Advance!

Last week there was a kerfuffle about Witches from Salem, including Lori Bruno and Lorelei, who cast a circle and did a spell to help the New England Patriots to win against the Broncos. You can find the article here at the Boston Herald site. An excerpt from the top of the article:

Lorelei and fellow Salem sorceress Lori Bruno will conjure up some pigskin hocus pocus at noon today — which BTW, is Friday the 13th — to neutralize the Sports Illustrated cover curse for Brady and send some Pats-ical magic to Foxboro.

“I’m going to raise the energy of the universe and send out all the good mojo,” said Lorelei (nee Lori Stathopoulos). “Lori will call in the Angels.”

Sadly, the ladies won’t put any hexes on the God-fearin’ Broncos QB at today’s Circle — because that’s not their way...

A friend of mine sent me the link to the article with the question:

"Do you really think things like this advance* us?" *(as in gain acceptance)

My answer:

Absolutely, and without a doubt, Yes.

So many people take their spirituality too seriously, including Pagans and Witches. ZOMG- how can u use ur powrz to influence the outcome of a mere game?!!!*#&#!#!

When the new Yankee Stadium was built someone buried a Red Sox jersey in the cement to curse the place. When it was discovered, one of the Witches from Long Island came out to the stadium and cleansed and blessed it. The newspapers ate it up! The sports segments loved it. It was welcomed and appreciated by Yankee fans. Sports fans can be a tiny bit superstitious! They will take "luck" as they get it. Those of us who nudge probability in our chosen direction... well, this is our meeting point with the muggles, especially those who are into sports.

This was an opportunity for area Witches, who happen to be Patriots fans, to connect with the greater community in a positive way. They didn't hex the other team, they did positive work for their own team and specifically for the quarterback.  Notice the quote from the article which pointed out that they weren't putting a curse on Tebow? And that it was seen as SAD that they weren't?

Would the team have won on their own? Likely. Did the spell work? When was the last time you saw a QB throw SIX touchdown passes in a single game? The record for most td passes in a single game is seven, and it's only been done a few times, with the last instance in 1969. Interesting- we're under similar planetary influences right now. I wonder if someone has developed Football astrology! I digress!

This was a great, lighthearted way to reach out to the other locals. I think Pagans need to get over this idea that there is a big, high wall between the sacred and the profane. Doing things the hard way, or without joy, doesn't earn you extra holy points, it just makes you boring and bitter. When did the Stoics take over the craft?

Will this make bible thumpers turn around and embrace the next Witch they meet? Maybe, maybe not. But this at least reinforces the idea that we are all human, and all on this planet together, and we might even have something in common.

My question to all of you: What are you doing to advance* us?

He ain't talkin 'bout me...

Lately I've been feeling like a sell out.

I used to work in theatre, producing, directing, and stage managing. Theatre is an addiction, and not just the performing aspects- it's not all about getting applause and acceptance from strangers. For me, the draw has always been the artistic process- the best times are had in rehearsal where all of the wonderful moments are discovered and the real magic is made. By the time the audience becomes part of the equation, I'm pretty much done. The magic has already happened.  It's been a few years since I was involved in a show and I'd been feeling that itch again. I put it out in the universe that I was in the mood to do a show. However, I wasn't very specific. The Universe gave me exactly what I asked for: A week later I got a phone call from a company I'd worked with in the past. Actually, it was the last company I had done a show with. They needed a stage manager, it was a two week commitment, would I be interested. Sure! What's the show?

Hansel and Gretel.

Yeah, that one... the one with the "Evil Gobbling Witch" who turns children into gingerbread and eats them...

Really fucking funny, Universe!

I get my show, just like I asked, but I need to sit through smack talk about Witches? And a show that condemns Witches as "evil" and baby eaters where she is ultimately killed? *headdesk*

We're in rehearsal and the music is great, the singers are amazing and I'm having a good time. But... We haven't yet staged the scenes with "The Witch." So here I am, completely tense about what this is going to be like. In the score there are pages and pages of music where "The Witch" waves her wand around and "bespells" Hansel and Gretel. Of course, before this, she's turned two dozen children into gingerbread cookies.  I've already had to sit through the scene with the Father telling the Mother about this horrifying cannibalistic Witch who lives in the woods and flies on a broom. Not that fun, but I've just concentrated on the music and the blocking. Funny tho, if there's someone in the woods cannibalizing children, and they've known this, why hasn't anyone done anything about it before? Funnier still, the Father seems to know an awful lot about what this cannibal does and how she "flies on her broom." And even funnier: the father is a broom maker! Before he shows up on stage, the father has allegedly been out selling brooms and buying food for the otherwise starving, desperate family. I think he's been off schtupping his mistress in the woods. The children are out in the woods and will discover his affair, so he tells his wife this tall tale to cover his own ass and eliminate his mistress.

Also, there's a scene where Hansel and Gretel are in the forest and Gretel is singing a song about a wild mushroom. I think the starving kids eat the mushroom and the rest of the show, including the gingerbread house and cannibal, are just a psychotropic trip. See how easy it is to spin things? lol This version is particularly vexing because in the "traditional/original" version, the father plans to abandon the kids in the woods, and leave them to die. So who is the real bad guy in this story?

But seriously, I've had this terrible debate with myself: Am I selling out? Is this the kind of thing contributing to discrimination? How can I, as the President of NYC Pagan Pride, do this show??? Are more women going to be killed in South Africa because I'm contributing to the production of a show which reinforces a dangerous stereotype and glorifies killing Witches as the enemy? Would it make a difference if I wasn't involved in this production? Nope. The show would still go on without me. At least this way, I can educate a few people as to how things really are, should it come up.

I remembered a scene from Six Feet Under where the artsy aunt tells the sister that she's not a good photographer and the sister freaks out about how insulting that is. The aunt points out that if the sister really was a good photographer, she wouldn't have been offended, she would have laughed it off as ridiculous. Then again, women aren't being killed because they're bad photographers...

Chris Rock talks about songs which are incredibly mysogynistic that women like anyway- they'll sing and dance to these songs, enjoying them instead of getting offended. And if you ask the woman how she could like the song, what does she say? "He ain't talkin bout me."

That's where I am right now. They're not talking about me. They're not talking about us. My point is, this show isn't going to make much of an impact on the progress Witches have made, and might actually start a new dialogue about what Witches really are and what we actually do. This version was written in the 1890's (again with me and things written in the 1890's!) almost 100 years before we really started coming into our own. Maybe I'm biased because of my age, but I really feel like it was 1990 before Witches were starting to become "mainstream."

I wonder if this issue comes up with Merchant of Venice and its inherent antisemitism?

Anyway, I'm doing the show, and I'm not going to feel bad about having fun with it. In fact, I'm thinking about decking myself out in full moon regalia, pentacles, cimaruta and all, on opening night and bringing a huge plate of gingerbread cookies with me! Ha!

Hubby suggested putting an ad in the playbill about the misconceptions surrounding Witches. That's not a bad idea. It might make a few people think and at the same time, support a theatre company that does wonderful work on a shoestring budget.

While I write that up, enjoy my Chris Rock inspiration! (NSFW!)

Gaea

Thanks to an unexpected half hour delay this evening (the main source of the annoyance), I had the chance to reread the first few chapters Dion Fortune's Psychic Self Defence (a minor contributor to said annoyance). Yay for ebooks. I like the book, and can really hear her voice in the writing. I don't have a problem with the language and looking up 1920s references can be fun, however I do tire of her tone about Pagans and Witches and "Left hand path" and North being evil and other such references. I understand, it was the 20s when she was writing this, but still- I don't like to do that much work just to get to the valuable information, the diamonds from the mine, as it were. Hence, my annoyance. The comment about the Ancients believing the direction of North is "evil," or the source thereof, really irked me. It set off a mental chain reaction about the ancients in question which lead to the Olympians "battling" the Titans and how Gaea (aka Gaia) was thought of as evil.

Gaea, in Greek lore, is the personification of earth: Mother Earth. Her union with Ouranos, aka Father Sky, produced all of the heavenly deities. Her union with the sea created all of the sea gods. Her union with Tartaros created all mortal creatures. As always, Theoi.com has the details, so here are a few more highlights:

She was the first being. When Ouranos tried to "imprison Her children in Her womb" she rebeled and helped the titans overthrow him. When Kronos imprisoned the others, Gaia helped Zeus overthrow Him. When Zeus sent her sons to Tartarus, She tried to overthrow the Olympians with the help of the Gigantes and Typhoeus.

Gaia was worshiped at Delphi long before the "arrival" of Apollo. Quoth the holy wiki: 

The name Delphoi comes from the same root as δελφύς delphys, "womb" and may indicate archaic veneration of Gaia, Grandmother Earth, and the Earth Goddess at the site... Apollo killed Python but had to be punished for it, since she was a child of Gaia. The shrine dedicated to Apollo was originally dedicated to Gaia and shared with Poseidon. The name Pythia remained as the title of the Delphic Oracle. Erwin Rohde wrote that the Python was an earth spirit, who was conquered by Apollo, and buried under the Omphalos, and that it is a case of one deity setting up a temple on the grave of another.

Crete was another center of Earth Goddess worship. I remember a lovely post from She who Seeks, which I linked here back in March. Here is an excerpt of the exact thought I had started typing, but you should go check out the entire post and blog too!

"I think the myth we know today is a later patriarchal version interpreting (and distorting) much older symbolism. We know that bulls were sacred to the Goddess in ancient Crete. "Minotaur" means "moon bull" so it was probably a revered symbol of the Divine Feminine in Crete's early days. In the myth's patriarchal version, the Minotaur becomes a symbol of death and evil which must be slain. Scholars also believe that Ariadne was originally the Great Goddess Herself but was downgraded in the patriarchal myth to simply being the daughter of the King and a priestess in the temple. She betrays her people and her religion to help Theseus, who callously uses and deserts her. So, given these later patriarchal distortions, it's not really surprising that a unicursal labyrinth gets recast as a multicursal maze. It moves the plot along, creates suspense and sets the context for Ariadne's betrayal. In fact, this Greek myth as a whole may be understood as a metaphor for the ascendancy of patriarchal culture over the Goddess-centred culture which preceded it."

Yeah, that! 

I especially recommend checking out the Cult of Gaea section on Theoi.com. I'd love to know how drinking bull's blood proves virginity.  Actually, I wouldn't. So nevermind. 

More tomorrow!

Tribute to women of Witchcraft.

Greetings All,

I had found this on You Tube and just wanted to share. Some of you have probably already seen it, some of you probably are not really fond of everyone listed here, but I thought some may be interested in the folks you do know and do recognize. I realize it is not a very deep and intense video, but hopefully you will be able to take it at face value and realize it is a tribute to your fellow female Witches and be able to understand their willingness to come out of the closet and just be who they are in their specific denomination of the craft.

Blessed be the witches,
Dusio

Witch's Hangover

I've seen this term thrown around facebook in the past few days, largely by folks who misunderstand how the term is used. It does NOT mean a Witch who drank too much around the fire after a ritual. That's just a regular hangover ;)

A Witch's Hangover is when one is energetically depleted after intense ritual, spell work or other craft related operations which require vast amounts of metaphysical energy. Did you lead a circle wherein no one sustained the energy except for you? Did you take on a particularly energy intensive part in a ritual or spellcasting? Did you engage in trance or prophecy? Did you raise a lot of energy with the group? Were you the focus for the energy? You might suffer from a Witch's Hangover the next day.

What does it feel like? For me, it's like an actual hangover: I feel very sluggish, retain water, dry mouth and throat, headache and general signs of dehydration.

What do I do? Same thing for a hangover: I drink a LOT of water. B vitamins help me too! I find myself craving potatoes after intense work, a very grounding food.

Around the time of the full moon, some Witches find themselves on what is referred to as The Wild Hunt. Sometimes you can astral travel or journey without advanced planning. When you wake up feeling more tired than when you went to sleep.... could be Witches Hangover!

It's not the same thing as having a headache from too much energy, or the moon affecting the tides of your body. It's certainly not about acting the fool or being a "lunatic" as we know it in the muggle sense of the term. It's the physical consequences of spending a great amount of magical energy.

Yet another analogy: Ever start exercising after you've been dormant for a while? Or have an intense workout despite a regular exercise routine? I'm kinda sore the next day. You too? The same thing is true when you're talking in terms of energy, both for the problem and the solution: You have to grow your magical muscles. Doing that starts with a foundation of daily practice including (at least for me) ritual, meditation, and offerings. The more work you do with energy and with spirit, the stronger you get, the more you can do, and the less likely it is you will suffer a magical hangover.

But wow that last one was a doozy. After Saturday's Nemoralia celebration I was seriously hung over on both Sunday and some of Monday. It was only this morning that I realized where my bumps and bruises are because the general feeling of walking through cotton had finally lifted!

What can I say- when we magically party, we party hard!

I am not recommending the product in the picture, I just think the name is hillarious! And Appropriate!

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!