BELTANE THROUGH THE LENS OF AN OLDER WOMAN 

I am in my 50s now, and I've been working my Craft for over 30 years.  Some of that was tradition-based, much of it was with a coven.  In recent years, I've been solitary, semi-retired from "public pagandom" and that mostly because I feel like the version of the Craft I knew, that I love, is not what is around today.

What the Craft has morphed into is something different than what I had come to understand and know...and while that isn't denoting judgement of it as a good or bad thing, it is and acknowledgement that it IS a very different thing these days, and I'm not convinced this iteration is something to which I feel belong.  

And I'm ok with that for the most part. 

Perhaps this is why some have said a 'woman of a certain age' is supposed to step down from the HPS role and go do her groovy thing elsewhere.  Less to do with fertility maybe, and more to do with not relating to the role in quite the same way given the modern views and modalities.

Certainly seems to be enough history to support the idea of little old ladies going off to live alone and on  her own, away from the larger community, just growing her weird herb garden and talking to cats and forest animals as if they'd answer her back.  Seems about right to me!

Which brings me 'round again to Beltane.  As a single, older woman who is both sans coven and sans spouse, I'm having a bit of a negotiation with the Lord and Lady about how this celebration fits into my current situation and what I can bring to Them as proper offering of love, respect and gratitude in my given circumstances.  

What does Beltane even mean to me in my perimenopausal life?  What does it mean that my mood swings and fluctuating hormones and trying to age semi-gracefully make me nearly invisible in this world, both IRL and in modern pagandom?  

Do I tell the 'Wicca influencers' on Snapchat and IG to get their crystal balls of my lawn?  Do I spend my time trying to figure out why everybody is so damn triggered by the version of Craft that I once knew to the point of making it cancel-cultured pariah?  

Lately I feel like my private meditations with Cosmic Mom and Dad are more like I am in session with my therapist, trying to talk-through why it feels like the gradient of everything has stolen the specialness of it all.  

So I look at the old photographs of maypole dancers, of the colored ribbons and the smiling dancers who you just know were going to steal off to into the woods, two-by-two, to conjure the summer in.  And I feel whistful.  Not just because I am without a partner, but because I also often feel like I am without the joyousness and carefree FUN of what it meant to celebrate in such a way.

Now, we have to worry about who will be upset by the idea of what Beltane is about, how fertility  works, what words are OK to use in describing such things and reenacting them in token or in truth...all of which may be unintentionally triggering to somebody. 

So where does this leave us in our modern Beltane eve?  Is any sort of light-hearted flirtation acceptable or is it all considered a dance down the path toward offense now?  

This is why I am solitary.  I am far too jaded and sick of trying to figure out how to redress things to meet with today's parameters.  I'm from the school where a ribald joke, a risque double entendre and a bit of a wicked grin were part of the Beltane fun.  Verbal foreplay before the obvious figurative descent of the May Queen's flowered crown came sliding down the pole.  I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, y'all.  Just sayin'.

So here's a health to you, how every you do or don't celebrate.  May your May Wine be sweet with woodruff and berries, may your eyes alight on those whom you love and may the year ahead be fertile and wild and bountiful of blessings.

And may your Beltane night bring you much ecstasy and merriment as your palate and social conscience will allow you! 

Opinion: Altars, public or private?

On a FB forum I participate in, a great question was brought up recently about how folks felt about posted pics of pagan or Craft altars.  

My opinion is that I don't find it problematic if others wish to share photos of theirs online, but I would not.  

Understandably, they have their own reasons for choosing to do so. 

·       Some feel that by sharing photos with the public they are taking away the "mystery" of it and helping to normalize the Craft or their version of pagan practice. 

·       Some are just proud of how pretty their version looks. 

·       Some want to give other folks some ideas for how they might want to decorate their own for the season or what tools and items might be relevant for a given ritual. 

·       Some use it for talking point discussions with those who are curious about the nature of what they practice. 

·       Some do it to proudly show their collections of carefully curated goodies that are meaningful to them.  

·       And yes, some do it to brag...but I suspect this is the tiny minority. 

Most of us have heard about that whole humility thing or have directly experienced what happens when you boast in front of gods.  There's whole volumes of folklore and myth tales that give us legendary warnings (literally LEGENDS) about how the gods feel about people getting too big for their britches.

As for me, there are oathbound reasons why I wouldn't share my traditions' altar publicly. 

But for my private altar spaces which are unrelated to any of the Gardnerian stuff I do, these are scattered throughout my home, and I have made the personal choice specifically not to share these either because they are special to me, both sacred and private. 

They contain elements of the conversations between my deities/my ancestors/my spirits and myself, and would therefore be of no concern to anybody else.  To share them online, for me, would feel intrusive, as if I were opening that singular and intimate relationship up to the views and commentary (possible scrutiny) of others.


The items, tools and symbols used in my altar spaces may be common or similar to what others use, or they may be wholly different and unique to the dialogues I have with Those that I am working with.

My altar acts as a visual language that perhaps would have need of translation to other people.  It would be subject to an interpretation that is too individualized to explain fully in a post or would require experiential exposure to grok as I do.

It is one thing for me to feel comfortable enough to invite someone into my home where they would possibly see some of these altar spaces (though not, obviously the trad one), because I already have some likelihood that they're aware of my spiritual inclination to some degree and are respectful enough to me as a person to know better than to start messing with stuff without asking. 

If a guest of my abode were to ask questions, then we could have something of a dialogue about what they're looking at based on their level of openness to such things and if it is superficial curiosity or genuine depth of seeking they're after. 

Or, some folks may just look at these altar spaces and think them merely a curious collection of knick-knacks, not seeing them at all in the way that I do.  That “hidden in plain sight” thing can come in handy at times too.

So I suppose I would say that those who are open to sharing photos online about what they do in the way that they do it....they should be welcomed to express their natures as they see fit.  I don't judge them for choosing this for themselves.


I, however, feel that my altars are occult, that is to say discreet and impactful only to me.  So showing others wouldn't properly portray the value and preternatural depth that the layout and objects present hold for me individually.  Thus, there really isn't any reason for me to open up that can o' worms.

In this internet world of EVERYTHING IS OUT THERE....this makes me consider the value of privacy and the impact of To Be Silent on my own individual practices.  As I am generally an introverted person by nature, by default I already tend to place a higher value on privacy and the selective disclosure of aspects of who I am and what I'm up to.  

My altars then, being an extension of myself, would follow in this vein too.

Witchbots and the almighty pagan dollar

Do you believe the stuff they'll peddle to the unsuspecting consumer?  

It was bad enough years ago when there were a lot of "repeats" by authors sharing a lot of the same info in a new dress and calling it the latest Witchcraft incarnation.

Now, just like robocalls, spammed phishing emails and bots in every chat room trying to snake-oil sales pitch you into buying into a fad, commercialized, trendy version of whatever it is you just google-searched....  

The asshole marketing folks are ghost-writing regurgitated witchcraft literature and making it available on the bargain-basement cheap.  

They're using fake names, usually with the unobtrusive "Lisa" plus a surname that sounds like they're a relative of a legit, well-recognized and well-respected pagan author, witchcraft old-guard leader or occult visionary.  

It's almost a given that this is so that their garbage gets more hits in the Google and Amazon search engines when you type in said REAL author/leader/occultist name, tempting you to believe into the associated fictional and bot-generated product reviews.  Yessir, step right up and BUY! BUY! BUY! your way into spiritual greatness in timing faster than your average Prime delivery truck.

The saddest part is that the unwary seekers out there will fall for this crazy bait and think that they're getting a good deal.  

They can well-afford 10 of these instant generated bogus books for the price and effort of tracking down just one book by a reputable author, whose labor of love and experiential wisdom will be overlooked in the avalanche of BS bot books.

This all sounds so familiar...          ((queue wayback machine sound effect))

Golly gee, why should I spend the time and effort to find a teacher?  And then have to wait a year-and-a-day or more to learn 'the good stuff' when I can just send in my cashiers check (or now just whip out my credit card for an ongoing Patreon subscription) and buy online classes with someone who sounds legit and has good lighting on their YouTube vids? 

Because, my darlings, caveat emptor.  Those old sayings about "you get what you pay for" and "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is"....those apply here too.   

Just as you'd thoroughly investigate a potential in-person teacher to see what their background is, how much training they've had and from what level of expertise and experience they're coming from, DO THIS WITH WHO YOU READ TOO.

Isn't it better to have spent your time reading material from a diligently researched and well-practiced source than from someone who just ((POOF!)) arrived on the scene a few weeks ago with no background check available into their credentials?  Don't be duped by these books conveniently bearing a name that sounds a lot like someone who DOES deserve respect and who HAS really been afforded respect in their field.

Riding coattails of real witches when you're just an advertising jockey who is trying to beat the numbers game in book sales, all the while not truly caring about your target audience...that's what is really....uh, bogus.

Serendipity-do-dah!

I'm one of those people who believes there are no coincidences.  Things happen for a reason.  People enter into our lives and exit from our lives at the times that they do for a reason.

In my opinion, there is a things happen in the way that they do for, basically, one of two reasons:

The FIRST possible reason is causal reaction. 
Either you have done something / said something or didn't do something /didn't say something...and this has led you to this present situation or caused this present circumstance to occur.  By this, I mean you made a choice at some early point in time, and the present occurrence is a result of that decision (or lack of decision).  Thus, this seemingly coincidental occurrence is a consequential event brought about through your own influence in the world.  Karma, as witches tend to perceive it, says things happen in the NOW, not in the HEREAFTER, and we are responsible for the NOW and our movements in it that ripple onward.

The SECOND possible reason is that an outside influence is purposefully acting upon you.
Other persons or outside forces --which may be other living, corporeal beings in your environment OR may be at least beings of spirit capable of interacting with this plane of existence in some fashion like Divine Beings, the Mighty Dead, or other non-corporeal but active creatures-- they may elect to bring to some idea or life-lesson to your attention by "pinging" your perceptions about it.  Someone else's decisions are impacting your reality, causally or purposefully.  They, or at least their influence, is confronting you and challenging you to both notice that impact in your life and now make a conscious choice about how you will acknowledge and react to what they have shown you or caused to be acted upon you.

The important thing to remember in either circumstance --again, this is in my opinion-- is that YOU get to CHOOSE how you will acknowledge and accept and react to things. 

You get to process the situation, the content, and weigh it against your prior life experiences, calling to mind your emotional reactions to things, how you may or may not have reacted in prior circumstances, or if this is a wholly new experience for you, to judge it against anything remotely similar you've been exposed to and then choose what you feel is an appropriate reactive response.

What is unique to the witches' viewpoint here, is that we tend to be very attentive to the fact that we are in control of both our response AND how we internalize our immediate reactions to stimuli of circumstance.  In so doing, we get that heartbeat-wide space, that moment of captured breath, wherein we can sit with the emotion for just a bit and then decide if our usual gut-reaction or knee-jerk default response is appropriate and of due force given the situation.

We are aware, so very aware, that whatever feedback we give....that will bear continuing change outward, sent rippling and at some point, returning to us in a way we must be responsible for and accountable for.  We must be prepared to deal with what we send forth.  We must be accepting of what happens, since we are the mindful architects of our reality, we witches, we benders and shapers of our world.

This is often an uncomfortable role.  And yeah, everyone has "moments of humanness" when we would so much rather dive into the "ignorance is bliss" mode.  But when we've set foot on this path of the Craft....from the moment we'd declared to the Gods and the Mighty Ones that:

Yes, yes, yes! we do really want to suffer to learn,

and we really do want to have the power

 to move consciousness with our will, yes we do!

Well, my darlings, that comes with a serious price tag. 

You cannot un-know your fate, your burden of being responsible than the next guy.  You've accepted that yoke and now you must pull that around with you.

It isn't all bad though.

You do get to know more about the fact that you, YOU!, are the "man behind the curtain" in a lot of ways concerning your own destiny.  You aren't merely some pawn who is forced to mete out your life in a sort of rat-in-an-endless-maze kind of way.  There is enjoyment in accomplishment to be had.  There is personal recognition for growth and all those lovely epiphany moments that occur.

Like when you meet a friend for the first time and things seemingly just "click" between you naturally.

Or when you have a sense of deja vu about a locale and just seemingly know which turns to make to bring you to a destination that has something which feeds your spirit.

Or when you come across something remote and beautiful and meaningful, seemingly hidden in plain sight, just waiting for you to find and experience it.

There are no coincidences.

Wake up.  Pay attention.

The universe and all the creatures in it...they are speaking to you in symbolic language every day.

See.  Touch.  Taste.  Smell.  Listen.  Feel. 

Breathe with the whole of your being and take it all in.

Then, go do something miraculous with it.