The wearin' of the.... RED!!!

How did I neglect to post about The Liberalia last year! :-o I suppose, like everyone else, my vision was clouded by the Irish celebration and the implications of a "saint" feast substituting for an older Pagan celebration. Point is: Everyone was gettin' drunk at this time of year!

What's the Liberalia? Just after the Ides of March (a whole other post) was the celebration of Pater Liber and Liberia. It was a state festival AND a personal feast AND considered a rustic festival as well, or a farmer's holy day of obligation. Liber and Liberalia are protectors of the seed, which has just been planted.

On the personal or family level, this is the Italian Bar Mitzvah! When Boys became Men (Girls became Women at menarche)! Boys would take the talisman they'd wear for protection from The Eye (the bulla) along with their boyhood clothes- the toga praetexta, and burn them in offering to The Lare. The boys would get their "Toga Virilis" and be officially welcomed into the company of men. No wonder there was so much drinking! I bet they'd drink the newly minted men under the table. No doubt there was also the visit to the sacred prostitutes and an "initiation into the art of love." Nice way of saying they got the new men drunk and lost their virginity. Stories are told about how Mothers would keep the son's bulla and not let it burn so their son would be protected through their life.

With all the talk of seed protection and drunkenness, it's hard to not think of Ceres, Proserpine and Bacchus. It was hard for the ancients too: There was a temple dedicated to this triad with Liber and Liberia being likened to/syncretized/identified with Bacchus and Proserpine.

This celebration had its high class elements and its low class elements. Liber and Libera were deities of freedom and therefore of slaves. Their fest was a way of letting off steam. Quoth the holy wiki"

Liber's festivals are timed to the springtime awakening and renewal of fertility in the agricultural cycle. In Rome, his annual Liberalia public festival was held on March 17. A portable shrine was carried through Rome's neighbourhoods (vici); Liber's aged, ivy-crowned priestesses offered honey cakes for sale, and offered sacrifice on behalf of those who bought them – the discovery of honey was credited to Liber-Bacchus. Embedded within Liberalia, more or less at a ritualistic level, were the various freedoms and rights attached to Roman ideas of virility as a divine and natural force.[2] Young men celebrated their coming of age; they cut off and dedicated their first beards to their household Lares and if citizens, wore their first toga virilis, the "manly" toga – which Ovid, perhaps by way of poetic etymology, calls a toga libera (Liber's toga or "toga of freedom"). These new citizens registered their citizenship at the forum and were then free to vote, to leave their father's domus (household), choose a marriage partner and, thanks to Liber's endowment of virility, father their own children.

Liber is credited with the invention of honey, which ties into the Bacchic and Dionysian lore. There was a LOT of overlap, including Liber being credited with protecting the grape. However, even in ancient days, Liber and Bacchus were seen as very distinct entities. In fact, Bacchinals were outlawed. Likely because of their Siclian/Southern Italian origins and the repression of the lower classes by the 1% (the more things change, huh?)

The same way celtic based wicca eclipses every tradition out there (it's been called the loud neon light of paganism), I'm tired of every Irish holiday eclipsing the Italian ones. I remember the stories about how the Irish immigrants lived on one side of the street and the Italian immigrants on the other side and there was constant fighting. Literal fisticuffs. Kids getting jumped on the way to/from school It was Jets n Sharks time and the cops didn't care because who cares when the rabble fight amongst themselves?

Italians wear Red on this festival day for many reasons, not the least of which being to piss off their Irish neighbors! Red is, of course for Rome, protection against The Eye (which Pater Liber was- He was the horn which warded off evil! That's one reason why the phallus processed through the town). Red is also the different color in the Irish and Italian flags. Orange was worn, allegedly, by those protesting the church- the rebellious Irish. Red was worn by the Italians as an FU ;) (Also, St Joseph's day is March 19th and red is worn on his day too!). The Green/White/Red stripe flag of Italy wasn't adopted officially until after WW2 so it was likely an early start to the Italian feast of St. Joseph, but who knows- a lot of these clashes were happening in the 40s and 50s- The Irish showed up and settled, then waves of Italians came so the Irish were no longer low man on the ladder and picked on the Italians until new waves of immigrants arrived from other lands.

So when I wear red tomorrow, know that I'm flippin all of you the bird and taking back this drunken celebration of Spring for Italia! ;) And I'm still gonna make zeppoles on the 19th! Ha!

PS: Patrick was Roman :P Haha!

"I'm not a Wiccan"

*Addendum: This is one of the few posts I have ever edited for content after it was posted. I removed two paragraphs in which I lauded and defended people who have since not acted in accordance with what I lauded in the first place. I couldn't let the post stand as it was and have removed it. Back to our regularly scheduled blogging*



I have heard this phrase a dozen times in the past week, and not from my own mouth, but unsolicited from others.

I work with Wiccans and study with Wiccans and celebrate with them too. However, I am not Wiccan. I also practice yoga, celebrate puja, use henna, and on occasion wear a sari but that does not make me Hindu either. However, a friend tried to tell me that I must be Wiccan because I joined up with a coven. (She didn't say I must be Hindu because I celebrate puja.) This friend is also often mistaken for a Wiccan and argues that she is not. Curious, that.

*edited content was removed from here. The original post is saved in a file*

Whatever the origins of the word "wicca," it has come to be a substitute for the word "Witch" when dealing with the muggles. It is used as a shield from the baggage and drama associated with "Witchcraft." However, amongst our own (and by "our own" I mean Pagans), I see a rising tide of defensiveness. Those of us who are not Wiccan are speaking up more often. I made a mention today about Wiccans and the person I was talking to thought I meant that they were a Wiccan. They got defensive really quickly. This actually happened many times today. It was volunteered out of nowhere as if the universe was spurring me to finally post this post. The tone of the talk implied that Wiccans aren't "serious" or are bound by the rede and therefore won't do the dirty work when it has to be done. Again, not true about all Wiccans, but those are the exception it seems. The McWiccans are giving actual practitioners of Wicca a bad name.

Honestly, I'm glad to know others get defensive as well. Nice to know it's not just me ;) Speaking of getting defensive and about Wicca, let's turn to one of my favorite topics: Wiccans who poo-poo Leland.

On page 66 of Gypsy sorcery and fortune telling by Leland, he notes:

"As the English word, Witch, Angle-Saxon Wicca, comes from a root implying wisdom, so the pure Slavonian word, vjestica, Bulgarian, vjescirica, meant originally the one knowing or well informed, and it has preserved the same power in allied languages, as Veaa (new Slovenish), knowledge, Vedavica, a fortune-teller by cards, Viedma (Russian), a Witch and Vedwin fatidicus."

He goes on and on about the different words used in different countries. This was published in 1889. Should we onlty call Ango-Saxon Witches "Wiccans?" is it as specific as the word "Strega" is to Italian? Leland continues:

"But it enrages the Witches so much to be called by this word that when they hear that anyone has used it they come to his house by night and tear him into four pieces which they cast afar into the four quarters of the earth... so intolerable is their wrath"

It wasn't my point to dissect the word "Wicca" or to threaten dismemberment should anyone call me that.  My peeve here is that the same people who cite Leland's work as evidence of the validity of this word are the same people who argue that Aradia, and the information he gathered on Witchcraft in Italy is bunk. You can't have it both ways!

OK, the soapbox is put away. For now. I've posed a question on our Facebook Page, please feel free to answer it here in comments or on the page itself:

Poll question for the Strega and other non-wiccans out here: Does it bother you when people assume you're a Wiccan? What do you say, if anything?

Rediscovering Cakes and Wine

In the Scriptures of the Abrahamic traditions, we find a curious verse. Essentially, it describes an “order of service” as would have been used by the worshippers of the old Gods in the land of Israel. It reads:

“And your children gather wood, and your men build a fire thereof. Your women bake cakes for the Queen of Heaven, and the people pour out libations to the other Gods, which causes me to vent my wrath to them.” (Jeremiah 7:18)

Leaving aside the Hebraic deity’s expression of wrath, we find the sharing of food and drink as the basis of this domestic cult. From contemporary sources, we find agreement that the Gods were celebrated throughout many cultures through this means. And, save in certain specific instances (such as to avert plague or beg pardon for a severe misdeed), the bulk of the offering was ingested by the faithful.

At its most basic level, this stems from the concepts of hospitality. Indeed, that was the entire premise behind the ancient sacrifices i.e. the maintenance of reciprocal relationships with the Gods. The Divine Powers had shared food at the table of Humanity, and received myriad gifts for deigning to attend the gathering. Hence, They were obligated to return the giving through abundance, fertility, good fortune, and felicity.

This premise is often unspoken in today’s Pagan and Craft environments. Indeed, the concept of giving in libation a portion of the Cakes and Wine is frequently stated as an after thought. Many books purport that this portion of the ceremony is (variously) a thanksgiving to the Gods, an interlude between the “magical work” versus “social time” of the group, and a grounding or earthing of the rite. If any inkling is mentioned regarding the “give and take” attitude of antiquity, it is frequently brushed aside as superstition.

This flippant attitude naturally arouses an urge to scream at such people on my part. Yes, Cakes and Wine IS an offering of gratitude. However, social time happens AFTER the magical work and ceremonial details are attended to. Likewise, one does NOT ground or earth energy in the MIDDLE of the ritual.

Part of the problem is because of the knee-jerk reaction most in the popular Pagan and watered-down Wiccan communities have with two related concepts. The first is sacrifice. The second is any possible resemblance between their rituals and the Christian Eucharist. (Presumably, the fact that at least 80% of Wiccan ceremony was derived from a Abrahamic framework inspired by such grimoires as the Clavicula Solomonis… is lost on these people).

The Christian Eucharist, especially in the forms practiced by the Roman Catholic Church and Greek Orthodox Church, are directly indebted to both the sacrificial cults that supported the Roman State. They are also directly linked … nay, adopted from… certain features of the Mystery religions. Indeed, the early Church fathers were aghast that these pre-Christian sects had practices and teachings that sounded Christian!

Some went so far as to preach a curious doctrine of diabolic imitation i.e. their quaint Devil-figure became aware of the importance of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, so presumably went BACK IN TIME and sowed counterfeits to confuse and seduce people. While some Christian cults, notably the Seventh Day Adventist, Assembly of God, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as several independent churches, teach this still …most intelligent individuals will see how ridiculous this is. But I digress…

The State Cults of our Pagan past (of which the Roman Empire’s is one example) sought to maintain a collective relationship with the Divine. On the immediate level, if the Gods were happy, the community would prosper. However, on a more sublime level, it also sought to maintain the whole cosmos. This divine order was phrased by the Latins as the Pax Deorum (the Peace of the Gods). The ancient Egyptians knew it as Maat. The Norse saw in it the postponing of Ragnarok. In the Americas, the Aztecs practiced their sacrifices to feed the Earth and keep it alive. To the Celts, each sacrifice recreated – whether of human, animal, food, or material goods – on some level, the primal sacrifice which created the worlds.

Our English word, blessing, derives from the old German word bletsian. Bletsian can be translated as smeared or sprinkled in blood. As Bram Stoker’s Reinfeild notes in Dracula “the blood is the life.”

No, I am not advocating we return to butchering animals (or people) in our recreations of our mythic past. But we should recapture the mindset of giving our best to receive the best. And, if we join that mindset to our simple feast of bread and drink, they become equivalents of the same.

To avoid charges of “black masses”, many in the Wiccan Revival made unclarified statements that their rites have NO resemblances to Christian rites. Had they clarified that they were drawing upon the Pagan roots which also happened to inform the modern Christian liturgy… I do not think the mindless hordes of McWiccans and PopPagans would be able to do cultural violence against their own ancestors!

THANKFULLY, representatives of the Traditionalist Craft outside of the Wiccan Revival have refused to white wash the virtues and vices of their forebears. (And, thankfully, many of the older lineages of British Traditional Wicca are now embracing that mindset.)

If we simultaneously offer up food (or any item) and bless it to our Gods… and THEN either ingest or put it to use in our service of Them… that rite is one of communion. The practice of “God-eating” is incredibly ancient, and the sacred meal of the Mysteries has always been shared amongst the Elect.

But there is another aspect that many don’t recognize. Not even the Lord’s Supper of the Christian Churches recognize this. The eucharist also becomes a theurgic talisman and an aid to all treading the Path of Return. Before the Gods pour their essence into the Gifts, we must become aware that the Gifts represent our Selves. Bread of our Body, Wine of our Blood, Mead (or Cider) of our Spirit, Incense of our Highest Ideals, Salt of our Worth, and so on (depending on what the offering is).

We offer our Selves with the meal to the most high, that all be put to the service thereof. And, once that freely-given gift is accepted, and the reversion of the offerings to the use of the people offers a seal of sanctity.

In closing, I would like to share some ancient words, found carved upon a shrine to Dionysos recently (i.e. 10 past years) in catacombs underneath Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. These words are:

“Those who eat of my Body and drink of my Blood,
they shall be my brothers, and they shall not taste Death.”

Resources for Further Research and Contemplation

Anderson, Cora. 50 Years in the Feri Tradition.
Anderson, Victor. Thorns of the Blood Rose.
Artisson, Robin. Witching Way of the Hollow Hill.
Artisson, Robin. The Resurrection of the Meadow.
D’Este, Sorita & Rankine, David. Wicca Magickal Beginnings.
Evans, John. Roebuck in the Thicket.
Fortune, Dion. The Winged Bull.
Foxwood, Orion. The Faery Teachings.
Frazer, Sir James. The Golden Bough.
Gray, William. By Standing Stone & Elder Tree (AKA Rollright Ritual)
Gray, William. Western Inner Workings.
Gray, William. The Sangreal Sacrament.
Greer, Jonathan Michael. The New Encyclopedia of the Occult.
Gwynn. Light From the Shadows: A Mythos of Modern Traditional Witchcraft.
Jackson, Nigel. Masks of Misrule.
Kingsley, Peter. Ancient Philosophy, Mysticism, and Magic.
Kirsche, Jonathan. God Against the Gods.
Kondetreiv, Alexei. The Apple Branch.
Leek, Sybil. The Complete Art of Witchcraft.
Leland, Charles Godfrey. Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches of Italy.
Martello, Leo. Black Magic, Satanism, and Voodoo.
Paddon, Peter. The Crooked Path (transcripts of show).
Reed, Ellen Cannon. Heart of Wicca.
Regardie, Israel. Ceremonial Magic.
Sanders, Maxine. Firechild.
Shadwynn. The Crafted Cup.
Thorrson, Edred. The Book of Troth.
Valiente, Doreen. ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present
Valiente, Doreen. The Rebirth of Witchcraft.

Nemesis (Jonathan Sousa) is a devotee of the Goddess Diana, whom he serves primarily through the initiatory framework of the Sicilian-Continental Traditionalist Craft. An artist and author, some of his works are available through www.lulu.com/silverroseofdea .

Righteous, Man.

I read a blog post today, which is a response to the Reuters article on how Wiccans think the characters in True Blood are "giving Witchcraft a bad name." If you haven't seen the Reuters article, you can find it here.

The blog post, also entitled "A Popular TV Show Finally Depicts Sorcerers and Witches Properly," defends the idea that the Wiccans portrayed on the show, as well as the necromancer, are accurate (if sensationalized), and also defends the idea that we need to embrace and use what some call our "dark" or "negative" side. I've addressed this topic in the past in the post "Darth Strega." The "dark side of the force" should be embraced as much as the "light" side. Luke should have used his anger instead of denying it, and accomplished his goal of saving his dad. The two could have flown off into the suns-set together and made sequels. But back to this blog post.

He throws down a lot of smack talk about Wiccans, and of course not all Wiccans are as he describes, but there is an overwhelming contingent of practitioners out there who have diluted and polluted the concept of Wicca to the point of "anything (happy) goes." It's become the new catch word for "Pagan;" It's a safe word to hide behind to make the neighbors happy. Ellen Cannon Reed writes about this in Heart of Wicca. She defends her Wiccan practice as an "initiatory mystery tradition" while acknowledging that there are those out there who call themselves Wiccan who are "crystal-hugging, air-headed veganazis who believe (at high volume) that their way is the way all pagans should be."(page viii Introduction). I believe the blog's author is talking about the later. Here are a few highlights from the article which resonated with me. I encourage you to read the entire article even if you're not a True Blood fan.

Nothing less than the truth about us will ever serve to heal what divisions slice deeply into the blood and body of this world and our cultures. New-agers help to create those divisions by continuing- ironically- the same "witch hunt" started by Christians- except now, the witches are "negative" emotions which must be "banished" or driven from the body as visualized dark clouds, and replaced with visualized "white light" that enters you and "heals" you. This isn't healing; this is amputating half of our own humanity and our natural power. 

Our experts want to be as non-threatening to their neighbors as they can, and truly, who could blame them? But I feel I must suggest that what their neighbors need to know isn't that historical witchcraft really was “all lovely”- all those neighbors need to know is that what our Wiccan friends are doing isn't historical witchcraft; it is, instead, a new-age brew of goodness, peace, pop-culture cabbalism, light, so-called "shamanism", ceremonial magic, and karma, which couldn't harm anyone, at any time, ever- unless you consider massive confusion to be "harm"

Far from misrepresenting historical necromantic sorcery, Antonia embodies it. Women (and men) like her once really existed. They commanded the shades of the dead, made them give omens, divinations, and do favors for them- they threatened them, cajoled them, offered to them, seduced them, and held power over them. It doesn't sound pretty from a Christian or white-light New Ager perspective, but it is the historical fact of the matter.

He recommends the book:  Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman World. This book is full of win. It's not epic win, but win nonetheless. A last quote to ponder:

The term "witch" refers to a region of the Western/Indo-European consciousness which, for whatever historical reasons (and there are many) has survived into our modern day loaded with power. Sure, most of that power is tied into sensationalism and smacks of villainy, but there is something standing behind it- the legitimate image of hedge-crossing, boundary-crossing sorcerer/sorceress who once interacted with the underworld and other more-or-less frightening or forbidden reaches of this reality, for the purposes of power-gaining, divination, and wisdom.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. I have one last note on the idea of embracing your "dark side" or "negative emotions" to share for you Christian readers who are lurking: Jesus did it too.

Matthew 21: 12-13: And Jesus entered the temple of God and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, ‘It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you make it a den of thieves.”

Righteous anger is righteous.


Tomorrow? Mercury in his many forms is a-callin once again! I'm reading Trials of the Moon! Perhaps a discussion on Arcana Mundi!