Choosing to Choose what I Bloody Well Choose!

My divorce is now on the map – the paperwork was submitted to the court and approved, yesterday; I should have my decree nisi by mid-July and my absolute by August. I know categorically that I won’t feel any different when I have that piece of paper than I do now – a free woman, who is once again able to make decisions based on what I want out of my life; to choose the people I want to spend my intimate time with. I have the gift of choice. I can have any damn thing I want, within reason.

I’m older, though, and I have the benefit of a huge amount of extra experience, knocks and bumps; things that worked, things that failed catastrophically. Stuff I chose to do and reaped the whirlwind for; risks I took which had unexpected benefits.

The fact of the matter is; whoever I choose, however it ends up, whatever happens, it’s been my choice. We take the consequences for the things we choose to do; it’s the first step to knowing oneself; responsibility for action.

Witchcraft gives one a certain amount of prescience; but we’re not goddesses or gods, just plain old word made flesh; human, fallible, subject to all the usual humdrum lusts and desires that cloud our judgement and make us act irrationally. Everyone is like this. No-one’s experience is so like another’s that there’s an automatic read-across. So why the big urge to drop in the four penn’orth of  ‘useful advice’?

There are those whose guidance I seek and listen to, because I respect them and understand their motivation. There are others who give their opinion whether I want it or not, and whose view I discount if it doesn’t suit my purposes at the time.

I know I’m going to fuck it up at some point. Who doesn’t? But the crucial thing is; don’t tell me I’m going to fuck it up ahead of time. What do you think that says about how you feel about me? Think about that.

OK, I’m just going to say this and then…

Then, dear people, you may shoot me or whatever!!!

I have a moderately long fuse, but it has been tested almost to snapping point by the tag surfer here at WordPress this week. I’ve been quiet, largely; reading and mooching and listening and like always with me, it didn’t take long to find something to have a pop at.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The machinery of the tag surfer is doing its job as always – in fact, WordPress is so freakishly smooth and glitch free it scares me, touch wood, dodge a ladder, chuck the salt….

NO. The problem is the rude members of the ‘opposing’ side who insist on tagging their posts Wicca, Witchcraft, Paganism while either having a pop at the funny lookin’ witches over here, or nearly busting a gut fulminating on the evil in the world in general, or us in particular.

I have had two sensible conversations with Christian bloggers over the Hallowe’en / Samhain period; both had a point of view but were keen to share thoughts and we didn’t agree, but were polite and respectful and keen to hear the other side. And I’ve had three not so polite exchanges. The polite ones were men, and the impolite ones were women, but this may not be statistically significant.

I realise I’m tilting at windmills, but why shouldn’t I have a crack at this? There’s so much misformation out there! 

When I start tagging posts like this Christianity I’ll know I’ve really hit the bottom of the barrel. The only reason I’d do that is to get myself noticed by, well, Christians. And I don’t blog for Christians, or to bait Christians, or to engage Christians in debate. If I want to do that, I think I’ve shown I can find my own debating partners with little or no trouble.

So I’m left with the surmise that the Christians of this particular stripe, the frothy, Hallowe’en-is-the-devil’s-work sort, WANT to mix it up with us. Perhaps they think we need saving, or intervention, or a lifebelt.

Ps, you guys – for all we know, Hallowe’en may very well be the devil’s work – from a commercialism point of view, particularly in America, it takes some beating for exploitation, trouble and the creation of pointless purchasing opportunities. But don’t take it out on the poor pagans. We’ve got the curtains shut, pretending we’re not in, while thousands of small children hang on the bell wanting chocolate. We just want some peace and quiet to cast our sacred space and talk to those who have gone before.

It appears nobody is immune!

The usually calm and measured tones of Jason Pitzl-Waters were somewhat disturbed yesterday – and I don’t blame him. The reason? Make Me a Christian.

Channel 4, home of the sober documentary and measured social debate have really thrown us a curve-ball with this one. It’s an interesting premise, and one that might work well as a live debate, but as a TV show? Come on. The preacher is a motormouth who is rabidly convinced his point of view is the correct one – essential if one is to be an evangeliser of any stripe. And the marks, *excuse me*, contestants? Check out the resumes here.

When you look at the exploitative nature of reality (reality?) TV, you have to laugh, but there are a hundred people lined up behind you who think it is a valid form of social commentary. And really, from a sick and twisted perspective, I suppose it is. However you cut it, the net result can only be to do the religious and social perspectives espoused by the participants a disservice.

Of course, there’s got to be a witch in there somewhere. This one is a lapdancer with a shoe fetish. Glad to see they managed to get someone who’s properly representative onto the bus!!

When I was younger and I railed against stuff like this, I used to get old-fashioned looks and a reminder that it took all sorts to make a world. Now I feel like a dyspeptic old fart, but I’m still irritated. Ignore it and it’ll go away? The problem is, it won’t.

Scaring for Pleasure

Ag. The neighbours were holding what sounded like a full-on cauldron-jumping cackle-a-thon last night. I went to sleep at 9pm on my reading book, only to be woken at 1am by this appalling racket. I grumpily threw on my clothes and stumped round and knocked on the kitchen window, which in retrospect wasn’t the smartest thing to do at that time of the morning, but I was half-asleep and pretty cross to boot. The result was that they both screamed and jumped out of their skins, which I admit was one of the funniest things I’ve seen this year. I broke up laughing, and then they broke up laughing, and I asked them to shut their window and then went back to bed. Whereupon I singularly failed to get back to sleep.

So it’s Friday, I’ve got a deadline and two meetings, and the sum total of *no* energy whatsoever! Interesting equation, let’s see what comes out the other end!

Define ‘Blue’

I find it amazing, consistently flabbergasting, that you can read a piece, or a book; you decide what you think of it. You decide its value. Then, someone else reads it and their decision on its value is diametrically opposed to yours.

Sounds like the simple action of personal opinion at work, and I’m the first to agree that personal opinion is irrefutable; if that’s the way you feel about it, that’s the way you feel about it. No point in arguing. 

However, I think this goes deeper than personal opinion. I’m interested in the means by which people decide that a piece of writing is sensible, is valuable. Is it the research behind it? Is is that the piece secretly confirms the reader’s own opinions and prejudices? Is the piece essentially unchallenging, thereby backing up the years of work already done on Wicca? What means do people use?

From my own point of view I look for a coherent, well-written argument, with research to back it up. I look for good sources, good referencing. If a leap is being made away from currently accepted thinking, if new material or a novel point of view is being expressed, I look for a decent, lucid train of thought, some solid reasoning, and for the new theory to be placed correctly among the extant literature.

Unhappily, I think that Wicca is one of those disciplines where, just sometimes, the writers have a hard time defining what they mean by ‘blue’. To expand, there’s a load of good ideas out there, some more ‘out there’ than others, but this is not to say they aren’t valid. What makes them invalid, to me, is a lack of care and attention from the author when presenting them.

We all know what blue is, its quintessence. Try and describe it though; I’d be pushed. Would you?

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See Seshat’s Voice on this topic, also! Well said, that witch!

 

Witches – an ‘unreached people group’

Forgive the nauseating marketing-speke for a minute and try and get the old noggins around this for an impressive show of unity. I’m seeing centurions marching out, looking for little unreached groups to over-run and hegemonise. What a picture.

If the Christian right are seeking to subvert inter-faith discussion in order to profile the alternative religions for a marketing hit, then all we can do it shake our heads and leave them to it. We can learn a good lesson, however, about the breathtaking presumption of faith – mine’s better than yours, I was told by a book and some guys who were told by some other guys; they must be right as they’ve been talking about this for 2000 years! Everyone agrees they’re right! Oh, and the Guy in the Sky is on our side, so sorry, you’re off to a burny place. Or you can get on the bus with us!

This is the central point. A great deal of the legitimisation for the worst excesses of evangelical Christianity, and for other faiths of a totalitarian bent, comes not from our present era, but from the past. I was discussing the Bible with an evangelical Christian during the week, which was a sobering experience. The history seems to be the mandate to act. The history, perhaps this isn’t going too far, is the means by which justification is made for things done today.

If there was ever a good reason to claim no lineage at all, then this seems to be it.

I look at modern witchcraft and I see a free faith, untrammeled by the constraints of historical practice. We don’t have any marks to hit simply because it’s always been done this way. We can innovate, choose best practice, take note of mistakes made in the past and work past them.

Validation through the historical record can only ever be in the favour of the winning team, in this case Evangelical Christianity. If you control the presses, the News will always be ‘Good’.

The ‘Loving Attempts’ to Convert Us

While reading on The Wild Hunt today, I noticed that Jason Pitzl-Waters brings up an interesting topic. I have been discussing elsewhere the calmness that witchcraft brings me; not least in the fact that I am not called upon to either convert others to my way of thinking nor required to engage in theological disputation. The pact is simply between me and my Deities.

Rabbi Yehiel E. Poupko, Judaic Scholar at the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago discusses his dislike of the aim stated by the Christianity Today editor, Stan Guthrie, to call for a new push by Christians to undertake the conversion of all Jews to Christianity forthwith, using what he terms ’loving’ and ‘respectful’ attempts.

I’m not sure I have words to express what this brings up in me, but I’m going to try.

Elementarily, there is nothing loving nor respectful in attempting to encroach upon another person by seeking to change their view of their religion. Never mind that Jews are born Jewish; it’s not a lifestyle choice, it’s a way of life as well as a religious conviction.

Were it another religion in the frame, it would make little difference. By seeking to convert someone, you are at one stroke denying the right of the person to choose, denying their vocation, denying that their essential humanity is on a par with yours. In short, you are saying that they don’t know what they’re doing. But that you do.

And who the hell died and made Christians the guardians of the world’s one true way? A young, historically ambivalent religion, piggybacked as it is on the weight and gravitas of thousands of years of Judaism, ruthlessly promoted by the Romans, by the missionaries, by British Colonialism, and now by the mindless, inexorable, blindly multiplying clap-happy weight of the Christian Right?

I seek actively to avoid discussing my religious convictions with people unless they have expressly asked me, or have come here to read what I have to say; I consider the information intensely personal and I would be mortified if I thought something I had said had influenced a person to act a certain way in this regard – morally, it would make me responsible for them.

It is not given to mortals to guide other mortals to the gods. It is not our job on this earth. It is certainly not our job to do so under the guise of feeding, watering and educating those who have nothing, as so many Christian organisations do. Blatant, unrepentant arrogance and cultural hegemonising.

I’m not keen on any form of witness, on any form of proselytising, of any form of mission to convert. It seems utterly wrong. In Christianity, ‘no-one comes to the Father except through Me’ does not me ‘me’ the worshipper. It means ‘Me’ – Jesus. And there’s plenty of people out there who can read and make up their own minds. Including the Jews. Who we must assume, have largely made their choice already!

Ronald Hutton talks in ‘Triumph of the Moon’ about our ‘post-Christian’ society. Balance is certainly required. I can’t pretend to be anti-Christian – the precepts are good, and I was brought up in the faith and regard it fondly but not with outright reverence. I do, however, freely admit that I am anti-evangelical. I actively want interfaith discussion, where every faith can dispute respectfully and learn about each other’s beliefs. But I agree with Rabbi Poupko when he says that ‘mutual sacred rejection’ is required.

We must have the strength to see the strength in other faiths, without surrendering what is unique, special, irreplaceable in ours. We must be prepared to learn from other faiths what is similar to our own, to realise that perhaps, we are not so widely divergent as we would like to assume. But nowhere, nowhere in this bargain do we get floor-time to pitch our manifesto. That would subvert the entire process of learning through faith, and would largely make the efforts meaningless.

 

Batty!

The Times today tells us that a Florida company, Spiritual Brands, has compounded the heinous crime of marketing another 10 brands of mineral water, by putting Jesus on the label. If only I were joking. Apparently, the customers are responding to knowing that God is with them when they buy these drinks. If He is, He’s saying ‘No, don’t do it!! mineral water is an ecological disaster!!’ Kinda like putting devotional messages on a crop sprayer.

This is what I was talking about on WW yesterday; Christianity in its broadest brushstrokes is completely divorced from the planet which supports it, which gave it a chance of living. I know many ecologically minded Christians; one place they didn’t learn to be a tree hugger was in church. More’s the pity.

You say Wica, I say Wicca…

…and the dyspeptic debate rumbles on with the usual Wice / Wicca / Witch-a debates. It is really something that riles me.

As far as I’m concerned, Wicca is a new word, not an old one; its pronunciation is with a hard ‘C’ as in WICK-a. Its definition is also argued about (of course) but there’s no long lineage or ancient ‘lost’ way to pronounce this word. Again, if you say there is, I doubt it!

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ps because I’m  CONSTANT digger, I’ve been casting about on this one. So humble pie frontload: it’s Middle English in origin. See this, from The American Heritage Dictionary of the Enlgish Language Edition Four, 2000:

 Wicca, witch, from Old English wicca, sorcerer, wizard (feminine wicce, witch), from Germanic *wikkjaz, necromancer (< “one who wakes the dead”).

Which is good to know and you learn something new every day! You’d think I would have thought of the dictionary but it seems not

So the word meant witch, it had a masculine and a feminine.

But, just like at school, when my English teacher insisted that ‘questionnaire’ was pronounced ‘KEST-ee-on-air’ because it was originally a French word, I have a problem.

Just because the word hails from the far reaches of the English language, does it’s usage and pronunciation have to remain static? It must be a rule of English that the very reverse is true. See Bill Bryson’s (no, really, it’s wonderful) Mother Tongue.

Perhaps the key is to avoid any and all handles, monikers, politically-laden words? So what then will we do for a name?

Perhaps, and this would be great, it’s all in the interpretation. The word ‘Christian’ covers a multitude of sins, if you’ll pardon the pun. It’s not an accurate name, it can’t possibly cover all the nuances, but it works because people need a box to put you into. Human nature; irritating, but universal.

Witch would do; HedgeWitch is better; this is what works for me. I still say Wicca is a new word – not in its etymology or its historical meaning, but in its modern usage. It no longer means ‘witch’; its connotations are a great deal more abstract and complex.

Right! That’s Enough!

For an extremely long time I’ve been nursing a low-grade irritation like an insect bite – why do people insist on spelling magic with a K? And then to compound the misery, we get the functionally illiterate who call practitioners of said craft ‘Magickians’.

Now, as any fule kno, a ‘ck’ forms a hard ‘C’ sound in British English, and I’m assuming in American English also. So you’d pronounce the conflation above – ma-jik-i-an.

Apparently, it’s partly Crowley who put us on this path; my view is, the old guy must have been laughing up his filthy sleeve. He was thoroughly intelligent and also quite an elegant thinker – I can’t for the life of me imagine why he’d chose such a clunky and, frankly, inelegant term for a practice he viewed so highly.

The reason generally given is that it’s a means of separating ‘our’ sort of magic from that practiced on the stage. Well,  there’s no need in my view to differentiate between magic, stage magic, Paul Daniels magic, or any other kind of magic.  You know what you mean. Your listeners are likely to know what you mean, if you’re capable of concise and lucid description.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s pretentiousness gone wild; its use is a sure-fire way of spotting those who believe that the bells and whistles, the labels of the Craft, are the important bits.