I am a Foodie.  I can admit it.  I love food and I love to cook.  I love making meals come together, and I love watching my family enjoy them.

Back in the days when I celebrated the Sabbats regularly, I used the celebrations as an opportunity to learn new recipes, to build new traditions that I would pass on to my family as the old secular holidays I’d been raised with were passed on to me.

Food has always been a big part of my family’s traditions.  Big pot roasts with yorkshire pudding, turkey with all the trimmings, cookies, fudge, cakes, ambrosia salad, hashbrown casserole – familiar flavours marked the holidays of our year.  Flash forward a few years, and I come to find myself gluten intolerant.

No more bread.  No more yorkshire puddings or cookies, cakes, stuffings … I could go on, but it makes me sad, so I’ll stop.  I had to clean out my pantry  of anything that might have wheat or other glutenous grains.  And there was a lot.

It’s gotten easier over the last 3 years or so.  I cook mostly from scratch, and the world seems to have gotten the clue that people who can’t have gluten do  exist – I can buy chocolate chip cookies when I feel lazy, and they taste good!

Bread, however, has always been more of a challenge.  Udi’s makes a wonderful line of bread products that have been a life saver in days of extreme sandwich/bagel cravings.  But, it’s still not the same as baking your own bread for a Sabbat.

Since I have every intention of returning to my Sabbat celebrations this year, I have been scouring the web for a recipe for gluten-free braided bread.  I have found a couple, but one thing I have learned from my previous forays into GF bread making is that GF bread dough is REALLY sticky.  Braiding it may not come easy.

I may be able to get by with biscuits or scones for Imbolc, so I think I can probably sneak in a good 7 months of practise before it is really important.  I’ll post my progress with GF Sabbat baking as the year progresses, and if the braided bread never comes together, Lughnasad celebrations will commence with my fabulously buttery cornbread.

B is for Bread.

Originally, I was wanting to go with Ancestors.  Ancestor worship and tribal connection is a big part of my path. There have been a lot of posts about Ancestors these last two weeks if you follow the PBP on Facebook.

As I began to write about my ancestors, I found something else was taking shape in it’s place.  Something that has needed working out for a while.  Something that will need to be completed before other work can really begin:

My spiritual beliefs tend to be a smattering of Celtic Paganism, Neo-Druidry and Heathenism.  My Craft practise is kitchen/hedge witchery and a bit of eclectic Wicca – or it was, when I practised regularly.

That was a few years ago now.  Life got complicated, as life often does.  I am hoping that this project will get me thinking in the right frame of mind again.  That it will get me remembering what I’d learned over more than 10 years of study and practise.  That it will get me dusting off my long neglected skills and starting to practise again.

In the last year or so, I’ve found myself a bit lonely.  It’s not that I haven’t been around people.  I’ve been very social these last few years and made a lot of new friends.  What I’ve been missing is me.

Too much of my life has been temporary these last few years.  Too many of my memories and treasures have been packed away for too long.

My new friends know the ‘new’ me.  The me they know has never been heavy.  She’s never had pink hair.  She’s never been a practising witch.

I like the new me.  The slender me.  The blond me. The ‘Living in the Moment’ me.

But, the new me is still incomplete.  I think it’s time to merge the two.  I think its time to pick through the pieces of the Broken Girl to find what will add the most beauty to the mosaic of the future me.

Part of that challenge will be acceptance.  There are a lot of things that I dislike about myself.  There are a lot of things that I do like about myself.

I am a stubborn person.  This has both served and hindered me in my life.  Accepting my flaws and imperfections has never been easy for me – even as I find the beauty in flaw and frailty that makes up humanity in others.

I am human too.  I have flaw.  I have frailty.  I can be hurt, and there is no shame in expressing it.  This I know intellectually.  It’s time to know it soul deep.

We experience the world through our emotions. Passion, love, pain, anger – these emotions can give birth to beauty.  Embracing them is not weakness.  I accept this.  I need to accept that it is also a part of me.  No more redirecting.  No channelling.  Feel it.  Know it.

I will accept myself: scars, wrinkles and all of the other flaws that make me beautifully human.  This is easy to say.  Doing it will require work.  But it is work I am no longer afraid of.

A is for Acceptance.

I think that a lot of people turn to their religion for comfort in times of personal difficulty.  Witches are really no different.  When the going gets tough, we turn to what we know.

“Give me a sign. Where do I turn?  What should I do?  Tell me everything will be ok.”  We cry out to the night hoping that whoever is listening will take mercy on us and help to ease our fear of the endless darkness.

And maybe that night we’ll have a dream that seems bizarre or frightening.  Maybe the next day, something will happen that will offer us that comfort in way we weren’t expecting.

We don’t always know why it makes us feel better, it just does.  Signs speak to our subconscious.  They soothe the deep mind, which in turn can help to calm and quiet our conscious mind.

It can be anything.  A song on the radio.  The perfume of baking bread caught on the breeze that instantly transports you back to your grandmother’s kitchen when you were 5 years old.  A friendly smile from a stranger who offers to hold the door for you.  Or maybe just for one day all of the little annoyances that usually pile heavy on your shoulders are mysteriously absent.

This is the comfort of the universe, telling us that no matter what happens, no matter how bad it might get, life is still pretty cool.  You’ll get through it.  The sun will rise tomorrow, and it will warm you like it always has.

In the dream world, any messages we may receive become more symbolic and can often be more confusing than enlightening.  Especially when the dreamer is not familiar with the language of the message.

Our subconscious mind speaks in impressions and symbols.  It doesn’t understand linear thought, and cannot communicate with us on the same level we use in the waking world.  There are no little post-it notes to remind us to buy milk.

Obviously, not all dreams are prophetic or hold an esoteric message.  And a lot of the time, the messages that they do hold are things that you already know.   In this case, the message is less about the content and more about getting you to stop ignoring it.

This is especially true of recurring dreams.  More often than not, the moment you unravel the message in a recurring dream, you’ll stop having it.

One recurring dream that is fairly common involves having your teeth fall out.  I’ve had this one myself off and on my whole life, and I can tell you, it can get pretty horrifying.

For me, this has always been the dream that I could never control.  Prophetic dreams are common in my family, and quite often they get to be pretty intense.  Many years ago, I learned that lucid dreaming can help to keep nightmares in check and allow a way to start to understand dream messages before I wake.

In this dream, however, there is no sign that I can grab onto that lets me pull myself up into a lucid dreaming state.  There is nothing that alerts me to ‘this isn’t real.  This is a dream.’  It spirals out of control until I just can’t stand it anymore.

I often jump out of this dream with a racing pulse and a full body shudder.  It’s a little different each time, but it always includes spitting out my teeth, only to have them grow back and fall out again and again until I feel like I will choke to death.

This dream is not that hard to interpret, if you think about it.  It has to do with a refusal to or an inability to speak your mind.  You’re keeping something important inside, and it’s choking you.

I think that there are situations in everyone’s life where they just prefer to keep the peace rather than rock the boat.  My mother used to tell me “pick your battles”.  It’s this instinct that can cause this dream to come back on me again and again.

Even if it doesn’t seem like the situation is worth causing a fuss over, if this dream comes calling, it’s a pretty clear sign that there is a part of you that thinks that it is worth speaking up about.

Another fairly commonly misunderstood dream is about death or dying.  This is one that even people who understand that dreams are symbolic tend to take literally.

I think that the key to this dream is to remember the Death card of the Tarot.  The Death card symbolizes change.

This thought seems to comfort a lot of people.  And I find that a little bizarre.

The Change that the Death card portents is not the simple and easy kind.  The Reaper is not a figure to be taken lightly.  He may not come to take your last breath, but what he does come for is often not going to be something you’re going to want to give up.

If you dream of yourself dying, this is often indicative of an approaching change in yourself or a desire to escape a specific situation in your life.  The circumstances surrounding your death are important to unravel the message that this dream contains for you.

If you dream of someone else dying, it can mean a change in your relationship with that person.  Or it could also be a warning that if things do not change between you, the relationship may end altogether.

While the above two examples tend to be more universal or ‘classic’ of dream symbology, it is important to remember that dreams are intensely personal and the symbols will often be difficult for someone else to unravel for you.

“Give me a sign.”

I think that if you’ve reached the point where you find yourself making this plea, it is important to understand that the answer you receive may not be the comfort you are looking for.  The truth can be harsh and hard to swallow.

I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that whether you believe that signs and dreams are communication from the divine or just your subconscious mind trying to process your life, the information made available to you should be looked at in the same light as any other advice.  You always have the choice of whether or not to follow it.

The future can never be predicted with total accuracy because it is always changing.  Everything we do, every choice we make changes what would have happened otherwise.  And while the world is filled with circumstances beyond our control, we can always choose how we face the uncertainties in life.

To paraphrase something a good friend of mine told me recently, ‘Sometimes all we can do is make sure that we are still in one piece when the storm subsides’.

Modern Paganism has many moral codes in place that serve to pave a more or less safe way to bring old and occasionally ancient practises into the modern world.  Many warnings against dangerous or unethical practises have been passed between so many over the years that they have become twisted into a type of fundamentalist dogma for a set of religions that claim to have none.

As our community has grown, urban legends have developed around what started out as common sense and useful advice.  Specific to this subject is the tale of the girl who wanted a boy she knew to like her (and she is always the friend of a friend of the teller, as it is with all urban legends, I imagine).  She casts a love spell on him and he becomes obsessed.  He chases after her night and day until finally she is cornered and raped for her trouble.

This story bears a striking similarity to part of the movie The Craft.  It also incorporates some concepts and liturgy of Religious Witchcraft that are often misunderstood by those who are new to the path.

The concept of Threefold Return is a big one in this story.  Messing with ‘selfish’ magic gets one slapped down by the angry hand of karma (which is also misunderstood to be the Pagan deity who deals in the parental ‘teaching of lessons’).  The idea that selfishness is always bad or that your spells will backfire if you cast for anything but a ‘true need’ is something that stems from the writers of the television show Charmed.

And while some will cling to the claim that any magic used not in the defense or healing of others is doomed, there are just as many who see exceptions to the rule of ‘No Love Spells’.  Among these exceptions are the spells that cause no manipulation of others.

This seems straightforward enough.  Folklore of old is filled with tales and spells about how young girls would  ‘discover the identity of their future husband’.  Many survive to this day.  I can still remember the old wives tales about peeling an apple all in one piece and tossing it over your should so that it would shape the first initial of your soul mate’s first name.  Or, similarly, chanting the alphabet while twisting the stem of an apple.  Whatever letter it broke on was the first letter in your future love’s name.  I could go on and on.

More direct spells that don’t involve manipulation would be those that work by changing the caster.  A boost of self-confidence never hurts when looking for your ideal mate.  Nor does changing your circumstances so that you are more receptive to the love that may be trying to find you.

But always the idea of casting at a specific person is right out and about as morally desirable as kicking a kitten through a spinning fan.  My way of seeing this is much the same as with any other ethical question.  I take the magic out of the equation.

There are plenty of ways to manipulate someone without casting a spell.  Lies are usually the most favoured.  Dropping hints to lead someone to believe that a situation will turn out the way you want them to think it will, is another.  For example, ‘Oh, your girlfriend certainly spends a great deal of time with Bob, doesn’t she?  And you’re here all alone.  I wonder what they could have to talk about so often that they can’t talk here in front of the rest of us.’

Take it a step further and let’s get our fellow drunk, and see what happens.  Perhaps a one night encounter would have been inevitable, but intoxication can and has been used in allegations of date rape.  Men are just less likely to make that claim.

Getting your way through manipulative means, even though mundane, may not be criminal, but it certainly isn’t honorable either.  That would be much my call on magic that is designed to subvert of inhibit someone else’s conscious will.  I don’t use the term ‘free will’ because I have yet to see any spell that can make someone into an automaton, and I doubt that that would happen, no matter how powerful the magus.

It is easy for me to sit here in the comfort of my home, secure in the eight year relationship I have with my partner, and pronounce what I believe to be right and wrong for someone who is alone to do.  I am not blind to the fact that when a person is lonely, sometimes desperately so, their perceptions can be easily coloured by a soul deep desire to find that special someone.

The fear of being alone is something that thousands, even millions, of people deal with everyday.  That is when you can start to over look and rationalize things that would stick out in your mind under regular circumstances.  ‘It’s not so bad that John is a violent alcoholic.  He is such a good father’.  Or perhaps, ‘It’s not such a big deal that Sam is married.  His wife doesn’t treat him all that well anyway’.  Or even, ‘Josh is so wonderful in every way!  All he needs is the right woman to motivate him and he is sure to get a job’.  Or any number of other issues that can cripple a relationship before it even starts.

Manipulating situations and ruining relationships and friendships bring their own drama and consequences, be they mundane or magical.  More heartache and hurt feelings seem punishment enough without the dogmatic fear of a karmic boogeyman or threefold backlash.

There is one love spell that I think just about everyone could benefit from, however, and that is the ‘Love Yourself Better’ spell.  The divine has a world of love just waiting to be experienced.  Romantic love is only one kind.

::Essay Copyright of Phae Talon 2007 – please do not reproduce without permission, but feel free to link with impunity::

A community is something that most of us strive for. The gathering of souls of a like mind is a very powerful calling. Even those who are not converts from a monotheistic, congregation-style religion seem to seek the simple joys and socialization of worship with others. With the advent of the World Wide Web, that desire can be fulfilled in the space of a nanosecond, and you can find what seems like the whole of Pagan society at your fingertips.

Yet, for all the romantic ideals of people coming together for a common cause and enjoying the company of fellow Pagans, there comes an undeniable truth, that Pagans, just like any other group of people, come in all shapes, sizes and opinions. For those unaccustomed to having their own ideas challenged, the world of Pagan internet forums and email groups can seem like a barrel of wet cats – clawing, screeching and just cranky in general.

A common thread throughout Paganism (and there are precious few of these) seems to be that minority faiths draw people of strong opinions. Be it deity worship, gardening, spellwork, parenting or even just creating the perfect cup of tea, many of us are quite vocal on the right and wrong ways of doing just about everything.

Opinions clash with such vehemence that sparks become a flame before any of the players seem to notice, and sooner or later you end up with a full blown Witch War on your hands. Participants become their opinions, and their view narrows to the point where they no longer see a fellow Witch or Pagan … all they know is that the other party as very wrong.

The ‘What is Wicca?’ Debate

What is Wicca? What does it really mean? Who has rights to the term? Is it only for those initiated by a coven that can trace its lineage back to Gardner? Or may those who follow the solitary teachings of published Wiccans claim it as well?

Is the religion itself of ancient origin? Or is it renewed with every rite performed by every practitioner?

Is every Wiccan a Witch? Or is it possible to honor the Goddess and her consort without the element of self-powered and controlled magic?

Is every Wiccan clergy? Or is there a place for those who do not see the priesthood as a central part of their lives?

These questions and many more have been sparking lively debates among Pagans for years. As our community grows, more opinions are added to the mix, and as the image of the Witch has grown more and more popular in mainstream society, those claiming the names Wiccan and Witch have come to span the globe.

The disproportionate number of students seeking teachers has created a sort of sub-culture of self-directed learners within our ranks. Many of these self-taught priestesses have come to think that formal training is unnecessary.

This unique situation has created a wide dearth between the opinions of the traditionally trained Witches, and those who are still finding their way. And with every new influx of seekers, comes those few who seek to turn a religious practice into a fashion statement or a hobby.

Those with no real desire to learn drain the energy and resources of those few willing to teach. The teachers who do not simple retire into obscurity are left with strained tempers, and the stereotype of ‘Old Guard’ Witches being elitist, cranky and generally intolerant of ‘New Generation’ Witches. And with this ‘New Generation’ being rather angsty and overly emotional, the ‘Old Guard’ have endeavored to embrace their own stereotype and band together into groups that affectionately call themselves Fascist Meanie Poo-Poo Head Traditionalists.

With “Traditionalists’ facing off against self-styled ‘Eclectics’, the community has faced a rift that seems to grow ever wider. Focussing on issues of validity and claimed kinship make these debates even more ‘personal’. These discussions are never resolved, or rather, never resolved for long. Occasionally, one side will concede a point, but a few months down the road, someone or something will start the arguments up again, and it will all go off like it never happened before.

The Fashionable Meanie Poo-Poo Head

For the four or five years that I have been a regular in the online Pagan community, I have seen these debates come and go more times than I care to count. For many of us, hacking at this dead horse got old long ago. For others, many of them not Wiccans or Witches themselves, these past years were time to refine the popular traditionalist opinion into ironclad dogma that could be used to smash every newbie in sight.

Seeing the potential behind the starry-eyed, Hollywood inspired newbie Wiccan is a gift that seems lost on those who have developed an unhealthy lust for the bunny hunt*. They skulk around newbie or youth-oriented forums with their sound bites at the ready … “You are not Wicca! You must refer to your practice as neo-Wicca or Wiccan influenced!”

I have watched with a hollow heart as these self-proclaimed ‘Defenders of Wicca’ drive away would-be Witches to satisfy their need to be right, and I have minced words with more than my fair share when their try to push their overbearing views too far. I might find myself more understanding of the work they fancy themselves trying to do if they didn’t defend the Craft in one breath, and then dismiss it as weak, silly and ‘new agey’ in the next.

The Clear Communication Cop-Out

When cornered on why the state of Wicca should be of any concern to anyone other than Wiccans themselves, many of these ‘Defenders’ will often claim that anything but a razor-fine precise definition of Wicca is a detriment to clear online communication, and threatens to make the term utterly useless.

While there is a grain of truth to the idea that a word cannot ‘mean whatever you want it to mean’, I think that some things need to be taken into consideration when claiming ‘clear communication’ as your reason for bashing newbies. These are relatively simple things, such as:

Will it honestly impact the conversation at hand?

A conversation about divination techniques is not the place to try and someone’s definitions of Wicca and/or Paganism. Whether someone is an initiate or not has no bearing on how they learn to read tarot cards.

Do you know what they mean?

A newbie using unfamiliar terminology is not an excuse to sharpen your claws on them. If you can generally glean what they are asking or trying to say, then a simple note on clearer phrasing is sufficient. Demanding definitions and sources for something that you already know is a mistake does no one any good. There is a difference between asking a simple question, and being purposefully dense in an attempt to make someone else look foolish.

Is their previous training relevant?

When someone comes looking for information to further their studies, they are often met with questions such as ‘well, what have you already read?’ This question is usually benign, and the information is used to help point them in a similar direction to what they are already learning. Demanding a seeker’s lineage before you will deign to answer a query on good Wiccan websites, is looking for a fight. Anyone who has been active in the online Pagan community for more than six months should know that there are few instances when lineage is relevant to a discussion.

If your interest truly is clear and intelligent discourse, then it might be a good idea to keep these little tidbits of tact in mind. You aren’t going to get anything from someone if you spend all of your time insulting and offending them. The opportunity for correction and teaching always presents itself if you are patient. A full-scale assault should be saved for those times when it might actually do some good.

When There is Nothing Left to Fight About

Every flame war will eventually burn itself out (even newbies get sick of the constant go ‘round). What is often left in the ashes is a creature, small and charred, wondering if Paganisms are really any better than the religions they left behind. With so many roaming the Internet like packs of wild dogs, it is easy to see how they can lose faith.

When you are newly studying a religion (or many religions) you are basically adrift. You have no ties to lore, or gods or people. You are out on your own looking for the right harbor. What you have is not yet faith, it is interest; and the ties that bind you to an interest are a lot more fragile than the ones that bind you to a faith.

I firmly believe that true seekers will eventually return, that no amount of adversity will turn them from the path call calls to their souls. But is it right that so many newbies should be robbed of the time they might have spent studying accurate sources, learning better ways to do things, building themselves as Witches?

What happens when you run them off? Some may return to the religions of their youths with wild tales of the evils of Paganism. Others may slink back to an unfulfilling life for the sake of acceptance and familiarity.

The lucky ones, I think, will strike out on their own. They will slog through the muck searching for small kernels of truth and will connect with what gods and mysteries speak to them without any outside intervention.

Still others may search for Pagans who are kinder, gentler and just itching to reaffirm any false notion the charred one may have. The glitter of fluffism can be very alluring. I believe it is a disservice to newbies to have any part in driving them into that community.

Remembering What is Really Important

What brings us to Paganism in the first place? What is it we find in our individual paths that is better/truer/more fulfilling than any other?

For me, there were multiple reasons. Chief among them was a desire for connection … to nature, to the divine, to humanity. Like many Witches, I believe in immanent divinity. Everything and everyone is imbued with the spark of the sacred.

For me, religions are about communion of the soul. Wherever you find that, whatever you call it is ultimately your own business.

What does it gain anyone to ‘win’ an Internet debate? What does wasting so much time worrying about someone else ‘doing it wrong’ get you? Does it further your own practice? Does it really affect you at all?

It’s easy to be caught up in the world of webpages, news stories, outrages, witch schools and cyber covens. Every once in a while we need to remember that the gods do not live in cyberspace.

The real world is waiting to show you its mysteries. Whether surrounded by nature or in the heart of the city, we need to strive to spend more time in our bodies and less time living in our heads.

Just shutting off the computer for a single day can put everything back into perspective and recharge your soul. Take your dog for a walk, and really see the divinity all around you. Suddenly, being ‘right’ may not seem so important anymore.

Some Notes on Stalking the Bunny

When you come right out and ask ‘What makes a Fluff Bunny?’, you will usually get a very specific and consistent answer (which is exceedingly rare in our community).

A Fluff Bunny is not the same as a newbie. Fluff Bunnies are willfully ignorant of the lore and mythology that they claim to follow. They will defend misinterpretations and revisionist history to the death, and are unwilling to even entertain a differing point of view.

They tend to quote metaphor and advice as if it were gospel. Many subscribe to the ideal that Pagans should only be happy and helpful people who are accepting of all comers. This is often referred to as the ‘Love, Light and Lollipops’ worldview. Nature is never cruel, life is never unfair and all animals are secretly vegetarians. They are actually pretty easy to spot most of the time.

Years of dealing with them have lead some groups to assume than anyone with a unpopular (and often more mystical) point of view must be of the ‘Hated Bunnies’. In some places, it has gotten to the point where if you follow a mystery-based faith and put more stock in personal experience than in scholarly historical research, you are written off as a ‘Closet Fluffy’. These places, while claiming to be open to all, are really only welcoming to certain types of Pagans even if they don’t realize it themselves, and few Witches (of any skill level) feel comfortable in their ranks.

With the popularity of Charmed, Buffy, Harry Potter and any number of Witchy teen fiction books on the market, it is exceedingly rare to find a newbie who has no preconceived notions of Paganism and Witchcraft at all. Many of this new crop of wannabe Witches are younger than in previous years.

While it may be true that when most of us were young, 13 year olds could intelligently converse with adults, it doesn’t seem to be the way of things anymore. The current state of North America’s school systems is such that we are often lucky if they can add proper capitalization and punctuation to a written message, let alone proper grammar and spelling.

Kids don’t seem to be taught how to search for information anymore. What you and I might have spent hours reading through dozens of books, making notes and studying about is now printed off of the first interesting looking website that is spit out by Google. There is no cross-checking of information, no baseline of reliable sources, just any page that looks good or gives easy answers is snagged whole cloth from the web.

And no matter how articulate or intelligent they may seem, young teens cannot be expected to have the same capacity for reasoning that adults have. Anyone, who remembers what it feels like to have their bodies flooded with hormones, should be able to understand how irrational such a state can make a person.
Keep it simple. Subtlety can be, and often is, lost on those whose bodies and minds are going through such massive changes. Some kids are going to believe that their way is right no matter what anyone says. Can any of us say that we didn’t honestly believe that we knew everything when we were teenagers? I know I certainly did.

Best to say your piece and leave it at that. Sometimes just letting something sink in is the only way for them to ‘realize the truth of a thing’ all on their own.

I am going to end this article with the reminder that not all newbies are fluffy. They may be obnoxious or confrontational with their questions and demands, they may have some silly or downright incorrect ideas or motives for seeking the path of the Witch. That reason alone doesn’t make them unworthy of the opportunity to walk it.

It is the work that will separate the wheat from the chaff. The Craft needs no ‘Defenders’. It is designed by its very nature to tear apart the fluffy, youthful ideal … to expose the naked core of a Witch and remake her in the image of strength and wisdom.

::Essay Copyright of Phae Talon 2006 – please do not reproduce without permission, but feel free to link with impunity::

In the February 25, 2005 edition of the North Shore News (a local freebe news paper), there is an article entitled ‘United Church of Canada anything but’. This article is basically a report on how many members of the United Church are upset that their new ‘statement of faith’ is more in keeping with Unitarian beliefs than traditional Christian values.

Reprinted within the text of the article is a challenge written by a retired United Church minister attacking many of the changes that are being made. Now, while I personally find many of the Reverend’s views offensive, I can understand his anger at the turn the church is taking.

The last several years have seen a dramatic decrease not only in current church membership, but in conversion rates as well. People all over the world are coming to understand that they are not stuck with the church of their childhood when they find the theology lacking. Alternatives such as Paganism are more accepted in the general public than they ever have been before.

The change of the church doctrines to be more inclusive of quasi-pagan beliefs strikes me as a shallow attempt to bolster membership. I see it as dishonest and ultimately futile effort. It will not stop the steady stream of people leaving Christianity. At best it will slow it down; at worst, it will force disillusioned Christians into more conservative (and more dangerous) right-wing churches and political groups. Nothing gets people more active in politics than a threat to their faith.

Beyond lagging membership and changing church tenants, American Christians in particular are pitching fits over the more stringent enforcement of the separation of church and state, the removal of school and municipal government prayers, and casual television references to pagan concepts such as ‘the gods’, ‘the fates’, etc (I have seen these things myself in shows like Friends, Spin City, and even the Simpsons).

Most of the western world won’t even notice these things, but to conservative Christians intent on feeling like persecuted martyrs, it is an attack on their place of power within mainstream society. I, and many other Pagans, see this as a good thing … a move towards balance and diversity.

Unfortunately, the religious right is not going down without a fight. Recent months have seen a massive influx of neo-conservatives from the United States protesting and boosting the numbers of our own conservatives as they try to force through legislation that will actively discriminate against gay couples seeking to marry. In England, fundies are coming out of the woodwork in an attempt to force Jerry Springer: The Opera off the air, even going so far as to threaten a cancer charity with picket lines outside their main office, if they accepted a donation from the show.

As outrageous and aggravating as these tactics seem, we must see them for what they are – desperation. It is naive to think that Christianity, as we know it today, will ever disappear all together, but their strangle hold on western society is waning, and things are going to get uglier before the new ‘norm’ is established.

At times I think that the best thing to do is just sit back and watch the fur fly, but the truth is, that we don’t have the luxury of believing that this doesn’t affect us. We have already seen what happens when we sit back and watch rather than get involved. The re-election of US president George Bush is a lesson that many of us won’t soon forget.

The best thing that we can do to ride out the religious and political whirlwind is to stay active in local government. Write your MP (or congressman if you live in the states), and make sure that your opinions on important issues are known. Emails are good, but paper letters are much harder to ignore. Professional language is also essential if you want to be taken seriously. It isn’t easy, I know (I am still trying to find a civil way of saying ‘hey buddy, get your head out of your ass and join us in the 21st century’).

I don’t take pleasure in the turmoil that faces Christianity in the next several years, but I am also unwilling to allow that to be and excuse for the more vocal among them to scream persecution at every turn, and launch so-called ‘morality campaigns’ against basic human rights and freedoms.

We can’t afford to assume that the rift within mainstream Christian churches is not our concern. As more and more people turn from the church of their youth in search of a better spiritual fit, Paganism is now often the first place they look. What we are fighting now is not a battle to gain ground, but rather to hold onto the legitimacy and acceptance we already have.

::Essay Copyright of Phae Talon 2005 – please do not reproduce without permission, but feel free to link with impunity::

*This scenareo has changed considerabley over the last three years, and this article could do with an update.  Keep your eyes peeled for Pagan America – Three Years Later.

It seems pretty clear to me that Pagans come to online forums and discussion groups looking for one of two things. Either they want to learn about Paganism, discuss and dissect different ideas and opinions, or they are looking for fellowship.

Often those looking for the latter end up finding themselves feeling beat up and degraded when they bring up a topic that piques people’s interests. They complain about being made to feel awful because they have a differing opinion from the majority, and even when attempts are made to explain how Pagan discussion forums work, they leave feeling that the group they encountered were simply elitist, closed-minded, and just plain mean. ‘Pagans are supposed to be tolerant!’ they shout. ‘You people are worse than Christians!’

The first thing I want to say is that though it may look like a fight when people are adamantly defending their views, I can assure you that usually, no one is angry at each other. The posters disagreeing are most likely friends. Pagans are a passionate bunch, and though we defend our ideas and beliefs with voracity, most of us have the ability to rethink those ideas and perhaps rework or discard them should they be proven unable to stand up to scrutiny.

For myself, that very thing is what keeps me coming back to the boards. I don’t post to have everyone tell me how insightful or wise I am (I don’t need that kind of ego stroking), I go on the off chance that a really heated exchange will either confirm my own beliefs or open my eyes to new possibilities.

That said, I am used to that format of learning now, and it did make me uncomfortable in the beginning (I am fundamentally, a person who prefers to avoid conflict). I overcame my discomfort because I am also a person who is very strong in her opinions. I know that my beliefs are well thought out, and completely valid to me.

Do I care that other people think that I am wrong or maybe a little crazy? In all honesty, I used to … but not now. This brings me to the point of this article:

The majority of people who come to the practice of Witchcraft, come looking for power. Some want power over that boy they like, but are too scared to talk to. Some want power over an oppressor who has trampled them down for too long. Some simply want the power to change their lives, or the lives of their family for the better.

What Witchcraft teaches (and I believe that this may be one of the few lessons that is nearly universal to all kinds of Witchcraft) is that the only power you need is over yourself. Now, that is not as easy as it sounds.

Most people grow up under the control of their parents; many move from the control of their parents into the control of their spouse. And many more spend the majority of their lives in the control of their pastor, priest or god.

Witchcraft takes that power and places it right back in your own hands. No one can stop you from making your mistakes, and no one is going to sacrifice themselves for your sins. This is your life, you take responsibility for it because no one else is going to.

Self responsibility is often a scary prospect. Many people don’t like the idea that there is no one with forgiveness at the ready, or that being sorry for a mistake isn’t enough. But what it gives you is something that almost no Pagan is willing to give up.

It gives you confidence. No more worries about whether or not dropping your athame during a ritual will offend your gods. No more wondering if maybe you really are going to hell. No more worrying if it is worth the family/community conflicts to follow your heart.

You have already sat down and ruthlessly scrutinized your own beliefs. You have not shied away from the hard questions. You and delved into the depths of your soul, confronted your fears and come out on the other side, a Witch.

Perhaps you don’t know a lot about Paganism or Wicca. Perhaps you are still looking for a path that sings to your spirit. Perhaps you aren’t even sure if you want to really leave the religion of your parents. But you know yourself. You know your worth. You know your own beliefs are valid and having someone disagree with you doesn’t change that.

This is not a call to doggedly defend beliefs simply because they are yours. While a Witch has the confidence to defend her position, she also has the wisdom to recognize where her beliefs may be lacking. She takes the opinions of others into consideration. If it makes sense, keep it; if not, discard it. No two people see the world through the same eyes.

The point is, when you are confident in yourself and your beliefs, then no one has the power over you to make you feel bad for having an opinion that isn’t popular. Many Pagans will tell you that this confidence is essential to all those following a minority religion.

Everyday your beliefs are going to be called into question by most of the outside world. And while you may feel that that should mean that all Pagans should support you by virtue of being Pagan, that is not the way of the world. We would be doing you no favors by coddling you rather than encouraging you to grow.

As a friend of mine is fond of saying, ‘It is called the Craft of the Wise, not the Craft of the Nice’. Wisdom is not handed out like communion wafers. It is a hard won prize, and we don’t expect all comers to possess it. This path is a life-long journey, and while we are always ready to challenge and dissect ideas and beliefs (even our own), we are also always ready to answer the questions of all seekers (even if that answer is ‘I don’t know’).

It may take time to get used to, but no community is perfect, and this is the only one we’ve got. Just remember, as a Witch, power over your life and your feelings belongs to you alone.

::Essay Copyright of Phae Talon 2005 – please do not reproduce without permission, but feel free to link with impunity::

At first glance, one could surmise that it is a reaction to the re-election of George W. Bush as US president. Many are afraid that the damage he and the neo-cons have the capacity to cause would not only take decades to undo, but could also plunge us into a time of darkness and persecution. Everything from the reversal of Roe vs Wade to the outlawing of faiths deemed not ‘real’ religions by the Religious Reich, are trotted out as examples of what could befall us if we let our guard down.

The answers to these numerous threats to American freedom are often just as varied. Activists suggest that Pagans get more involved in local government and the political process by writing letters, running for local office and even staging protests when the situation warrants it.

Others feel that our only chance is to conform … to prove to the mainstream public that Pagan faiths are ‘real’ religions deserving of constitutional protection. It is from this side that the assorted Pagan unity campaigns seem to spring. Ideas like Pagan run charity shelters and soup kitchens, Pagan slanted educational and environmental campaigns, and even structured Pagan churches are all designed to build a strong united Pagan front.

Many of these are great ideas and are being put into effect all over the world. But I have also seen calls for all Pagans to jump from the broom closet for the good of the community, and proposals for the creation of ‘Witch Clans’ or Tribes so that our true numbers may be known.

Many Pagans can see the flaws in this ideal, and refuse to be involved in anything promoting Pagan unity. The ever hopeful and optimistic among us are often crushed by the nay-sayers, unable to understand why we can’t just put aside our differences for the sake of protecting our rights and freedoms.

There are a myriad of reasons behind the refusal to conform (trust me, it isn’t just a bunch of old cranks out to spoil your Utopia):

The main reason for such resistance is the diversity of Pagan faiths. One of the most beautiful things about the Pagan Community is that we can follow such vastly different paths and still occasionally come together in pursuit of a common goal. But having a Wiccan and Asatruar work together for the duration of a festival or a protest is worlds apart from expecting them to work the same ritual together every esbat.

Many fear that the result of structured Pagan unity will be a homogenization of our varied and sacred paths into one non-denominational, soulless Universal Pagan church, where truth and mystery are lost to the desire to remain non-exclusionary.

Another point is that any clan or tribe set up has to be run by someone (or a group of someones). As it stands now, there really is no standard by which we can judge someone’s experience and/or credentials. Any council of elders (assuming that one could be created that everyone would accept) would face continuous problems with some group or other being unwilling to accept that everyone’s knowledge and experience was as valid as their own, as well as complaints that someone’s concerns were not being heard due to no one of their path being on the leading council. This sort of in-fighting has a tendency to permeate just about every place, in real life and online, where Pagans gather.

On the flip side of that coin, there is always the possibility of certain individuals and groups being excluded from the tribe all together because their path does not conform to someone’s view of ‘accepted Pagan practice’.

Even if we could work past the first two problems, there is always the lingering question of ‘Who is gonna pay for all this?’ In a coven or grove-type setting, the priests and priestesses still must maintain regular jobs. If we expected our leaders and elders to take on the challenge of running groups that are likely to be at least three times as large as a normal coven, we would need their undivided attention. And that means providing them an income to help support their families. Many of us can barely afford to feed ourselves, let alone financing the upstart and maintenance of a tribe and council.

Still another objection to the whole idea is that of ‘Why should we have to do this?’ I understand this stance intimately as it tends to be my own when this issue comes up.

Why should Pagan faiths have to unite to be deserving of respect and constitutional protection? Why should we have to water down our mysteries and practices so that they will be acceptable to the mainstream public? How is that freedom? How is that any different than sitting in a pew every Sunday? Because you still get to wear your pentacle? Symbols don’t mean much when the faith and practice they represent must be gutted to appeal to the palette of the ‘normal’.

As we tell our Seekers and Newbies, ‘Pagan’ is not a religion. It is a term used to describe those of us who fall outside of the religiously ‘normal’. If you try to strip away those differences, you strip away the attraction that Paganism has for so many. The assorted Pagan paths are meant for those who want to make their own way in life … those who don’t want to be told how they should feel and what they should believe.

In the end, the quest for structured unity is doomed to failure. Though we all hold in common that we are not of an Abrahamic faith, we are still too different from each other to be forced into the same mould. We are a mosaic, not a melting pot. Enjoy the unity of the annual Pagan Pride Day and Witchfest, for in actuality, that is really as long as it will last.

::Essay Copyright of Phae Talon 2005 – please do not reproduce without permission, but feel free to link with impunity::

The last twenty years have seen a dramatic surge in the popularity of Wicca and other Witchcraft religions – to the point where it seems that every week a new book is coming out that teaches a new ‘brand’ of Wicca. And as a result, by either desire or geography, many Witches are forgoing the coven route, and going it alone.

This has many Trad Wiccans notably upset. Leaving aside the fact that you cannot learn the Wiccan mysteries from a book, many see the solitary, book-trained priestesses as cheapening their faith.

The concept of self-initiation seems particularly offensive. Traditionally, an initiation into a coven was not only a right of passage on the road to becoming a priest or priestess of the Wiccan faith, it was also indicative of proper training and mastery of a base set of skills.

On the other side of the coin, there are a great many of the new generation of book-trained Wiccans who very firmly believe that the only relationship they need is with their deities. They feel that initiation into the mysteries is something a coven alone cannot give; it is a door opened by the gods.

A point of contention is that while a personal relationship with the divine is good, can you really still call yourself a Wiccan without the training? Are those mysteries experienced by solitaries the same as those experienced in the presence of a coven? It’s possible, but most likely not. Does this make them less valuable? Of course not.

So where does this leave us? Can the solitaries still call themselves Wiccan without a traditional initiation, or must they relegate themselves to Neo-Wiccan, Witch, or Pagan?

What I see happening here is a transformation of what Wicca is. It is ridiculous to think that a living religion would remain static and never change, and it seems to me that Wicca is moving from a ‘religion of priests’ to a more mainstream construct that includes a laity. Which basically means, Wiccans who are interested in celebrating their own faith, but are not so much looking to be involved in coven work, or teaching, or providing many of the other services of the clergy. There is a great deal of resistance to this idea from both sides, and I believe that time is the only thing that will resolve this issue.

So, are self-initiations valid? Is an initiation even required to call yourself Wiccan?

My personal feeling is that if you are going to be associating with other Wiccans, don’t expect them to accept self-training as equal to coven training. They won’t.

As to whether an initiation is required … I think that the question that really needs to be asked is, ‘Is an initiation important to you?’ In my experience, most of the Witches who cling to their self-initiations are the ones who have convinced themselves that they have no business practising the craft without a formal commitment.

There is nothing wrong with this, but the concept of a personal commitment to one’s path seems to have been boiled down to semantics. Call it a dedication or initiation, it is the experience that is important, not the wording you choose.

::Essay Copyright of Phae Talon 2005 – please do not reproduce without permission, but feel free to link with impunity::

Anyway, the next couple of days will see the articles of 2005, 2006 and 2007 (there aren’t nearly as many from those years as there was in 2004 – I was quite the little rant-bot back then).  Hopefully, not too long after that, there will be a couple of new articles so that my 2008 section will not look all sad and empty

Thanks for reading.

–Phae