HEADSCRATCHER: a "Wiccan" priestess gives invocation to Iowa state house

Ok, I may be late to speak about this at the online rant party, but believe me, my forehead slapping did occur when I heard about this in late March-early April.

To confess, I thought it was an April Fools' joke at first.  Here's the article, as I first saw it:

http://www.kcrg.com/subject/news/wiccan-priestess-to-give-invocation-to-iowa-house-20150328

But while I am usually happy when well-spoken, educated, non-costume attired paganfolks get a chance to speak about the beauty and legitimacy of our path as a spiritually affirming religion...unfortunately, this follows with my being gobsmacked by the "one step too far" statements the token witchypoo or paganpeep makes, if not spouting Gandolfy, Morgan-Le-Fay-ish stupidity in the press.

Now, I'll also tell you that I've done press interviews myself and I know FIRST HAND that those really swell reporters who seem really sympathetic and interested in what we had discussed during the interview are also the self-same jerkfaces who then published hatchet jobs of what was actually said.  All the off-the-cuff trivial platitudes and sidebar comments that were made somehow took precedence over the really astute, journalism-worthy tidbits that were supposed to be the meat of the article. 

So I get that there is a small chance that Ms. Maynard was taken out of context and really isn't as dumb as she sounds. 

Yet, the quote of hers which sent my bullshit-o-meter to eleven was that she didn't want there to be any negative backlash for her giving the opening prayer.  She wanted to draw a line that she was a self-proclaimed Wiccan and "Wicca has a bad reputation as a religion as many may associate it with witchcraft..."


Hello?  HELLO MCFLY?  Wicca IS Witchcraft. 

If the general public is still all bent out of shape about what witchcraft is, now would have been a really swell time for you to....I don't know....educate them about why it isn't all dark agey ooga-booga and IS as valid a spiritual pursuit as prayer, meditation or other forms of communing with deity.

But no.  You took the cop-out plea bargaining BS way out, huh?  You played into the fallacy just for the sake of having your 15 minutes of fame.

And what is most astounding to me is that you're supposed to be a Cabot Witch?  Um, what do you think ol' Laurie would have to say with you being a freaking sell out?

Well, yeah.  You didn't promote the Craft, you didn't do anything to change anyone's opinions about what witches...er, wiccans...do.  All you did was have your day in front of the cameras making the rest of us feel like we've gotten shafted by the press in April rather than October.

Thanks for nothing, Ms. Maynard.  That isn't a pointy witch wicca hat you're wearing, honey....it clearly says "DUNCE" on it!

Deja Broom: The Rede and Flogging the Equine Carcass

"DEJA BROOM" denotes a blog repost from my old site.  Feel free to read anew, or refresh your memory to re-live the ranty goodness.  Otherwise, skip this repeat and await more modern mayhem.

I don't want to make this into yet another full blown beating of an already dead horse (hence the blog title), but comments I've heard lately make me think perhaps a gentle note concerning the Rede was in order.

First, not all pagans, nor all witches for that matter, acknowledge or follow the Rede.

Second, the Rede was not invented by Gerald Gardner. The version that Gardner used in his work is pretty widely accepted to have been derived from a few different sources, not the least of which came from Gardner's interactions with Aleister Crowley and the O.T.O.

What Gardner was passed by his initiators --- and yes, Virginia, Gardner had initiators, he did NOT invent this thing called "Wicca" --- was a skeletal system of beliefs, practices and rituals. Like other burgeoning occultists of his time, Gardner had often sought out and traded information with other practitioners, using his best judgment to reconcile the information he gleaned to from others against any then-known historic evidence in order to corroborate and supplement the set of practices, rites and ideas he had been given to work with.

This was not any mindless grabbing of whatever came across Gardner's path, as some of the more fluffy variety of eclectics do today. No sir!

Gardner took vast amounts of reference notes, had intellectual dialogs in person with other occult contemporaries and wrote many, many letters to others not within his immediate scope of travel. Most of these letters are not available or currently accessible to the general pagan populace, but as an initiate, I assure you they do exist.

Getting back to the Rede discussion...

Third, the Rede has often been cited and misconstrued in modern parlance (post the neo-Wicca explosion starting in the mid 1980s) as a morality tool or censuring of conduct. This is not the way the Rede was meant or intended as it was presented by Gardner to his students. That the meaning of the Rede has been altered into something used to "scare" practitioners into following a certain ethics standard or group of social mores is a recent affectation. The way the Rede is oft recited and defined today shows some meandering away from the original meaning and interpretation that Gardner had intended it for his students and downline initiates.

This, I believe, to be primarily due to the way the Rede and other elements of what had been material intended for a limited, properly trained and oathbound audience were subsequently modified and co-opted by the masses, being (re-)defined by folks who had...ahem..."come to such information through illicit means" by stealing such information from Gardner's work.

The Rede, like other documents collected and written by Gardner and his various HPS kindred were originally only supposed to be privy to oathbound initiates. As such, often the written material had accompanying oral lore and teachings that would be passed from teachers to students that would clarify, and further explain, the written items.

So when this material, that had once been the sole intellectual property of those who were duly trained in the way Gardner himself was trained, found exposure through...ahem….inappropriately published sources….the written material alone did not fully convey the whole picture.

However, because these now public voices and published authors were not exposed to these elements via the usual training from which they ...ahem..."borrowed"... the information, these people were not privy to the way the material was intended to be dispersed as part of the closed Tradition. They only saw what was "written" by Gardner and did not also receive the oral lore which accompanies the written and which would have further explained and defined the Rede in the way Gardner meant it to be understood by his students.

This left the door open for the publishers and plagiarizing authors to offer up their own opinions on what they felt was the meaning behind a pretty vaguely written sentence. Essentially, in so doing, they were taking Gardner's idea out of its original full context of the teaching, using only an abbreviated version and then changing it with their own theoretical understanding of the abbreviation.

It was like they got a recipe for a cake with a few ingredients missing and then attempted to pass of their lop-sided, inedible finished product to everyone as the same delicious cake with buttercream frosting as if they had indeed used all ingredients.

Add to this the passage of time (try like 50+ years worth) and the actions of "the telephone game" which can slightly alter things just by permutations upon permutations of individual interpretation....and you get the watered down, off-the-mark way you hear the Rede rattled off the cuff by a lot of folks today ---- that the Rede means "You're allowed to do absolutely anything you feel like but in doing so cause no harm to anything or anyone, ever!" ….as if this is hard and fast dogma.

A veritably impossible task if ever I've heard one! No wonder some witches think it is a bunch of horse-pucks!

Fourth, the real meaning of the Rede is not “You have carte blanche to do whatever you want so long as you don’t hurt anyone or anything.” That is logically impossible anyway. Anytime you affect a change, you alter the status quo and in doing so, you’re essentially hurting something that was accustomed to the status quo.

Nor should the Rede be taken as a dire warning about having your “karma” go up or down on some cosmic akashic tally sheet of the Gods. It is a euphemism all about being mindful of, and taking personal responsibility for, your words, your actions, your deeds and your witchery.

The accountability for same is not necessarily three-fold (another euphemism) but you’d better believe that when you will and enact a change, something will also enact a change in, for, or to you. Gee, sounds a lot like quantum physics and natural law, doesn’t it?

Hmmm, maybe some folks need a visit to the hard science section of the book store along with the usual jaunt down the New Age aisle, eh?

Now let's send this poor horse back out to its pasture in the Summerlands, shall we?

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.

Thoughts on Karma and Dogma, Trad-style

On a Yahoo e-group I belong to, a discussion started about how BTW folk feel about New Age ideas and topics. 

In the main, the matter was raised concerning the more New Age views on reincarnation and karma, and how BTW Witches do not appear to ascribe the same philosophical meanings to these particular terms though they be Eastern in origin, since their practice is supposed to derive from only British sources.

A rather brilliant poster to the group, himself a 25+ year high priest in the Craft, mentioned that those of the Wica do indeed have a differing and very specific understanding of these particular terms within the context of their beliefs --- that unlike those of Eastern faiths, we do not consider them to be matters dealing with transcendence, but of immanence.

We do not utilize our understanding of "karmic laws" to measure or delineate a regimented path leading one to graduated and ever more elevated ranks of status in a grandiose hierarchy of spiritual evolution.

For those of the Wica, karma is a natural law in action, one which quite literally shows us our responsibility in the here and now, and not something in the far off future or to be reconciled in another incarnation or lifetime.

To us, Karma is an apparent application of action-reaction, cause-effect and propagation through change. It allows us to witness and take responsibility for our motives and actions by which we alter the currents around us.

Reincarnation, too, shows us this on a larger scale, concerning our own existence.

Through following the cycle of events --birth, love, death and rebirth-- we are participating in a regenerative and living process. We acknowledge that we have a causal relationship within this process, and that is evidenced by our every thought and action. We have free will and boundless choice at our disposal --- and not merely in a linear, goal-setting sort of way --- but as a connected being amongst the entire web of all things in existence, now and at every point on the time continuum.

We Witches are practical folks.

We do not tend to view life as a trial run for some higher plane of existence to be achieved later, nor as a punishment being meted out for our past transgressions.

To us, life is an activity which we try to fully engage in at every moment. Our individual input affects everything around us, and we are trying to be more cognizant of our influence. This predicates a very hands-on, involved, and mindful approach to all that we do, say and react to.

Witches do not beg for the intercession of some outside entity to do the work for us. We willingly do for ourselves and take the responsibility of whatever consequence of events unfolds thereafter.

We do not kowtow to someone or something high in the sky which we cannot see. Instead we recognize and acknowledge that we are as much a part of everything else as it is of us, and so should offer our respect to our place in this wondrous design. It is a matter of respecting all the other components in the equation who are likewise affecting their own changes.

This is our understanding of immanence. For us, it is a self-renewing and endlessly mutating pattern, growing more complex and more involved with each moment. And yet, the simplicity is in the fact that pattern of creation and destruction is limitless, not linear.

Our magic is our input into how the next generative part of the design will turn out, how it will mutate, grow, alter and effectively change and interact with everything else. Infinite possibility but directed with intent toward a plausible probability.

DEJA BROOM: Saying "Tradition" when you mean "Denomination"

"DEJA BROOM" denotes a blog repost from my old site.  Feel free to read anew, or refresh your memory to re-live the ranty goodness.  Otherwise, feel free to skip ahead to more modern mayhem.

Let's have a vocabulary lesson here, shall we?  There's a difference between calling something a denomination and calling it a tradition. Nowadays, people tend to confuse those words or attempt to use them synonymously.

Which is why you'll hear more than a few snickers from the older generation of pagans (those older than say 40 yrs) when  newbie folks announce to all and sundry your shiny-happy intentions to "create my own tradition."

Whenever someone creates a system anew and practices their own formula for witchery, they have in fact built a new denomination, not a tradition.

Something only becomes a tradition once there is a provenance of material and practice which can be tracked over time and through several generations of progeny (literally generations within a family-like setting, or like an upline/downline system) all sharing in the same unique formulaic practices.

As such the members of the same tradition all agree to certain parameters about what defines their trad. This they mindfully share with others who also adopt it, exactly as passed, and continue to follow it, intact in orthopraxy and methodology, if not also in written/oral/demonstrative lore and material.

Here's an example:

Let's say that you always wear a blue shirt on Tuesdays and that might be YOUR unique thing.If you find others who also like the Tuesday blue-shirt thing.....like say you teach your kids to do it and they carry on the practice every Tuesday and then teach their kids, your grandkids to do it....then you'd all be a part of a blue-shirt-Tuesday-tradition.

Notice that the key points that are hallmarks to the path have been kept intact: the "blue shirt" AND the specific day "Tuesday" as day of the week. The material is the same, as is the practice of applying it and teaching it to others in the same way.

If however let's say you do it on Tuesdays but your kids decide to rebel a bit and each chooses a different day of the to wear their blue shirts instead. Does this mean they are still related to you in the tradition? The answer is no.

While they could be said to be tangentially related to you under the wider umbrella of "blue-shirt-wearing" as a denomination or sect of society who likes blue shirts on a weekly basis, but they would no longer be, by definition, carrying on your Tuesday-based tradition because they've deviated from your starting point, in this case, your chosen day of the week as Tuesday. They aren't technically carrying on your idea exactly as passed.  Get it?

Ah, but for some all this talk of tradition or denomination is just semantics anyway.  Some folks don't care about following a pre-existing path and instead prefer to carve out their own way entirely.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter WHAT KIND of witch you are...only that you are living this path the way you best see fit and it works for you, and you don't snatch others labelling systems when they don't apply to you.

DEJA BROOM: The Myth of Self-Initiation

"DEJA BROOM" denotes a blog repost from my old site.  Feel free to read anew, or refresh your memory to re-live the ranty goodness.  Otherwise, feel free to skip ahead to more modern mayhem!


Call me a stickler for semantics here, but "self-initiation" is an oxymoron, a misnomer.

You can perform a DEDICATION ceremony by yourself, which would be to acknowledge to the Gods your desire to align yourself to the path or to become a self-acknowledged priest of a certain deity or deities.

However, an INITIATION refers to the beginning an endeavor with others, being taken into the fold of an existing brotherhood or sect and to be adopted by those who are already members. That, obviously, takes other people...it is, by its very nature, not a solo act.

That said, a Dedicant may well be just as proper as any Initiate for the tasks of witchery, but a dedicant would most likely be an eclectic practitioner, one who follows his or her own course of study. Whereas an initiate would be beholden to the methods and practices of the group/tradition/brotherhood to which he or she has now joined.*

Just as one cannot bestow knighthood on ones self....but one may yet be and act in accordance of chivalry just as virtuously as any knight. It all depends upon the style of road you wish to travel.

If you prefer eclecticism, then dedication is probably the best way to go. If dedication satisfies you in what you hope to accomplish in your eclectic practices, then own it and let it stand. Nobody can make you doubt who and what you are. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

If however, you want to espouse what a particular traditional path does, then you must seek out a mentor of that tradition who will agree to sponsor and train you as one of their own. You have to participate in that path by immersing yourself in it. They have an established and prescribed method of training, a unique orthopraxy and a given set of materials ---- and materials is not limited to just written, but also oral and demonstrative lore. Logic therefore dictates that it is impossible to initiate yourself because you cannot already know those materials if you are an outsider. You cannot bring yourself into something which you are not already a part of.

It is a chicken or egg sort of thing really.

But eclectic folks tend to get all upset about this "dedication is different from initiation" idea.

If they'd actually stop with the immediate screaming jump to defensive stance, and instead just shut up and actually listen to or read what non-eclectic folks have to say instead of assuming things we didn't, they would see that we are in agreement with them about not needing to be in a coven to be a witch --- that one may indeed dedicate one's self to the Gods and become a perfectly respectable, valid, witch.

What is important here is that someone who dedicates is just as legit as someone who has been initiated. They are just two different ways, two separate means to achieve roughly the same goals of communing with deity.

*And for the record, if your family is already practicing together in a family-held witchcraft tradition and you've been participating in family rites since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, then initiation, per se, is not required. You are already part-and-parcel with your family and thus it would be redundant to seek out "adoption into the brotherhood" to sanctify what already exists. You're sort of a built-in Initiate.

Blessings from the smiling, yet oft Salmon-bruised

This enumerated list has been born of my own experiences as a seeker, and eventual initiate, of British Traditional Wicca. Having done many a tango, waltz and mosh-pit dance with the Salmon of Knowledge while seeking BTW, I hereby bequeath these bits o' personal wisdom to fellow seekers as they carefully navigate the BTW learning curve toward finding a suitable coven to study with. Enjoy!

1. Be not afraid to ask questions…but also be not afraid to let go of your preconceived notions about how such questions should be answered! There is a Salmonic proportion to this method of learning by which the sooner you open yourself up to simply listening rather than debating or defending your every comment, the sooner you will find yourself moving into Properly Prepared Personhood.

2. "It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt." As a seeker about to voice his/her opinions about the origins of the Wica, the definitions or practices of British Traditional Witchcraft or just how "traditionalists are fuddy-duddies about there being any oathbound anything because it is all in books by now anyway," may I direct you to deeper contemplation of the inherent Salmonic wisdom in this old amorphism. Pontificating about things with which you do not have direct affiliation or knowledge about can only lead to multiple fish-slaps (emailed or otherwise) from those who do practice and espouse these matters.

3. Direct, experiential learning is a far greater teacher than book-learning or distance learning via computer. While books may offer food for though regarding their author's thoughts, perceptions and personal adventures, those who are destined to be of the Wica come to know that there is no such thing as an arm-chair witch. Furthermore, many websites accessible to the internet masses contain author opinions, misconceptions, biases and sometimes downright falsehoods. As a seeker, it is well-nigh impossible for you to be absolutely certain that what you are reading is fact, fiction or somewhere between. The simple truth is you will learn more by `walking your talk' than by reciting rote passages from any text or by following a spell like a recipe. And in BTW parlance, that experience and exposure to Wica and its Mysteries is only taught by someone who was properly trained in a particular path. Books can surely supplement this training, but they are certainly not a substitution for it.

4. You cannot demand respect from others, but you are certainly able to earn it. Boasting about who or what you know will gain you neither access to oathbound material nor endear you to others. What will speak volumes in your behalf is clear, insightful commentary and questioning, coupled with a healthy consideration for others. Knowing when to apply "honor and humility, mirth and reverence" at the appropriate times also helps.

5. The word `Wica' (or `Wicca') as used among BTW folks is not a generic umbrella term; it holds a very precise, specific meaning in BTW parlance. Seekers should beaware that initiates of BTW do not subscribe to the idea that `Wicca is whatever you want to make it.' We feel that this word has been misused in popular culture of late to become a catch-all phrase, when in fact the original meaning relates to a very specific system of beliefs, practices and teachings carried on by a verifiable lineage of people. Be aware that as a seeker, you will have to remain mindful and judicious in your word usage in this way and not assume the one used by pop culture.

6. Seekers should be aware that there are many traditions considered to be BTW, not only the Alexandrians and Gardnerians. Now this one can be a bit of a sticky-wicket as to which traditions are aligned under the BTW umbrella, but when in doubt, ask! The general rule of thumb is that the tradition must have roots of traceable lineage which reach back to the New Forest area of England.

7. Lineage is important to BTW folks, not to lord it over others, but as a means to identify the origins of a claimant's particular knowledge base and practices. BTW folks do not think that people who practice eclectic witchcraft are lesser, only that what they do and what BTW's do are not one and the same thing ---regardless of whatever source material the eclectic folk may use in their practice (including info from texts written by BTW folks). To BTW's, lineage holds great meaning and validity. One's lineage implies an understanding about the bearer's knowledge base and how the Mysteries have been transmitted or made accessible to them by a set of particular practices, teachings and methods of being revealed by a similarly-trained lineage teacher. The different lines within a given trad further distinguish by their association, often in subtle nuances which have been extrapolated, as they relate to a particular up-line's practice. Important note: Lineaged folks keep careful records. With this they can vouch for the validity of claimants saying they are of their tradition or their line. While BTWs won't "out" each other publicly, they do have means to confirm or deny whether a person or group is of their line/trad. This vouch procedure, also called vetting, is usually done backchannel/offlist, when an interested party needs to verify a claimant --- for example, when I seeker has met an individual offering them BTW training and they want to make sure the teacher is legit. However, BTW's most definitely will step forward to "out" folks who claim false lineage; those humorously referred to as the dreaded "Fraudernarians" and "Alexandrianots."

8. Seekers should be prepared to seek for some time before they find a "good home." Don't be discouraged when you do not instantly find an open coven in hiding in your backyard after posting your request for a teacher. Give folks the time to get toknow a bit about you, to see how you respond to discussions and what questions you ask. As a seeker, no one is going to bonk you on the head with the Salmon of Wisdom and drag you off to their covenstead just because you've said you're available as a student. Once you've put it out there that you're looking and what your interests are along with your general geographic locale, do not think it is time to just siton your laurels! Continue to do private solo work. Be out in nature, talk with the Gods, meditate, read mythology and anthropology…and yes, even the occasional occult book or three. Listen! Listen! Listen and actively seek! And be prepared that you may have to arrange some priorities in your life to get yourself ready for serious study. Is your mundane life in order? Do you have the time to devote to many years of study with a group, often having to travel some distance or attend gatherings several times amonth? Is there room in your life to be a disciplined priest or priestess ofthe Gods and not a flexible, eclectic hedge-witch?

9. Define what you are seeking about BTW and know why you are seeking it. Try writing out your definition/description of exactly what you would consider your ideal coven situation. Really contemplate that for awhile. As a seeker, you should figure out just what you want from your future coven, what you have to offer them in return and how willing you would be to make changes in your life to get this to happen. In some cases, that last part is the toughest challenge. Once you have a game plan like this for yourself, you may be surprised how quickly the opportunities start to appear on the horizon.

10. Be aware that while you may be drawn to practice witchcraft, not everyone is meant to follow a BTW path. Being interested in the lore alone is not enough. Being attuned to the energy alone is not enough. Being willing to do all the work involved, to face your demons on the threshold and actively participate in your growth, along with these other things, is the key. Personal responsibility is essential. Dedication, determination, discipline…these are characteristics of someone with BTW potential. Know that it is not a personal failing in any way if you are not cut out for the rigors of a Traditional path or if your life at this stage doesn't support your efforts to devote to such an endeavor. Not everyone that loves animals can be a veterinarian. Not everyone who loves air travel can become a pilot. And not everyone who connects to the Old Gods is meant to be of the Wica. Some are better suited for themselves and the Gods to be an eclectic witch. Some make better folk artisans and poets. Some just quietly live how they live and do not need take it to the level of attaining priesthood. At the end of the day, just be who you are, who you are meant to be.