Potions, lotions & aging gracefully

Now that we are actually going to have another "Practical Magic" movie coming out, and as we've just passed the Lughnasadh/Lammas turn of the wheel toward the mellowing of summer into the first hints of autumn light...here I am contemplating things through the lens of cronehood.

With the ((ahem)) not-so-modern science of herbal scrubs and tallow balms, the tech advances of red LED lights, and rose quartz Gua Sha stone tissue massages before breakfast, who needs a glamour spell?  Midlife crisis has been pushed out to 50 or even 55 now.  Heck with the speed of life today and the way we can alter our female hormones through medication or sheer stress, it can take longer to actually get to the shores of menopause and cronehood.

I was 53-1/2 years old when my biology finally caught on to the idea that motherhood was not anywhere on my bingo card.  Hot sweats to be cooled by midnight margaritas.  

That, and I didn't meet the man of my dreams until I was way past the usual sell-by date stamped invisibly on my forehead society.  He's a gem that thinks my Venus is more Willendorf than DeMilo but loves me for every squishy bit of it.

And this late-in-life edition of my romantic story arc has also renewed my interest in how the Goddess energy within me has come back to me with a face of a much more femme fatale version of Aphrodite than a girlish giggle or batting of eyelashes.  She's teaching me that seductive arts don't leave you, the energetic rush doesn't dissipate merely because you can no longer wear CFM pumps.  

There is less attention paid to rising hemlines and more emphasis on worshipping your loving partner for their successful life experiences.  The wisdom found in having become such a virtuoso kisser, how to treat ones partner with respect and yet still appreciate that he has learned the art of being both a gentleman and a savage in a way that a younger version couldn't master.

For me, I recognize that there really is beauty in each crinkle at the corner of my eye, carved there from a well-worn track of laughter and sometimes squinting incredulity at the idiocy of some of the shit the kids say today.  Every curve, however ample some may now be, that I possess, I have earned.  Some of it through learning to become a fabulous cook and some of it because I may well be a shapeshifting as lazy housecat on occasion.

Getting older as a GenX witch and knowing the weird/wyrd road that brough modern paganism into this bizarre mutation of Tiktok and underground retro traditionalism forcefed by socio-political agendas and taffypulled media narratives, it is both exhausting and liberating to behold.  I find myself laughing at the inside joke of "to be silent" is so much easier when you don't want to participate in the funhouse mirror of the bullshit that exists in paganism now.  It is polarized and warped so much, I have a deeper appreciation for wanting to just be left the hell alone to live in a cottage in the forest and culling my own herb garden in peace.

Once upon a time I had thought to teach, to hold a coven again, to write a book.  Now?  Why bother.  Bots and ChatGPT will just make it seem like it has all been said and done before.  No seekers come forward to work through experiential training.  No one gives a damn about lineage or consistency of practice alongside generational teachers.  And frankly, I don't think I want to expend the energy on the short attention spans I see around me.

It is ironic that the window of things being something joyfully passed down skipped out of town just when I was eligible to be one ready to pass it, like getting stuck with the pentacled hot potato.  Now it is passe.  

Kind of reminds me of the way I feel about thrifting and antiquing.  There are so many glorious treasures that have been discarded in all their gently patinaed, wabi-sabi goodness, and most of the world doesn't even seem to notice their value.

Like me.  I find I feel like that from time to time too, that because I've reached "a certain age" myself, I'm now sprinkled with the invisible dust and relegated to the knicknackery on hidden on the back shelf.  

But jokes on you.  I may well be happier here, among the dusty things.  The solid things that were hand made by artisans and not meant to be disposable and easily replaced or trendy.  The things that get more beautiful as they change and age and get more mellow with time and softness.

My witchery has grown like that too.  Like a garden that has matured and has gnarled, curled branches...roses blown wide apart with trembling petals and wavy edges....moss and mushrooms...soft pathways underfoot from being trod over decades.  It is less about discoveries and new exploration than it is about books as old friends and teas/tisanes that taste like honeyed brandy.  Familiar and dark and deep and cozy.

I've become the Aunts, not Sally or Jilly.  And I'm fine with that.

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! 

Plagiarism isn't the most sincere form of flattery

Just a brief comment here after a recent incident I had with someone stealing parts of my blog posts from several years ago and trying to pass it off as their own work.  

I write this blog.  Just as it says, I am the sole author of "Flying Off the Broom Handle" and have been for 13 years and counting.  The thoughts I put here are my own opinions, my own tales of experiences I've had or thoughts which may cross my cranial spaces that I felt were worth sharing.  

Sometimes I do this to give readers something to chuckle about or contemplate or question.

Sometimes I write things that were inspired by conversations I've participated in while online or in public pagan spaces.  Things that made me curious or pissed me off.  Things that made me hopeful about the larger pagan scene or made me scratch my head.

But what I write here is my own content.  It has purpose and meaning for me because I've created it, drafted the words and cultivated the phrases.  From the passionate diatribes to the satirical rants...all borne from the witchy heart that resides within my own chest.  ((thump thump, hand to heart))

And so that is why my posts...ALL OF MY POSTS...are held in copyright. 

 
I want the words out there to be read and enjoyed, yes, but I want them to be known as my intellectual property.

If what I say inspires you, then fantastic.  If you have an AH-HA moment from them, that's wonderful!  If you get fired up and want to post a reply or offer a different view than what I've shared, please do!  

But please, be respectful.  If you want to "borrow" from my words, then please do the honest thing and ask.  I generally do grant permission for private use.  

What I don't do is want my words co-opted and used as though they belong to another author, another promoted agenda for which I've not given consent.  It is like having your name stolen, your identity taken or your likeness used to peddle goods that you have no idea you've been associated with.

So yes, I do take the stealing of my intellectual property seriously.  It isn't flattering to have someone outright steal your hard work.  It feels invasive, intrusive and hostile.  Not unlike someone coming into my home and helping themselves to my physical property.  

There are laws against stealing someone's personal property, and yes, there are laws against stealing someone's intellectual and artistic property and passing it off as your own.  Hence the copyright disclaimer, which I legally update every year, as posted on my blog page.

So yeah, plagiarism is ugly and painful.  It cannot be couched in clever, honeyed fawning of "Oh, but you had put things so succinctly and so eloquently, I thought you'd be honored to have it spread to a wider audience" ---- that's so much unctuousness it chokes me. 

Artists, be they famous, infamous, or just garden-variety diarists like me....we hold our creative endeavors dear.  They represent something of ourselves that we uniquely have produced and given to the world.  

We hope that folks will like what we do.  We hope they will find it useful, charming, thoughtful or contemplative.  We hope they will respect and honor the awen that sparked it.  Or the humor which spawned it within and led to the words on the page or screen.

In my case, I hope that readers will find the connection between me as author and themselves in the reading of my blog posts and rambles.

Mostly, I hope that if my readers do have a mind toward gratitude for any of my writing, they simply take a moment to comment, be it to cajole, sympathize or offer cheerful response and comical retort.  

Essentially, like so many things in life:  DON'T TAKE WHAT ISN'T YOURS.  BE RESPECTFUL.  BE HONORABLE.  BE DECENT.

And hey, don't lie.  

  

Conflicts of Religious Interest

I don't understand what the propensity is with some so-called modern witches in combining religions.

Saw someone in a group recently giving a "SHOUT OUT TO ALL MY LUTHERAN WITCHES OUT THERE. WHERE YOU AT?"

 (spoof of Martin Luther at the church door)

This makes my head hurt. And my heart.

While I get that witchcraft doesn't necessarily involve religion (though Wicca, and certainly BTW does), this idea of combining specific denomination of Christianity with Craft just sounds to me like a cop-out and utter nonsense.

Before you give me the "Ok, Boomer" bullshit (and I'm GenX thankyouverymuch), hear me out.

How in the blue blazes do you make Lutheranism work with Craft? That would denote that one would be able to see the correlation between these two diametric positions on spirituality, faith, practice and theology and somehow Frankenstein it together into something both would recognize and acknowledge as being honorable to their origins.

Can't happen, man.

How do you hold to a Lutheran theology that expressly despises the very thought of witches, believes holding other powers beside Yahweh/Jesu to be blasphemous, yet witches do work with energies other than God the Father in Heaven? How does one reconcile that Lutherans have a distinct priesthood and would renounce anyone other than their priesthood performing rites?

You don't.

It really frosts my cupcakes when people think Craft is a plug-n-play system that they can just overlay onto any other theological entity and call it good.

That's a shortsighted view of what the Craft entails and the depth of what it means to be a witch. One of the basics of witchery is the ownership of whatever you put forth. You are the direct connection to Source, you do not have the go-between of another person, in this case Lutheran clergy, acting on behalf of lowly little you, the congregant.

Like I want to see this Lutheran Witch walk into a Lutheran church and tell the assembled folks what they profess to believe as a witch, what they practice in combining it with Christian deity and how they have aligned themselves both to The Ninety-five Theses or Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences and the basic principles and practices of Craft.

Don't you think they'd get ex-communicated (or whatever the Lutheran equivalent may be)?

By that token, as a Craft person, I want to decry equally the utter nonsensical nature of this bastard combination.

But I can't....because in this era of 'let others do what they want' and 'it's his/her/their own path and let it be'....I am to let this kind of ridiculousness stand as a possibility.

I just can't though. I can't get my brain wrapped around this as a tenable, workable methodology for either persuasion. Consider it a failing on my part, I guess.

Shit like this makes me angry because it cheapens things for the rest of us who do take this seriously. Yes, I'm of the belief that stuff like this does take us all a peg down because it makes every one of us seem just as ridiculous to the rest of the world.

And if I were to question this person in the forum, I'd be the one getting the boot from the group for being a gate-keeping, judgmental elitist jerk.

So mote it be then, gang. I do judge things when I think they are ridiculous and insulting to the Craft. I gate-keep because I want to protect and honor something dear to me from half-assed scholarship and poor excuses of execution. 

LEMMINGS FOR LEMURIA, a just-say-no campaign

From the files of "I'm an older pagan and I've never heard of this newfangled shit before...enlighten me or get yer crystal ball off my lawn!!" ---I ask you:

WHAT THE HECK ARE 'LEMURIAN CRYSTALS'??!?!?

They're all over the internet, gang, and I'm going to tell you the gods' honest truth....they're a scam. They are just regular old quartz crystals with a good new age backstory. Maybe they have a better marketing team and some nice slick photos, but they are no different than the bulk stuff you bought already when you decided stones were good to have around for energetic purposes...or because they look really pagany, boho or hippie awesome.

Who was the marketing team that came up with the unfounded, unable to prove claim that these gemstones have the energetic frequency which links them to the "lost continent of Lemuria" or some dumb bullshit? Does the lazy intellectual pagan connoisseur realize that's like saying your buying seashells from Atlantis?

Are those sly Etsy sellers the same ones who are hocking chemically dyed geodes and claiming they're really that neon magenta color? Or slices of agate the color of peacock teal? Or the resin poured into perfect symmetrically-terminated points with 24k gold inclusions? I mean, Mother Nature makes some pretty cool colors all on her own. Why should we suffer the insult of having a lacquer spray on every stone make it as iridescent or man-made titanium clusters treated to look like an oil slick, just so that they can say they are energetically aligned with the ancient rainbow properties of Avalon/Narnia/Pleiades? No, my friends. We don't have to tolerate FAKE MAGIC and FALSIFIED TOOLS just because some jerk thinks we're too stupid to notice.

Aesthetics are nice, but nature worshipers should be able to forego the fugazi in favor of the real deal, served in all its realness yo.

Yet every few years we see these bandwagon jumping sellers with marketing degrees and slow moving stock, drumming up these dumb sales pitches so that they can repackage stuff to a buying demographic they only half-heartedly understand and about which they really don't give a damn. A sucker born every minute, or so says the astrological charts right?

Don't buy into the bullshit, man. 

Say no to the plastic amber with impossible inclusions. 

Skip over the too-perfect-to-be real resin replicas. 

Tell the hipsters on Etsy and the hawkers at HomeGoods that you're on to their scheme and you are savvy enough to know that crap, no matter how cleverly 'updated' is still crap. 

If you buy a Lemurian crystal point on Wish that is as big as your forearm, don't be surprised when you don't get an energetic chakra download from the ancient Akashic records but instead have a kinda cool doorstop.
Buy real. Be real.

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.

Yours, Mine and Ours: Is borrowing ok or disrespectful?

Co-opting, or adopting something for one's own use is pretty common in the pagan community.  It is a natural part of learning what is useful in your immediate surroundings or what you've learned from other people already doing herbal or rootwork in your area.

Then there is the tendency of late to decry "cultural appropriation" for every thing that may have cross-over usage in another culture or context.

I believe this is a slippery slope.

While I understand that arbitrarily stealing things from other cultures can be seen as insulting or demeaning, it seems that the great American melting pot is just that...a mixed breed of amalgamated and mutated recipes.

Mindfulness and respectfulness are where we are often lacking, folks.  If an object, gesture or practice holds sacred significance to a particular culture or race or tribe or group, we aught to be careful in our haphazardly adopting portions without taking care to respect the original context and society from which it is derrived.  We should be reverential in our adoptions and usage, and not just bastardize something because it appears to be cool, kitschy, trendy, or superficially aesthetically appealing.  And if we don't fully understand the idea or item in its original context, we really shouldn't just make up our own way of dealing with it out of expediency or a half-assed research citation.

Take the idea of smudging for example. 

I've heard on more than one occasion that using a sage or sweetgrass bundle is potentially disrespectful to First Nations people, as they had a specific protocol and ascribed usage for burning these in ceremonies which are sacred to them.

Well, I would counter that while this is very true and documented as a usage, it may also be said that sage as an herb is not just to be found in the Americas.  It is native to the Mediterranean and was widely used in many ways by our European ancestors in culinary, medicinal and likely magical ways too.  There may be many cultures that have used this herb in similar ways.  So in my opinion, burning sage as an offering or use in magical parlance is not under the sole domain of the First Nations folks and if you are aligned with any number of other groups that also burned sage and other herbs as incense, offerings, gratitude gifts to deity or spirits, then you should be able to use it for similar purpose.

Conversely, the dream catcher --- THAT has origins that are solely a part of Native American culture. 

Thus, I personally would not include it in my random Boho home decor, let alone my personal magical workings without some serious consideration about why I feel sourcing this as a focus without the historical authenticity, intention and....dare I say it...permission to adopt something sacred and use it in my own way, a way for which it was not originally intended by design or spirit.  That smacks of disrespect.

It would be like taking the Eucharist (communion wafers) out of the Ciborium at my local church to use them in my cakes and wine ceremony in circle.  Just because they are imbued with sacred power in the context of a Christian setting and now I want to 'borrow' some of that energy to align with the new context I'm ascribing to them in my own usage....that doesn't make it respectful of the Christian traditions nor does it really provide any "oomph" to my circle rites.  It is not a congruent usage or contextual meaning.  It is piracy of another culture's spirituality.

This, too, is one of the concepts that I'm not sure cherry-picking eclectic folks really grok.  Sometimes this same idea comes in with regard to mixing pantheons of deities or parts of the historic celebrations of a mix of cultures without doing research first to see if they are truly able to be co-mingled without being disrespectful.

Now don't get me wrong, even ol' Gerald liked to adopt things from different cultures, it is true.  But there, I believe, he did research....heck, he actually spoke with tribal elders of said cultures about what they did and why...before he borrowed elements of their teachings to supplement what he was passed by his upline elders.

It is all about being mindful, respectful and thorough of research.  It is not about "gee, that looks cool or sounds like something I should do because I saw somebody else on YouTube do a 5 minute video about it.

If nothing else, the Craft is a life-long study and practice.  It is a school of hard knocks and a school of opening doors.  You should do your best not to learn the hard way, if you can.

Silly skeptics, Springtime is for everybody!

I am an avid fan of having my home reflect the change of seasons.  Totally dig on bringing bits of the outdoors in by way of branch and flower, or when the Chicago climate is lagging behind where I want it to be --namely being sooooo over this whole winter business until November-- I find myself wandering the aisles of Michael's, JoAnn's, and HomeGoods to supplement with silk and paper florals.

So it was that I was perusing some things over this past weekend, to witness the explosion of pastel colors and foil-wrapped eggs and bunnies* at one establishment, whereby I saw something that made me a little squicky.  A farmhouse-style sign that said "Silly rabbit, Easter is for JESUS!"

Um, well....not exactly there, hun.  
It's in the name...EASTER, isn't it though?

Sparing the usual tirade about the co-opting of former pagan holidays by Christians, this momentary reflection at my shopping cart gave me to wondering about this notable push for Christian sentiment to coerce the mainstream to the flopsy-lopsy cotton-tailed misunderstanding about holidays by leaning them in their religious favor in the public sector.

Now don't get me wrong.  I don't begrudge anybody their belief system around celebrating their heritage, their chosen spiritual associations for timely seasonal activities.

What I take private umbrage with is the idea that theirs is the "reason for the season" and any other associations are diminished or should be jettisoned altogether.

This is an underlying theme of this presidency in particular I'm afraid.  That if you're not on the MAGA bandwagon with their rather self-righteous and limited views of a whole host of agendas, then you're just to be viewed as the enemy of all that is good, safe, sane and clockwork orangey.

To my point then, this little promotion which Christians will see as a win, to 'take back our holidays from the liberals!!' is just another way of saying there's is the only agenda, the Only One Way. 

For if there had simply been some goods displayed about the resurrection of Jesus, for Passover, for Holi, for Eid Al-Adha, and yes, Easter/Eostre/Ostara... we would be all good.  The inclusion of one spirituality should not negate the rest, ever, IMHO. 

There's room at the springtime celebration table for everybody to welcome the thoughts of renewal and rebirth and the hopefulness of seeing things turning green and fresh again.

*And besides, it isn't a bunny or a rabbit....it's a March Hare! 

 

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.

Hovering on the fulcrum

Today's the equinox; autumnal for us northerners, vernal for the southerners.

All about that breathless moment of pause, of hold...hold....hollllllldddddd (ahem, Braveheart reference anybody?).....whereby everything sits in momentary equilibrium and balance.  The fulcrum and also the point of change.

Speaking as a northerner, and thus one who is experiencing the autumnal variety here, this feels like the release after holding my breath.  The pursed-lipped exhale that brings tension relief and now I can look to the spiral gracefully and gently going inward.

Little old introverted me loves this stuff.

Gives me license to tinker and putter and wrap up those outward expenditures of show and expanse, with happy thoughts about drawing in and collecting my dragon's horde of projects for the cooler, more homespun months ahead.

My first witchy teacher was constantly telling us "look at what Nature is doing" and in this case She is having her wicked way with the temperatures.  Full of hot flashes and night sweats, then surprisingly cool breezes that carry the scent of wood smoke and apple cider.

Farmers in my area haven't yet started their final culling of the soybean fields and corn, but oh you can tell it is not far off.  Their farmstands have changed over from towers of tomatoes to pyramids of pumpkins and gourds.  They too are pushing on these dog days of waning sunshine that your circadian monkey-brain already feels is calling up dusk earlier each day.

I cannot wait for the color show in the next few weeks. Am anticipating the crunch of leaves underfoot and that way that only autumn wind seems to like to tangle my hair into well-appointed knots that the fae have tied for me, no doubt.

Something about autumn brings up pangs of witchiness, doesn't it?  Sure there's the anticipation of Hallowe'en and all that commercialized green-faced silliness.  But maybe it is the innate call of the Wild Hunt too, peering out through the shiny black branches and multicolored leaves that stirs something deeper, darker inside.

When the balance topples over into the first WHOOSH!! of reaping, calling back and bringing home again the rewards of what was sown, gathering and finding treasures in the astral nets...better than a fun size Snickers any day.

Don't Know Much About History... *sigh*

So, in my continuing efforts to seek out community of local elders, in the hopes of making their acquaintance and better vetting myself to them and them to me, I attended another “Wicca 101” class.  This one was to be a discussion of the History of Wicca, from the UK to the US.  Seemed pretty innocuous, and even the most unenthused historian of the early days of the Craft as we know it should be able to rattle off the basics. 

Given that this class was a two-hour long event, I had hopes for something more than a rudimentary Google or Wikipedia regurgitation but wasn’t sure how in-depth the teachers would be about early development pre-Gardner. 

Likely most folks would just start with ol’ Gerald, ol’ Alex and the Farrars, completely skipping over the bits about the insular pellars and cunning folk across the isle.  If they bothered to scratch beyond this surface, I would be lucky to get a small nod to Sybil Leek, Robert Cochrane, and Cecil Williamson.  In my mind, I was going to mentally award bonus points if they got all of Gardner’s high priestesses who have published various autobiographies, or if they cited the origins of how the Lexie’s came into being or explained who Rex Nemorensis was.

As for the stateside part, I was expecting to hear about the early days and the obvious ones like the Frosts, the Bucklands, Herman Slater, Lady Rhea and Eddie Buscynski, Laurie Cabot, Selena Fox , Scott Cunningham, the Zells and Starhawk.  I was also rather hoping that it would lead to discussions about the specifics of how the Craft arrived and developed in Colorado, Denver in particular.

As it turned out, they’d started the discussion by saying that they knew this topic was dry and boring  *sidenote:  It doesn't bode well if the teachers start off by saying even they don't like the topic at hand...a topic which, mind you...I had to pay cash money to listen to them present*  and that there had been a glitch in the class announcement and so the turnout was going to be very small:  just myself and one other attendee.

Now that said, I must preface by saying that I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from the presenters, a wife-husband pair of elders who ran, by all accounts, a long-standing eclectic-style coven in Denver metro.  Prior to running their own group, each had studied with various pagan paths in the area and spoke with some experience of their individual studies leading to their current positions as teachers of Wicca.  

That they are older and probably close to my own age, I suppose that is what led me to expect that they would treat this subject matter with some degree of respect, maybe interjecting their own life-experiential anecdotes about how they’d tracked down this Craft history through the lens of their own 'coming into the Craft' stories during the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Because they, unlike the younger generations today that either find out about paganism from being brought up with it or have it so easily accessed with the internet-driven, pagan bookstores in every town age, folks of my generation had to do some hard-won investigation to get to the Craft.

Hell, speaking for myself, I actually ENJOYED hunting down real info.  I LIKED sleuthing out the backstories of how the Craft came to be and how it developed along the way.  Going from bibliography to bibliography was considered FUN and I've amassed a really healthy library over the decades. 

I don't know...I guess I had assumed if they, like me, had been into the Craft during the early years of the 70s onward and had a similar struggle to actually SEEK info and people to train with...that they'd likewise honor that hard-won info.

But back to my story here, and not to be a total snarky bitch, but it was my own fault for having such expectations. 

I swear that I went into this class with the mindset that this HP and HPS who are purported to be active and respected teachers in the area, that they would treat the subject matter with due sincerity and thoughtfulness…ESPECIALLY BECAUSE THEY, AS TEACHERS,  ARE PRESENTING SUBJECT MATTER TO NEWER, LESS EXPERIENCED FOLKS AND DOING SO FROM ALLEGEDLY A PERSPECTIVE OF “HIGHER LEARNING”.  AS SUCH, THERE IS AN EXPECTATION AND ASSUMPTION THAT THEY ARE QUALIFIED TO TEACH IT.

Well, that is where I got all disappointed, gentle readers.  

Ok, I get it.  I understand that it is unlikely that every person giving a public class like this is going to get every miniscule detail spot-on like they’re giving the material as a doctoral thesis.  And I’ll tell you that I did not go into this endeavor with a sourpuss face and an itch to jump the instructors’ collective shit for every little misrepresented thing. 

I did go in humbly, and without acting like a bloody know-it-all.  I'm used to the 'traddie bias' that eclectic folks assume I espouse or that they defensively ascribe to me, as if I'm already looking down on them.  SO NOT THE CASE.  

However, as the presentation unfolded and these leaders/elders/ teachers were starting to interject their own opinions and misinformation as facts, I did start to feel twitchy and, frankly, insulted by the tone of much of their dialog.

For example, more than once Gerald was referred to as a daft old fellow who was apparently taken in by some drama troupe people who were having great fun pulling his leg with their made-up witchery.    Wait...huh?

He was presented as an intellectual spiritual seeker, yes, but also "obviously" a bit of a lecher who liked to traffic with young naked ladies and who, because of his British schooling, had developed a penchant for BDSM due to their infamously disciplinary use of caning.   Oh no, not this yarn again...  I guess we are ignoring the historic precedent of scourges in meditation?  Heck, even the early Catholic mystics did that...and they weren't naughty British schoolboys, were they?

My fellow student and I were also informed that Dorothy Clutterbuck was an imaginary character that Gerald made up (much like Alex Sanders’ granny-on-the-kitchen-floor story) to fortify his version of the Craft in historical basis.  Actually, didn't Doreen Valiente track her down, along with the elusive 'Dafo' and discuss this in one of her autobiographies?  Didn't Phillip Heselton go into all of this in his two volumes about Gardner, and include photos and corroborating evidence for the pre-existence of the nuclear 'coven' that was comprised of some of the actor's troupe, but also a few other high-born folks that had nothing to do with either the theatre or the Rosicrucians?

And then there was a brief side-bar about The Laws being made up solely so he could kick-out poor Doreen since naked, she was no longer a looker post-menopause.  This one does have a kernel of truth, but for different reasons.  It wasn't an aesthetic issue with Doreen. As she herself states in her autobiographies, her falling out with Gerald started with both his penchant for publicity-seeking without candor and also his issue with Doreen continuing to pursue other variants of Craft (i.e., her stint with 1734/Roebuck, independent study with local pellars, etc.) and her desire and vision to take Gardner's "skeleton" of the Craft in a different direction than what he had in mind.  The appearance in The Laws in the BoS in Doreen's time and later did coincide with Gardner creating a loophole that he used to explain her exit from his coven.  She left of her own accord, not because Gardner forced her out for being 'past her prime.' 

Oh, and Gardner channeled the whole thing.  He meditated and wrote his BoS, which was later rewritten by Doreen Valiente to add poetry.   Um, nope.  There is evidence now that he was initiated into "something" and he, along with his successive high priestesses, added to this very basic framework from many, many sources.  In fact, the whole mysticism and theosophy and ceremonial magic movements were really exploding at this time in the UK and a good deal of "cross-pollination" was taking place.  The differing factions were very free with sharing amongst their peerage.  Read about the gatherings held at Aquarian Bookstore in London during this time period sometime...

*heavy sigh*

 This then discourse leaped jarringly ahead to the Craft being brought to the US by “Ray….Ray…um, I forget his name…uh, Ray…”  Here I couldn’t contain myself and answered aloud that they were trying to recall Raymond and Rosemary Buckland

To continue…and this is my paraphrase not verbatim:  “Ah yes, Ray, who then moved it from New York to California sometime around 1970 and brought the Gardnerian version of the Craft to the US.  That’s when Starhawk, who was a feminist, latched onto it and because of the women’s political movement dropped the God and kept only the Goddess.  She published The Charge…which she thought she’d channeled herself until it came to light that she’d somewhat plagiarized Doreen’s work….poor Starhawk must have read it someplace and forgotten that it wasn’t her own inspired creation.  I mean heck, by then the whole Gardnerian BoS had been published anyway and who wants to kowtow to a hierarchy of people running things upline from you, holding out and holding over…”  Um, what the bloody hell?!!?!  There's so much wrong, so much anachronistic here that it was all I could do not to lose my ever-loving shit.

Here.  Right here.  This is where I had to raise my hand to politely confess that I was having some difficulty in what was being said and that I heartily must disagree.

First, I explained that the perspectives I was going to present as counter-testimony are coming from the viewpoint of being a traditionalist and a duly-trained, vet-accessible Gardnerian.  I calmly said that I had a problem with the illusory comments about who Gerald was, what his motivations for adopting ritual nudity, binding and scourging may be and that being a traditionalist, particularly a Gard, entails a lot more than the flippant presentation of history being given here. 

When the teachers’ eyes widened a little, I retreated a bit to explain that while I understood that many, many folks studying or getting into the Craft today have a far wider range of introduction to the path than I, or surely the teachers themselves, had back in the day…it does these new seekers and eclectic practitioners a great disservice to make light of the progenitors of Wicca and to discredit the idea of traditional training.

Admittedly, I too started out as an eclectic student who read a lot and test-drove different things before finding a traditional teacher…and I fully attest that I was lousy at being an eclectic because I felt that I couldn’t dive deeply enough into such a wide breadth of practice, pantheon, trial-and-error style learning that comes with it.  I simply did not flourish in that method and really did desire more structure. 

I wanted the master-journeyman-apprentice style method of parceled-out, experiential, revelatory study.  I craved the ‘safety net’ of knowing that I was being trained by someone who had successfully completed the same learning program before me and had been able to grok things the way I was being given the opportunity to grok them.

Ugh, here we with history repeating itself.  Once again, me the token traddie, am having to defend the traditionalist views against the eclectic folks ---the same folks who decry WE are so judgmental, but yet they are the first to toss these bon mots of bullshit like: 

·       Traditionalists don’t have any modern or progressive components to their pathwork: they are stuck in the rut of repetition of rituals and verbatim celebrations.
    And you'd KNOW this how?  Since you're not privy to what a lineaged, British Tradition does, you are merely speculating and guessing...and you're absolutely wrong.  You have a birthday every year, right?  And at your party, folks gather to sing "Happy Birthday" and you have cake with candles, yes?  So are you saying every birthday party is identical and boring because you and the actual date of your birth are constants?  Duh.

·       Traditionalists have historically been stingy with their knowledge and have been (or still are) withholding info that should be made public to anybody who wants it.
    I've discussed this faulty logic before in my blogs, so I won't launch into full-rant here.  But suffice it to say, we have very specific reasons for keeping things oathbound and parceled out to those coming up in the training system; it is because the experience is supposed to be a controlled experiment which is purposefully designed to be relevatory.

·       Traditionalist oaths are only used to keep power-over those who aren’t yet trained as they have been trained.  The degree system is a form of one-upmanship
     See above.  Not to say there aren't individuals with egos prone to "high priestess syndrome" in our ranks, just as in the ranks of any group.  But in the main, that is not the case because our system has built-in safeguards and checks & balances for individuals who exhibit such behavior. That's also why it takes YEARS of study to be afforded the right to carry the tradition and be allowed to pass it to others as a teacher.  It is a very humbling and ego-breaking task to stay the entire course to become a third-degree member.

·       That the older traditions like Gardnerian and Alexandrian are for people into BDSM and nudity for some sexual or titillation purpose.  Participating in such things, even willingly, denotes more power-over mentality and subservience
    Ok, so you won't get a full answer from me here because I personally believe that the majority of the explanation and discussion should be relegated to the individual teacher-student dialogue leading up to tradition-specific initiation.  But it is worth noting that the energetic, endorphin-laden experience of being bound and/or scourged (very mildly) creates a unique and powerful mind-altering situation for the recipient.  Again, this is done for the bind-ee and the scourge-ee's benefit, NOT for the benefit of the person wielding the whip.  The other component is the trust-interaction between the parties involved.  That, yes, is similar to the emotional exchange in BDSM play, however here we are also combining and associating it with a spiritual component.

·       That having a lineage means having a stodgy hierarchy of people who all get to tell you, newbie, what to do and that you have to do it if you want to be in their club. 
    Um, so I guess you could then assume that such an ego-trip happens with college professors?  With sensei of the dojo where your kid learns karate?  With every position where one is a trainee at a new job or skill and at the mercy of the trainer?  Again, if you haven't participated in actually going through a traditional training system, all you're doing with this kind of blanket statement is showing that you're wholly ignorant of the subject and making an assumption.  The hierarchy is actually in place both to vouchsafe for the quality of training a teacher has and offer accountability to peers if someone goes AWOL with what their doing with the traditional materials they'd been granted permission to carry forward and share.

·       That there’s no place for gay or GLBT people to play in the proverbial traddie reindeer games because ol’ Gerald was homophobic and everything has to be boy-girl-boy-girl 
    This is the talking point that has some credence, but also is a bit misleading because, speaking only about my Gardnerian background, has to do with energetic polarities and those aren't necessarily analogous with one's self-determined gender.  For one, we do have GBLT folks in traditional groups these days and I myself have a few people in my own upline that are.  GBLT folks that chose to train and practice as Gardnerians have no problems working with the polarities as we are trained to do.  What the biggest hang-up is that when Gardner first began with his development of the Craft as he understood it, he came from a time and societal background that didn't acknowledge or accept people of gender fluidity or of non-heterosexual preference.  You have to consider the cultural and societal lens of everything back then, and take that into context.  As our version of the Craft deals with the creation, life-giving cycles in nature....back in the 40s, 50s, and into the 60s....you saw that nature needed a male and a female to component to conceive a viable life form.  While we've since learned that creation and sustaining life in some select parts of the plant and animal kingdom do not need this gender-specific coming together to procreate, it is still the case in the vast majority of circumstance in this model of human propagation.  However, the act of creation isn't limited to just birthing babies.  It also includes creating art, creating experiences, too.  Those types of creativity don't necessarily need the XX & XY to tango.  Yet, for the basic purposes of what is energetically done in circle, the human propagation model is the easiest for most people to default to in a group-mind, combining of the individual personal energies into the egregore of a whole coven's collective experience.  As I understand it, Gardnerians who are GBLT's are ok with being gender-defined within time-space of the circle as whatever their naked bodies display (outies or innies) because it is a literal, physical characteristic exhibited to others in their nudity.  What they self-assign as their gender outside of circle (regardless of the "parts" they may or may not have) or whomever they choose to make love with outside circle is up to them to determine.

·       That if you participate in a traditional coven, they make you give up your relationships to other gods in order to only work with those they tell you to work with.
     Nope, false.  While in circle with your traditional coven and while working with the traditions materials, you work with the designated deities relative to the tradition.  You get to know Them very well and develop a relationship to Them through the lens of experiencing practices together as a group all concentrating on and cultivating the same group-family relationship to Them.  This is because the training system and practices were developed to work specifically with Them  ---  Outside of coven work though, you are perfectly welcomed and encourage to explore other relationships with various deities and pantheons. 

·       Etc.

What frosts my cookie most…is that these are TEACHERS/ELDERS who are promoting these ideas. 

Whether these ideas are borne of misunderstandings & second-hand hearsay, lack of real information or lazy scholarship on their part or just plain personal opinions with a side of ignorance…TEACHERS should be better, know better, than to spout off crap like this.

I mean if you are in a role of elder, teacher or leader, you have a responsibility to present facts to those students and seekers who look up to you.  You may give them stories and anecdotes about your own direct and personal experiences alongside the facts, but you shouldn’t deliberately mislead folks into thinking your opinions and suspicions are facts. 

Consider that your opinions came to you from life lessons and experiences which are solely yours.  Why would you rob someone else of discovery and the chance to draw their own conclusions?  How dare you steal that learning opportunity by tainting it ahead of time?  Just so irresponsible.

Ok, now that I’ve vented, let me wrap this up by saying that I don’t necessarily thing that the teachers at this event were hard-pressed and trying to be lop-sided in their presentation.  I think they were being more conversational and perhaps ‘coffee klatch’ in their approach because there had just been the other student and myself in attendance.  I have hopes that if they’d had a full classroom, the presentation would have perhaps been more on-point and factual than gossipy/conspiratorial.

 That is my hope.

And furthermore, I hope that should they give a similar class in the future, they might consider how vitally important their role as presenter is to the open and eager mind who looks up to them.  It is no easy thing to teach.  It is no easy thing to take on that mantle of responsibility, whether in an open forum or within the confines of their own private coven.

Because in that too, there is lineage:  that which they teach will get passed forward when their student accepts and adopts the ideas as their own….and may carry that onward to their own students one day.  Let's hope it is the truth and not hearsay.