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! 

To Tree or Not to Tree? THAT is the question!

Well, as you can see, I said yes to the tree. 

Surely there is enough precedent for tree-hugging and nature worship within paganism as a whole, enough allegory for the Tree of Life in ceremonial magics to see the whole useful symbolism of having a decorated tree in the house during the holiday season.

For me it serves the purpose of making my Catholic parents happy because they look at it and see Christmas.  It reminds me of my childhood too, with all the family gathered 'round and enjoying company and Santa with all the trimmings.

For me today, the tree gives me thoughts of happy Winter Solstice celebrations with my witch-family and carrying on the traditions of burning the Yule log  (NB: mines a fake tree, I have a separately collected wood specimen for the Yule log burning).

And besides all that....I like the whole hoopla of getting the family together to decorate the tree and the house with lights and branches and pine cones.  I love the smelling all the wintry smells of pine needles, of mulled spiced cider, of gingerbread and cinnamon.  I love being out in the cold long enough to appreciate the warmth of the fireplace and a cup of cocoa with whatever marshmellows are left over, those that didn't fit atop the sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving.

This year's tree is special for me.  This is the first holiday season that I am spending with my fiance since moving in together.  Like so many other things, we came into the relationship with our separate stuff and are now learning how to combine it into OUR stuff. 

I'm enjoying the process of seeing what familial traditions are sacrosanct for each of us and which we want to jettison and create anew, just between us.

So this tree is one such...er, mulligan.  I had the tree itself, but the old decorations reminded me of a past life with my ex-husband.  Similarly, the stockings that my fiance had held too many memories of his ex-wife and kids, now estranged and distant.

Thus, we went out to pick something else for OUR future together.  Something that would speak to the colorful and bright new life beginning together while we're both somewhat beaten down and jaded and steadily approaching 50. 

Never too late for a happy ending, kids, so ELECTRIC PEACOCK it is!!

I'm not even supposed to BE HERE today!!

So in case you don't know, I have temporarily relocated to New Jersey. 

My search for employment has led me to take a short-term contract project from October-thru-January in Philadelphia, with the company who has hired me putting me up in a bed-and-breakfast over the bridge in New Jersey.

Yeah, in time for the once-in-a-lifetime freakish storm to hit.  Frankenstorm the media is calling it.  Seriously.

Something about the confluence of Hurricane Sandy and the usual nor'easter and the full moon bringing the tides in to the max.  All that equals some sort of what the hell am I doing here in time for this complete freak-of-nature weather system?!

As if I wasn't already feeling out of sorts, homesick and confused about what the hell direction my life is going in?  Now I have to wonder if in the next 24-48 hours if I will be caught up in some jacked up thunderstorm to end all thunderstorms?

Gotta tell you, I had a moment of WTF, followed immediately by what was true, hysterical laughter....wherein I decided I would be wearing striped tights for the next 2 days, in the event that the old Victorian house (the B&B) happens to fall on me....so that my family can come from Illinois to identify my body and say...."Yes, that's her.  The house fell on my sister!!"

Eastbound and a little down

Ok, so in our last dramatic episode, we'd learned that our intrepid heroine was about to be unemployed, possibly without a place to live and certainly panic-stricken about her life circumstances....DAMN YOU STINKING SATURN TRAVELING THROUGH MY LIBRA SUN SIGN!!!

Well, the upside is that Saturn has finally moved on into Scorpio, which according to the astrologists I know and follow, that's supposed to finally, finally, FINAL-freaking-LY mean that some of that quicksandy, wheel-spinning, going-nowhere-fast feeling is about to abate, allowing me to find some firm life footing and begin moving forward in a direction.  Hell...any direction at all would be nice, eh?!

Thus as of 10/5, obstacles would finally begin falling away, and that date happened to coincide with a job interview I was on in Texas.  Everything seemed to go really well there.  The company had good things to say, the personnel personalities and I seemed to click nicely.  Not altogether thrilled, I admit, with moving to a 'red state' and into an area that boasts a very vocal Baptist Christian bias, but if these folks are going to pay me enough to not only survive but thrive, I can probably muster the inner fortitude to keep my mouth shut and my broomcloset door well-lubed with some cosmic, karmic WD-40.

Things appeared good, but then, they've delayed on making the offer, citing the desire to wait until next year when they can safely budget to "afford me."

This came a little bit as a shock (to both myself and the headhunter who lined this deal up), but the interviewers caught wind of the fact that I'd also been interviewing with a couple of companies out on the east coast, one of which said they could hire me for a short-term gig immediately after my present gig ends just before Columbus Day.

The short version of the outcome is this:   Looks like I'll be headed to the City of Brotherly Love and Cheesesteaks for awhile, starting at the end of this week.  Then I will have to wait to see if the Alamo remembers me enough from my recent video and in-person interviews to offer me a permanent home come the first of the year.

Or, who knows?   Maybe ol' Chi-town isn't done with me yet?  Stranger things have happened.  Wouldn't it be nice if one of these local companies would find it in their hearts (and wallets) to find a way for me to not have to leave my family, friends, deep dish pizza and the motley crew of this Midwest melting pot pagan community after all?

Then again, I might win the lottery too....anything's possible.

Whirlwind of WTF

Wish I had a good excuse for not posting much....again....and I sort of do.

Thank the gods I'm nearly at the end of this "year 42" where I'd asked the Lord and Lady after my last birthday to help rearrange my life to get me on the proper path I should be on.

Wow.  Be careful what you wish for....yes!

So as you'll recall, I've been divorced, moved out of my home and into an apartment...then comes this latest bit of "AAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!" this month, just to wrap up the final few days before my 43rd birthday later this week.

September Recap:

• Had a small car accident involving the parking situation here at the apartment complex.  No serious damage, but did jack up the custom paint and gave my door a few dings, which I cannot afford to get fixed right now.
• The reason why I cannot afford it is because I was informed just after Labor Day that the place where I've been working for the past 8+ years will not be renewing my contract and as of October 5, I will be unemployed.
• As a did just come through this divorce and moving thing in recent months, I have zero in the way of a nest-egg saved up, and so it looks like it is a good thing that I never fully unpacked in this apartment, because I'm going to have to leave it since I won't be able to afford the place anymore.
• Have been sending out resumes and interviewing like crazy, but my niche-type job is such that there isn't a likelihood that I will find something local anyway, so it looks like I will be moving to PA, TX or FL in a matter of two weeks.  Either that or wind up sobbing on a friends couch while I contemplate how to give my two cats up to the Humane Society since I probably can't bring them with me wherever I end up.

And so, as you can see, I've been a little preoccupied.  Insomnia, mild panic attacks and low-grade depression have been the ghosts that haunt me and have my writing muse hiding under the blankets of late.  Just not in the mood to rant about all things witchy when I can't seem to rouse myself up for much more than watching reruns of RuPaul's Drag Race and eating what's left of the canned goods in the pantry so that there will be less to pack.

I'm somewhat joking/exaggerating, but only just so, when I say that I'd thought my midlife crisis was supposed to be about bemoaning the lack of a second childhood...not being fearful of having to eat Ramen because I don't have a job or a place to live or a romantic love interest or a frigging clue as to what sort of regimen the Mighty Ones are trying to kick my ass with for opening my big frigging mouth when I blew out the candles on my cake last year.

Well, gonna ride this out for another week and hopefully once that happens, I'll have a better grip on where I'm going, what I'm doing and who may or may not be a part of that.

In the meantime, hope this Equinox energy balances me out too.  I could use something to stop the mental-emotional seasickness I've got going on.

Rosy Palms - not what you're thinking!!

Just a quick public service announcement...

If you are planning to create a John Barleycorn effigy/corn dolly for Lammastide, and follow the usual instructions that suggesting that you soak the wheat and rye sheaves in water for about 40-60 minutes to make them more pliable before you bend, twist and weave them....make sure that the stalks you purchase from the craft supply store or roadside farmstand have not been dyed.

Not only will you save yourself oodles of time scrubbing the droplets sprayed all over your countertops, cabinets and floor...you will save yourself the mighty embarrassment of having to explain why your palms look like you've taken up henna fingerpainting as a new hobby.

But still, my JB was pretty damn cool, if I do say so m'self.  HAPPY LAMMAS!!

Pagan Head-Scratcher: The "Gold Standard"?!

"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
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When you notice something odd once, you think: hmm, that's weird...

When you notice the same oddity twice, you think: gee, what a remarkable and strange coincidence....

But when the same idiocy shows up in greater frequency, you think: Really? You have got to be kidding me!!

And so it was that I've witnessed the phrase: "Gardnerian Wica is the 'gold standard'" several times this week, much to my chagrin and increasing acid reflux.

What on Goddess' green Earth does this silly affectation imply? Who is perpetuating such nonsense? Does anyone honestly believe it? Anyone else think this comment and the list of erroneous assumptions behind it are ridiculous to the point of wishing to offer the speaker of this phrase a Professor Snape-like smack to the back of his or her head?

It is just wrong on many levels, and it comes across as a left-handed compliment of the type where you are not quite sure if the speaker is attempting to flatter you to gain your trust by means of excessive and overt manipulation or if they have just given you a sly and subtly disguised insult couched in the guise of nod to your ego.

First off, let's start with the Gardnerian's perspective of this phrase.

On the surface, it appears to give deference and praise to the accomplishments of our particular form of witchcraft, but in reality, it is attempting to hold us accountable for what other traditions and practitioners do, as if we have some authority to grant them authenticity or validity based upon the private goings on within our own trad. That does not make any sense whatsoever. What a Gard person does with in the privacy of their own coven, line and tradition family, is their own business and they have utterly no weight in the giving or withholding of credence or standards outside this circumscribed parameter. Gards (and other BTW's for that matter) don't really give a damn about the goings on in other factions of the Craft, so long as those other factions do not seek to imply they have knowledge of our inner workings or may speak on our behalf when they are genuinely not privy to same.

I've given my novel on this subject before in other posts, but the subject keeps rearing its ugly head. It leaves me wondering if the current wave of new witches is truly suffering from fragile egos or if there is still some faction of rigidly asshat traddies from circa 1960's still fighting the war on eclecticism. I'll be darned if I've ever met any of those older folks like that in the many pagan circles I run with (no pun intended). Coincidentally, every time I run into a newbie who says they've met one of these calcified oldsters and I ask them for the person's name or contact info, they can never provide it so I can verify the interaction for myself and take it up with my traddie brethren to remedy. Hard to fix the alleged problem, if I don't have concrete evidence of its existence, only second-generation rumors and hearsay.

So back to my point, all the Gards I know aren't flattered by this "gold standard" idea and certainly don't believe it of themselves.

It defies logic and seems to imply that if you're not part of this one specific type of witchcraft, then you aren't worth your herb closet. But the proof of witchery is in the pudding...the action and good outcome of your workings, the temperance and wisdom experienced in your path that determine whether or not you are legit. The litany of "who begat whom" isn't what warrants you the merit, as lineage is only an indicator of the manner of study you have undergone and the standards by which you'd be measured amongst others of similar practice. We don't measure others, we measure ourselves.

Now then, this "Gardnerian gold standard" phrase also is rather insulting towards all the other long-standing, viable types of witches...some of whom are contemporaries of the Gardnerians, some who pre-date the formalized Gardnerian path and some who have formed more recently but are no less functional and worthwhile versions of witchcraft spirituality. It must really irk them to be forever ranked "less than the Gards" somehow, either because they're not as widely recognized and known or else they don't have the recorded history/lineage longevity that the Gards may have.

For example, in the BTW world, there are many varieties of witches who link back to the New Forest area of Britain, but not all of them descend from Gerald Gardner or have any direct affiliation to his contributions to modern Wica. Some of these folks come from family traditions that may have existed concurrent to Gardner or perhaps may have at some point stemmed from an earlier common, insular source. Not all of these varieties participated in the exchange of occult information during their formative years. They weren't interested in "saving witchcraft" as old Gerald, and later Alex, may have been, and so perhaps they didn't have a spokesperson out there talking to the media and informing the general public of their existence.

And so these hidden witches could, and probably do, have widely different practices than what the Gards possess. Practices which fulfill needs, promote ideas and offer avenues of thought outside the ken of what Gard folks may or may not work with. Thus, to call out only one type of witch --in this case, the more visible Gardnerians-- and not account for these other groups, seems unfair and misleading. How can you have a standard if some folks allegedly being "measured" would be off the charts altogether?

Now onto the completely felonious usage of this "gold standard" statement as it relates to the Eclectic movement.

If I were still an eclectic practitioner, this concept of having a "gold standard" would totally piss me off. What purpose does it serve me, as an eclectic, to be constantly compared to something which I know little to nothing about and therefore cannot hope to achieve any sort of credibility without paying deference to them? Why should I pay deference to anybody at all?!

It's my favorite analogy again.....as if the automakers would go around trying to sell their wares not by speaking of their own good qualities and benefits, but instead by constantly speaking in terms of reference against the qualities of their competitors: "Buy our Chevy Trucks because they are as good as Fords"...or "Go with a Jeep since we're practically a Land Rover." See what I mean? It is like offering your respectful submission to the other party by even stating they are related to you.

If there is such a thing as a Gold Standard....it implies that there are such things which are less than Gold.....and who wants to fight that no-win comparison battle all the time? Who wants to forever look for validation and affirmation from outside themselves?

Answer: No one.

Pagan Head-Scratcher: The Online Coven

"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

I have to stop poking my head into those online wicca/pagan/whatever forums with the preconceived notion  that I may yet find intellectually satisfying conversations afoot therein.

Seriously.  One day, I'm going to have an anuerism.

Well silly me had some lunch time left to kill and so I'd made the grevious error of browsing a pagan forum site entitled "Newbies, Looking for Advice?" or something similar.  About a third of the way down the page, past the littany of folks saying they are completely new, their parents don't understand them and that they are not sure which book to read next --The Complete Idiot's Guide to Spells or The Only Wiccan Spellbook You'll Ever Need-- was a comment from some young woman saying she's brand spanking new to the path but wants to start an online coven....would the next 13 people who want to join her in her quest kindly email her back channel.

I swear to Gods, upon reading this, I literally made the same confused and frustrated squawk noise that the Gilbert Godfrey 'spokes-duck' for AFLAC does in his commercials.   ACK?!!?!

This, in turn, made me laugh aloud...you know, the whole making a duck noise just justifies the Monty Python sketch about how to determine if someone is a witch (and if you don't get that reference, you probably shouldn't read this blog anymore).


Comedy aside....what the hell IS an ONLINE COVEN? 

I'm completely baffled at how that would work. 

Like does everyone get a copy of the same rite and then agree to perform it and report back their results later in a chat room?  Or is it a real time thing on Skype, with everyone facing their computer screens and yelling their quarter calls and such in unison with the microphone?  Oh no, wait, maybe it is this whole syndicated, coordinated teleconference thing with a bunch of robed practitioners all signing into some monumental webcast and syncing their webcams?

How do they come to share actual energies with each other?  How does the sharing of the cakes and wine work, one guy or gal mailing individual cookies to everybody the night before the ritual?  What are the logistics of creating sacred space, power raising, charging and sharing combined energy?  Is it all an astral, dreamstate thing where you cannot completely let yourself get into the moment of the power because you still have to type or read a teleprompter?

I guess I can wrap my brain around forming online friendships and study groups together with others, but the concept of what a coven means to me is apparently waaaaaaay different than what these newbie folks consider it to mean.  They think it is a closed-door group with a secret handshake, groovy sounding name and someone's photoshopped fancy logo.

I'm sure I'm about to be ranted at by all those "online coven" members who will find a way to lynch me for having a contrarian opinion.  Silly me, I prefer my covens to be real-time and with actual physical participants standing in circle together.  But hey, that's just how low-tech, old school witches like me roll....a lot more actual doing of the Craft and a lot less time spent in front of a computer

Pagan Head-Scratcher: Fools and Their Money

"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

I had some time to kill on Saturday afternoon, so I meandered into the local Barnes & Noble to browse. They were out of the current Paris Vogue, didn't have the Robert Greene book in the psych section I wanted either.

So I was just sort of aimlessly looking at the endcaps on my way back to the exit when I had a brain cramp at the latest new agey crap being tossed out there for the clueless pseudo-pagan market. You know, when the publishers of these cheap-o books go trolling for the "I'm not sure WHAT I am yet, but I know I'm into the barest fringe of occult thought....I've read some Sylvia Browne, Dan Brown and maybe heard of crystals and reiki, but never actually done any spells or stuff myself because I'm all a-scared I'll conjure up a demon who will haunt my home, make my milk go sour and scare my cats."

Thus, we have things like this....that's right....a $17.95 automatic writing kit.  Yes, it contains paper, a pen and a booklet telling you how to free your mind so your hand will write stuff supposedly drawn from either your subconscious or from some altered reality or some channeled entity using your hand as a means to communicate with those on this plane of existence.

That's right, a pen, some paper, and a booklet. Nifty, ooga-booga packaging though.  (NB: As of this reprint 2011, Llewellyn has stopped making these.  They're now on clearance at Barnes & Noble and Amazon...wonder why?)

And, as luck would have it, while I was standing on the end of this aisle, mouth agape and staring incredulously at this assinine item, I overhear a conversation between two teens sitting on the floor checking out various witchcraft books:

"Yeah, so I've decided to be vegan now. Oh, and I finally told my parents I was bi, which made them completely freak, but then what can they do, right? I'm almost 16 and in a few years when I'm 18 they won't have a say at all anyway. Besides, they got more pissed off when I told them I wanted to practice vampire wicca, but its my life not theirs so they can just deal."

Ow. Brain cramp.

Never mind the sexual preference part, but did that little pinhead just say she was a "vegan vampire witch"? How does that work? Does she suck the juice outta carrots under the light of the full moon or what?

And we wonder why regular folks don't take pagans seriously as a religious sect after witnessing crap like this?