YAAD: Day 28 (Seriously? It's been that long?)

I am the worst blogger ever. So much for keeping you all updated on my training! Ugh.

The next chapter in The Spiral Dance is called 'The World View of Witchcraft' It dealt mostly with psychology, specifically right and left brain functions.

I always get a little tongue-tied when people ask if I am a left or right brain person. The left brain people are analytical and typically very organized. Right brain people are usually artistic and 'spacey.' I am both, which is, I guess, a good thing. I am an artsy type, but I crave structure and organization. For example, I love the idea of a writer holed up in an office littered with crumpled papers, haphazardly stacked books, and cups of cold coffee. I think it is totally romantic. But in all reality, I'd probably go nuts in a working environment like that. I love checklists and planners and calendars and room to pace the floor without navigating the clutter.

Starhawk says that, most likely, it is the right brain that receives messaged from Spirit, through images and sensations, then it is the left brain that analyzes said messages and interprets them. In that sense I am lucky, since both sides of my brain are on pretty much equal footing, the communication between them should be pretty solid.

It makes me think though, about people who are purely right-minded. Take for example those psychopaths who think that they are god and go on homicidal rampages. Perhaps the problem is that their left brain isn't strong enough to interpret the messages of the right side. For example, say he receives an inspiration saying "You have the power to make you own choices." But his left brain gets "You can do as you damn well please, to hell with anyone else." Have you ever heard of a psychopath who used a blackberry?

Hmm.

The next chapter was about covens. It made me sad. I want to have some super tight wiccan friends. It's a lonely path, especially for people who were raised going to church. The only wiccan community I am a part of is the online one (Specifically this site wonderful people, too much information to absorb in a lifetime.) which is wonderful really, but still...

In non-starhawk news, Dalin drew a daily oracle card today for the first time. I was so surprised and happy when he came into the living room with a card and a confused expression and asked "What's this mean?"

YAAD: Day 18

Lovely Lori twittered about my silence for the past three days. Sorry! I have been studying up still though, quite a bit in fact, I just haven't been blogging about it.

I have read the first chapter and the introductions to Starhawk's The Spiral Dance. I always love reading the introductions to these kinds of books. I always feel like I could be friends with the author. =]

The first chapter deals mostly with the history of goddess worship. There are people out there who believe that Wicca itself is an ancient religion whose covens went underground during the Crusades and survived to the present day. There are even starry eyed pre-teens who enjoy claiming unbroken lineage back to ancient Witches. I think it is obviously wishful thinking in that department.

However, though Wicca itself was coined in the fifties by one Gerald Gardner, the principles are ancient. We worship what we can see. We see that the sun gives us light and life, and so we call it a god. We see that the moon can give us knowledge about the seasons and the cosmos, so we call it a Goddess. What makes more sense than revering something that literally gives you life?

The thing that amazes me though, is that no matter how much we learn about our world through physics, chemistry, astronomy ect.; Wicca remains to be relevant. That is the wonderful thing about following a religion that has no Dogma, a religion that allows our understanding of the Gods to change as we do, though in no way lessening their power.

I have always loved science (even though I am no good at the math portion of it...) And I think that is one reason why I am so happy that I found a religion that encourages discovery, even if you find out that you were wrong about something. One of the big points about Wicca is the pursuit of truth, as opposed to letting your religion become outdated.

Yay science!

 

Goodnight. I think i'm dehydrated, i've been dizzy the past couple of days.

YAAD: Day 11

I am starting on a new...I guess 'segment' might be the word I am looking for.

I FINALLY own a copy of Starhawk's The Spiral Dance. I am going to be working through it a week at a time, reading one chapter a week (there are 13 chapters) then at the end of the week doing a post here about it.

I am super excited to have it!

Year and a Day, Day 6

If you haven't already guessed, this week's theme is "basics." I figured I should make that really clear. Just for fun.

What Wicca Looks Like

Today's post is inspired by my early days in Wicca-as-fashion-statement. Back in middle school when I was busy being spectacularly goth and weird, I discovered Wicca and thought of it mostly like an accessory, just like my newest 12 dollar plastic bracelet from Hot Topic. (Yes, I was one of 'those.')

Sometime between middle school and High School I discarded my sad attempt at edginess, but I kept the Wicca. Back in the day, I was so concerned with my clothes and how I acted in public, but when I finally had the courage to shed that exterior I had to cling to something else. I clung to Wicca because it had managed to work it's way under my skin without my even paying much attention to it, and I had to respect it's tenacity.

Since then my personality has been very much shaped by my religion. Some examples follow (In list form, because I have been writing these few paragraphs for about half an hour, trying to get it to sound right and now I am tired and am therefore resorting to lists.)

1. I am eco-conscious. It happens when you worship dirt.

2. I move slower. generally, when someone finally finds their place in a religion, they can begin to appreciate things that were overlooked before. When it finally clicked for me that all things, from oceans to doorknobs, were imbued with divinity, it became necessary to slow down a bit and be grateful for it all. As such I suffer from less stress than most of my cohorts and am a generally more contented person.

3. I stand up for myself. I came from a religion that views women almost as sub-humans. No matter how progressive any particular sect of Christianity may be, the fact remains that they believe that God made man, then decided to make a woman to be under the man and serve him. Bitch please. "Feminine weakness" is propaganda spread for centuries to keep women subservient. It isn't *actually* real. I was floored when I found out that there were people out there who worshiped a Goddess. I was like "Whaaaaa...?!"

It made sense very soon. Of course women are strong, ass kicking, respect deserving, people. Sorry boys, but can you openly bleed for days without, you know, dying? Sorry boys but, could YOU deliver a child?  Ect ect ad nauseam. The fact is that women kick ass just as hard as men.

4. I can no longer make enemies. I just can't. I can get into debates, but I can't bring myself to fight. Wicca hada peculiar way of making me see that all of us are made of the same space dirt and we are all the same. A good friend once told me "Everyone in this world has the same goal. Every person who ever hurt you, every person who ever helped you, was just trying to gain happiness." I'll always remember that, and now I can never really be mad at people. I can be confused and hurt, but I know that if I was in their situation, I might have done the same thing.

 

In conclusion, (my english teacher always told us never to actually write "in conclusion...") those things can basically sum up what Wicca looks like.

Year and a Day: Day Five

I thought this would be a good time to remind my readers that all opinions expressed in this blog are mine alone and may or not apply to the Wiccan community or tradition in the general sense.

What is Magic?

Magic is often misunderstood. Let me begin by saying some things that, really, should not need saying, but unfortunately they do. No, witches cannot fly. No, witches cannot control the weather. And No, if you read it in harry potter or saw it in a movie, we probably can't do that.

Magic is not a way to get things easily. It is simply a way of tipping the scales in your favor. When one works magic, they are pouring great amounts of energy (I'll talk about energy raising in this context in more depth in a  later post) into a goal that they hope to achieve.

For example. Say you are working a spell in the hopes of gaining more financial security. You cannot simply mix some herbs together, say some words, and expect a pile of money to materialize in your mailbox the next day. When you work a spell you visualize what you want, in this example you may focus your concentration on a mental image of a version of yourself who does not stress about money and is happy with what s/he has. When you mix herbs or light candles or whatever it is that the spell calls for, you are focusing solely on that goal.

By casting a spell, it sets off a trigger in your mind. It can be likened to writing down a goal. Once you have performed the spell your goal is concrete. You have essentially announced to the Gods that "This is what I need." It is still up to you to make things happen. The energy that you set into the spell now will not go away. Until you accomplish the goal of the spell, that energy will be at the forefront of your consciousness and inspire you to keep working at it.

This is a very simplified definition. There are many different parts and sections to spell casting that deserve their own post. Expect them in the future.

 

(I am beginning to think that I should tackle these hard-to-answer questions in smaller chunks. I feel like my posts so far have been rambling and poor examples of my writing capabilities. I apologize. I think things will get better)

Year and a day: Day Four

This one is just going to be a quickie little quo.

What is prayer if the gods aren't literal?

When I started out in Wicca I cast of prayer, because I only knew how to pray to the Christian construct god. I spent a lot of time memorizing chants, thinking they would be the Wiccan equivalent. In short order I came to understand that prayer and chanting are definitely not interchangeable. The difference is that when you are chanting, you are focusing mainly on the words you are saying, how they sound, the soothing percussion of syllables ect. With chants, it is the words themselves that work magic.

Prayer is a bit different. Unlike chants, they are usually spontaneous and not practiced, therefore they are usually a little awkward and not nearly as methodical as chants. When you are praying the words matter much less, it is about the feeling behind the words. For me, praying is a lot like writing in a journal. It is a matter of getting things off my chest. When I can say things out loud and let go of them, I can be free of some of the weight those words carry.

When I pray for courage, I pray to God, because He is the one who can show me the courage I already have (I don't believe that the Gods can actually 'give' anything to you. They merely illuminate that you already have what you need, it just might be hard to see. Kind of like Oz.) When I pray for something like peace or inspiration, I pray to Goddess because she is the one who is in charge of those emotions and can show it to me.

Wiccan prayer is a lot different from what you probably know as prayer. We don't ask for the Gods to do things for us. We know that the Gods would be offended if their children were so weak that they had to come running to them for every little mundane thing. The Gods made us strong and they like to see us figure it out ourselves.

Case in point, a Wiccan doesn't pray to God saying things like "Could you make sure I pick the winning lotto numbers?" or "Hey, "I'm having issues at work. I don't feel like I can deal  with it myself so...do you mind?"

Our prayers sound a lot more like "I need to realize my courage and realize that money is not the most important thing" and "I am having issues at work, it sucks. Let me harness my own peace and reflect it outwards to help my co workers who are just as stressed as me."

 

I think that sums it up. Makayden needs help getting her shoes on for when her mom comes to get her.

I think tomorrow I will talk about magick and spells.

Year and a Day: Day Three

Ok dudes, Alek is tired today. I should have written this earlier when Makayden was napping, but I conked out only minutes after her so...

So, who are The God and Goddess?

In my last post I touched on the fact that Wicca is simple. For me, it's all about logic. I am just not the kind of person who can fool myself. If it doesn't make sense, I can't believe it. It is as simple as that. And that's why I simply cannot accept the idea of a single male god who created life.

Even in a lab, it takes both male and female to create life. It's as easy as that.

Do I think that there is a Man and a Woman literally floating around out there? No. Not literally. The God and Goddess are not apart from the universe. They are not watching us from a cloud way off in the distance. They didn't just create life, they ARE life. We aren't just Sons and Daughters of the God and Goddess, we ARE the God and Goddess.

Us Wiccans, we are tree hugging dirt worshipers for a reason. We know that there is no "outside." We know that everything is sacred, not just temples or the words of a select few. There is just no reason to believe otherwise. It it not enough to look around and see that life is beautiful? Why are so many people so jaded that they have to believe that they are just not trying hard enough and that if they pray more, sacrifice more, and prostrate themselves more that they can become privvy to true divinity? What kind of society favors streets paved with gold that they will never see to stretches of rain-scented wilderness that they need only open their eyes to see?

Life is perfect because of it's balance between male and female, creation and destruction, yin and yang. it's only when you label one as evil, and the other as holy, that nature is disrupted. Once you can look at the flame of a candle and be in awe of it's gentleness and light, and also accept that that same flame that gives you light would just as soon kill you, you can finally let go of your dependence on the 'other,' whether the 'other' is a god  that can magically descend upon the fire and make it stop burning (I tell you now with absolute certainty that we are no less than gods. The god's live and abide within the laws of nature, and so do we, because they ARE nature, as are we.) or a heaven where everyone sits around in their self-righteousness and nothing happens.

I think I am digressing. I'll try to wrap this up.

Male energy is the kind that lights a fire under our ass and get's us moving. It is the energy that craves motion and action. Female energy is the kind that sits us down and lets us dream. It is the energy that craves understanding and peace. Male without female is cancer. Female without male is stagnation. The God and Goddess are representations of these two energies. Metaphors, if you will. And they are no less holy for that.

Year and a Day: Day Two

I was thinking that I would wait until Dalin went to sleep to write today, it is so nice and quiet late at night, but damn it all if that boy wont stay up 'til one playing Halo.

I think Wicca is a lot of things to a lot of people. I suppose that is the problem with a religion that isn't focused on dogma. everyone seems to come into it the same way: a library book about spells tucked between your mattresses, a cinnamon candle swiped from the christmas decorations and such. We all learned about the supposed ancient history of The Craft, we all copied rituals from the internet and tried to make our friends call us Starchild, but once one settles into Wicca as a religion, it shifts, and it shifts differently for everyone. That said, don't go quoting me on this, I am not a High Priestess of Mystical Muckymuck or anything like that. I'm just a Wiccan.

Anyway. Welcome to square one.

If there isn't a heaven...why not be selfish, mean, and greedy?

To my knowledge, Wicca is simple. If you consolidate all of the books and all of the chants and everything else you are left with one simple statement. Be Nice. I don't believe in Heaven or Nirvana or even Reincarnation (I huddle behind the couch as I say that last bit about Reincarnation. Wicca 101 will tell you I should believe in that. But....not so much) The truth is that no matter how hard we try, we will never, never, know what happens once we die. Personally, I think our Spirit breaks down and dissolves into the earth in the same way our bodies do when we die. But that's just me. So, even though I don't believe that I will be rewarded a bunch of virgins in the afterlife if I am good, or be a demon's bitch if I am bad, I do know that there is a set amount of energy in this world (I learned that in physics.) Scientifically, energy cannot be created or destroyed. The energy you use to push a chair is the same energy that made a little speck explode to form the universe. Energy can only be transformed.

Spiritually, it is the same deal. Every time you make the effort to turn bad energy into good energy, whether that means making a nice dinner for your loved ones when they had a tough day or smiling at someone who might not deserve it, it makes a difference.

I think it might help to think about life energy as a web, tiny little strands that connect you to everything that ever breathed, photosynthesized, or fucked. If you can tug even one little strand in the direction of harmony, it shifts the whole thing, even if only a little. Isn't that worth it to you? It's probably worth it to the people you touch.

 

Tomorrow I talk about Gods.

 

Starchild out.

Year and a Day: Day one.

As you may or may not know, In wicca, a new initiate must undergo a year and a day of training before being initiated into a coven. I, personally, have never been initiated into a coven. I have a bit of a social phobia anyway and at the time that I was first devoting myself to Wicca I was underage, and most covens do not allow minors to join their covens (most likely because usually pre-teens who get into Wicca are either just screwing around and trying to make it rain on their command, or are rebelling from their Christian parents. If I were an elder in a coven, I too wouldn't want to get caught up in a tiff between a teen and their parents.)

I did, however, undergo a year and a day of informal self-training before my self dedication rite on Ostara several years ago. It was a crazy experience. I didn't have any experience with self motivating to prepare myself for a years worth of study and I was armed only with sketchy internet sites and what books I could afford with my allowance to search for information. I am sad to admit that it was a disappointing failure. I would go for weeks at a time completely forgetting that I was supposed to be training. At the start of the year and a day I had come up with an entire calender, each day with a topic of study that I was to research and meditate on. I think that was one of the big problems. I had come up with those topics so early on and felt obligated to follow them exactly as they were laid out, but say, for example, that one day i was supposed to memorize the correspondences of common herbs, but I had recently gotten in an argument with someone at school and, really, a more relevant topic for that day might have been Conflict Resolution in the Wiccan faith. It felt like homework to me, and as such, I rarely got around to it.

It wasn't a complete failure though, because I did memorize the correspondences of common herbs and other such lists, which is good to know because now I don't have to break out the big book of badass mojo to see what tea I should be drinking or what it means when mercury is in retrograde.

Since the teeny bopper phase in my faith I have grown a lot. I used to do spells for everything. Got in a fight with a boyfriend? Break out the stones and oils! Feeling ugly? Break out the herbs and candles! Nervous about a test? Forget studying, tarot cards will tell me what to do! Today, I rely much more heavily on prayer (confused about how prayer fits in with Wicca? That topic should be discussed sometime this year. Wait for it.) and mindfulness. I actually haven't done a 'spell' in years. In the beginning, I was just thrilled to be doing something 'edgy' and wanted everyone to know how 'alternative' I was. Now I don't really care. What started as a cool hobby has grown into a full fledged faith and I treat it as a religion now, not a fashion statement.

Anyway, I digress. I was recently inspired by this blog. Laurie is not new to Wicca and has already been dedicated to it, but now she is undergoing a new year and a day training to deepen what she already has and, if she is anything like me, maybe get it better this time than the first time around.

 

So that is what I am doing. I will try to write a new post every day that is relevant to my topic of the day. I hope you guys find this interesting, because it will probably monopolize the blog for a while. Don't worry too much though if you find this all terribly boring, because I am getting a new sewing machine and will also be posting pictures and tutorials on the patterns that I am going to devise. If sewing is boring to you too then...you are shit outta luck, son.

So, that is my post for day one. The topic for today, if you haven't figured it out yet, is "Why the heck am I doing this again?"