Book of Shadows
Jan. 30th, 2005 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tinhuvielI've been rifling through what I guess could be called my Book of Shadows, wherein is collected all my lessons from the Caledonii Trad, all the rituals and meditations I wrote, some energy work written by Belisana, and I could go on and on. Also included were some of the other Moon Myths, and some rituals we wrote for the Crossroads Cabal. Oh, what a short-lived, but intense and educational, time that was!
Part of me wishes so profoundly to reconnect to all the Wiccan Ways, yet another part of me sadly reminds me that I can't go back down that road I've travelled. I've taken from that path all that I can take and am incapable of suspending my disbelief in order to embrace the rest of it. Sometimes I think I shall forever be Agnostic. Now, Wicca just seems a bit too sweet to me. Diabetics would be advised to avoid it if Wicca were a food. All the blessings, proclamations of "harm none," and general New Age drivel quite literally turn my stomach.
The basic premise of Wicca is real and good. Reconnectedness to the natural world is, in my opinion, our species' last best hope for both physical and spiritual survival. Any Earth-based faith is a good idea for people who need to realise our place in the Scheme of Things. But turning away from anything "negative" and dubbing it as unWiccan is falling into the same trap that so many Christians have yet to escape. I've heard a few Wiccans talk about the Tsunami as negative force. It was neither positvie nor negative. It was simply a force of Nature. Murder, mayhem, death, terror, and pain are necessary and quite prevalent aspects of the our Natural World. If we refuse to honour Kali alongside Dana, we are doing ourselves a disservice. We cannot reconnect to a world we perceive as being populated with rainbows and unicorns. We must reconnect with the world that could very well destroy us with a volcano or devour us in the jaws of a Kodiak bear. Native peoples celebrated the potential of death as much as they celebrated the gifts of life. That's what it's all about.
Sitting in dark rooms, lighting scented candles, and chanting names of deities we've never met just doesn't cut it. The ancient blood that sings in me cannot be appeased by the Wiccan Rede and a few flowery claims to ancient traditions that may be lucky to have seen the 1960s. We all have an ancient voice and it doesn't always sing the songs of sweet harmony, cool springs, and gentle breezes. There are also songs of tempests, sacrifice, and deep shamanic wisdom etched in blood. This is who we are.
My Book of Shadows is being dusted off and I'm going to read through it in great detail for as long as it takes me. After that, I'm keeping what I feel to be truthful to me and I'm casting aside the New Age fodder. There have been times in the past where people would ask me to teach them, but I would never seriously consider it. If I can re-organise my book and reclaim a heritage I've had to piece together myself, I may actually take on a student someday. The student would have to strip away any New Age preconceptions and be prepared to do what any true student of the occult does: learn from and teach herself.
The best thing to always bear in mind: Follow your heart, listen to your mind, and always pay attention to what the world is saying to you.
Part of me wishes so profoundly to reconnect to all the Wiccan Ways, yet another part of me sadly reminds me that I can't go back down that road I've travelled. I've taken from that path all that I can take and am incapable of suspending my disbelief in order to embrace the rest of it. Sometimes I think I shall forever be Agnostic. Now, Wicca just seems a bit too sweet to me. Diabetics would be advised to avoid it if Wicca were a food. All the blessings, proclamations of "harm none," and general New Age drivel quite literally turn my stomach.
The basic premise of Wicca is real and good. Reconnectedness to the natural world is, in my opinion, our species' last best hope for both physical and spiritual survival. Any Earth-based faith is a good idea for people who need to realise our place in the Scheme of Things. But turning away from anything "negative" and dubbing it as unWiccan is falling into the same trap that so many Christians have yet to escape. I've heard a few Wiccans talk about the Tsunami as negative force. It was neither positvie nor negative. It was simply a force of Nature. Murder, mayhem, death, terror, and pain are necessary and quite prevalent aspects of the our Natural World. If we refuse to honour Kali alongside Dana, we are doing ourselves a disservice. We cannot reconnect to a world we perceive as being populated with rainbows and unicorns. We must reconnect with the world that could very well destroy us with a volcano or devour us in the jaws of a Kodiak bear. Native peoples celebrated the potential of death as much as they celebrated the gifts of life. That's what it's all about.
Sitting in dark rooms, lighting scented candles, and chanting names of deities we've never met just doesn't cut it. The ancient blood that sings in me cannot be appeased by the Wiccan Rede and a few flowery claims to ancient traditions that may be lucky to have seen the 1960s. We all have an ancient voice and it doesn't always sing the songs of sweet harmony, cool springs, and gentle breezes. There are also songs of tempests, sacrifice, and deep shamanic wisdom etched in blood. This is who we are.
My Book of Shadows is being dusted off and I'm going to read through it in great detail for as long as it takes me. After that, I'm keeping what I feel to be truthful to me and I'm casting aside the New Age fodder. There have been times in the past where people would ask me to teach them, but I would never seriously consider it. If I can re-organise my book and reclaim a heritage I've had to piece together myself, I may actually take on a student someday. The student would have to strip away any New Age preconceptions and be prepared to do what any true student of the occult does: learn from and teach herself.
The best thing to always bear in mind: Follow your heart, listen to your mind, and always pay attention to what the world is saying to you.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 06:04 am (UTC)The twee modern day pagans/wiccans got to be too much for me a long time ago. I guess I outgrew the Gardnerian dogma, Crowleyn narcissism, and Ravenwolf's glitteriness.
These days I get into a rare few of the Gnostics, and Rosicrutians with a heavy mix of Shinto, and Native American beliefs thrown in.
Hmm, a bit of Deepak Chopra, Thomas Moore, and Joseph Campbell for good measure. Those are the biggies anyway.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 01:52 pm (UTC)You know, with his emphasis on 'going within', I believe Jesus was a Buddhist. He certainly wasn't a "Christian" :D
no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 01:30 pm (UTC)Caledonii. I'm trying to remember which people I know did that so many years ago when I seemed to know so many people. I *want* to say Lady Cassandra out of Asheville was the HP Caledonii tradition, briefly with L. Ariel as her Priest, though they went their separate ways when he... well he went on a druid kick after that and maybe I'm getting mixed up with the Druid kick he got going? I doubt that though, he wasn't so much the all goodness sort. Neither was she come to think of it, but her students often were.
It takes so little time for these things to spiral out of memory too. Back when I actually was active in the SE pagan community it was still fairly small, but growing by incredible leaps and bounds. The problem always seemed to be that the faster it grew, the more skewed the understanding of it got, the less balanced people became. When I met Z. Budapest, she was fine working in ritual with men so long as it wasn't her tradition. Since most of the women I've met that followed her won't have men in a circle they'd be part of. The call to balance loses balance quickly. Within one generation.
Don't worry about what others tell you Wicca is about. Even my non-wiccan ass knows better than to assume they have the answer. Read into the roots of Wicca and you'll see it wasn't about New Agey crystals clearing out all negativity (as that leads to imbalance and a straying from the natural order). Examine that old BoS and mediate on how these things reflect nature or do not reflect nature, and remember, despite what anyone may or may not have ever said, in the end Wicca is a Mystery religion, the real stuff isn't written out. If you understand what its basis is though, you can probably figure it out.
Now I've spewed enough. I have to go wake back up now.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 01:36 pm (UTC)You're right about the Caledonii Trad. It was Lord Ariel Morgan's baby and he would bring others in. Cassandra was one of the last, if memory serves correctly. He then spun off a Druidic branch, calling it "true Caledonii" and essentially disbanding the coven of Hecate Triskele. Shortly thereafter, he left altogher and is now a priest in the Orthodox Catholic Church.
Whatever twists your taffy, as I should always say from now on.
As for the New Age Fluffy Bunny Wiccans, I subscribe to Sidious' utterance in EP1: "Wipe them out....allll of them."
no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 03:33 pm (UTC)Lord/Lady Ariel I've not heard from in ages though. Kinda miss teasing his wacked out self. Also need to see how his sister Amethyst is doing. I do remember when he spun off into "True Caledonii" he became increasingly less accessable.
Cassandra is an awesome lady. I love her dearly, even when we disagree strongly. I miss her and her daughters, and hope I can one day see them again. That's one JewWitch I could hang with.
Ah, but we all change. We all grow and sometimes we lose sight of things for a while. Or we gain a new perspective that... changes us.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 05:08 pm (UTC)<3
no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 07:24 pm (UTC)All the same, how can they justify abandoning Hecate? She's no rainbow-monger!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-31 08:19 pm (UTC)