Nope, this is not a book review. Between the flu, knitting, my life, and now seasonal allergies I haven’t finished any of the books I started to review. I’ve also been working my way though meditations with The Wildwood Tarot and when I’ve felt it out properly will have a post up on that. So I am not just sitting around here knitting all the time… This is just a lull. To fill in the gaps, I will be participating in 44 Weeks of Witchery at Pagan Perspectives and Mom’s A Witch, using prompts for Witchy Wednesdays if nothing else comes to mind. I will feel free to not respond to prompts I don’t like or substitute a Wednesday post with whatever if I have something better. However, I will be sticking to the Pagan Blog Project which I have made a strict commitment to see thru to the end as they are extremely open-ended. (Though I missed the Ostara post and I probably won’t make it up since I don’t have anything to say about it really at all.)
Witchy Wednesday Topic 1: What’s your witchy background?
I would consider myself a life-long witch, so this one is hard to answer. I always practiced “magic” – like all kids do. I believed inherently in magic, in my ability to influence the outcome of things, and that plants and rocks and such had “spirits.” I never outgrew that basically here I am today – believing the same things. Sometimes I even create rituals or “spells” In the same way I would have when I was five or six years old.
Now that we’ve established my organic style, I have had some training. I started studying Wicca and Wiccan versions of Witchcraft when I was 12. I started with solitary stuff and books. I pretty much covered everything on the market in the late 90s, even Silver Ravenwolf (didn’t like her then, don’t like her now). When I was of age, I joined The Temple of Set and went through a few covens that didn’t really fit well at all. In college I hung out and worked magic with a bunch of Discordians and Chaos Magicians. I would say I am very much influenced by these traditions. While studying in the England, I joined a Traditional British Witchcraft coven and still hang out on a few Trad Craft boards. What I practice today is most easily described as traditional British/English witchcraft. I am not exactly Wiccan, but there are many similarities in my rituals. My rituals and spells are highly influenced by ceremonial magic and English occult culture. After college, and a few psychedelic and near death experiences, I became more interested in traditional shamanism and shamanic practices in European traditions. I wouldn’t say I’m a shaman or anything even close, but I am very interested and influenced by those beliefs and systems of magic. Finally, I’d say I am pretty varied in my interests and I read a great deal but the majority of my “magical training” is experiential. I believe that hands-on, personal experiences are key to psychic and magical development (and probably spiritual development as well). As a result, when I write about something most of the time it’s not from an extremely academic, logical place. Most of my writing about magic gets at trying to convey an experience I’ve had or a lesson I’ve learned from some experiences. This is pretty challenging for me at the moment because I feel like I sound like a crazy person. My goal for writing this blog in the first place is to sound more coherent and less like a crazy person.
Just a hint at what I’m reading (or read-reading as the case my be):
Tim McKibbons Eaarth (And this is Pagan because I am one of those dirt-worshipers. Although I honor gods and goddesses my primary religious pull is to well… the Earth, the dirt, nature, the touchable, tangible world we live in. This place is holy, holy holy holy…
The Roebuck in the Thicket The Robert Cochrane Letters. I read this a few years ago when I was in the UK and I managed to get my hands on another copy earlier this year. I will be re-reading this one and share my thoughts when I’ve gone through it.
The Black Arts: A Concise History of Witchcraft, Demonology, Astrology, and Other Mystical Practices Through the Ages by Richard Cavendish. This is new to me, though I did buy it mostly for its cover.
Other books in my reading list I plan to feature:
I Want to Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth (Brenda Peterson)
A Witches Bible: The Complete Witches Handbook (Stewart and Janet Farrar) This is a re-read.
Witchcraft Medicine (Claudia Miller-Elebering)
Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions of Dionysos and Shiva (Alan Danilou)
Pixiecraft: Adventures of Magick and Devotion 