We’re Not Like Other Families

Author: RedBeanSidhe
Posted: July 5th. 2009

Source: http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usky&c=parent&id=13404

Have you ever found yourself saying this to your kids? “We’re not like most other families. We’re different.” How do you feel when you say those words?

I know how I felt having to say that to my kids. My heart sank when I heard the words roll out of my mouth. I felt like I was setting my kids up for a harder life. I felt as if I was alone in a large uncaring society, and leading my kids to learn to feel the same way as I did when those words came out of my mouth.

I debated for a long time over it. Even made up ‘pro and con lists’ in my head just to try and figure out what, if anything, I was doing wrong.

I am a pagans-are-nature-oriented/">pagan mother of seven boys. Then to top that off I have an extended large family. I still have yet to find another large pagans-are-nature-oriented/">pagan family such as ours. AND… I home school. I am happy homeschooling, and I believe my kids are too, but sometimes looking at everything I am shocked at what a large load I have put on my kids. It is a lot to take in if you were not the one experiencing it. Could you imagine?

So after all the worrying and debating I asked my oldest, “How does it feel to be different?”

Then this 12-year-old son of mine answered me the way only a kid could.

“What do you mean different? I don’t feel any different. I feel like myself.”

I smiled and then felt put in my place. We’re not really different. When I asked him how he felt about our family, he said, “Well, our family is extraordinary.”

Overall, when you really get down to thinking about things, and how some things might appear to be different, just put things into perspective. Perhaps you aren’t all that different. Maybe it’s just the way you think about things. The ‘burden’ I thought I was giving my kids was actually just my desire for them to have an open mind and a different perspective on how our family exists.

See, I think my perspective comes from how I was raised. I was raised very Christian. I was in the church nursery as a baby. My mom was the Sunday school teacher when I got older. I knew the Bible, and it was a contest between the preacher’s son and me as to who knew all the answers in class.

We had weekly dinners with the preacher and his family. I went to youth service on Wednesdays, as I got older. I had a lot of questions though, and as my mom said, good Christians don’t have questions. they just have faith. So I knew I had problems because I couldn’t stop asking questions.

I wasn’t a good Christian. I couldn’t just believe. I had too many conflicts. I tried to talk to my mom, and I told her I didn’t like having a God I was afraid of. I explained that it’s not right when you fear God.

In response, I was told, you should fear God. It makes you a better Christian to know you will be punished if you don’t accept him and Jesus.

I just couldn’t win. I tried to talk to the preacher, who told me my mom could explain things to me. And when I talked to my mom, I got no answers.

I swore that growing up my children would not have to face the things I did. I found Paganism when I was younger.

I told my mom, “Those people who were hugging the tree looked so happy”.

My mom said, “They should be. They are all going to hell.”

I said, “Well, if all the people at our church are going to heaven, why are they all so sad?”

She replied. “Life is hard. There is nothing easy about it.”

I got books and read in private, figuring out my religion. When we had children we agreed that they would be able to pick their religion and they would be educated.

When my 12-year-old son had done some research and told me he chose Paganism, I must admit, my heart skipped a beat. But what he doesn’t know, he wasn’t raised to know, are the hardships involved. It’s both a blessing and a curse for him.

I have explained the secrets he will have to keep from his grandma. Some people won’t agree with his choice and he will have to either keep his faith secret or deal with this.

Overall though, still he doesn’t see us as different. It’s a wonderful thing that he doesn’t take to heart all the hardships. He doesn’t see us as different because he was not raised to see anyone differently. I figured by his age these things would have come into perspective for him, but they haven’t.

What a wonderful experience, not being different! Having a large family, and being pagans-are-nature-oriented/">Pagan is just natural for my child. Maybe for other children of mine too, someday. I believe some will be Christian, some will be pagans-are-nature-oriented/">pagan, and maybe some will venture beyond these boundaries and dive headfirst into their own religious freedom to choose something totally different.

I will take them to the local Hindu temple. They go to church on occasion. We have been to two local Universal Unitarian churches. In the words, being ‘different’ is good because everyone is ‘different’. If we were all the same, the world would just be boring.

It’s true. Everyone is different. It’s just something we deal with throughout life. Maybe it’s not such a horrible thing to be ‘different’ and some of our children don’t even think we’re ‘different’ at all. It really puts things into perspective to believe that any religion, sincerely held and practiced, is just fine.

If you are not taught to believe that ‘different’ religions are bad, then they aren’t.

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Where Have All the Gardners and Crowleys Gone? (An Answer)

Author: Juniper (from WitchVox)

In the last couple of weeks a question, or rather a few similar questions, have been coming across my radar, again and again. I do try to pay attention to such things, when they come my way. One or more of these times were in articles posted on Witchvox, while other times this question has been uttered to me by friends. Here are the questions:

“Why are there no more Gardners and Crowleys?”

“Where are the women like Doreen Valentine and Janet Farrar and Dion Fortune in younger generations?”

“Where have all the good Elders gone?”

“Why are there no impressive High Priest/ess any more?”

… And such similar ponderings.

Despite the fact the fact that I am no Crowley, nor Starhawk, nor Elder, I think I may have hit upon an answer. It’s an ugly answer, and I know that sharing it may only cause me problems. Yet, I feel compelled to share it. So folks, if you are easily offended, please … keep reading. Bear with me, let me sit upon a “high horse” for but a moment and allow me to say some things you may not want to hear.

Gardner and Crowley were trailblazers. They were bold and daring, they said and did outrageous things. People like Gardner, Crowley, Cochrane and Hutton (to name a few) were eclectics, they tried stuff out, and they mixed and matched. They mixed pantheons and traditions. Nowadays we pagans use the word “eclectic” like a dirty word, an insult to be slung at anyone who dares to mix traditions or practices.

Because our watered-down version of paganism and occultism does not breed such people, does not encourage them. In fact, we make them pariahs. We are not comfortable with controversial leaders. We don’t want teachers with a reputation for being eccentric. We don’t like it when someone walks through the mall wearing a giant pentagram, or purple hair or a black dress. We don’t want to rock the boat. We don’t like it when someone says or does something new or different or outside the box. We are uncomfortable with pagans who don’t fit neatly into some label.

There are no more good elders for two reasons.

One, we treat them horribly, you know it and I know it. We give them no reason to participate in the community. We are pleading and demanding and completely lacking in respect. We expect them to do all the work for us, with barely an introduction. We never finish what they work so hard to help us start.

Two, many of our elders and pagans who have been around for a while have become jaded and disenfranchised. They have decided to give up on us and are hiding away somewhere. Far too often now, when they do decide to show up, it is either for our adulation or to make fun of other less experienced pagans… which only leads to a lack of respect for our elders. And thus we create a vicious cycle.

We all understand cycles do we not?

Because we seem to think that High Priestess and other spiritual leaders and teachers of such caliber are “born”, not slowly grown over time. We think that once a pagans-are-nature-oriented/">pagan reaches 40, they should just magickally turn into a great leader, teacher or guru. We think we do not need to support our young leaders and teachers. We feel that we do not need to help them to grow into great elders.

No, instead we pick and snipe at them and demand to see credentials and examine their birth certificate as if age is what matters. Because we forget that people like Janet Farrar, Doreen Valentine, and Starhawk were in their twenties when they first made their claim to fame. We forget, and we treat our young witches and priestesses like idiot children.

Because we buy white-lighter, easy-to-read, fluffy little books when we should be buying the books Chapters and Barnes and Noble refuse to sell. How many of you actually have books written by Gardner, Valentine, Farrar, and Crowley? How many of you have more books written by the likes of Sylvia Browne than books by our great old Elders?

There are no more Gardners and Crowleys because we are afraid. Afraid of controversy, afraid of not being politically correct, afraid of being judged, afraid of ourselves, afraid of what the neighbors might think. Afraid of what the rest of the pagans-are-nature-oriented/">pagan community might think or do.

Because we are afraid to try something that no one has done before, we need to read three instructional books on how to do it first. We need an author, teacher, or Internet friend to assure us that nothing bad might happen, that it will be fun and safe … and boring. Because we panic when a hedgewitch posts Flying Ointment recipes on her blog.

And we are lazy. We have become a community whose majority are little more than armchair pagans. We study more than we practice and we think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Paganism, witchcraft, magick … these are PRACTICES. You have to practice them! These pissing contests about what you know are meaningless. We need to focus on ourselves and our practices, not on what someone else has memorized.

Because we have made paganism too commercial, too user friendly, too easy, too accessible. We are more comfortable with a clean, neat, organized, sterilized version of spirituality. We don’t want something messy, sexy, nitty and gritty. We want something that matches the row upon row of identical pink stucco houses that litter suburbia.

Because we don’t want to have to work hard to find wisdom. We want it handed to us in a textbook format.

There are no more Gardners and Crowleys and the like because you’re supposed to be one.

That’s right. YOU.

Who else is going to do it? So what’s stopping ya?

You want more visionaries, teachers, and leaders? You want to see the next generation of Gardners and Crowleys crop up? Then go and do it yourself. Because chances are everyone else is too yellowbelly to do it for you. And why should anyone do it for you anyway?

Think about it.

*climbs off high-horse and raises shield*

Copyright: Juniper 2008

This article is originally from WitchVox, found here: http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=cabc&c=words&id=12919

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I found this article a while back (or, according to OneNote, “a long time ago”), and had been meaning to share it. The author of this article is a Kemetic Reconstructionist, a follower of the reconstructed religion of Kemet as it was practiced thousands of years ago in what is now known widely as ancient Egypt.

It is a common misconception that all Pagans are of a “nature-oriented” religion. This simply is not the case. While yes, most of those who are pagans-are-nature-oriented/">Pagan, in our area especially, are Wiccan, which is a heavily nature-oriented path, there are those of us in the community who simply do not fit that bill.

Being a Modern Kemetic, I worship the Neteru, the Gods and Goddesses of Kemet, now so well known as ancient Egypt. My beliefs, methods of worship, of prayer, of rites and rituals vary so much from what most concider “the norm.” The religion itself varies so much from what most people percieve Paganism as, and even from the more well-known Kemetic faiths such as the Kemetic Orthodox and Kemetic Reconstructionism.

I did have my start in my studies with wiccan-or-witch/">Wicca, but it never truly sat well with me. As I walked my path, I eventually found what was right for me, and watched it unfold before me. It’s been an adventure, as anyone’s path should be, and the knowledge I’ve gained from my first stumbling years has granted me an understanding of how different our perceptions can really be.

*************************************************

On Reconstruction and “Nature-Orientation”

I’ve finally managed to pin down one of the reasons that “well, the reconstructions are nature-oriented too, the Gods are personifications of natural phenomena” or “tied to natural phenomena” bothers me.

It’s disrespectful of the Gods. It diminishes Them, it reduces them to less than They are.

Most of the Gods have theophanies or symbols that are natural forms, yes, but that does not distinguish their forms and symbols strongly. Stars, doves, beasts of burden such as Burak, flaming vegetation — similar things from more mainstream religions. And if the point of more abstract symbols or those derived from manmade objects is raised, remember that the ankh, symbol of life and frequently prated about as some sort of unification of male and female principles or some similar hogwash, is a slightly abstracted representation of a sandal strap. Prosaic, manufactured, and pretty damn boring.

But back to the main thing: The myths that are bound up with the natural world and natural cycles are, for the most part, merely parts of the nature of the Gods, manifestations of portions of Their domains. When I see someone point at Proserpine and Her cycle as evidence of the nature focus of reconstructionist religions, I wonder how She feels about being treated as just a calendar.

Merely knowing the natural affiliations or associations of a God is not sufficient to know the God; they often derive from the God’s core nature rather than being that nature. If I say that Set is God of storms, of the desert, of the darkness, that is not sufficient to understand His domain unless one is exceptionally good at riddles. If I add to that that He governs the queer, unusual, and deviant; that He protects the left-handed and favors the redhead, that He is considered to be God of foreigners, then the picture becomes more complicated, less tied to hostile forces of the natural world. If I give chaos, destruction, the role of tester and challenger, the One who makes certain that the king is strong enough to face the job of kingship, still greater complexity. If He is named as the one who is ultimately responsible for the protection of that which is, the one who is capable of facing the forces of annihilation and unmaking and defeating them, one is left entirely in the realms of the philosophical and mystical, without natural referents at all.

Somewhere in there one can find the mysteries that are the core of this God, can come to know Him as fully Himself. If one stays stuck on just the projections of that core into the world of nature, the playing field has been limited too much to meet Him face to face. Yes, Set storms; it is His nature to do so, and one can meet Him there, but not if He is just the storm, if that is the sole, central most, or essentially defining thing. He is not a “God of nature”; His manifestations include portions of the natural world, but then again, Whose don’t?

Of course, at the same time as this, I find myself baffled by the Gods who are cut off from their manifestations in the natural world in the way many people look at them. When people speak of Wesir, I hear a lot of “God of the dead” and very little of His angry declaration to the Gods that it is by His will and nature that the grain that feeds Them grows — so They had better do right by His son. The regenerative power, the nature of the sown grain, His mysteries of the hidden green, those I rarely hear people mention. Baffles me no end.

Many of the ancient Gods were city Gods, dealing with the concerns of settled people. The Gods of Greece came into conflict over patronage of cities; They had territories, shrines, personal quirks that depended on the particular histories of Their time in those places.

Yes, there were agricultural festivals and the passage of the natural year, but that is a human trait, not something particular to paganisms, ancient or modern. I know that there are rituals and prayers for the planting in the Catholic Church, because I looked the bloody things up a while back. That this is not common knowledge and common concern is mostly a sign that much of the population is not strongly involved in agricultural cycles these days, not a distinguishing mark between religious categories.

And there are festivals of heroes or military victories, the accessions of leaders, and similar things. Human things, things that are the byproducts of human culture and human decisions and human institutions. Nothing in the natural world demands the celebration of the sed festival or the commemoration of Marathon.

Source: Unknown

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Arrival of the Tuatha de Danann*

At the time of the arrival of the Tuatha de Danann the race inhabiting
Eire was known as the “fir Bolgs” who were divided into three tribes.The
“fir Domnann” controlled North Munster, South Munster and Connaught. The
“Fir Bolg” controlled Ulster and the “Fir Gaillon” Leincester. At that
time their king was called Eochid son of Erc.

It is said that the Tuatha de Danann arrived on the 1st of May
(Beltaine) bringing with them treasures from their home cities. From
Findias they brought Nuada’s sword, from Gorias they brought Lugh’s
lance, from Murias they brought Dagda’s cauldron and from Falias they
brought the stone of destiny. The gods reached the coast of Ireland in a
shrowd of mist to conceal themselves from the Fir Bolgs.

Morrigu and her fellow war godesses created fogs, rainstorms and larva
to fall on the Fur Bolgs so that they had to take shelter for three days
until their own druids overcame the enchantments. Finally the two sides
met and after a period of truce the two sides began a bloody battle
where Eochid was slain and the Fir Bolgs defeated. It was in this very
battle that Nuada had his hand sliced clean off and, although Diancecht
skillfully made him a hand of silver, he was sufficiently disfigured to
have to give up the rule of the Tuatha de Danann.
And so it was that the Tuatha De Danann took control of Ireland. The
surviving Fir Bolgs were given Connaught to live in and to this day
there are those that claim ancestory to that ancient tribe.

The Tuatha De Danann skilled in magic and in druid lore. After the
coming of the Gaels, the Tuatha De Danann driven underground, to
establish an otherworld kingdom beneath the hills Tir Na Nog the land of
the forever young.
The Daghda assigned each member of the Tuatha Dene of these mounds, or
sidhe (faerie hills). In the sidhe there was immortality and ageless
beauty, continual feasting, hunting and revelry. Such mounds are
sometimes natural hills, but many are the megalithic burial mounds of
the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, believed in strong folk traditions to be
the dwelling-places of the Irish gods.

The fairy realm is the magical inverse of the human world. Time passes
at a different rate in the Otherworld a brief visit can be hundreds of
years in the human world. In Tir Na Nog, the Tuatha De Danann continued
to practice their powers of magic and control over the supernatural. In
this design, the people of Danu are woven into the ancient cross-symbol
the cross-quartered circle, representing the union of male and female
energies. The Cross represents the four directions four elements, four
corners of earth (male energy). The Circle represents the Whole, the
Earth Womb (female energy).

*from George Treanor, Irish Heritage Group

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History of Earth Day

Earth Day — April 22 — each year marks the anniversary of the birth of
the modern environmental movement in 1970.

Among other things, 1970 in the United States brought with it the Kent
State shootings, the advent of fiber optics, “Bridge Over Troubled
Water,” Apollo 13, the Beatles’ last album, the death of Jimi Hendrix,
the birth of Mariah Carey, and the meltdown of fuel rods in the Savannah
River nuclear plant near Aiken, South Carolina — an incident not
acknowledged for 18 years.

It was into such a world that the very first Earth Day was born.

Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin,
proposed the first nationwide environmental protest “to shake up the
political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda. ”
“It was a gamble,” he recalls, “but it worked.”

At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8
sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal
consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the
smell of prosperity. Environment was a word that appeared more often in
spelling bees than on the evening news.

Earth Day 1970 turned that all around.
On April 22, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and
auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. Denis
Hayes, the national coordinator, and his youthful staff organized
massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities
organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups
that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power
plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of
wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared
common values.

Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support
from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and
farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the
creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the
passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts.

Sen. Nelson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the highest
honor given to civilians in the United States — for his role as Earth
Day founder.

As 1990 approached, a group of environmental leaders asked Denis Hayes
to organize another big campaign. This time, Earth Day went global,
mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting the status of
environmental issues on to the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge
boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the
1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another
campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean
energy. Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first
Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990.
For 2000, Earth Day had the Internet to help link activists around the
world. By the time April 22 rolled around, 5,000 environmental groups
around the world were on board, reaching out to hundreds of millions of
people in a record 184 countries. Events varied:

A talking drum chain traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa,
for example, while hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the
National Mall in Washington, D.C., USA.
Earth Day 2000 sent the message loud and clear that citizens the world
’round wanted quick and decisive action on clean energy.

Now, the fight for a clean environment continues. We invite you to be a
part of this history and a part of Earth Day. Discover energy you didn’t
even know you had. Feel it rumble through the grass roots under your
feet and the technology at your fingertips. Channel it into building a
clean, healthy, diverse world for generations to come.

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Wiccan or Witch?
You can be both a Wiccan and a witch, these two words are not the same
One of the biggest sore points among Wiccans is the improper usage of
the terms “Wiccan” and “Witch.” Too many people use the terms
interchangeably, presuming that they both mean the same thing. They
do not.
Wiccan
wiccan-or-witch/">Wicca is a religion, and someone who follows that religion is called
a Wiccan. Sometimes it can be difficult to accurately define wiccan-or-witch/">Wicca,
and not all Wiccans will define themselves the same way. Observing
the 8 Wiccan Sabbats, honoring the Gods and/or Goddesses, creating
sacred space for rituals, to name a few. Many traditional Wiccans
also feel that belonging to a coven is also a requirement and that
those who practice their religion as a solitary, should not refer to
themselves as Wiccan. Personally, I’m still not sure on that point.
Typical Wiccans also practice magick, and therefore are also witches.
You cannot be a “natural Wiccan” any more than you could be a
“natural Christian.”

Witch
The practice of witchcraft is not associated with any religion,
therefore you can be a witch and yet also be a member of any number
of religions (or none). Using the natural energies within yourself,
along with the energies of herbs, stones or other elements to make
changes around you is considered witchcraft. Though the skills and
gifts that are part of witchcraft can be inherited from parents or
grandparents, you aren’t automatically a witch just because your
grandmother may have been one. The use of magick takes practice,
experience and learning. On a side note, a male witch is called a
witch, not a warlock.

Pagan
While I’m explaining terminology, I thought I would throw in “pagans-are-nature-oriented/">Pagan”
as well. Paganism refers to a variety of non-Christian/Jewish/
Islamic religions that are usually polytheistic and are often nature-
based. wiccan-or-witch/">Wicca is only one pagans-are-nature-oriented/">Pagan religion, but there are others such as
Santeria, Asatru, or Shamanism. Many people do not necessarily
identify with a specific religion, and just use the broad term
“pagans-are-nature-oriented/">Pagan” to define their spiritual path. pagans-are-nature-oriented/">Pagan religions are distinct
and separate from each other, and it should not be assumed that they
are just different names for the same faith.

http://paganwiccan.about.com/cs/whatiswicca/a/wiccanwitch_p.htm

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The Celts and Nature’s Way

—by Ed McGaa, aka Sioux Tribal Leader, Eagle Man

Much has been learned about the Celts from various sources, all of which
confirm that the Celtic tribal society was relatively egalitarian,
democratic and in harmony with nature. Historian Peter Ellis describes
that society:

The Celtic tribal system was a highly
sophisticated one. The food of the community was the basis of the
law…Chieftains were elected as were all officers of the tribe. Women
emerged in Celtic society with equality of rights. They could inherit,
own property and be elected to office, even to the position of leader in
times of war…Tacitus observed, “There is no rule of distinction to
exclude the female line from the throne or the command of armies.”1

Is it not possible that the Celts were either related to or strongly
influenced by the advanced civilization that Eisler speaks of in The
Chalice and the Blade?2 Perhaps that earlier society migrated or shifted
westward when the patriarchal intruders came down from the northeast
with their advanced weaponry. The word ‘Celt’ comes from Greek and Roman
writers who used it rather indiscriminately to refer to the various
tribes that occupied Europe to the north and west of them. Physically,
the Celts were taller and lighter-featured than people in southern
Europe (although there were dark-haired Celts), and they often had blue
eyes.

The Celts shared with the Old Europeans a belief in the immanence of the
spirit world and the immortality of the soul. Classical writers, who
often denigrated Celtic spirituality as superstition , frequently
commented on the Celts’ intense obsession with spiritual matters. Celtic
scholar Anne Ross notes that “the Celts were so completely engrossed
with, and preoccupied by, their religion and it expression that it was
constantly and positively to the forefront of their lives.”3

Celts in Early America?

Just as the Celts may have grown out of, or been influenced by, the Old
Europeans, might not the early Celts have influenced the spiritual
insights of the Native Americans? Or how about vice versa? There are
certainly striking similarities between the two worldviews, as shamanic
practitioner Tom Cowan notes:

Like the American Indians, the Celts lived in diverse, scattered tribal
units, sometimes banding together for specific trade or military
purposes. As peoples who practiced an indigenous, earth-centered
spirituality, the Celts and Native Americans share many animistic
beliefs and practices, along with a common attitude and respect for the
land and the spirits of the land…Like Native Americans, the Celts
suffered from the advance of other settlers… Eventually, the majority
of the Celts were defeated, absorbed or pushed westward by an advancing,
militaristic Roman civilisation.4

The idea that Native America might have been influence by the Celts is
supported by a December 2000 article in National Geographic, which
indicated that the magazine has finally shed its Bering-Strait-only
theory and now suggests that some migration from the east also brought
early settlers across the Atlantic.5

Who were the first Europeans in the New World? Was it Leif Eriksson and
his Vikings, or was it the legendary Irishman St. Brendan of the Misty
Isles? Actually, it was probably neither. Recent archeology find in New
England indicate a European settlement as far back as 800 B.C.E.! The
evidence is threefold: first, in an ancient complex of stone buildings;
second, in scores of tablets inscribed with a writing matching that used
in western Europe around 800 B.C.E.; and third, in American Indian words
that parallel those used in western Europe at that time. Researchers
studying this data have concluded that the adventurers who crossed the
Atlantic over 2,800 years ago were Celts.

The Celtic identity of structures has been established through science
of epigraphy — that is, the study of ancient inscription on stone.
Barry Fell (now deceased), a former Harvard professor and past president
of the Epigraphic Society, identified the inscriptions as Ogham, a
system of cypher used by Celtic people over 2,500 years ago, and was
able to translate them. Dr. Fell’s research is conclusive in dating the
Celtic presence in North America.

Some of the inscriptions found and translated identify graves; others
taken from the oracle chamber are religious writings; and still others
specify land boundaries. Some 200 stone chambers have been found in New
England, many of which are constructed in the form of Druidic astronomic
calendar observatories. Together they suggest a Celtic settlement in the
New World at the same time Ogham was in use in Europe — that is, about
800 B.C.E. Further, a study of local Indian words and place names has
revealed Celtic roots. Other methods, such as the identification and
dating of pottery, tools and implements found at the site, have also
revealed the settlement to be Celtic, matching items produced in the
Celtic Regions of Europe during the Bronze Age.6

Maybe influence flowed both directions — from the Celts to the Native
Americans and back again — over as much as several millennia, with
traffic going both west and east across the Atlantic. If the Celts were
in North America as early as Dr. Fell’s research suggests, it is highly
probable that early traders returned to pre-Christian Europe with many
of the values of the New Continent (later to be called North America).
The exchange would explain why certain North American tribes have traces
of physical resemblance to the Celtic/Nordic features. Walk through
Rapid City, South Dakota, airport and discover the remarkable
photographs that hang on the walls. As you look at the pronounced
features of full-blooded, Sioux veterans who defeated Custer at the
Battle of Little Big Horn, you might think you were looking at a
slightly darker than usual group of war-bonneted Celts or Vikings!

Some northeastern tribes have features very unlike those of western
tribes and even more unlike those of northwestern coastal Indians.
Traces of Celtic and Viking influence may explain why northern tribes
look different than southwestern tribes, such as, the Navajo and Pueblo.
One has no difficulty in discerning a Sioux from a Navajo or a Tlingit.
Maybe in addition to an inspiration tradeoff of values and spirituality
between the Celts and The Sioux/Iroquois — a sharing of the best of
what these Nature-respecting peoples had to offer — there was also a
sharing of genes. The appearance of the Sioux and Iroquois people —
lighter-skinned, taller and heavier-boned than their southern
counterparts — suggests some intertwining of blood.

I believe that this possible sharing of bloodlines and almost certain
sharing of cultures shows that the paths of Native Americans and
European Americans came from the same place: a place of equality for
both men and women.

Notes:

1Ellis, P. The Celtic Empire. Constable: London, 1990, p 6.

2Eisler, R. The Chalice and the Blade. HarperCollins: San Francisco,
1987, p. 258, fig. 5.

3Ross, A. The pagans-are-nature-oriented/">Pagan Celts. Barnes and Noble Books: Totowa, NJ, 1986, pp
103-104.

4Cowan, T. Fire in the Head. HarperCollins: San Francisco, 1992, p. 6.

5Parfit, M. “Hunt for the First Americans,” National Geographic, Dec
2000, p. 46.

6Fell, B. America B.C. Pocket Books: New York, 1976, p. 218.

Source:
Excerpted from: McGaa E. aka Eagle Man. Nature’s Way: Native Wisdom for
Living in Balance with the Earth, HarperCollins: San Francisco, 2004, pp
60-63

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WHAT HOODOO IS NOT: Voodoo, Santeria, etc.

Hoodoo is not the name of a religion nor a denomination of a
religion, although it incorporates elements from African and
European religions in terms of its core beliefs.

As you may guess by now, it is not at all correct to refer to
African-American hoodoo as “Voodoo.” Voodoo (also spelled “Vodoun”
and always capitalized, as a religion’s name should be) is a Haitian
religion that is quite African (Dahomean, in this case) in
character. Above all, it is a RELIGION. The word “Voodoo” derives
from an African word meaning “spirit” or “God.”

One reason for the confusion between hoodoo and Voodoo is that the
study of African American rootwork with respect to African systems
of belief has only recently risen above the level of mere
speculation.

Older accounts of hoodoo tended to emphasize West African linkages,
in part because that area of Africa was heavily traversed during the
19th century by English speaking Christian missionaries who
published books mentioning “native customs” — which American slave-
owners saw as similar to practices they observed among their slaves.
This is why many 19th century accounts of hoodoo by white authors
call it “Voodoo.” However, by mid-20th century, with the publication
of “Flash of the Spirit” by Robert Farris Thompson, scholarly focus
shifted to the Congo as the source of most of what anthropologists
would call “African retentions” in conjure — beliefs, customs,
sayings, or even complete rituals that have been recorded in Africa
and that have survived in the United States through the many
centuries that Africans have lived here.

As recent scholarship has uncovered, Congo African retentions more
closely account for patterns of belief and practice found in
American hoodoo than West African retentions do — and this Congo
emphasis also accords well with demographic reconstructions of the
original homes of North American slaves.

Other African-diaspora religious syntheses sometimes confused with
hoodoo include African-Cuban Santeria and Palo, African-Brazilian
Candomble and Umbanda, and African-Jamaican Obeah. In most of these
religions, as practiced in the Americas, African deities are masked
with Spanish, French, or Portuguese Catholicism, and the Yoruban,
Fon, and Congolese spirits (Orishas, Loas, and Nkisi) are nominally
replaced by proxy Catholic saints, sometimes called the Seven
African Powers.

Until the 1970s American revival of interest in African religions,
the only place Voodoo was openly practiced in the United States was
New Orleans, where Haitian slaves (and their refugee masters) had
settled after the Haitian slave rebellion of 1803. The New Orleans
version of Voodoo was known at least as far back as the 1930s to be
so debased as to have lost much of its claim to being a true
religion and to have mingled greatly with hoodoo, spiritualism, and
Catholicism — rendering it as much a system of folk-magic as of
religion. However, in recent years, contact with Haitians and an
influx of interested white practitioners with backgrounds in
Hermetic magic have led to a rebirth of the forms of the rituals
practiced there, which has given New Orleans Voodoo new life.

Santeria was introduced to the U.S. as early as 1954, when the first
African-Americans were initiated by Cuban-born priests of Lucumi in
New York City. It experienced rapid growth during the 1970s when the
Cultural Nationalist movement led many American-born blacks to
investigate their African heritage and a sudden upswing of
immigration from Cuba simultaneously brought an influx of Santeros
to the United States. Santeria and Lucumi are now widespread and
flourishing among immigrant and U.S.-born people of various races.
The veneer of Catholicism that Santeria acquired over the past few
centuries is gradually being abandoned in the United States,
especially by American Santeros who are actively interchanging
information with Nigerians in an attempt to bridge the gap formed by
years of diaspora. However, one of the many proxy images of
Santeria –the so-called Seven African Powers, which consists of
seven Orishas disguised as Catholic saints — has entered into
hoodoo practice and can be found in the form of candles, powders,
incense and the like.

The bulk of the African-American populace in the U.S. — that is,
those people who are primarily descended from African slaves and
Anglo-American slave-owners — practice the religion known as
Protestant Christianity. The major denominations represented are
Baptist, Methodist, and African Methodist Episcopalian. If, in
addition to their regular Sunday worship they also engage in folk-
magic, what they are doing would in all probability be the African-
European-American conflation called hoodoo, conjure, or rootwork.

Newcomers to hoodoo — especially white folks with an interest in
what they believe to be “exotic” or “other-cultural” — often tell
themselves (and, if they are authors, their unfortunate public) that
the true and authentic source for all things hoodoo / Voodoo can be
found only in New Orleans. This is manifestly untrue, and can be
demonstrated to be a fiction by anyone who cares to interview
rootworkers outside of the Crescent City.

Because hoodoo is at its core a Central African / Congo / Bantu
system of magical practice, one way to identify the oldest and most
authentic practices is to look for what anthropologists would
call “African retentions” — beliefs, customs, sayings, or even
complete rituals that have been recorded in Africa and that have
survived in the United States through the many centuries that
Africans have lived here.

There are, of course, certain customs and beliefs which can be seen
as more or less “Pan-African (ancestor veneration comes to mind as
an example) and these need not be linked to one African group or
another — for virtually every African captive would have shared
these beliefs.

One thing i look out for when trying to determine the actuality of
African retentions over the course of hundreds of years in the USA
is their distribution pattern. African captives themselves were
distributed widely throughout the Americas, both North and South, in
the Northeastern urbanized region as well as in the better-
documented rural Southern “slave states.” In ALL of those places,
you will find common African retentions, such as — to name three
off the top of my head:

mixing pepper and salt and wearing it in your shoe for protection
from witchcraft,
mixing up three-ingredient spiritual cleansing baths and floor
washesthat have a mineral component,
working with live ants (in their nests) in an assortment of spells.
These ideas, and other similar African magical customs, will be
found everywhere that black folks live in America, from Sandusky,
Ohio to Atlanta, Georgia. Not everyone will “believe” in them or use
them, but they are a common heritage in the culture and will be
encountered on a regular basis — just the way you will see Irish
Americans all over the USA talking about hanging horseshoes with the
points up “or the luck will run out.”

So when someone tells me that a common African American belief
derives from “New Orleans Voodoo” i just smile. It is African, and
it is EVERYWHERE. New Orleans is just a little part of everywher

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KARMA, THE THREE FOLD LAW, & GRACE

“As you sow, so shall ye reap”. “What goes around, comes
around”. “Whatever you send out returns three times”. These are all
sayings very familiar to all of us, all of them examples of a
supposedly Universal Law of cause and effect, action and reaction.
Of course many of the religious systems try to furnish us with some
sort of “escape clause” that will allow man to either alleviate
suffering for past misdeeds, or to escape responsibility totally.
Let us take a little closer look at these three ideas and their
inter-relationship.

It seems that, on one level, we do live in a mechanistic universe,
one pretty much ruled by cause-and-effect. This Newtonian universe
seems to react in a very mechanical fashion, i.e. every
action “produces an equal and opposite reaction”. A good analogy for
this is the example of one billiard ball striking another. The
energy from the striking billiard ball is transferred to the one
struck and is used to push against the first, imparting motion in
the same direction. This brings the second law into play, i.e. an
object in motion tends to stay in motion until acted upon by an
outside force.

The principle of Karma basically says the same thing; i.e. any
negative or positive action or thought remains that way, until it
expends its energy by acting upon the originator. Of course this
also makes implicit the idea that thoughts or mental energy have a
reality of their own, one that interacts with the physical universe.
If this idea is accepted, it then implies the existence of at least
one more “world” or order of the universe, one with a non physical
“reality”, and one where the basic fundamental rules of physics (as
we know them) may not truly apply.

The magician can be described as one who “walks between” these two
worlds. “Walking between two worlds” implies that an individual is
connected with both and can move between them at will. The purpose
of magic is to manipulate one world for the benefit of the other,
i.e. to manipulate the unseen world for the express purpose of
influencing events in the physical. Unfortunately there does not
seem to be a “free ride” anywhere in the universe, and when an
individual acquires the power to do this, they also acquire a great
deal of responsibility! By accepting the power to exert “leverage”
in the unseen world, an individual seems to also accept a multiplied
susceptibility to influences initiated in that world. This is why
negative workings are so dangerous! This may also be the reasoning
behind the “law of three fold return”.

Now comes the hard part! If all of this cause and effect stuff is
absolute, how can any individual ever hope to “pay off” the debts
for all of the “stupid” things they have done not only in this
lifetime, but in many others? Must we “pay off” all past
transgressions on a one for one basis? Is there no escape clause in
this “contract” we seem to have for living in the universe?

This “escape clause” is called Grace by the Christians and by other
names in other systems, but it does exist in all. Basically, the
idea is this: “Once a lesson is completely learned and one grows
beyond a need for this lesson, it need not be repeated, even if
the ‘books’ are not balanced”. This is the “Enlightenment” sought by
the Buddhist that allows the “breaking” of the wheel.

~author unknown

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Principals of Belief

The council of American Witches find it necessary to define modern witchcraft in terms of the American experience and needs.

We are not bound by tradition from other times and other civilizations, and owe no allegiance to any person or power greater than the divinity manifest through our own being.

As American Witches, we welcome and respect all life-affirming teaching and traditions, and seek to learn from all and to share our learning within our council.

It is in this spirit of welcome and cooperation that we adopt these few principals of Wiccan Belief. In seeking to be inclusive, we do no wish to open ourselves to the destruction of our group by those on self-serving power trips, or to philosophies and practices contradictory to ours, we do not want to deny participation with us to any who are sincerely interested in our knowledge and beliefs, regardless of race, color, sex, national or cultural origins, or sexual preference.

We therefore ask only that those who seek to identify with us accept these few principals:

1) We practice rites to attune ourselves with the natural rhythm of life forces marked by the phases of the moon and the seasonal quarters and cross-quarters.

2) We recognize that our intelligence gives us unique responsibility toward our environment. We seek to live in harmony with nature, in ecological balance offering fulfillment to life and consciousness within an evolutionary concept.

3) We acknowledge a depth of power greater than is apparent to the average person. Because it is far greater than ordinary, it is sometimes called “Supernatural”, but we see it as lying within that which is naturally potential to all.

4) We conceive of the Creative power in the Universe as manifesting through polarity - as masculine and feminine - and that this same creative power lives in all people, and functions through the interaction of the masculine and feminine. We value neither above the other, knowing each to be supportive of the other. We value sexuality as pleasure, as the symbol and embodiment of life, and as one of the sources of energies used in magickal practices and religious worship.

5) We recognize both outer world and inner, or psychological worlds sometimes known as the Spiritual World, the Collective Unconscious and Inner Planes, etc., and we see the interaction of these two dimensions as the basis for paranormal phenomena and magickal exercises. We neglect neither dimension for the other, seeing both as necessary to our fulfillment.

6) We do not recognize any authoritarian hierarchy, but do honor those who teach, respect those who share their greater knowledge and wisdom, and acknowledge those who have courageously given of themselves in leadership.

7) We see religion, magick and wisdom in living as being united in the way one views the world and lives within it - a world view and philosophy of life, which we identify as Witchcraft or the Wiccan way.

Calling oneself “witch” does not make a witch - but neither does heredity itself, or the collecting of titles, degrees and initations. A witch seeks to control the forces within her/him self that makes life possible in order to live wisely and well, without harm to others, and in harmony with nature.

9) We acknowledge that it is the affirmation and fulfillment of life, in a continuation of evolution and development of consciousness, that gives meaning to the Universe we know, and to our personal role within it.

10) Our only animosity toward Christianity, or toward any other religion or philosophy of life, is to the extent that its insinuations have claimed to be “the one true right and only way” and have sought to deny freedom to other and to suppress other ways of religious practices and beliefs.

11) As American Witches, we are not threatened by debates on the history of the Craft, origins of various terms, the legitimacy of various aspects of different traditions. We are concerned with our present and our future.

12) We do not accept the concept of “absolute evil” nor do we worship any entity known as “Satan” or the “devil” as defined by the Christian tradition. We do not seek power through the suffering of others, nor do we accept the concept that personal benefits can only be derived by denial to another.

13) We work within nature for that which is contributory to our health and well-being.

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Christianity, Gnostics and Wicca

I have been practicing an Earth path for over 20 years. In that time I have come to understand the workings of many paths. On the road of wiccan-or-witch/">Wicca there has been much controversy about Christian wiccan-or-witch/">Wicca. Witchvox has a good article on this subject this week.

I know many opposed to this idea. I also know a few that are adamant about this path. I have no problems with any path and try not to judge. I personally have a hard time with any type of fundamentalism that believes that their path is the only path.

I have some thoughts about this whole Christian wiccan-or-witch/">Wicca thing. I think for some, especially here in Alabama, it is hard for us because we have had poor experiences on the Christian path. We have found our Earth path and feel much freedom. Christianity in any form can feel threatening. It is easy to become threatened and angry at that which we fear.

I have had to look at Christianity on a much deeper level than what may be presented in the mainstream. There is much magic and mystics on the Christian road if one looks for it. Go to a Catholic Mass and anyone that has been in ritual will see the similarities. All the Christian holidays have Pagans roots. Many churches were built on sacred pagans-are-nature-oriented/">pagan sites to encourage a blending of the religions. So Christianity in itself has a pagans-are-nature-oriented/">pagan background.

And then we have the Gnostics. The Gnostics were an early Christian sect virtually wiped out by the church in the 4th century. They had many beliefs that are held in wiccan-or-witch/">Wicca. They believed in the duality of life. They believed in a male and a female force. They believed in an all one force that permeated the universe. They believed in the polarity of life. And they were magical. They were aligned with the elements and the forces of the earth. They kept the Goddess energy in their religion and had roots with Mary Magdalene

The Gnostics stood out compared to the mainstream Christianity of the day and that was their demise. Many Wiccan’s refer back to the burning times and say “Never Again.” The Gnostics had their own form of the burning times to go through as the Church wiped them off the face of the earth and their ways became extinct until the lost scrolls were found. Now we know that their were magical Christians that had a path very different from the Christianity we know today.

I was taught by one of my elders that all paths to Spirit are valid. Very few will choose my path and that is ok. If I want others to respect my path then I must learn to respect their path. I may not understand Christian wiccan-or-witch/">Wicca but I do respect Christian wiccan-or-witch/">Wicca’s right to be considered a valid path.

Loki

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