I'm not going to go into great detail on this here because I need to sleep soon. But I'm going to get it off my chest before laying down for the night. Maybe I'm the only one ...
I was reading the CNN website last night and found 
A comment was made deep in another thread by a reader that stirred up the Goddess in me so fiercely that I couldn’t sleep. Nothing like Sekhmet padding through your brain to keep you from the Dreamtime.
Again, the same questions — can I call myself a Wiccan if I’m not initiated? Can I be a Witch if I’m not a Gardnerian? What about the Council of Witches and their 13 principles — don’t those count for anything? Why do I feel like such a fraud? Why do I have to dissect my spiritual practice to avoid offending people or misrepresenting myself?
Anyway, I’ve posted my response here because it needs saying. I mean no disrespect to Gard or Lexi Witches. If anything, I feel like those that ARE lineaged but who don’t practice exactly what was passed down to them need to stop trading on the lineage byline for what it can get them. At the same time, these arguments are tearing the faith in twain. All over a damn word – a WORD!
As I said to one of your fellow readers:
“Bless your heart… there are times I just absolutely want to scream over the semantics. Here’s the situation:
“Originally, Wicca as Gerald Gardner introduced it was/is an initiatory religion. This means you need to be initiated into it in order to be considered Wiccan. Then, Gerald went and published multiple books about Wicca, giving examples of how to do things. Then his initiates went and did the same thing. And their initiates did the same thing. A version of the Telephone Game ensued, information got out, people rebelled, Books of Shadows got published, secrets were told, some folks flat-out gave away the information and Voila! Cat’s out of the bag. To me, if Wicca was meant to be uber-secret and keep its traditional format passed on in traditional ways, why the hell did Gerald Gardner publish all of this stuff? Why didn’t Doreen and Alex and The Farrar’s and Buckland and all the rest just lock it back down instead of helping the process along? And why, oh WHY, do people insist on continuing to trace their lineage back to someone who, by all counts of what a “secret tradition” means, could very well be counted an oathbreaker for revealing something that was meant to only be passed on in the strictest of ritually secure formats? Alright, that’s one rant.
“So, rather than bemoan 60+ years of history and how it’s all gone down, Wicca being peddled by its founders and initiates to the extent that now people are taking it and running with it all on their own… we have to accept the landscape as it is. Even those who have gone through Gardnerian training, if they do not pass on the full measure of the Tradition and their training (in my opinion), THEY DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO CLAIM GARDNERIAN LINEAGE EITHER. It’s not the stupid slap on the naked bottom that is important — it’s the TRADITIONS. There are lots of folks running around with Gardnerian and Alexandrian lineage, boasting about their Lineage Merit Badge, and they don’t do a bloody damn thing that even smacks of what a traditional Gard or Lexi coven does. So that further muddies the waters.
“And then there are those that took the basic Wiccan formats, Wheels, and Wisdoms and created something similar-but-new and named it something else. And you know what? Since over 50% of what they did (usually MOST of what they did) came from Wicca, they (DUH!) called it Wicca. Kinda like a person who is 75% Caucasian and 25% Hispanic is pretty likely to call themselves Caucasian. No one screams that they can’t call themselves Caucasian because they STOLE IT. At the point it’s at now, this argument runs dangerously close to religious fascism. We are NEVER going to be able to ‘pure blood’ it back to the beginning and eradicate everyone out there that calls themselves Wiccan and make them “do right”. Most of what I practice is Wiccan as I was taught and as I’ve found in hundreds of other books saying the basic same things – the format, the Laws, the Rede, the ritual structure, and so forth. I get annoyed at times that the burden is on us to try and herd up the cats that the founders of Wicca let out of the bag originally.
“Let’s go a step further — currently, Wicca (through the efforts of folks who are NOT straight Gard or Lexi lineage) is recognized as an official religious faith by the US Military. I would be willing to bet that it’s not the “practice skyclad, take ritual drugs and scourge each other” practice of the 8-fold path that got approved by the US. There has been a lot of effort on the part of active Wiccans (pure bred or not) to get this recognition and I don’t see the wisdom in pitching the term when so much fighting has been done to get it publicized, recognized, and gaining acceptance.
“I’m going to be writing a series of articles very soon detailing the CoW’s 13 principles in great detail and bringing the discussion forward for the next generation. For now, I can say I understand your feelings about feeling “fake”. But you know what? You only feel fake because you believe someone else has the right to tell you what and who you are and you believe they have more authority than you do. Perhaps they do, if you want to be a Gard or Lexi Witch. If that’s the case, do yourself the favor and go get that training so you’ll feel complete. But if you don’t want to be a Gard or Lexi Witch, then why do you give their word so much weight? Who made the first Gardnerian? Who made the one that made HIM? And so forth? At some point, the buck is going to stop and all that’s going to be there is the Goddess.
“One last thing to ponder… where do you get your name? You are given a name at birth, right? But it’s just a name. The name that means something is the name that you leave behind from the work that you do, not the name that was signed to a certificate in a hospital. That’s a Word. Your work is the Living Word. We get too hung up on the Word and forget to spend the time focusing on how to LIVE the Word.
“It matters less to the Gods what we call ourselves. What matters is how we answer the Call. Remember that and be a good Witch.“
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We have GOT to get past this pedigree thing. It’s like the fucking Star-Bellied Sneetches of Witchcraft, pardon my French! Remember that Dr. Seuss story? Here’s a quick summary of the story from Wikipedia in case your childhood was deprived of Seuss-goodness:
“Sneetches are a group of vaguely avian yellow creatures who live on a beach. Some Sneetches have a green star on their bellies, and in the beginning of the story the absence of a star is the basis for discrimination. Sneetches who have stars on their bellies are part of the “in crowd”, while Sneetches without stars are shunned and consequently mopey.
“In the story, a “fix-it-up chappie” named Sylvester McMonkey McBean appears, driving a cart of strange machines. He offers the Sneetches without stars a chance to have them by going through his Star-On machine, for three dollars.
“The treatment is instantly popular, but this upsets the original star-bellied Sneetches, as they are in danger of losing their method for discriminating between Sneetches. Then McBean tells them about his Star-Off machine, costing ten dollars. The Sneetches formerly with stars happily pay the money to have them removed in order to remain special.
“However, McBean does not share the prejudices of the Sneetches, and allows the recently starred Sneetches through this machine as well. Ultimately this escalates, with the Sneetches running from one machine to the next,
- “until neither the Plain nor the Star-Bellies knew
- whether this one was that one or that one was this one
- or which one was what one… or what one was who.”
“This continues until the Sneetches are penniless and McBean departs a rich man, amused by their folly. Despite his assertion that “you can’t teach a Sneetch,” the Sneetches learn from this experience that neither plain-belly nor star-belly Sneetches are superior, and they are able to get along and become friends.”
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We may not have some charlatan out there manipulating us, making money off our semantical squabbles. But I find it ironic that the shape at the center of the Sneetch tale is a star — the symbol we all claim as central to our faith. It is going to take some willingness on all parts to move forward and beyond this debate so we can focus on the path again instead of what we call the path.
I just hope that maybe, one day, those amusing lines penned by Dr. Seuss will be a triumphant statement of our maturity as a Faith: [no one] knew whether this one was that one or that one was this one or which one was what one… or what one was who.
We’ll just know we’re One. So Mote It Be!
Photo by Eddi o7 (via Flickr) and from Dr. Seuss’ The Sneetches And Other Tales.
and as for the visuals you can get the same effect as getting splashed by a taxi after a rainstorm does the same thing too! Peace and Blessings Evil grin back atcha!
Millie Fee |
Friday, 28th August 2009 at 1:42 PM