multiple personalities, are they a single person or multiple people sharing a body that did it.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the multiple personality question really couldn't apply to deities. Or should I say, the 'multiple people sharing a body' thing couldn't apply. Because I have had experiences where more then one deity interacted with me at the same time. I don't think that works for people with DID/MPD. That single body thing constrains interaction to a 'one at a time' kind of thing, from what I've been able to figure out by my research. Soft polytheism takes the concept of deity and turns it into a multiple persons in one body situation.

But, having deities manifest at the same time and doing entirely different things at the same time shows that they're not sharing a 'body'. The Divine Mother confuses me. That confusion, I confess, has me a bit anxious and running in proverbial circles at the moment. I'm sure it will clear itself up.

I know that she has work for me to do. It will be a case where she will give me what I need to do it and I think part of that will be information that will help with this confusion. The gods are generous like that.

PBP 2013: week 2: A - Anger

Lots of people talk about anger. Lots of people have really insightful things to say on this topic. I'm not sure if my addition to the countless plethora of blog posts and articles is going to make much of an impact. It is, however, my deepest thoughts on something that I have found challenging for years.

Anger is a harsh emotion. It has the sharpness of a blade and can be used as such a tool. When used in a healthful fashion, it can be the surgeon's scalpel that excises illness from our souls. When used in an unhealthful fashion, it becomes the common thug's switchblade that is used to extort others or force them into acting against the validity of their own souls. Anger itself is a morally neutral thing.

I struggle with anger. The popular opinion that anger is a dangerous emotion has crept into my life and puts it into the realm of something to be controlled and withheld from view, lest it prove something too disruptive for others. Oft quoted aphorisms that talk about how anger is something we are supposed to remove from ourselves tend to pop up a lot on my Facebook feed and meet me on a regular basis when I am looking at how to best manage my illnesses.*

The real struggle that I face when encountering anger is not that wild, uncontrollable sense of anger that people talk about. It is owning my anger and embracing it when it is valid. We should not be a culture that decries any emotion. Emotions happen. They're our response to the world around us. We should be embracing them and upholding them as valuable.

Anger is what motivates me to act against injustice. Anger is what motivates me to speak up when I see someone being needlessly cruel. Anger is what pushes me forward when I find that my depression has overwhelmed me. Anger is not our enemy. Anger is as much our friend as pain. It tells us when something is wrong. It gives us the strength to fight for what is right. It is the voice that says "You will not ignore me. I am am a vaild human being. You WILL respect me."

I'm working to embrace that healthy aspect of anger. And I sincerely hope that others shall do so as well.

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* I will be talking a bit more about mental illness and my own faith later this week. I'll be posting a link to that entry here in the foot notes.

PBP: Week 1: A - Absolutism.

Absolutism is the enemy of reasoned discussion. When one orients themselves to a fixed point and refuses to consider any others, even as an intellectual exercise, they stagnate in their ideas and concepts. Their brain becomes increasingly rigid and less adaptable to new input.

The pagan religions are coming close to their half century mark of renewed practice. In this time, the beginning of orthodoxy are starting to show its heads. (And I truly believe that a hydra is the best metaphor for this collection of ideas and its pervasiveness.) Mere superstition has come to replace theological exploration. Absolutism is making its presence known.

It is a seductive concept. We find comfort in things established as 'fact' and practices with a measure of 'history' behind them. We must not allow our desire for comfort to make us complacent in our spiritual efforts. We must continue to be the bold explorers that we started out as.

With out the quest for growth, we will die a slow death. Absolutism is poison and we must resist its siren song.

Blogs of interest

Waning Sap Moon (Age: 27 days)
Sign: Pisces
Weather: Fair skies & unseasonably warm
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I'm starting a list of blogs that I follow in case anyone who reads this wants to know who's work I am reading currently. If your blog is on the list and you want it taken off, let me know. This post will be getting updated as I add other blogs to the list.

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Witchin' in the Kitchen
(who has a pashmina give away going on, so go check it out!)

The Fruit of Pain

Looking Up at the Clouds

Tealights in the Dark
(who I really hope will be updating soon, I really enjoy their writing style)

The Iconoclastic Domina

Loki's Bruid

Gangleri's Grove

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I'll be adding more as I encounter them upon the interwebz.

Fall & Redemption Theology: My Opinions

Full Hunger Moon (Age: 13 days)
Sign: Leo
Weather: Unseasonably warm, clear
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I've been reading about the modern Collriydian Filianic churches. I figured out what about their theology that doesn't sit right with me. It is their espousal of a fall & redemption theology. It is my understanding that humans are not born with a fatal flaw, which one would argue is the most accurate description of the infamous Original Sin doctrine. Original Sin holds absolutely no place in my understanding of humanity's relationship with the divine.

It is my understanding that we are all born innocent of any crime against nature or the gods. There is no criminality in drawing breath or being born of a given lineage. Arguments that we are all some how criminals (because sin is defined as crimes against god) by virtue of our birth are nonsense because it utterly fails the moral culpability test.

I prefer the idea that we are born in a state of innocence and as we grow, we become capable of establishing a relationship with the divine that is more complex . It is with this increased complexity that rules are laid out for the relationship and sin, the act of breaking said rules, becomes part of the picture.

It would as foolish as someone declaring that a newborn child is guilty of theft because they are breathing 'someone else's air'. No one can claim ownership of the air. It simply is there. It is our nature to breathe. It is a monstrous act of inhumanity to declare that the act of existing is criminal. And it is my understanding that the doctrine of original sin, where ever it is espoused, is criminalizing the act of being alive. I find this disgusting, demeaning, deceptive, and detrimental to establishing a genuine relationship with one's deity of choice.

Veils, shrouds, & shawls

Waxing Hunger Moon (Age: 4 days)
Sign: Void of Course
Weather: unseasonably warm & cloudy
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For years now, I have felt drawn to veiling myself as part of my spiritual expression. Just last night, as I was idly searching techniques for tying a headscarf, I stumbled on to another pagan who has a similar inclination and her blog post regarding it. It was incredibly reassuring to see that I wasn't too far out into the fringes with this recurrent urge. It was also just the little nudge I needed to begin acting in accord with it.

My thought was "Hey, I'm not the only one to feel this way! Awesome!" It was as though a weight just lifted right off me as I gave myself permission to do this. Growing up in a household that was extremely focused on propriety and meeting social norms for appearances sake, I was strongly encouraged not to act upon urges that took me to places aside from what was the most mundane. Even now, I have times where I struggle with my genuine sense of style versus what was foisted upon me.

Now, one may wonder why I'm talking about the clash between personal tastes of clothing styles and what is socially accepted as 'normal'. This is something that comes up when one adapts their manner of dress to something that is not completely run of the mill. When people mark themselves as different from the others around them, there are a few different possible reactions. Confusion, discomfort, and outright scorn have met me when I have moved away from the norm in the past.

This becomes even more complicated of a matter when one begins to consider religious expression. When dealing with a religion as decentralized as Wicca, one finds that there is no 'norm' for how to do anything. As a result, we tend to 'default' to the predominant cultural norms for dress and social behavior that we engage in the secular environment. Special dress for religious purpose becomes cumbersome when one is torn between maintaining a 'normal' appearance to ease their interactions with society at large and the urgings of their spirit. This is especially the case when one's faith does not have an 'official' dress code like in Islam.

Now, that I've rambled on in that direction, let's get to where I wanted to go in the beginning. That is, in short, how the three items I listed in the title of this post are important. Veils have been used for countless millennia for, among other reasons, to protect the sacred and set it apart from the mundane. The shroud has been used as a similar covering (aside from being a garment for the dead).

Shawls can be used in the same fashion. I do that often. When I feel a pull to wrap myself in a shawl, there's a lot of different reasons. Most frequently, it's practicality. I get cold easily. But, there are times where it serves to 'contain' spiritual energy. Or it serves to protect (at times from a purely psychological point).

I had more I wanted to say but it's drifted off into the aether. Right now, my youngest child is terrorizing the house. So deep thoughts are going to have to wait for later.

The question of evil

Waning Wolf Moon (age: 20.1 days)
Sign: Libra
Weather: Bitterly cold, overcast with wind out of the west
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I've been considering the question of evil for many, many years. I say question because in my faith, there is no deity or demigod of evil. There is no creed that affirms the traits of the gods to be as the Christian god, omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. Is there cruelty in my gods, yes. But it is not malicious. It is very much so like the fate of the person who loses their home to a tornado. It is a cruel thing to happen but there is no moral judgment behind it.

Herein lies the crux of the question of evil, defining it. Some people say that evil is all form of suffering. Others say that it is to inflict suffering upon another with malice. Still others state that evil is to inflict unnecessary suffering upon another. I contend that evil can be defined as maliciously and deliberately inflicted suffering upon another being. I would further argue that there are two different categories of evil.

The first category is the suffering inflicted for the sake of suffering. Now, some people would argue that this is pure sadism. I have seen the benevolent face of sadism. It does exist. To call this pure sadism fails to consider the other variants of sadism that exist. It is when the suffering inflicted is done with out the consent of the victim. For the person who endures suffering willingly is making themselves part of the CAUSE of their suffering and become an active participant.

The second category is the suffering inflicted intentionally as part of an effort to create some type of effect. Think of the concentration camps of the Nazis. (Yes, I went the cheap route and invoked Godwin's law. It's the most recognized form of organized mass torture and murder, hence my choice.) These camps were created not only to inflict suffering upon people with out their consent but to achieve a larger goal, thereby bringing some benefit to the ones who are inflicting the suffering beyond the persecution of their victims.

Is the difference between these two forms of evil indicative of greater and lesser evils? Not really, evil is evil. There is no such thing as a lesser evil. There are different forms of evil, but the wise will reject evil in it's every form. Humanity has a talent for devising new forms of evil on a regular basis. It is something that sorrows me to see.

Is defending oneself from harm evil? No, it is a natural right. It is no more evil then fleeing from harm. Engaging in an unprovoked attack, however, IS evil and should be shunned. Do the gods engage in acts of evil? It is a distinct possibility but it is equally possible that they do not and we are misunderstanding their chaotic actions as evil, as harboring malice where there is none. To the fly that we swat, we may appear to be malicious and cruel when in actuality is was simply an action to halt the fly's biting into our skin. The fly's bite is no more evil then our crushing it with our hand.

Harm that derives from natural sources is unfortunate but a part of the experience of being alive. Evil, however, is the purview of humanity and similarly inclined spirits that are capable of the abstract reasoning that is necessary to produce it.

All of this, however, is simply my opinion.

Suicide: How I view it.

Moon phase: Waxing Corn Moon (age: 3 days)
Moon Sign: Virgo
Weather: Fair skies, warm but seasonably so; drought still persists
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A friend of mine committed suicide a few days ago. It surprised and disappointed me. I felt some pity for her. Then I got angry. Really angry. I then took a step back and said to myself "Why are you angry, you contemplated it? How does your Tradition view suicide?" Those two questions stopped me cold in my tracks and have been rattling around in my mind for a little while now. Beloved's position was pure anger, as was that of Stormcrow. Both men had an excellent point when they expressed their disdain for one's final act to be of such selfishness. Both of them held out that the dead no longer were effected by their actions in this world, but left a tangled mess behind them for the living to sort out as a result of their final action.

The logical part of my brain agreed with this but the anger ran deeper then that. There was some sort of spiritual aspect to it that had me stumped. As such, I meditated upon the matter. I contemplated it as I lay sleepless the night after we had learned what happened. I rolled it around in my head as I was walking my son home from the bus stop. Then it finally hit me where the anger stemmed from.

I can accept that one will commit suicide to escape pain, to escape a poor quality of life, or as an act of resistance. I can accept that suicide can be accidental or a result of one's thinking getting completely distorted by things outside of their ability to control, such as the side effect of their medications. Suicide makes sense in these contexts. It may not be the ideal solution in the eyes of a third party, but to the person who is deliberately acting in this fashion, it will have been perceived as the best possible solution available to them. And as the First Law of Human Behavior states: All people shall act according to what they believe to be in their best interests according to the information they perceive to be available and relevant.

My anger came out of the fact that this suicide was a result of poorly managed depression. This young woman, according to what information I have learned from sources that were close to her prior to this event, intentionally disregarded elements of her illness. It is this that makes me angry. She knew she was on a collision course with a suicidal mindset but refused to address it. As one who has lived with recurrent bouts of suicidal depression for most of their life, I know what that feeling is like. At one point, I had several friends drag me back from walking out into traffic. As terrifying as incidents like that were, I struggle daily with suicidal thoughts as a result of my post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic, recurrent depression.

Why haven't I killed myself? It isn't out of cowardice, as my Mother once accused me of. It is courage and a grim determination to meet my responsibilities. It is my sense of honor. I have duties to people around me that I must uphold, lest I prove less then honorable. My friend knew she had similar duties to people around her. She chose not to make an effort to meet them, even if it wasn't perfectly. It was a cowardly act.

Now, there is a distinct possibility that the information that I have is incorrect. It may be that complications from her antidepressants caused her to become suicidal. If that is the case, my anger is mitigated somewhat. As this change in her thinking occurred, however, she should have addressed it with her doctor. Suicidal thoughts, generally, are not something that strike out of the blue unless there is a preexisting condition that is manifesting in that fashion. As such, she would have had a window of opportunity to get help for her crisis. An opportunity that she allowed to pass by.

I do not feel proud of my own suicidal tendencies. I am rather ashamed of them, actually. I, however, continue to fight them because I refuse to dishonor myself by failing in my obligations. It is my experience that the Gods punish dishonor. It comes in strange and at times subtle ways. But it does come. I have known people who bore the mark of a curse upon their aura and learned why. I have no wish to know how one who willfully dishonors themselves and commits suicide makes recompense for their failure to keep their oaths and meet their duties.

Edited to Add~ I realized as I reread this that I was writing my way through an emotional flashback. I believe I will let this post stand, but I need to give the entire situation more consideration before I post again on the topic. I apologize to any whom I offended.

A season of preparation

There are several people I know who are not Catholic and they are practicing the annual observation of Lent with abstaining from something for the period of time between Ash Wednesday and Easter. If you read some of the history surrounding Lent it becomes clear that the practice of fasting for 40 days is a point of much contention or if fasting was practiced at all by early Christians. With all of this historical uncertainty surrounding the practice, it leaves the question of why this season of fasting has persisted even into modern Catholicism.

Some of it could be light-heartedly ascribed to the same mentality that gives us the lightbulb joke that one of my Catholic friends told me:

Q: How many Catholics does it take to change a light-bulb?
A: Change! Catholics never change!

This, however, fails to recognize the value of this practice. Before I discuss this, however, I should point out two things about this practice. First, the word Lent comes from the Teutonic peoples who lived in central and eastern Europe. Originally, it simply meant early spring time. In early spring time, we find a practical reason for the fasting of Lent when we look back at the people it comes from. At this point, the weather is still cold and foreboding. The food stores gathered the year before are heavily depleted and the game which had been more plentiful earlier are now more scarce due to a combination of attrition related to the cold weather and relating to hunting. Here, fasting serves to conserve valuable food resources until the warmer weather of spring arrives to make food resources more plentiful.

Secondly, the role of fasting within any religion is fairly apparent. It serves a dual purpose. The first is to purify the body and the second is to induce a state of trance. It is a component in various religious rites all around the world from times in deep antiquity to today's melange of contemporary belief systems. In the structuralized setting of Lent, it serves not only to purify the body but also to guide the one engaged in the practice to a deeper understanding of their beliefs, often in a quasi-mystic sense. This, however, is frequently an unspoken thing in modern Catholicism due to various political factors that I am not going to discuss here.

Voluntarily surrendering something for the sake of focusing upon another is nothing new. In many ways, it can be a routine part of our day (like the diet to lose x number of pounds by summer). When a specific goal is held in mind, letting go of various things becomes easier. The practice of Lent serves to focus the Catholic upon their faith and what it means to be a member of the body of Christ. It is the same as the purpose of Ramadan in Islam, to help the practitioner of their faith to refocus upon their beliefs and what their role in the religion is.

Lent and Ramadan are both seasons of preparation. (Advent is supposed to be one as well but modern society has reduced it down to the annual shopping orgy that it's all but forgotten in a spiritual context.) Within the belief system of modern Witchcraft, there is no season of preparation. There is no season of preparation because we live suffused into the world with out a specific thing to prepare ourselves for, such as the return of a savior. This, however, does not mean that we should neglect our need to refocus ourselves and meditate upon our beliefs.

Farmers and gardeners use the early spring to prepare for planting. We witches would do well to follow that example. There are things that we all shall work towards over the coming seasons of growth. Let us take the time to plan for them and meditate upon how we wish to see ourselves spiritually develop and blossom over the coming year and what we wish to harvest as our accomplishments come Mabon. It will soon be time to begin planting, the Equinox always comes quickly.