What A Witch Does

Earlier this week, I wrote about the relationship between control over our emotions and the ability to, right to, advisability of doing magic. I've seen, and I imagine that you have, as well, people who had some native ability to direct energy but who had almost no ability to control their own emotions, their tongue, their actions. My advice: Shield. Move Quickly Towards the Door. (And of course, we're all on the journey; I've never met the completely evolved human. But it's part of my work, as a Witch, to keep working on myself and to keep searching for those who have danced a bit farther down the path so that I can learn from them. It's one reason why doing magic in a community of women is so important to me.) And epic poetry and national legends are full of stories about those who were corrupted by their native ability to do magic, those who didn't do the interior work needed to create a safe container for that power. So it's not that you can't do any magic until you've spent years doing the alchemical work of turning the impulses of a two-year-old into gold. But your ability to do effective magic and to step into your true power as a priestess, mage, magic-worker, Witch does depend on a growing ability to control yourself and your emotions.

While someone studying the art of magic might gently yet thoroughly become aware of each potential stumbling block that remains in [her] soul, the [W]itch within all of us may not learn how to do this with such discipline or studied attention. [Hopefully, the passage of time and] the roads of experience . . . with luck and a fair wind, allow us as women to know ourselves better, acknowledging and accepting who it is [that] we are. We grow more emotionally intelligent: the ability to identify an emotional energy when it is triggered, with a sense of where and why it was sourced, allows the [W]itch to understand its force, its reason, its craving and direction.

Emma Restall Orr in Kissing the Hag: The Dark Goddess and the Unacceptable Nature of Women.

I owe my friend S., one of the most intent-upon-knowing-herself people I've ever met, for my real introduction to Jungian concepts, including shadow and projection. There are dozens of books, courses, psychotherapists out there that can help each of us to identify -- and learn to dance with -- our own shadows, to show us when that inexplicably strong reaction we have to something that someone else does is really projection (our own shadows' way of saying: "Hello! I'm still here and I'd still prefer to remain hidden, even though I also long to be known. Look! Over there! Someone else doing [insert reflection of shadow]! Go get them!" It's often some of the most valuable information we ever get -- if we learn how to use it.) Learning to, in Restall Orr's words, "identify an emotional energy when it is triggered, with a sense of where and why it was sourced," is one of the most important ways that a Witch acquires control over herself. Shadow work with a good psychotherapist can help, as can dream work, daily practice, journaling, art, meditative dance or other exercise, working in community. How are you working on this? What has worked for you in the past? What shadow within you keeps distracting you from your true work as a Witch? How would sitting down and having dinner, doing ritual with, making love to that shadow enhance your work as a Witch? When do you lose control?

Restall Orr explains that emotion:

doesn't overwhelm [a Witch] or take the ground from beneath her, but instead she contains it without a struggle, pausing to consider the wisdom of any action she might take, pausing until her view is extended in every direction. Nor does holding the emotion for a moment, a day, a year, dissipate that energy; when she is ready, the [W]itch has the ability to direct that emotional energy, with all its force intact, in a perfect vibrant stream of creativity.

It takes practice.

Id.

LOL. Yeah, it takes practice.

May my practice be in the service of the Goddess. May your practice be blessed.

That's Bullshit

I'm no lover of a lot of Muslim, or xian, or Jewish, for that matter, policies towards women. But this whole ginned-up outrage, well, Sam's right: That's Bullshit.

She Doesn't Have Warts On Her Nose? Fuck You.

Asheville Citizen Times: Fail.

Let's count the ways:

1. Not capitalizing "Witch."

2. Cute hahahah about how she doesn't have warts on her nose. Do their stories about rabbis also note that said rabbi doesn't have a big nose? Discuss African American ministers and note that their lipes aren't really "that" thick? Make fun of the pallor of Episcopalian ministers? Amazedly note that Father O'Sullivan didn't show up red-nosed and drunk? No? Well, then, . . . you know the rest.

3. But she has learned to cheerfully endure the suspicious glances, spoken and unspoken disapproval of those who learn of her Wiccan belief system. How accommodating of her. What was her other choice?

4. The comments. Nuff said.

Byron's amazing and does a great job writing about her religion. The Citizen Times, not so much.

Picture found here.

A, B, C, Capital P

Extra points to the Vernon Morning Star for capitalizing everything that should be capitalized. Their upcoming Pagan Pride Day sounds grand.

How Much Moral Authority Do You Have When You Say, "This Is My Will; So Mote It Be"?

She isn't just baking cookies, stitching outfits, penning sketches, drafting stories, [doing surgery, writing briefs, managing associations, editing national business journals, running volunteer organizations, hiring for government agencies] alone in her sanctuary, in some isolated bubble of creativity. The [W]itch's work is more than simply personal expression. She is fully involved in and conscious of the ongoing creation of the wider world in which she lives. As such, her work affects others, as [] she is affected by others' presence; and it is becaues others are involved that she asserts such control over every task. Yet that control is not imposed on her; whatever she is expressing, the skilled [W]itch does so with complete freedom. Without the freedom to act as she wants or need to, her magical art is entirely compromised.

There are two basic keys that allow her this freedom.

The first is a profound understanding of her emotional self. . . . [She] know[s] that [her] power is dependent on an ability not just to feel emotions as they rise within or around [her], but to manage those forces of [her] human nature.

Emma Restall Orr in Kissing the Hag: The Dark Goddess and the Unacceptable Nature of Woman, pub. by. O Books.

Too many of us never even bother to attempt to manage the forces of our own human nature before stepping up and asking to command the powers of the universe. How many Witches have you known who couldn't manage, hell, who couldn't even control, their own emotions out of a paper bag? Managing the forces of our own human nature is an ongoing work. Have you begun it? How? When? Why? What do you do daily to grow in this area?

For me, recently, it's meant showing up to walk on the treadmill, even on those days when I don't "want" to do so, even when the stress of my workday would give me a "good" excuse, even when, left it its own devices, the force of my human nature could convince me that I "deserve" a day off. That seems awfully "mundane." But, if my word's no good on this plane, what can I expect it to mean when I move between the worlds and start making declarations? I have to wake up every morning and recommit. Because I believe with all my heart that I have been called to do the work of a Witch. What work calls to you?



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S/he's A Witch

If you think this is going to "stay in Africa", I have a used broomstick I'd like to sell you. It was used only by a little old lady, flying to coven on Full Moons.

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The Batshit Is Strong In This One

The stupid waxes wroth, as well.

Points off, as usual, for failing to use the simple rules of capitalization.

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Back Off, Sheriff

Great Pictures of Nottingham's (heh!) Pagan Pride Day. Kudos to the author for capitalizing "Pagan."

Minus points for feeling the need to explain away the fact that the celebration was held on a Sunday. The xians don't own Sunday. Have you ever seen anyone explain away the fact that xians were meeting on a day/place/time/location sacred to Pagans? If not, then . . . you know the rest.

Picture found here.

What's Your Tree?

(Yeah, the whole idea of "Organic Style Magazine" is all kinds of bad.)

Web of Light

Caramel Lattes to Hermes

You Don't Get A Discount On Black Candles If You're Paranoid

Do Not Let This Universe Regret You

Monday Poetry Blogging

They Sell You What Disappears
~Hoa Nguyen

They sell you what disappears it’s a vague ‘they’
maybe Capital T who are they and mostly
poorly paid in China

Why does this garlic come from China?
It’s vague to me shipping bulbous netted bulbs
Cargo doused with fungicide and growth inhibitor

What disappears is vague I can’t trade for much
I can cook teach you cooking ferment
bread or poetry I can sell my plasma

They are paid poorly in Florida
picking tomatoes for tacos
Some CEO is surely a demon
in this poem

Need to buy need to buy or else
you are always paying rent one month away
from ‘the street’
3 neighbors asked for money this week
We are guilty
bringing in sacks of food bought on credit

Trademark this poem mark this poem with a scan code
on the front and digitally store it somewhere
not to be memorized “by heart”.

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What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

Odd to think that a movement you watched birth itself is becoming the subject of so much research. And, speaking of historical research, on Facebook, Phaedra Bonewits reports that:

Isaac's personal papers will be going to the American Religions Collection at the library at University of California, Santa Barbara. So all you researchers will be able to rummage through his stuff :-)

.

What an amazing opportunity for historical and other forms of research! As Wikipedia reminds us, "Bonewits graduated from UC Berkeley in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in Magic, becoming the first and only person to have ever received any kind of degree in Magic from an accredited university." So it's fascinating to now see UC preparing to receive and provide access to his personal papers.

(As you may know, Isaac Bonewits is gravely ill. His contributions to modern Paganism have been groundbreaking and important.)

More on UC Santa Barbara here.

The American Religions Collection:

(ARC), much of which was assembled by J. Gordon Melton, primarily documents non-mainstream religions in America. The collection contains monographs, manuscript collections and serials. Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions (6th ed., Gale Research, 1999) provides descriptive references to the various religious groups and, to a considerable extent, the collection is organized along the lines of the Encyclopedia.

Monographs in the American Religions Collection are cataloged in Pegasus and can be searched by author, title, subject etc.

The largest manuscript collection is the American Religions Collection (ARC Mss 1). Correspondence, newsletters, flyers, articles and clippings relating to hundreds of religious groups are contained in the collection. Other manuscript collections includes manuscipt material relating to specific religious movements or collected by other individuals.

Some serials in the American Religions Collection are cataloged in Pegasus. Many other serials in the American Religions Collection are indexed in a database.

For more detailed information on materials in ARC, contact David Tambo, Head of Special Collections (tel. 805-893-3420, fax. 805-893-5749). Dr. Melton also may be able to provide research assistance on an appointment basis; contact the Special Collections office (tel. 805-893-3062) for further details.

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Hymn to Hecate

O nether and nocturnal and infernal
Goddess of the dark, grimly, silently
Munching the dead.
Night. Darkness, broad Chaos, Necessity
Hard to escape are you . . . you're Moira and
Erinys, torment, Justice and Destroyer,
And you keep Kerberos in chains, with scales
Of serpents are you dark, O you with hair
Of serpents, serpent girded, who drink blood
Who bring[s] death and destruction and who feast[s]
On hearts, flesh eater who devour[s] those dead
Untimely, and you who make grief resound . . . .

~Papyri Graecae Magicae, quoted by Tim Ward in Bearing Torches: A Devotional Anthology for Hekate, published by Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

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Sunday Dance Blogging

First Of The Month Bazooms Blogging

Ladies! Listen up! Detecting breast cancer early is the key to surviving it! Breast Self Exams (BSEs) can help you to detect breast cancer in its earlier stages. So, on the first of every month, give yourself a breast self-exam. It's easy to do. Here's how. If you prefer to do your BSE at a particular time in your cycle, calendar it now. But, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

And, once a year, get yourself a mammogram. Mammograms cost between $150 and $300. If you have to take a temp job one weekend a year, if you have to sell something on e-Bay, if you have to go cash in all the change in various jars all over the house, if you have to work the holiday season wrapping gifts at Macy's, for the love of the Goddess, please go get a mammogram once a year.

Or: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pays all or some of the cost of breast cancer screening services through its National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. This program provides mammograms and breast exams by a health professional to low-income, underinsured, and underserved women in all 50 states, six U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, and 14 American Indian/Alaska Native organizations. For more information, contact your state health department or call the Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER.

I know that a recent study indicated that early detection via breast self exams might not be "cost effective." I'm not a scientist, but when I read those studies, they appear to be saying that sometimes women find a lump during the BSE that turns out not to be cancer. Those women have caused some expense and have gone through some discomfort in order to find out that the lump wasn't cancer. I don't know about you, but when that happens to me, as it has a few times since my first mammogram found a small, curable, cancerous lump, I go out and buy a new scarf, take myself out for a decadent lunch, call everyone I know, and declare it a good day.

Send me an email after you get your mammogram and I will do an annual free tarot reading for you. Just, please, examine your own breasts once a month and get your sweet, round ass to a mammogram once a year. If you have a deck, pick three cards and e-mail me at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com. I'll email you back your reading. If you don't have a deck, go to Lunea's tarot listed on the right-hand side in my blog links. Pick three cards from her free, on-line tarot and email me at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com. I'll email you back your reading.

Picture found here.

So Many Books, So Little Time

But I'll find time to read this one.

"The Visions of Isobel Gowdie" by historian Emma Wilby of the University of Exeter, is the first-ever full-length study of the Nairnshire witch, Isobel Gowdie, [and] has just been published this month, by Sussex Academic Press.

Gowdie was tried for witchcraft in her home village of Auldearn in 1662, and her story has featured in books, songs and composer James MacMillan's acclaimed orchestral piece "The Confession of Isobel Gowdie", but until now, little has been known about her life, or the conditions in which the confessions were generated.

Over a six-week period the ministers of Auldearn and Nairn, along with various local dignitaries, elicited four detailed confessions that have since been celebrated by historians for providing an exceptionally vivid insight into 17th century Scottish folk belief.

. . .

Wilby concludes that Gowdie's confessions provide us with a unique insight into the complexities of popular spirituality in 17th century Scotland and point to the importance of dream and vision experience in the lives of the poor - a spirituality that is generally hidden from view because, as most peasants were illiterate, it was seldom recorded.

"Isobel and her contemporaries were heavily influenced by Christian teachings, and indeed saw themselves as Christians, but combined the beliefs they inherited from the pulpit with more ambiguous folkloric beliefs inherited from the fireside.

"Through this 'popular mysticism', they sought to survive in a harsh pre-industrial world - healing their sick and protecting their animals and crops from both harmful spirits and disease." Wilby suggests that this "hybrid Christianity" generally served the population well unless it conflicted with Church authorities - when it was frequently demonised and condemned as witchcraft.

And I just love it that there are historical finds, still out there, just waiting to be made:

During her research, Wilby discovered Isobel Gowdie's original trial records in an uncatalogued box of papers held at the National Archives of Scotland, thus clearing up the question of authenticity once and for all.

Wikipedia says:

A young housewife living at Auldearn, Highland, Scotland, her confession painted a wild word-picture about the deeds of her coven. They were claimed to have the ability to transform themselves into animals; to turn into a hare, she would say:

I shall go into a hare,
With sorrow and sych and meickle care;
And I shall go in the Devil's name,
Ay while I come home again.
(sych: such; meickle: great) [duh!]

To change back, she would say:
Hare, hare, God send thee care.
I am in a hare's likeness now,
But I shall be in a woman's likeness even now.

She allegedly was entertained by the Queen of the Fairies [well, and, to paraphrase J. Kerry, who among us has not had, at least, an invitation?] , also known as the [Q]ueen of Elphame, in her home "under the hills."

It is unclear whether Gowdie's confession is the result of psychosis, whether she had fallen under suspicion of witchcraft and sought leniency by confessing, or was she simply much smarter than her inquisitors. It is also unclear whether there was some truth to her remarkable confessions. Her confession was not consistent with the folklore and records of the trials of witches, and it was more detailed than most. There is no record of her being executed.

In 1955, retired English soldier Robin Green [now there's a Witch name if there ever was one!] believed that he saw the ghost of Isobel Gowdie while camping alone in Auldearn.

Isobel Gowdie and her magic have been remembered in a number of later works of culture. She has appeared as a character in several novels, such as the biographical novels The Devil's Mistress by novelist and occultist J. W. Brodie-Innes, Isobel by Jane Parkhurst, the fantasy novel Night Plague by Graham Masterton, and Noches Paganas: Cuentos Narrados junto al Fuego del Sabbath by Luis G. Abbadie; Isobel Gowdie is also the subject of songs by Creeping Myrtle and Alex Harvey. Maddy Prior's song The Fabled Hare is based upon the spell quoted above. The Inkubus Sukkubus song Woman to Hare, from the album Vampyre Erotica is based on Isobel's statement, and quotes her words at the end of the lyrics. The Confession of Isobel Gowdie is a work for symphony orchestra by the Scottish composer James MacMillan.

Can I just say that this:

It is unclear whether Gowdie's confession is the result of psychosis, whether she had fallen under suspicion of witchcraft and sought leniency by confessing, or was she simply much smarter than her inquisitors. It is also unclear whether there was some truth to her remarkable confessions.

is so much better than most Wiki posts, and so much more open, that it completely rocks.

More on the Emma Wilby.

Still Enough To Get You Killed

Hacked to death, this time.

CALASIAO, Pangasinan – A 69-year old woman, who was being suspected as a witch, died after she was stabbed and hacked to death by a 36-year old man, whose relative was one of the alleged victims of the former at Lumban here Thursday afternoon. . . . Initial [reports] showed that the victim has been suspected of being a witch who reportedly toyed with the suspect's female relative, who eventully suffered from mental disorders.

Witnesses informed police investigators that the suspect had been seen around Albania's residence over the past several days, obviously conducting a surveillance of the woman’s daily routine so that he could work out his plan against her.

Albania reported the matter to barangay officials but nothing was done about the said report.
. . .

Relatives of the victim vehemently denied the allegation that their dead kin was a witch, saying that such suspicion has never been proven.

It's easy to dismiss cases such as this one as something that only happens "over there" or, when they move to England, as things that only happen to "other people." As we move into increasingly bad economic times, declining oil, and ever-worse environmental disasters and stresses (cough*waterwars*cough), those dismissals sound increasingly like people whistling in the dark. But we're Witches. We willingly explore the dark. And we'd better begin to do more than whistle about this problem.