Category Archive:Wicca and Paganism

0

Catastrophic Change – “Death” or “The Tower” in Tarot?

September 9th, 2012 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: Journal, Observations, Random Geekery, Wicca and Paganism /

Lately, the tarot cards “Death” and “The Tower” have been resonating with me, but I’m not sure which one better suits the situations I’m lately finding myself in. First, an overview:

The Rider-Waite The Tower Card

Earlier this year, I went through a complete revision of my long-held desires. I went from being completely against having children (just me, not in general. I mostly like kids, but I like to give them back at the end of the day), to desperately wanting to have a baby. This was such a dramatic shift for me that I kept my thoughts on the matter a secret and started going to weekly therapy sessions to try to sort out what was happening to me. In the end, I decided that yes, I was really wanting to commit to the lifetime responsibility of raising a child and was ready to start on that path. So I told my husband, who responded encouragingly. He said “you’re my wife, I love you, and I want you to have my babies.” Which, really, was the most awesome, sweet, and loving thing he could have said to me at the time. It still makes me smile. Then, we started the slow process of telling our friends and family of our change in direction.

Before I told my husband that I was thinking of a baby, I had concerns about starting a family in Los Angeles. Neither of us have much in the way of close family out here, and there are problems with the area including over-crowding, over-urbanization, crime, overly expensive housing costs, and education concerns. So I mentioned to him, with none of my reasoning, that I was thinking we should maybe move to Minnesota to live closer to his family. This resonated with him, because his grandfather’s health is failing, and because he’s had a low level desire to move back home for some time anyway. We started talking about buying his grandfather’s 12-acre farm in Northfield, MN, with his grandfather and his parents. We would be neighbors to my husband’s wonderful parents on one side and his uncle Gerry on the other. We’d have a 3000sq ft house (if you included the basement) and about 5 acres of arable land to work with, including several storage sheds and farm related buildings existing on the property. The property would need some work – it hadn’t been a working farm in some time. Anyway, we went out to Minnesota to see the property and discuss the potential purchase with Grandpa but, at the end of the trip for various reasons, we ended up realizing we probably wouldn’t be able to move into that house after all. Uncle Gerry, however, mentioned he might be willing to sell his adjacent property – much smaller but much better kept and updated than Grandpa’s place, anyway. Due to illness in the family and other timing issues, we pushed back our original plan to move out there this Fall until next Spring.

In the meantime, of course, I ended up telling my husband about my desire to have a baby, and we decided not to try for pregnancy before we’d gotten moved to MN so we didn’t have to worry about the stress of the move and being pregnant at the same time.

Recently, in addition to all of this, a discussion with my sister paired with a session with my therapist that touched on it prompted me to evaluate how I’ve been handling something in my history that continues to affect my life to this day. I’m not ready to discuss this issue in any detail, but I may go into it a bit in the near future. In any case, almost overnight and with my sister’s help and support, I decided to go from not really dealing with the issue at all (almost ignoring it, in fact) to taking drastic steps to deal with it in the near future. This decision alone has been stressful and chaotic, but its something important to do before I go through the process of pregnancy and bringing a small, innocent life into the world.

Before I’d had a real chance to take actual steps on that problem, though, we got a call from my husband’s grandpa, asking us to please move to MN this Fall after all. He is now in an assisted living apartment and was planning to move his wife out of the farmhouse and into an apartment she wanted in town. This would leave the old house unattended through the harsh weather of Winter, and without someone there to keep it warm, weather damage and frozen pipes and things could occur. Despite his sons’ assurance that they could take care of the house in their absence, he wanted us to come up and house sit rent free for the winter months. In the Spring, we could negotiate a sale or rethink our housing plans as needed.  We decided that I could move out there alone to take care of the house. My husband would stay behind to wrap up issues with our condo – arrange for sale of the place and begin to move our stuff piecemeal to MN over the months. We determined that I’d move up there in mid-October.

The Rider-Waite Death Card

Meanwhile, after some research regarding the life-affecting issue I mentioned above through a few local organizations, it was determined that I’d have to travel back to Lafayette, Louisiana, to start working on this problem. Because of timing issues with the upcoming move, a cruise to Mexico we’ve had planned for like 6 months, and a trip to Phoenix in early November, we determined it’s now or never. So we bought a round trip ticket to Lafayette for the 19th-22nd of September.

Now, there’s been some question about the move to Grandpa’s house in October. Apparently he didn’t actually consult his wife before talking to Adam, and Grandma actually wasn’t planning on moving out this Fall. However, since that’s still in flux, it can go either way at this point. I’m not discarding the idea that I’ll end up moving to MN, but it’s not the definite thing it seemed earlier this week.

My question is this: Do the changes all of this stuff represents in my life more accurately fall within the purview of the tarot card, “Death”, or “The Tower”? I have heard that the Death card doesn’t tend to act as a reference to the act of death or dying itself, but rather to a change in one’s life. The Tower is most often seen as more a signifier of actual death or dying, but in reading up on it on the Web it seems it can also point to a great change. Which of these cards are more representative of my situation, do you think? Or if there’s another tarot card that is even better, what would you say that is?

Also, if you have any crazy restructuring going on in your life or your way of thinking this year, what is it? Anything life changing? Let me know!

0

Past the Veil – A Wiccan Funeral Rite

March 29th, 2012 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: Observations, Wicca and Paganism /

In the Northern Hemisphere it is the beginning of Spring, the season of Fertility, new life, conception and growth. Pagans of many stripes see this time as a time to start new things, as a time for fertility of imagination as well as biological fertility. It is a time in which the Goddess is a young, vibrant Maiden, and the young God, reborn in Winter, grows into a playful, virile young man. The two flirt and tease each other until the holiday of Beltaine, where the God and Goddess unite in love and cause the abundance of Summer in crops and beasts.

The Wiccan Wheel of the Year

The Wheel of the Year shows the relationship of the Wiccan holidays (known as Sabbats) and the seasons.

As a time of life’s beginning, it may not seem appropriate to discuss the end of cycle, Death, but all things are connected. Living things die and return to the earth, helping to create fertile soil from which plants grow and thrive. Living things feed on other things, causing death but also ensuring their own survival. The cycle is just that, a circle, connected both ways from beginning to end.

Unfortunately Death strikes when it will, and humans in all our wisdom can only sometimes delay that inevitable moment. Even in Death, however, all is not lost. The energy that defines us, our soul, continues on in its own cycle of reincarnation, a journey through lifetimes of new challenges and wisdom to be gained through them.

Several years ago, a friend of mine made the decision to take her own life and end her suffering here in the physical world. I am not going to get into the “morality” of that choice – I do believe it was hers to make, and whatever extra challenges in subsequent lifetimes she may have to face are also hers. It is not my place to judge her decision. However, because of the pain she felt here on Earth, I felt it was possible she may have too many ties here and it might have been hard for her to move on to what came next for her. Also, I was unable to grieve with others who knew her at the time. So, I created a ritual, based off of this rite I found on the internet at the time, plus some customized thoughts for the situation at hand. Later I wrote it into my Book of Shadows (a Wiccan’s guide to her/his personal Tradition) in a slightly less specific form in case I wanted to use it again for another funeral. Fortunately, I haven’t had occasion to use it since then.

Another Pagan blogger, Brenda Lee of PaganInMe and Four-Legged Mom, who is just beginning to explore the depths of her new Pagan faith, wrote today about previous deaths in her family, with questions about her own post-life choices. While I can’t answer her questions specifically, because the answers are hers to make, I thought I’d post my little (ok, not so little) funeral ritual as sort of a companion post to her. Because Death for us survivors sucks and can be traumatic. But the Other Side is not to be feared – it is a place of transformation only. We live on.

**Note: to include every step of the ritual the way I would set it up would make this post twice as long. Instead, I listed steps but did not elaborate for “common” ritual tasks like Casting the Circle, things that you might do the same every time you performed a ritual. Since this is customizable, feel free to perform these tasks the way you prefer, or in the way that makes sense to  you in the context of this rite.

This ritual can be performed with just 4 people (taking the roles of the Directions/Quarters in the rite) or adapted for an audience or other participants, as needed. Depending on your situation, you may even use this at the grave site or funeral home.

I hope you find this helpful. Please feel free to comment with questions or your own ideas about death/rebirth and funerary rites. I look forward to your thoughts.

A Wiccan Funeral Rite

Preparation/Cleansing of Self

Preparation/Cleansing of Space

Altar Setup

Casting the Magic Circle

Calling the Quarters:

The circle members should Call the Quarters in much the same way that they are normally called, except in reverse order (widdershins) starting in the West. That is to say that each individual in turn names their Watchtower, invites the spirits of the Watchtower into the circle, and renews his/her connection to the Watchtower as usual. However, after the connection has been renewed and before moving on to the next individual/direction, there is an added passage that each should say. These are listed below. At the end of this additional passage, the directional candle should be lit.

West: “As the Sun sets, so (name of the deceased) has left us. The water of our tears, like the salt water of the sea and the water of our Mother’s womb, blesses this circle.”

South: “As life is a day, so (name) has passed into the Night. The fire of our life, the memories and courage, and the strength given to us by (name) blesses this circle.”

East: “All that falls shall rise again, so (name) shall also rise again. The air we breathe, this treasure of our life, and the compassionate caring we give each other blesses this circle.”

North: “As the Earth forms us, so (name) shall return to the Earth. Our Mother feeds us and clothes us. She gives us everything, and in the end she takes our bodies back into herself. The earth that forms us and receives us after death blesses this circle.”

Invoking the God/dess(es)

Observance:

A photo and/or items belonging to or representative of the departed should be placed upon the altar.

At this time, those who wish to speak to the dead or say something about him/her may do so.

The following should then be read by the most appropriate person in the group, or the words can be divided up among two or more individuals if necessary.

“(name) has died. No one who has died should ever pass from this world to the next without knowing the loving grief and hope felt by those around him/her. We are here to share our grief and our hope and our love for (name) that it may aid in the transition from this life to the next.

Our lives are formed of many others, and we form other lives in return. And we are here after your death, (name), to honor your life.

There is only Love, the greatest Mystery. We open our hearts and our eyes in the light of this Love. The Love of the Goddess gives birth to the Universe. The love of our parents gives birth to us. The love of our friends and family sustains our life. Kindness, love, and pleasure – we are formed from these and we form each other. When we die, we leave them behind us as we prepare for the life beyond this one.

You have left your family. You have left behind sex and even gender. You cannot be a woman or a man to enter the other wold. You have left behind your body. None who have bodies can pass into the other world.

The Goddess is taking you back now (name), the Great Mother. Her womb is the Earth that will receive your body. Your body is a seed now, a seed of other lives. You will return to the mother and when the time is right, you will be reborn through Her.

In sacred space we have gathered to honor you and to give you some things to take on your journey with you.”

Each member should place an offering upon the altar, in front of the photo of the departed. The offering can either be of some significance to the departed or represent the relationship between the member and the departed (a photo, keepsake, letter, etc), or it should be symbolic based on the direction or element of the person giving the offering. The offering should be named at this time, as should its significance:

East: “The East is the direction of beginnings, birth, and knowledge, and the element of Air. Things that begin must end, but things that end can begin again. Please accept this offering of (item). May it aid you as you as you prepare for a new birth and new life through the Mother.”

South: “The South is the direction of fire and passion. Please accept this offering of (item), and may it help you remember the love that was yours in this life, and may it call forth an abundance of love in the next.”

West: “West is the direction of emotions, intuition, and endings. As every ending makes way for a new beginning, please accept this offering of (item) to help you let go of the pain and sorrows of this life and prepare for the joyful experiences of the next.”

North: “North is the direction of Earth, of the physical, and of stability. Please accept this offering of (item) as a reminder that, although you are for now formless and sexless, you will soon be reborn through the cycle of life and again experience the world through a physical body.”

Chant:

We All Come From the Goddess

“We all come from the Goddess,
and to her we shall return,
like a drop of rain
flowing to the ocean.

We all come from the Goddess
and to her we shall return,
like a drop of rain
flowing to the ocean.

Corn and grain, corn and grain
all that falls shall rise again
hoof and horn, hoof and horn
all that dies shall be reborn.”

(Repeat)

Cakes and Ale:

Be sure to save two offerings of cakes and ale, one for the God/dess(es) and one for the departed.

Closing:

The following words can be spoke by the same person(s) who spoke before, or by someone else if desired:

“Samhain is the time of the year when the veil between the worlds is thinnest. It is a traditional time to honor and call upon those who have left before us. We will remember you, and all those who are no longer with us, and bless you at Samhain.

Journey on now, (name). We will follow when our time is right. May you be reborn when you are ready in a place and time that best suits your needs for learning and spiritual growth, and may you also experience in your new life the love and happiness you so richly deserve.”

There may be a moment of silence as each member of the circle silently says goodbye.

Saluting the God/dess(es)

Saluting/Dismissing the Quarters:

The Directions are thanked and dismissed as normal, but as the directional candle is extinguished, the following words should be spoken:

East: “The Sun will rise again.”

South: “Life continues.”

West: “Love is all we can be sure of.”

North: “Only the Mother is Eternal.”

Banishing the Magick Circle

Note: The offering of cakes and ale to the God/dess(es) is buried with thanks, and the offering of food and items is left at the graveside (if possible) or near the ritual site for the departed.

6

I Feel I Need to Write a Post About Wicca and Paganism

January 4th, 2012 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: Wicca and Paganism /

Since I started writing this blog, I have known I would need to address the issue of my religious and spiritual beliefs, because the wide array of topics I will delve into in this blog may attract readers from all faiths, backgrounds, and physical locations. And I don’t want to catch anyone off guard when I write a crafting post that details how to make some item that is useful or relevant to Pagans and/or Wiccans. My intention is truly not to offend anyone, just to put out some information to educate you on what my religious beliefs are, how they are similar to ideas in other common faiths of the world, and why they are important to me.

I ask that you take a moment to read this post. If you decide after reading that you cannot follow or be friends with someone with pagan beliefs, I will understand. But at least give me this one chance to try to separate the vast amounts of scary misinformation out there from the truth of my faith and practices. Thank you.

Midnight Altar Paganism, like the term Christianity, is a catch-all umbrella term used to describe many specific religions that are similar. In Christianity, all the specific faiths believe that there is one Father God and that he had a son named Jesus who died for the sins of humanity that we might be forgiven and enter the Kingdom of Heaven despite being flawed and imperfect. In Paganism, religions are polytheistic, meaning that we believe in more than one god and/or goddess, and generally we believe that people have the ability to make change by the power of one’s will and the energies we may receive through prayer to our god(s). Pagan religions also are nature-based, giving reverence to the Earth and Nature as powerful spiritual entities, and our rites and practices tend to follow the seasons and the cycle of hunt and harvest.

Wicca is a specific Pagan religion, much like Catholicism is a type of Christianity. In Wicca, we believe in a sort of Divine Trinity – The One is a vast and intensely powerful creative force that permeates the Universe. All things are created through the One. However, the One is incomprehensible to mortals, and so It chose to create gods and goddesses that could interact more meaningfully with the creatures and worlds It created. The One made God and the Goddess, the Divine Masculine and Feminine personalities that we as Wiccans pray to and honor in our rites, in order for us to have a more personal embodiment of the Divine to work with. The God is the master of animals and the hunt, and He is the Sun rising in the East. The Goddess is Mother of all, the fertile earth and all its green growing things. She is also seen as the soft light of the moon and of mysterious darkness. As Wiccans we believe that Magick (change empowered through will) is created from power inherent in ourselves, inherent in nature, and granted to us through prayer to our gods. One of the main tenets of Wicca is that whatever you do, whatever energy you put out, will come back on you in three times the amount. So if I did good things for others, or did positive Magick, I will benefit from 3 times the positive energy from someone or something else in the near future. But if I do harmful things, or practice harmful Magick, I should expect to be repaid in kind, threefold. This is like instant Karma. So we believe that we are rewarded or punished by Nature Herself for what we do in this lifetime. Usually that’s enough to keep Wiccans conscious of their choices and leaning more towards positive actions and energies when possible. We also have just one “commandment” that is pretty much universally recognized among Wiccans – “An it harm none, do what thou will.”

I want to pick apart that rule, referred to as “The Wiccan Rede” among us. Firstly, “an” is old english for “if” and “thou” is “you”. Beyond that there are two key ideas. First, there is “harm none”. What does that mean? Generally, Wiccans interpret this as to literally hurt no one or no things, not even ourselves. Before we take any action, we should consider how it will affect the world around us, our neighbors, strangers, and ourselves. This is akin to the last 6 of the Ten Commandments of Christianity, where followers are told not to do harmful things to others and to respect them. The final word, which seems cut-and-dried when you first read the Rede, is “will”. Many people, upon first encountering The Wiccan Rede, see will as a synonym for want. “If it doesn’t hurt anyone, do what you want.” But I believe that’s untrue, because that implies any whim or fancy someone might have. I think that the Rede goes further than that, and asks us to be willful in our actions, to do only the things that our minds and hearts are fully behind. The Rede challenges us to live our lives with conscience and consideration. That is what I think word “will” means in this context.

You will notice that our greatest law is only equitable to the last 6 Commandments in Christian theology. We have no analogous rules that match up with the first 4 Commandments, because those Commandments deal with the relationship between Christians and their God. The first 4 Commandments tell Christians to put no other gods before God the Father (note, however, that this statement recognizes that there are other gods in the world but that Yahweh is the most important), and that people should not worship images of God but rather God Himself, and that the Sabbath day should be kept as a day for worship not work. Wicca in general does not have specific rules like this, and so you may ask 10 different Wiccans about their gods and goddesses and get completely different answers about the identities of each. Wicca has within it many Traditions, or informal churches (I mean the individual congregations at specific churches here) and each has its own specific rules that members should follow, so there may be other ways that some Wiccans believe adherents should behave in relationship to the gods, but these may vary from Tradition to Tradition.

If you are a Christian who has never learned much about Wicca or Paganism in the past, or has heard unkind and vastly untrue tales of “Satanism” and the nature of “witchcraft” among Pagans, you might be wondering why someone would choose the Wiccan faith over Christianity, which offers salvation through Jesus and an eternity in Heaven for the repentant faithful. Wicca and other forms of Paganism also deal with the afterlife. Many Wiccans and Pagans believe in Reincarnation. This is the idea that, after death in this life, we are reborn to another life on earth, with different parents, perhaps in a different country, and a different set of life circumstances to learn from. The point of this is that the human soul exists in eternity and, though we generally cannot remember specifics of previous lives during the current one, the soul learns from each lifetime it spends on earth in a body. Mistakes and successes we make in our lives not only help us change our ways in each life, but also help our souls grow and learn over lifetimes. Eventually, through a varying amount of reincarnations (because some may learn faster or slower than others) we learn all that we can learn and become complete. At this time, after death, Wiccans enter into the Summerlands, a place like Christian Heaven to an extent, where we may dwell eternally with the Goddess and the God.

I believe that no one religion is 100 percent right or wrong. Humans are mortal creatures that have a limited perception of the Universe and thus are quite capable of incorrect ideas and assumptions of how things work. There are so many religions across the world, all of them seeking to answer the big questions – Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? What happens after death? And all of them have different answers. Perhaps there are actually individual answers for individual people – rather, perhaps the  truth is different for each person according to their beliefs. I am not sure. I choose to have an open mind about such things.

Whether you agree with my ideas about religion or not, I appreciate you sitting through this discussion. I’d like to hear your respectful thoughts, one way or another, so feel free to comment and ask questions. I’ll answer as best I can according to my beliefs and understanding. Just understand that because Pagan beliefs are much more personal that Christian ideals, my answer is probably not true for every Pagan, nor even another Wiccan.

I will probably not bring up my religious beliefs in such dense conversation very often on this blog. I bring them up now to show you why, in the future, a blog post of mine may refer to something about Wicca or Paganism, or may have to do with a craft project that is of interest to Wiccans or Pagans. As I said, it’s not my intention to offend or exclude anyone, so I hope I have not offended anyone or pushed them away.

Please do let me know, in a respectful manner, your thoughts in the comments.

Thank you, and Blessed Be.