As I See It

There are many groups of Pagans – Wiccans, Druids, Witches and others.  Most people think that all Witches are Wiccans.  We are not.  I am a Witch who follows the ancient Celtic Tradition.   It is only within recent times that many of us have felt that we are able to openly profess our religion.  Anyone familiar with the history of the Craft will know the consequences of Witches, indeed any Pagans, openly following their path.  Some were put to the stake or murdered by other means.  Others paid lip service to the Catholic Church while continuing to practice the Old Ways in private.  Unless the Fundamentalist monsters in Congress take control of this country, we don’t ever expect to have to hide our faith again.  Pagans will never tolerate another mass persecution of our religion.

The Wicca was brought forward by a man named Gerald Gardener in England in the 50’s.  There are people who will tell you that Wicca is the true and only religion of the Witch.  That is nonsense.  Celtic women of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales were practicing the Old Religion before Gardener’s great, great, great, great, great grandparents were much more then sperm.  By the same token there are Witches who will tell you that Wiccans are cowards hiding from the name Witch.  I don’t believe that either. 

Wicca is a highly formalized and codified religion.  It is both beautiful and theologically significant. Because of their belief in dual divinity, that is to say the equality of the Goddess and the God, they often work with a high priestess and high priest in tandem, groups or covens and according to prescribed rituals.  They follow what is known as the Wiccan Rede which is based upon long held Pagan beliefs that I also hold.  For me the only relevant part of the Rede, as I was taught and understand these beliefs, is: abide in the Laws of the Goddess, in perfect love and perfect trust.  You must live and allow others to live.  You must neither take nor give unfairly.  You must honor the rule of three, for bad and good return to the sender three fold.  These words will the honor of Goddess fulfill – and you harm none do what you will.

As a practitioner of the Old Faith and disciple of the Sacred Feminine I agree with the Wiccan liturgy to this extent.  The rule of three has always been understood to be a prime moral directive; whatever you do in the world will return to you three times. The final eight words – and you harm none do what you will - is acceptable to me with this caveat, I reserve the right of self defense.  

Having said all of this, I differ from the Wiccans with regard to the necessity of formalized ritual and the need for a high priestess and high priest.  I do not accept the concept of dual divinity.  The creation myth of my tradition holds that the Goddess is the universe and out of her womb was born all life including the first male principle of the God.  She is the prime mover of our existence.   She is the prime celestial presents of our heart.   

Much is made of our use and practice of magic – white magic, gray magic, black magic.  There is only one kind of magic.  The nature and quality of magic itself, understood by the uninitiated as the color, rests with the intent of the practitioner.   Magic is simply the energy of the Goddess given to us by Her grace and through Her teaching.  We use it in Her sight and by our intent to achieve a purpose

Most of us select a divination tool prior to our initiation.  Particularly Celtic Witches are very intent and focused upon developing what is called the sight.  Some call it the third eye.  It is a form of perspicacity – the ability to see on many planes at once.  All people have the potential; most people never develop the ability.  Some use candles, crystals, water and pendulums to name a few.   I use all of them but the tarot deck primarily. 

Many of us feel an inclination to focus on a specific use of our Craft.  I was called as a child to the care of the earth.  Gardening is for me a form of ritual and a deep, abiding part of my personal liturgy. 

Pagans are universal in their belief that no one stands between them and their personal revelation of the Goddess or God of their heart, intuition and inspiration.  This is my primary objection to the institutional use of codified ritual and high priestesses and priests.  It is perhaps human nature to want to gain control of the conduit through which we each perceive the Source for the purpose of exerting personal power.  This is also my objection to the over concentration on the influence of Gerald Gardener whom I believe was just another man trying to control the values and beliefs of woman and in effect dominate the Sacred Feminine. 

I do not speak for all Pagans.  I do not speak for all Witches.  I do not even speak for all the Witches I know.  This is just the wisdom that the Great Crone Hecate has given me.

I believe that the Goddess gives us each a different light to illuminate the path we selected before we were born.  All we can do is use that light and follow that path with the very best intent and the deepest faith.  

 

Blessed Be

 

Perfect Moment

 

This rose is Perfect Moment.  She is a hybrid tea of German origin – parentage is New Day x Mercedes x Seedling.  She stands around three and a half feet tall with medium sized blooms of pink to red with gold.  She has won the American Rose Society’s All American Award.  Her scent is mild, but she more than makes up for it with her stunning bloom.

This rose lives in Hecate’s garden in the north quadrant.  She has taken to blooming under the last light of the full Mother moon.  This photo was taken yesterday just after the break of dawn.  She was a closed bud the night before.

This is but one manifestation of the grace of the Goddess.

A Witch's Path

I was up yesterday morning before sunrise as is my habit on watering days.  Given the native dryness of the Prairie, the excessive heat of the season, the draught and the wind that follows it, I have needed to water every other or every two days.

I walked the circle from north to east to south to west thanking the quadrants, the elements and the Goddess for the luxuriant beauty they have brought into this world and my life.  You see, I am only a caretaker.

I entered the western quadrant as the sky began to shed the darkness one shade at a time.   There I observed an isolated bank of ashen cloud gliding ever so slowly off the Rockies toward the eastern Planes.  I knew then that there would be no rain.  For a little while I enjoyed my coffee sweetened by the cool morning air and the song of waking birds in the trees all around.  When I went to turn on the hose I glanced again at the sky in the western quadrant.  There looking down on me was the moon that is featured here.  The cloud bank was gone as if burned away by a blazing sun.  I took this to be an omen of a long hoped for beginning of better days to come for the planet and its inhabitants.

No matter how many great men and women who will change the course of history walk below her, the moon’s course remains unchanged.  No matter how many fools look up at her believing that she exists only to please them and that her sole manifestation is what they can perceive with their limited minds, the moon will continue to embrace her sister earth with white-silver magic long after all fools are dust.

As a follower of the Great Goddess I believe that the phases of the moon are analogous to the changing times of a woman’s life.  The waxing Maiden moon is the moon of hope.  The full Mother moon is pregnant with and birthing the possibilities born of that hope.  The waning Crone moon is the moon of transition as the change brought about by possibilities becoming reality enters our consciousness.  The time of the dark moon when the Great Crone is preeminent is the gestational period of hope.  Then Hecate, Queen of the Witches, leads us into the unconscious to confront our Shadow where we learn the difference between what we need and what we want.  In full procession of this wisdom we offer it to the waxing moon as hope, and the cycle begins again.

This is one unfolding truth along my Witch’s path.

An Anomalous Summer

My gardens stand today as a mere shadow of their former selves.   Heat, draught, the wind that almost always follows draught, and insects which increase in virulence with hot weather have taken their toll. 

The flower featured here is Monkshood – Latin name Aconitum napellus.  The bloom should be larger and a very deep purple.   Its reduced size and faded color are, in my experience, the results of heat stress. 

A word of caution, Monkshood should not be planted in gardens where children or plant eating pets play.  It contains a powerful alkaloid poison that was used in earlier times as a sedative and antispasmodic.  In combination with Belladonna, also identified as Deadly Nightshade, Monkshood was used topically in ointments to treat skin injuries and ailments.   Under no circumstances are either of these substances recommended for use by the untrained, the unskilled or the uninitiated. 

Aconitum napellus is often found in Witches’ gardens as a tribute to a time when the practitioners of the Craft of the Wise were skilled in and freer to practice the Goddess’ healing arts.  In addition, Monkshood is sacred to the Goddess Hecate and with its cousin Wolfsbane, is often used non-medicinally at the Waning or Dark Moon in the practice of ceremonial and ritual high Crone magic known to the ignorant as Black Magic.

To return to the discussion of the garden, I have received a number of emails from gardeners who follow my blog or my Facebook page asking me what they have done wrong.  They have followed my advice or the advice of their local gardening professionals.  They have planted appropriately, watered, fed and protected from insects and disease.  Yet, their gardens look as if they have been neglected and allowed to burn up in triple digit heat for two full seasons. 

I answer them in a word – nothing.  You have done nothing.  The season is anomalous and excessive – excessive heat, excessive dry, no spring and excessive summer.  This is apparently happening all over the world if my correspondence is anything to go by. 

Whether we in our stupendous arrogance believe in Climate Change or not is irrelevant.  It is what it is.  No amount of name calling, proselytizing or pontificating from delusional partisan hacks or contribution whoring politicians will make it into something else.

Most evenings of this brutal summer I stand in my gardens at sunset when the light is less harsh and the damage less visible.  I hear my grandmother’s voice sailing out of the West on the swelling red-gold light filling the Rocky Mountain sky.  “Little Witch,” she reminds me, “A gardener proposes, but the Goddess disposes.   She is in charge.  If you forget, let Her remind you.”

As the Moon Grows Dark

As the Moon grows dark,
            The Goddess gives birth to new possibilities gestated in swollen fullness,
            The Goddess nurtures a world full of new hopes and dreams, siblings of all possibilities.

As the Moon grows dark,
            I look back in the Goddess’ silver light and growing shadow to the path I have traveled,
            I look forward in waning radiance and deepening mystery to the path ahead.

As the Moon grows dark,
            The lessons learned shimmer on the whitewater streaming beside me to my right,
            The lessons to be learned whisper from the dense forest of the unconscious to my left.

As the Moon grows dark,
            I see and sense Goddess’ newly birthed and splendid possibilities,
            I give thought and voice to a Her world full of immaculate hopes and dreams.

As the Moon grows dark,
            The gift I offer in return is devotion to Her Craft practiced with or without ceremony,
            The path I walk and lessons I have learned were ordained in Her sight and by Her grace.

The Herban Goddess, © 2012

The Nonsense of the Ignorant

Recently I have had a number of people ask me to teach them White Witchcraft.  I have no bloody idea what the hell they are talking about.  Witchcraft is Witchcraft; it isn’t the “Price is Right” with doors one can enter without taking any responsibility for what is behind them.  The nature of the Craft practiced by any given practitioner is their choice, their right, their responsibility, and their liability if it comes to that.

These “White Witchcraft” people are the same strange people who ask me for love spells and money spell – no one has ever asked me to cast spell for world peace, interestingly enough.  Where in the name of the Great Crone do people get this crap – Hollywood, other religions, fortune cookies?  Nobody has ever represented us correctly in motion pictures – nobody.  Nobody has ever represented us correctly in church doctrine – nobody.  Damn few people know anything about us.  Damn few people have taken the time to honestly and seriously learn.  We are less known then the Mormons or the Masons, and we aren’t a secret society.  The secrets we keep are for self preservation. 

People make this drivel up as they go along, I guess.  However they manage to collect such stupidity, it is trivializing and demeaning to all of us.  For instance, we are not New Age.  We didn’t drop from the sky into their local metaphysical store with bells on our toes and crystals hanging from our nipples to tell them pretty lies with a Tarot Deck.  The Craft of the Wise was a codified, albeit loosely codified religion before the time of Christ.  It is the antecedent faith of the Wicca and the ancient, unwritten and living liturgy of the Goddess.  We are devout practitioners of a profound and sacred tradition – unknown and disrespected though it may be. 

Thus, I tell these odd and ignorant people who are so inclined, that the next time they meet a Witch not to ask her how to get their boyfriend back, or where grandpa stashed the Picasso he is rumored to own, because they will only piss her off. Then she won’t tell them even if she knows.   

Beltane

Today is Beltane, Sabbat of the Maiden Goddess in my Tradition. It is a time of love, passion, procreation, bright beginnings. Soon the Maiden Goddess Brigit will become pregnant with a new reality and truth as the Wheel moves into Summer and She becomes the Great Mother Isis - Her wings enfolding the world. Many blessings of this Sabbat, my friends.