Something Happened on the Way to 2025

Nothing like severe, life-altering (and potentially life-ending) illness striking your family to shake up your way of being in the world.

I'm reasonably certain that very few people who suffer two types of stroke simultaneously walk unaided out of the hospital in a week's time, but my partner did. The tale of his recovery, which is ongoing, is not mine to tell; but I will say that from my very close vantage point, it looks a little miraculous, maybe even a bit magickal. I'm reminded of Paul Kantner's recovery from a potentially life-ending cerebral hemorrhage in the early 80s; the odds here were about that grim. How it has and will change my partner's life is also not my story to tell, but I can tell you how I'm faring.

I enter a state of functional shock when bad things happen, and I existed in that state for some time after the event. Miraculously, I managed to keep the bills paid and the household running, which was revelatory. Everything except me, anyway, as I mostly didn't eat for the first month--which had the salutary side-effect of making me drop a good ten pounds with no real effort on my part. Once I realized that, and started to come back to myself a bit in the upswing phase of his recovery, I decided I wanted to keep that momentum, so I kept my altered eating habits (OK, by this time I was starting to actually eat again) and added daily exercise to the mix, and have made it a habit instead of a happenstance. I look and feel better, at any rate.

I learned who I can trust in a crisis, and who cares enough to help us out, and those things were revelatory too. Shockingly, I learned at my great age that I can trust myself, even when I'm stressed beyond my own capacity to even recognize it. I also learned that I can no longer wholly condemn those who leave their partners in the midst of medical crisis, because I can now see how difficult to impossible understanding and supporting and caregiving could be for some. I'm certainly not the ideal person to have around in a medical crisis situation (my fannish identification with Scully doesn't extend to that part of her characterization), but there are surely those even less able to cope than I, so maybe I have a bit more sympathy for people facing that situation than I once would have.

Were the Gods or spirits or something looking out for him? Are there lessons for him to learn from this? Will his (and my?) life change in a rebirth/reawakening, initiatory/revelatory kind of way? Perhaps. Both Imbolc and the equinox have already passed with no significant recognition on either of our parts. I've offered up plenty of thanks to whomever might be listening. Things have calmed, stabilized, though I suspect I'll be metaphorically sleeping with one eye open for a very long time. What is to come I do not know, but I do know that I now have a bit more faith in my ability to meet it and handle it; and that, in itself, seems magick enough for the moment.

Yuletide

 

I was up before the dawn and managed to settle myself long enough to perform a simple solitary rite, which is more than I've managed in quite some time. This country, this world, is in a dark place these days, and finding the light has gotten measurably harder as time rolls on and ever-viler people attain power. Still, we understand that everything is cyclical, and dawn always follows even the deepest darkness. The winter sunlight streaming through my window currently is a golden glow, even though the temperature remains well below freezing, and I take this as a reminder to remember and seek the light in darkness, the glittering moments sparking through the long cold nights. Solstice blessings to you all!

Autumn Equinox

 

It doesn't matter what you personally call it, or what your tradition calls it, or what people on the internet call it, refuse to call it, or sneer at people calling it. The autumn equinox brings its beauty, its balance, and its blessing no matter what name we ascribe to it. Shorter days and longer nights, cool mornings and warmer afternoons, blustery skies dispersed by glorious golden sunlight diffused through rainbows of leaves. The season of the witch is almost upon us; listen for the spirits whispering in the rustle of the trees.

Who Has The Right?

If you put yourself out there in any capacity--as a teacher, a coven leader, an initiate of anything--someone will eventually come popping up seemingly from nowhere to challenge you on it. It does not matter what your bona fides are; you could be the finest witch with the most impeccable lineage imaginable, and some asshole will still appear to question your validity, deny your right to do what you're doing, tell you your upline is illegitimate, or a dozen other things. And the reason why is simple: people suck.

People suck, and a great many of the suckiest among them can be found in religious and spiritual sectors. Why that is, is a topic for another dissertation, but just believe me when I say that it's so. Among the worst people I have known in my adult life, the bulk of them have been other witches, pagans, and occultists. These people have bullied me publicly and privately, harassed me online, denied the validity of my initiates, claimed I did things I didn't do and didn't do things I did do, tried to ruin my coven, break up my marriage, and the list goes on. I'm far from the only one who has experienced this. A dear friend and initiate of mine once told the tale of attending a public pagan gathering and overhearing some complete strangers discussing him, gleefully recounting all the horrible things he'd supposedly done, with him sitting right at their same table completely unknown to them. If it's true that people love gossip, the more salacious and outrageous the better, then it's magnified a thousandfold in the pagan/Wiccan/occult sectors. It would be hilariously stupid if only it didn't cause real harm.

Why does it happen? One reason is because a lot of heavily damaged people find their way to the craft in hopes of fixing that damage; but as the saying goes, hurt people hurt other people, so instead of finding personal healing they seek scapegoats. Instead of addressing their own feelings of illegitimacy they challenge that of others. Some genuinely deserve compassion; others are genuinely nasty people who deserve only contempt, and our best efforts to avoid them and minimize where possible the damage they seek to do. I've found an inordinate number of that second kind over the years.

As the friend I mentioned above once told me, they behave so badly because the stakes are so small. 

I am a part of two Wiccan traditions: the one in which I was originally initiated and trained, and the one which my partner and I developed. I have been questioned and challenged about my place and my rights in both of them at various times, and let me state loudly and clearly that I do not give one single shit whether someone unknown to me, whose opinion means nothing to me, considers me a valid witch or teacher or priestess. And neither, dear reader, should you. The person who starts off with a challenge doesn't want information, they want a fight; they want you on the defensive, want you shaken, want you to doubt yourself. Don't give them what they want. If you're up for a battle, then turn it back on them and question them in turn, but in general it's better to defuse the situation and walk away. Pick your battles carefully or you'll end up with a broken heart and an ulcer, because these people live to drain others dry. Don't open a vein for them.

If someone questions your lineage, tell 'em it's oathbound. Tell them you were brought in by a witch who was brought in by another witch. Tell them you don't have any. Tell them it's none of their godsdamn business. Tell them you made it all up yourself, or you read it in a book, or a wizard in a cave on a high mountaintop passed his wisdom on to you. If you are a member of a tradition and you put yourself out there as such, then you can certainly expect to hear from others of that trad; but there is a big difference between the friendly curiosity of one initiate to another, and the malignant interest of the bully. The sooner you learn to differentiate between the two, and to react appropriately, the better off you'll be. And if you are trying to enter initiate space and need to prove your bona fides, you should already know how to provide a requested vouch. Randos on the internet trying to provoke you or discredit you do not deserve consideration.

Yuletide

 

May Eve

 

Beltane Reunion by Emily Balivet

Walpurgis Night, the time is right,

The ancient powers awake.

So dance and sing, around the ring,

And Beltane magic make.

Walpurgis Night, Walpurgis Night,

Upon the eve of May,

We’ll merry meet, and summer greet,

For ever and a day.

New life we see, in flower and tree,

And summer comes again.

Be free and fair, like earth and air,

The sunshine and the rain.

Walpurgis Night, Walpurgis Night,

Upon the eve of May,

We’ll merry meet, and summer greet,

For ever and a day.

As magic fire be our desire

To tread the pagan way,

And our true will find and fulfil,

As dawns a brighter day.

Walpurgis Night, Walpurgis Night,

Upon the eve of May,

We’ll merry meet, and summer greet,

For ever and a day.

The pagan powers this night be ours,

Let all the world be free,

And sorrows cast into the past,

And future blessed be!

Walpurgis Night, Walpurgis Night,

Upon the eve of May,

We’ll merry meet, and summer greet,

For ever and a day.

© Copyright The Doreen Valiente Foundation

Spring Equinox

 

@ ravenmmonsoracle.com

Spring came early this year, after a blessedly mild winter (in the sense of little snowfall and warmish temperatures overall; I choose to ignore the sub-zero ice-laden Christmas weekend), with things greening and blooming just in time for a one-two punch of below freezing mornings that cost me some shrubberies and other assorted small growing things. Tornadoes (one skipping along a mile or so from me) and wind storms (one took out our power for nearly a day) added to the entertainment--but I'm sure there's no such thing as climate change. This is all perfectly normal. Nothing at all to see here.

Still, the equinox (Ostara if you like) is a cause for celebration, a sigh of relief that the light is strengthening, the green things are rising, the tender first blossoms lifting their little heads to follow the sun. It's a reminder that we've made it through the dark times once more.