Tag: Pagan

Happy Samhain all!

Happy Samhain all!

Happy Samhain! Today it’s raining in San Francisco, something it’s supposed to do during the winter months. In recent years it’s rained entirely too little, so all the rain is a gift. Raining on Samhain is a gift. Even if it rains on the 35th Annual Spiral Dance I’m attending tomorrow…it’s a gift.

I had planned to do a #13daysofmagic storify – since I have one last piece of magic to do for that (so much more to do of my own anyway) it can wait. I am feeling an odd, deep tired. Part of this is that I have resumed bellydance after several years, and I attended my first Aikido class at the Y this week. Between the two my quads are talking, and I am feeling exhausted.

Then there’s another odd thing, a sort of hangover from the ritual in San Jose that I attended last week. It was a well done ritual. ((I found the guy that led it ill-mannered, especially towards newcomers.))  To say I had a strange magical experience is like saying I had a strange dream: they’re all strange, so that says little. I had a remarkable experience:

Last year on Samhain, I opened the garage door and saw two white dogs I haven’t seen before or since. The year before that marked the ten year anniversary of my divorce, and on that date we signed for the mortgage on our new house. I got to see one Samhain in that house, and now we’re in San Francisco. The mind boggles, in my case a bit resentfully.

I also did some ancestor work that put my very pushy, demanding ancestors on a rather massive time out. The reason was supported by the higher powers of the universe. Basically: “You stood by and watched me be abused. You did nothing. So I am cutting you off.”

Why? Dead or alive – you can’t treat people like shit and expect them to love you. I have more love in me than is probably healthy, but that is also why I take more pain than most people. I’d done all the work, I’d made all the demonstrations…and that was it.

This year, as I walked through a space designed for us to connect with our dead, they did – more than I am actually familiar with. I got teary-eyed. I felt grief. I felt grief rolling through my body using the same muscles your body uses to vomit.

I haven’t found a good mentor to help me with my empathic ability, so I’ve had to let it mature on its own as I’ve learned to understand when I am having an emotion of my own and when I am experiencing another entity’s emotions. Apparently my new level-up in that respect is that I could tell what I was feeling wasn’t my own emotion – I was viscerally experiencing what my ancestors were feeling about me. ((This may also explain the sometimes bewildering upsurge in my libido.)) They are grieving, hard.

This of course raises some defensiveness and guilt – the whole “what the fuck? Why are you acting like I’m some big disappointment when I actually take pains to be a decent human being?”

Well, the history of narcissism being what it is, some will insist that I am a big disappointment just because I am not doing as they would do, even if what they would do is fucking awful (and some of it really was, thus the whole “you’re cut off” thing last year.) Others are just grieving me because they’re grieving.

People are grieving me, and I’m not dead. OK, relationships end and that happens.

Dead people are grieving me.

How the hell does that work?

So in MN the veil gets thinner progressively right after fall equinox. Northern California, it’s thick with break throughs here and there – but then, yesterday, I actually felt a “snap” in the air pressure and there was just plain no veil whatsoever. I’m willing to guess that all the things only I and others genetically like me can see in MN are as plain as day to just about everyone at least through the weekend. Dia de los Muertos, indeed.

Today, with the rain, I am feeling tired in the way I would feel tired after I had cried myself dry when Dad died. I’m pretty sure I’m still resonating with the ancestors on that one. I haven’t been punished or screamed at for my choice last year, and all the cards I keep throwing today (using the Da Vinci tarot) all keep showing “Death” for the recent past and “Birth” for the coming future. As usual, I hope they’re not literal – but clearly whatever I am going through, whatever I am doing, it’s about me but it’s not because it’s about Plans, as in divine plans. I wish They’d talk to me about these ideas of theirs with much more clarity.

I have one more act of magic for #13daysofmagic, and all the divination I did for myself is muddy – in part because I was inquiring about the feelings of people who aren’t quite clear on me yet, either. Just that thing I do when I’m not sure who I can trust yet.

And because it’s dorky and set in #sanfrancisco, I am also watching Charmed.

Some years I need to be ceremonial and spiritual. Some years I just need a rest. This is one of the years where I really need the rest.

“You have an old soul.” “It’s just mature for its age.”

“You have an old soul.” “It’s just mature for its age.”

  • Boogity shops visited: 2.5
  • Stops at Fry’s electronics: 2
  • Outraged public rants about suddenly, unnecessarily gendered Nerf and Lego toys: 1
  • Farmer’s market: 1
  • Tours of current complex: 0

(for the unfamiliar, that’s a Daria quote)

The bug Mike and I caught was much worse for me today – sore throat, need to sleep but can’t quite, and a nasty, persistent cough.  On top of that, I seem to have this weird thing where my body is jettisoning energy. I’m not sure how to describe the physical sensation – it’s not pain. But something feels like it’s shooting out of me. I wish I understood the metaphysical sensation stuff better; unfortunately I once swallowed a line of crap about how tracking physical responses and experiments was “amateurish” and I am paying for it to this day. On the bright side, my sciatica has mysteriously faded to bare, minimal discomfort.

After breakfast – and what seems to be a situation where eye contact with a server is so refreshing you end up with a friend for life – we determined to pick up some electronics Mike forgot to pack in our 30 days stuff, and then we proceeded to visit the San Jose Downtown Farmer’s market. Before that, however, I insisted we go to Walgreen’s and buy sunglasses. Despite a line behind us, the kid behind the counter fetched scissors and cut the tags for us. In Minnesota, such a request would be met with “sorry, don’t have any,” whether or not that were true.

After that, we went to the Holding Cell because I needed some sleep. Of course, the weird shooting sensation out of every limb on my body made that hard, but I tried my best. Two of the problems I have developed with this cold is a)a cough and b)my allergy meds mask a lot of my cold symptoms. This means the only symptom besides the cough – which can be an allergy symptom, too, since I have allergic asthma – is dizziness/tiredness. This is also a metaphysical symptom. Since I can ignore metaphysical symptoms without consequence I end up very surprised when I crash out of nowhere because of actual illness. But since Mike caught the bug first, at least I had a frame of reference for the symptoms.

Also, coughs suck. Most over the counter medicines do not treat a cough like this, and doctors generally just give you codeine so you sleep through your own coughing. This necessitated me finding an herb shop since the best treatment I’ve found is herbal medicine. Over my years of practice, I’ve found the following remedies work best:

1)hyssop

For most people, just hyssop works fine. For severe asthmatics like me, however:

  • hyssop
  • mullein
  • mugwort

This calms our panic down – and helps us use our corticosteroid inhalers without overusing them.

My other remedy:

2)thyme and rosehip infused honey

takes a minimum of one month to make. I need relief for that godawful throat itch NOW.

It took some sorting – Chinese herb shops with the same herbs are inaccessible because I don’t speak or read Cantonese OR Mandarin. I don’t even remember which one is more common or which one is more common here and I’ll look that up when I can think more clearly, thank you. There was one western-enough herb shop in San Jose, so Mike drove me. Only one person was working and it took us a few minutes to understand each other – she wanted me to know she could help me but she needed me to be patient. I thought she was telling me she could get me the herbs, but only if I had patients – when she was asking me to be patient. Oddly, the other customer got annoyed with her telling me that because he wanted to see me get served first. This made for a weird inversion of the culture I’ve lived in for the last 18 years.

We then wandered over to a New Age/spiritual shop in Willow Glen. It wasn’t promising, but as the closest such shop to where we were, I had to give it a try. It didn’t have what I needed – it was one of those crystals boutiques in a fancy neighborhood, more about the pretty things with jacked up prices to cover the store rent. The women that ran it seemed friendly and relaxed, with that glow some get when they’re really peaced out. Sometimes I envy it. Today I didn’t – it wasn’t what I was looking for and it wasn’t what I needed. I needed the things I understand, the magical tools of concreteness and practicality. What I was seeing was the joy of privileged enlightenment. I could have it. I am a white woman who has been shot into their socio-economic sphere because I married well (and it has given me such a fucking complex – it may explain why I was so determined not to marry at all when I was younger, before I got sick…) I could tell someone sent me reiki after I left the shop. Yeah, that’s not okay, but try to tell that to someone insisting – with no regard to your feelings or experiences – that “it’s universal life energy.” Whatever. Did not improve my cold any.

That being a bust – there were lots of spendy things there but nothing for someone who practices straight up witchcraft – Mike and I went to my favorite go-to: a botanica.  The one we went to was in a rundown part of San Jose. I didn’t feel unsafe, particularly, but I might go with Mike a few times before I’d consider going alone. When I walked in, I asked for the herb I was looking for in Spanish. The guy running the botanica said he didn’t have it, and I shrugged – I really did need a few other things. There was a huge Santa Muerta shrine in the back room with candles burning, and she was there. I said a polite hello to her as she stared at me through her idol, realized this back room was for darker dealings I try to only use when I feel my hand has been forced, and found the more benign things I sought in the front room.

Two seven day candles and an oil for $13.75. In Minneapolis the same stuff would cost about $25, even though it all comes from the same supplier.

I said a polite goodbye to the guy, who I assume was the acting priest/Santeria/Brujeria guy. He was friendly, but through the entire transaction had this incredulous expression on his face. Apparently white women don’t walk into botanicas and calmly pick out what they need on a daily basis. I didn’t even giggle.

Truth is, even with the obvious cursing action going on, I felt more comfortable in that botanica then I did in the fancy crystals and privilege store. I am privileged but I just don’t resonate with its trappings. I like my witchcraft down and dirty, perhaps because I myself can be quite physical. I’m sure there’s some psychologically complex reason for it. All I know is that the enlightenment found through white light and rose quartz is not the only kind of enlightenment out there, and it’s not my wavelength. The enlightenment I seek is all about candles, oils, messy hands, roiling earth, and skin on skin. I’ve met God so many times that way, and I plan to keep on meeting Him AND Her that way until it no longer does it for me.

We stopped at the Safeway on the way home. The aisles were too tight, and one woman who had actually blocked the entire aisle with her cart startled when I simply moved it out of traffic and went about my business. I had a friendly chat with a guy in the stationery aisle about notebook prices – he was on his way to his air conditioning and heating repair class and had to make a last minute stop. I have a lot of weird “I’m attractive now?” moments in my life, and Safeway was one of them – a gorgeous dreadlocked man kept sidling up to me in multiple aisles until Mike appeared at my side. In my twenties no one ever made those approaches. I am a year from forty and they seem to be increasing. It has got to be the culture change in favor of larger women. I so wanted a full dance card when I was young. Right at this moment, I want a nap. Of course, not only can I handle it now, the guys that approach me actually keep their specific thoughts about any body parts below my nose to themselves. I had so much trouble handling that when I was younger – and my trust has improved, since usually any compliment from a man I found attractive was assumed to be a prelude to mockery and humiliation, since that’s what usually happened.

On the way out, I saw a woman wearing hijab, standing at the edge of the lot, holding up a sign that said “Please help, I have two kids and no job.” She made sure everyone who made eye contact with her saw her exaggerated, long-suffering look. Now, I know everyone’s situation is different, but when I read that sign, my first thought was “It doesn’t say she has no husband, and given the neighborhood she’s in, she’s probably really bored and he’s probably at work.” Pan handlers induce skepticism in me, rather a lot. In Minnesota I have never, ever seen a Muslim begging. When I looked at this woman, there was something indefinably American about her. It was just a look in her eye -  I wish I had a more concrete explanation of her, and one of my mistrust of her.

Again, back to the holding cell where I have sort-of slept around energy bursts and we have started to assemble a list for tomorrow’s apartment hunt. I worry – a lot, actually – about what I am going to do with myself on Monday, while Mike’s at work. Explaining that I don’t have a job is awkward around here and it only gets worse when I admit that I’m a writer. I will have a car, but I don’t know the area, and my T-Mobile plan has been choked within an inch of its life sine I repeated Mike’s streaming mistake.  This means San Jose, but no navigation. I suppose, depending on the pollen count (which I am just as allergic to here, and the pollen counts are equally high)  I can find my way to the train and just wander around at each stop. See if I can leave any more botanica employees incredulous…

The Irritation of 21st Century Paganism

The Irritation of 21st Century Paganism

Previously titled: On not Being a Big Name Pagan

This is still one of the most irritating aspects of 21st century Paganism:

“Hi! I’m doing this project. You can find more information on it here!”

“Puff. Puff. Well I’VE never heard of you! Therefore everything you say/do is suspect because Pagan Pagan Paranoia Paranoia ALWAY UNDER ATTACK!!!”

Usually a “Google me, idiot,” goes unheard beneath the panting, roaring and posturing. I mean, c’mon. There’s only two other people in the country with my exact name and I am pretty sure my writing in the 90s has forced them both to take on user handles.

It is actually a recall to a behavior I started encountering in my school growing up. The town at the time had about 16,000 people – not big, but too big to be considered a village. So at my junior high there were roughly 600-800 kids there at any given time; the high school had around 1600, give/take based on the dropout rate that year.

This all happened before the Gen Y Baby Boom, so it was the last time this town saw numbers that small in its schools.

Every so often, I would be on a church trip (I was raised Christian and active in a liberal church.) One of the guys that was part of this seemed to have a new girlfriend with him at every new church event. Every single time, she asked “Well, why haven’t I seen you around before?”

I do think after awhile this church guy was just telling his girlfriends to ask me this because it is such an irritating question. Aside from the “prove a negative” aspect – a question borne of pure narcissism designed so that no matter what you say you cannot satisfy the querent – simple math answered the question pretty damn well.

In any place with more than 200 individuals it is very, very likely you will not know or see every single person.

Hell, there were kids I had never seen before on the day I graduated – and my class of 340 should have made those kids visible to me at some point…until I realized that 340 x 4 different classes really lessened my odds of knowing every.single.person in my school.

This was in a small town.

Paganism is small, yes, when compared to the sheer towering size of other better-known religious groupings. But as a population in and of itself – a lot of people keep acting like it’s a group of around 200 people. It’s probably, globally, taking account all current living Pagan religions, closer to 300,000. This is based on a wild, wild guess and the knowledge that there are people who claim some type of Paganism as their religious belief on every continent. There are a lot of people who are in the closet or who just don’t participate in online or community life to consider. It’s also important to recognize that non-participation is their right, but that’s another issue.

In my own case, it’s led to some ridiculous behaviors. When I approached one Facebook group about participating in the docmentary for my book Divorcing a Real Witch, they demanded to know if I was initiated or not. That’s the second time some self-appointed watch dog did this. Not only was it absurd and insulting – initiation is specific to traditions and I did not walk in making any claims whatsoever about my trad or initiatory background – there was actually a very easy, legitimate way to vet my authenticity. Well, two.

1. Google me – I have an online presence that goes back to 96, though I did disappear from the Pagan web a bit between 2002-2010 because of divorce/developing a chronic illness. I was, however, still on the web.

2. My book is not self-published. I had provided my publisher name. You could check my background by contacting said publisher and asking if I am for real.

3. I have public affiliations with the PNC – so you could, say, go to one of the other editors to determine  a)am I really Pagan and b)whether I would misuse any information provided.

This can still lead to the following “prove a negative” issue: “Well, we’re still small enough that we should of heard of you as an author…”

Well, no.

1)Not all Pagan authors write books. For years I have been a short article person. The reasons for this are many.

2) Not all Pagan authors keep blogs. This is more the case in the older set than the younger thanks to conditions of the publishing world.

3)There are more than 1000 Pagan authors. This was the case even before self-publishing became easy. There may be a few eidetics who can rattle them all off but, for all our collective ambitions, most of us are mortals that would injure ourselves in such a process. (Mark Twain reference.)

4)Self-publishing was a big thing among Pagan authors for two reasons: 1)at least in the UK, writing about witchcraft as nonfiction was illegal until about 1950 and 2)publishers did not see Pagan and witchcraft writing as a profitable sector until the 1990s. Publishers Weekly documented the rise pretty well.

I am also not typically in a good financial position to go to festivals and conferences. Yes, I know people that will cheerfully plan their whole lives around festivals etc. It does look like fun – but right now I want to make sure that I am not, later in life, one of those elders who has to send out social media pleadings for financial assistance/medical assistance. So I watch and write from afar.

 

 

 

 

 

Say No to Troll Control

Say No to Troll Control

Pornographic photography in 1910s
Pornographic photography in 1910s (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Drama Queens and Flame Wars

Oh, I guess it’s my turn to say stuff about this.

Back in my days working with the University of Minnesota Pagan organization, we would get our share of drama-seekers. ((Pagans, all religions, have mistakenly fed a lot of these troublemakers to the point where they have more voice than those who actually get things done.)) Since we were on a yahoo listserv (email group, for the newer netizens) we also got our share of spam. The students that ran it weren’t terribly vigilant about photo folders etc. a fair amount of spam got added. Usually the spam was pornographic.

The presence of the unwashed spam turned out to be useful for spotting drama-seekers. One woman posted an intro to the list serv. The next day, she posted (not quite verbatim) “I found porn in your photo files! I have children! What kind of people are you???”

Some of you will get triggered by the “OMG the children!” and that trigger – used quite deliberately – turns off the critical faculties to make you stop and think about what this poster was actually doing.

But for people like me who are not inclined toward the “What about the children????” tack since 95% of the children become adults no matter what we do to them I had a different response.

1. What on earth did her children have to do with finding the porn?
This was before the day of tablet computing, etc. If a kid got into her email accounts and started flipping through photos it had to, in some way, be because of either action or neglect on her part.

2. OK, there’s porn. She’d been issued the same rules we all had. Why did she post to the list instead of asking a moderator about them, first? Most people when they join a group try to feel it out and go to mods, etc. first or check rules to see what the deal is. Why, exactly, did she assume – or pretend to assume- that the porn was normal?

3. What kind of people are you?
Basically, she was leveling an accusation against every single person on the list in the “are you still beating your wife?” phrase. No matter what way a person answered, that person was stuck having to admit her established assumption/accussation that this group posted porn on the files.

4. Since most people only ever looked at the list from their email accounts and thus never saw the photos in question, it raised another question: why was she looking for this instead of reading the many emails distributed by the group?

I answered by asking her what sort of person she was, leveling an accusation like that without bothering to check group policies to see if it was normal first. She went straight to the “defend yourself!” for whatever disordered reason. She left promptly after my response and the group was better for it.

That’s how I handle trolls now, too. An honest question doesn’t use manipulation. “What about the children?” is only brought up when there are actually children directly involved. An emotion may prompt an action, but it must be mediated against actual fact finding. What this woman was doing was attempting to stop people in their fact finding and simply react to her.

Don’t give the trolls that kind of control.

 

So what if you’ve never been divorced?

So what if you’ve never been divorced?

The next most common question I get after the “so what’s a real witch, anyway?” isn’t a question, it’s a statement usually by someone under 30. “But I’ve never been divorced, so I’d probably never read this book.” Now, on a surface level that makes sense. Why read about something you know nothing about?

091110 203 -2010 Autumn Stillwater

On a deeper level, there’s a big problem with that, especially if you are Wiccan and work with a coven. It’s even more problematic if you ever want to lead a coven.  I’m not saying that anyone should or shouldn’t read the book – it wasn’t a party to write and it’s almost painful to know how fast it will be read given the 9 years it took to research and write it. But even for those who have never experienced divorce themselves, it’s relevant. At least, it’s relevant within the Wiccan religion. Also, reading is the first thing most of us are supposed to do when we know nothing about something. That’s how we take care of that “nothing” part.

Presumably, some of these Wiccans that have never been divorced are community leaders. 2nd and 3rd degrees that lead covens. Maybe they have friends outside the coven that come to them for spiritual needs, too. I certainly did the entire time I still practiced with a coven.

If you are leading a coven or assisting with spiritual needs… divorce is going to come up. Any competent clergy person has to have some understanding of the other person’s experience, even if that clergy person hasn’t gone through that experience him or herself. If you are sincere about serving the community as part of your priesthood you’re going to need SOME set of tools to deal with divorce. Not just your own divorce, should that happen. Believe me, divorce will happen in your community, it will happen to someone you know and it will happen more than once to someone you know. Not everyone will talk about their experiences and it won’t ever be the same experience from person to person. But someone in that mix will need your help – a priest/ess for a handparting ceremony, some advice on breaking the psychic ties. In nasty cases, protection magic plus some serious tailoring for a given situation.

Real priesthood – any religion – isn’t about showboating. It’s never about power. Oh, powerful people are chosen as priests – and they are chosen to serve. The people picked tend to have plenty of power with or without the witchcraft. Yes, Wicca is a very celebratory religion but it’s with the understanding that life will be serious for us from time to time. When that happens, it’s fine to be mirthful – but a good priest will still, with careful judgment and reason, help those going through a spiritual crisis.

So if you’re serious about attaining a 3rd degree elevation (if your tradition does that) or serious about using magic to make the world a better place, understanding how divorce impacts other Pagans and having a few tools to help those people along the way is a good idea. Maybe someone will read Divorcing a Real Witch, get all worked up, and present a much better set of ideas and assistance than what I’ve put forth. I think that would be awesome! Better material for better priests! Yes!

Ultimately, it’s the same conundrum as dealing with death. I’m sure most of these people have no idea what it’s like to die, either. If they are competent, responsible members of the priesthood they still have to do something to plan for a funeral service and maybe even get some grief counseling workshops along the way. Divorce is an extension of this same issue. A good clergy person of ANY religion must comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Divorce will definitely become a huge part of that over the years for any priest/ess.

A sobering look at best-selling Pagan titles

A sobering look at best-selling Pagan titles

the Monkey on My Back
the Monkey on My Back (Photo credit: magickalrealism)
Cover of "Living Wicca: A Further Guide f...
Cover via Amazon

An article on Scott Cunningham’s dynamic-changing book Living Wicca pointed out that, as a best-selling title on the subject, it sold 400,000 copies.

For the Pagan genre, that’s huge. For a lot of books in any genre, that’s huge. But it comes nowhere near best-seller category. While there’s no consistent number for what makes a bestseller – you just need to outsell the other guys – 400K over the lifetime of a book in print is smallish. Being a “mid-list” author – someone with middling/mediocre sales takes selling 5,000 books and that may change even more now that self-publishing is not a bank-breaking endeavor. We don’t need to go over how little authors make back from those sales – copy editors, ISBN assigners, cover designers, etc. all require feeding and visits to the vet, so of course, a good chunk of money rightfully does go back to the publisher.

These books also came out before the noise-to-message ratio rose exponentially. The same story mentioned Starhawk’s Spiral Dance, considered a seminal (pardon the word choice) book on feminist spirituality in the 1970s came in behind it at 350,000. Out of curiosity, I also looked up the much-reviled To Ride a Silver Broomstick by Silver Ravenwolf because I had heard it was considered a knockout bestseller. The book has sold 300,000 copies to date.

I’m not sure if that’s sobering or relieving. I’m well aware that marketing my book Divorcing a Real Witch is going to take some hump-busting. I’m also obligated to consider the following factors in the sales of the above books:

  1. This doesn’t take total distribution into account. By that, I am referring to piracy, legitimate book lending, and the circulation of used books.
  2. These books have all sold internationally. The above includes standard purchases in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia without taking into account the languages these books have been translated into.  Given that the US has 330 million people, which seems huge until you realize our geographic distribution creates millions of small towns that are often culturally invasive when it comes to religion and religious questioning (or absolutely anything else that might make those in power think they themselves aren’t normal) and that people in Australia still have to fight tooth and nail to get anything on Pagan subjects they don’t make themselves, that’s still a pretty small number to chop off for those who can’t safely get access to the book.
  3. All of these were published at a time when publishing conditions were completely different than they are now.

Still, the above are arguably the three worldwide best-sellers on the subject. Compared to the Harry Potter series (chosen because of its popularity among the Pagan set AND because it started publication in 1997, close to Ravenwolf’s 1995 book) these are … tiny. The Potter series sold 450 million, and still counting. Now, the specialization of the information combined with marketing practices – most books, even formally published books are now marketed solely by their authors – will dilute the odds further. And I’m not writing a Living Wicca. But just looking at those numbers tells me that whatever I’m doing, it’s really going to be an eye-opener about how much publishing has changed since I sold my first article to Llewellyn in 1999.

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#paganvalues: Misplaced values

#paganvalues: Misplaced values

BERLIN, GERMANY - MARCH 31:  A volunteer light...
BERLIN, GERMANY – MARCH 31: A volunteer lights one of 5000 blue and green candles in an eight-meter shape of Planet Earth in front of the Brandenburg Gate during Earth Hour 2012 on March 31, 2012 in Berlin, Germany. According to organizers, Earth Hour 2012 has participants including individuals, companies and landmarks in 147 countries and territories and over 5,000 cities agreeing to switch off their lights for one hour. The Brandenburg Gate, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Big Ben Clock Tower in London, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro and the Empire State Building in New York are among the monuments whose operators have agreed to participate in the demonstration. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Wiccan lottery winner Bunky Bartlett learned a few things the tough way when he actually hit the lotto. 5 years after his 2007 jackpot, he was down a few million but hadn’t lost everything. As he summarizes offering help and getting blamed for failure, he concludes “One of the mistakes I made was giving money to help other people realize their dreams instead of my own. “

This has become my mantra while navigating a Pagan world that wants me more now that I’m nearing 40, and navigating a professional life that is beginning to bear some carefully guarded fruit.

Put your own dreams first.

Because, really, we’re told story after story about how it’s good, and virtuous, and important to put the dreams of others first. Certainly kindness, sharing, and helping community members out are all good and virtuous things – but when we are sacrificing our entire good to help another person out (who may or may not be in a position to pay forward or return the kindness) we aren’t strengthening the Pagan community. We aren’t strengthening ourselves, improving our family’s lives, or making the world safer for Pagans.

We’re weakening it.

Some of the misleading ideology rife among us  traces back to Christianized thinking – the tale of the widow’s mite stayed with me for many, many years into my Wiccan practice. Only in recent years did it occur to me that there is no follow-up to that tale of her giving her last two coins: it very likely ended VERY poorly for her. Jesus might have been pleased, but he also didn’t make any definite moves to protect her from starving to death or being thrown in debtors’ prison. Someone thinking well of you does not keep you well, although it can contribute if it’s a relationship you’ve built up over years. But for one hit scenarios where you never see the person again? That good opinion does very little. If you’ve ever seen a Presbyterian parking lot in Indiana, you know that not all Christians interpret this parable as literally as I did.

I’m part of the generation where conversion to Paganism usually came from an active life in another religion – and like most US Americans, it was conversion from some denomination of Christianity. Re-acculturating how I share resources and which I keep for myself is something I’ve never thought through as well as I should.  For example, signing over your entire social security check to keep a Pagan resource center afloat  may seem like a grand gesture, but it’s actually the worst kind of martyrdom (and martyrdom is A BAD THING.) You’re cheating yourself of much-needed resources that, managed well, ensure your future and your ability to live day to day. Yes, the Pagan movement needs some infrastructure, but you don’t build that infrastructure by ripping pieces off the foundation of your own house.

For those following my work with Money Drunk, Money Sober you already know it’s been a long road with lots of mistakes, and lots of childhood conditioning to overcome.  While most Pagan traditions usually speak to a period of “stabilizing” or “Earth element work,” there is a tremendous amount of defeating crap, much of it rooted in a misunderstanding of money and its place, still woven into the Pagan acculturation process.  What’s worse, is most of the absolute defeating crap is upheld as a value or a virtue. That’s as insidious as a bad thing can get.

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So you want to study Paganism with me…

So you want to study Paganism with me…

English: Primary School in "open air"...
English: Primary School in “open air”, in Bucharest, around 1842. Wood engraving, 11x22cm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It must be that time of year. A few folks have approached me in the past three months about teaching them about “Pagan religions,” and while I’m not averse to taking students, it’s a lot of energy for very little reward on my own part. I’m not someone who finds the “joy of teaching” a privilege or a reward … I find it a drain. A drain I rather resent. At the same time, there are people that come to me that really do need a teacher, who are like me and don’t fit with a tradition in the traditional sense, or who really just want to learn enough magic to do what they need to do to make their daily life functional. I don’t necessarily enjoy the approaches, but I also won’t turn away people who a)genuinely need some help b)are willing to make the changes to make that help matter (this is not the same as doing it my way, though those resistant to change might read it that way) and c)are mature enough not to blame me or project onto me when it comes to the fucked up religious and spiritual messages they’ve internalized over the years.

My requirements:

If you’re genuinely serious, compatible, and willing to commit, you must:

1)Complete the Artist’s Way. You don’t have to do it in the allotted 12 weeks, but you do have to do it. As you do the program, you will start to see why, yourself.

2)Complete Money Drunk/Money Sober – the less fucked up you are, the better you’ll do with any endeavor.

3)Present me with a proposed syllabus of what you aim to study after you have completed the first two requirements.

This will take you at minimum 6-9 months. And I would insist you do that before I even consider putting you on a dedicant year. And I don’t do it the way covens do with dedication leading to initiation. You do a dedicant year, and then you do a pre-initiate year, and THEN there’s initiation. My religion and magical practices are serious stuff that changed my entire life. I’m not going to fuck around with any Playgans.

I can initiate you into Wicca, but I have obtained no other initiations that I can confer. I am not associated with any traditions at this time because there are no Wiccan traditions that really fit who I am as a complete adult. There is no regulatory system determining what initiations are valid or are not, so if you go through all this with me and then move onto a coven, you’ll most likely have to go through their entire training system from the beginning as well – as you should. Wiccan traditions are not the same as simply being Wiccan.

If you ask my permission first, I will answer questions you have about Paganism. What teaching I do generally comes through writing.  While I have in the past taken 1 on 1 students, I don’t normally.

Why I don’t take students in most cases

Why?

I’m following my new rule of looking to my own needs first. When you’re just starting out in Pagan study, or in anything, you don’t even think about the needs or realities of the people you want teaching you. That’s normal, and many react badly when they’re turned down because they want what they want for themselves so badly that it doesn’t occur to them that the person they want teaching them always has to do so at some personal cost that is physical, emotional, financial, and time-consuming.

My primary reason for turning away formal students right now:

I’m still looking for a suitable, on-my-level magical working partner. It’s my unicorn, my holy grail, my TARDIS. I’ve muddled along with working partners that I’ve had to teach, but you can’t have a wholly healthy friendship and spiritual connection with a person AND be their formal teacher – not until you’ve had a few years of space between teaching relationship and personal friend.  Both my parents were public school teachers at various points in their lives, and it was visible to me every day how even twenty years after a kid graduated from high school, that power dynamic never faded.  Right now there are bugaboos – if that person is in a coven that does oathbound stuff, inevitably something we’re doing will come into conflict and from my point of view, unnecessary, “those people are controlling assholes,” conflict. Of course I can’t know the other side other of the situation, and except when it comes to protecting the identity and safety of your fellow coveners or preserving the sanctity of initiation, most secrecy is a load of steaming bollocks. I’ve also been informed that my choice to be public about my Paganism risks making other coveners I’ve been involved with publicly identifiable – another load of steaming bullshit.

My experience with covens has led me to feel that for whatever reason, when I personally get involved with a coven I will be treated with disrespect and my voice will go unheard or be silenced when I do speak my mind. I am well aware this is not the case for other coven members, but this is how my two coven experiences have gone thus far, and I have zero interest in repeating that pattern further. So while I don’t object to a prospective partner being involved with a coven, I generally anticipate some coven-based interference that I’d rather not deal with.

You’re really just interested in dabbling

Don’t fucking waste my time. I don’t care if you don’t like reading books.

Your boyfriend/girlfriend is an asshole

Sadly, I’ve had to have students drop because they just couldn’t get their non-Pagan partner to trust them. The worst was the girl who was convinced I was out to have sex with her boyfriend. I do NOT have the bandwidth for that kind of drama, especially of the “I imagined it so it must be true,” kind of bullshit. If you’re in a relationship like that, you’re in a bad relationship, and you need to sort that out before you go pursuing a religious path that will alter your place in society.

You’re still focused on a previous religion, or you just want to piss someone off

My religio-magical practice is not petty, and is too important to constantly refer itself to Christianity, monotheism, or the usual patriarchal clutter. If you’ve got something to prove, don’t prove it to me – all you’ll do from my perspective is demonstrate yourself to be a jackass.

You don’t want to feel uncomfortable

There’s bad uncomfortable i.e. “I’m being taken advantage of” and “this is new” uncomfortable. You need to be mature enough to know the difference before you pursue any magical practice.

The vast majority of people that approach me fall in the “no” category for the above reasons. You need to demonstrate you’re serious, because otherwise, you’re not just treating the material dismissively – you’re treating me dismissively.I’ve had enough of that shit from people that were ostensibly my teachers in the past – I’m certainly not going to tolerate it from teachers OR students now.

It’s the reason I insist prospective students do the Artist’s Way first. This way they’re clear with themselves what they’re really trying to do, and since about 98% of the time Paganism is a possibility and not an answer, they can define their paths for themselves by following Cameron’s program. Honesty takes courage, and most people try to defer telling the truth which makes it worse and worse until it blows up. If you have the right attitude – “I want to learn, I won’t be good at everything, and I need to speak up right away if this isn’t right,” is hugely important in the spiritual work that I do.

And if you haven’t figured it out yet, if you’re just looking to smoke up and camp out with a bunch of hippies, I’m the wrong person.

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A few #paganvalues blogging tips

A few #paganvalues blogging tips

:pv:

Blogging Heroes
Blogging Heroes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last year heralded some of the most lively interaction to date on the Pagan Values blogject. So much that it even coaxed out some beginning bloggers. And it should! If you wish to blog about Paganism, you are talking about your values every day – there is no separating your values from who you are, after all.

To help people get even more out of their blogging experience during the Pagan Values project, here are a few do’s and don’t’s:

Do:

  • Post your link to the blogject entry for 2012.
  • Read the links that other people post – you can find plenty to argue with, inspire, and examine.
  • Post your link at the Facebook group page, and comment on the links of others.
  • If you choose to discuss another person’s post in the content of your post, link back to it.  If you’re really going to commit to the spirit of exploration and debate, you’re going to have to risk people finding you – especially if you post links to a public site.
  • Leave relevant-to-the-post comments on the blogs you visit.
  • Answer questions left for you in comments.
  • Revise your post for grammar, spelling, etc. Nothing is ever perfect, so making small changes after it’s published is normal and to be expected.

Don’t:

  • Expect people to agree with everything you post. Different Pagan religions = different values. There are even differing values within the same religions.
  • Post blog comments anonymously. This isn’t 4chan.
  • Make unsubstantiated claims.  A fact is something you can look up in a library or if you must, Wikipedia. An opinion is the sort of thing you just can’t look up.

Fact: Dogs were domesticated from wolves. Notice that I embedded a link to a respected and accurate information source, PBS.

Opinion: Pop music sucks. It may very well suck to you, based on your inner neurology. But that’s not a fact (directs glare at my partner, who likes to do this to annoy his sibling.)

  • Set out to prove something. This is about self-expression, and exploring where the communal lives in the Pagan community, not about satisfying an image of yourself.

But I’m blocked!

That’s OK. This is Pagan Values month – but it’s not 30 days of blogging. Very few people have 30 posts on any one subject in them. Most aspects of Paganism involve work – and this is an expression of my personal value: if you’re going to do spiritual work, it should be work you take pleasure in. That can be hard work, or light work, but it must engage you. If you find this blogging process engaging, and find that it continues to be engaging, wonderful!  If you find it stressful, then it’s OK to stop at one or two. If you’re afraid, then write down the reasons you’re afraid, and answer them with all the logic you can muster – and then celebrate it when you hit the publish button.

There are many other blogging trips and tips I’m happy to share over on the Facebook page. I’m an avid WordPress user, so I’m all about writing and scheduling posts out, using automatic methods of sharing, and creating in-text shortcuts so I can spend more time consistently writing new stuff. If you want to talk tech and toys, just open up a discussion on the Pagan Values Facebook group.

Happy blogging!

 

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