Mini Post - Song, Dance, Magic

X-posted from my Tumblr

For the longest time, practicing witchcraft was a quiet thing for me, but then again for most of that time I was mentally unwell, lacking in confidence and short on determination. I pottered through, enjoying my successes and sometimes just enjoying the process for the sake of it. My heart was a dull blade.

When outside of witchcraft I began to believe that I could sing, and began to practice to make good on it, it was only a matter of time before my voice became a real tool for magic. It used to be an inconvenience, an embarrassment, unwelcome. Now I sing every day for the love of hearing it, and make it a part of nearly every bit of magic I do. The last spell I cast, in the middle of mixing I began to dance with an object, suddenly feeling that not to do so would be a waste. Completely out of character. But having danced and not felt at all ashamed, I sang again, a piece I struggle with and only sing when I’m sure no one can hear… I didn’t even have a chance to think, ‘fuck the open door to the garden, nevermind that my partner is home’. I just sang it.

How many previous preferences in my witchcraft have been bred from self-doubt? The doubt that I deserve, the doubt that I can achieve or even attempt. From my experiences with depression and anxiety, the security in doubt is comforting sometimes. I definitely welcome the onset of doubt when the certainty of a grim future compels me to harm. Doubting the certainty of failure is a recovery step from depression, and I’m no longer so anxious about the doors opening before me. Whatever lies beyond, I’ll meet it with teeth bared.

But anyway - back to practical magic matters. I need to keep singing and I definitely need to dance again, and take a positive look at how I’ve improvised a couple of songs in the last week. I don’t play an instrument (yet…) so my mind turns to the ubiquitous rattles and bells. Yeah, feck it, let’s make something like that. Got to speed up the other crafts in my life as well - vulturing, wire wrap and beads, leather decoration. (Hey, look at that precipice right there…)

Deepening Witchcraft

Didn't mean to leave so long a gap between posts - this post was written a couple of weeks ago and with a slight lack of new content, let's post it now!

Aelfcynn rambles about her few books...

Grey Cat's Deepening Witchcraft

 I've owned this book for four years, and constantly find myself rereading it. I'd recommend it as one of the first (and few) books I have found that covered the concerns of being publically pagan, with chapters offering introduction to topics I think would interest the blossoming pagan leader and the blossoming pagan student alike. The introduction (by Lady Sintana) pushes the book forward as a resource for the frustrated teachers and elders, but in understanding what problems beset the teacher, the student learns and so I'd also recommend this book for anyone either seeking a teacher or looking to be involved with IRL pagan community.

Published in 2002, with author Grey Cat deceased since 2012, the Wild Hunt's obituary calls this book "a corrective to a Wiccan/Witchcraft community that had become overly focused on younger adherents, “101″ instructional tomes, and unbridled eclecticism in the 1990s" (along with Ellen Cannon Reed's The Heart of Wicca) - and when I bought it second hand it still seemed to be a rarity of the print material available for pagan seekers and students of witchcraft, a book concerned with what lies beyond correspondences and candles.

In its own context, of Witchcraft as a spiritual (Goddess-worshipping) path, the book succeeds at providing the next stage of material missing or badly presented in the more commonly found introductory books. But it provides material useful for many people who navigate the social scene of paganism and witchcraft - chapter topics include Analytical Thinking, Morals and Ethics, and Building Community. In topics such as the aforementioned, Grey Cat merely shows the reader the door, but with annotated and well-sourced chapters with personal opinions made obvious rather than disguised as fact, the reader can consider themselves reasonably equipped to make their own progress into the topics.

Two chapters on history are included in the first half of the book - not as a factual presentation of the history of Goddess-worshipping witchcraft, but a general look at the history of the history, if you will. Being twelve years old, the first 'Point to Ponder' of the history chapters is distinctly relevant to today's reader: "History is rewritten every ten or twenty years, making everything you thought you knew suddenly wrong."

Chapters I've found most useful for the longest time are Teaching Our Religion and Building Community. In the case of the former, aspiring teachers, aspiring students, those called to answer questions and solo learners can find some guidance. Such advice knits neatly with that in Building Community, not merely because teachers in the community are often the 'leaders'. Those who look with despair at their local pagan community without getting really involved (and I've been one of these people) would benefit from looking at the details of these chapters - leaders and teachers burn out and disappear because they have been unsupported by the very community they've tried to work for, and the amount of work can be daunting. Without necessarily setting up oneself as a leader, one can take the pointers given and be a good community member.

The chapters Neopagan Religious Philosophy, Advanced Magic and Personal Growth may be of interest to students without teachers, introducing spiritual topics in a sympathetic way - the leaders on pedestals prove to be just as human as the student in many cases. Grey Cat doesn't hoist up enlightenment and endless good fortune like a prize available to be won, as some 101 standard authors have done in the past.

In recent years, all the information in this book has been expanded on by bloggers on various platforms and so weblinks to a hosting site like FortuneCity look disappointing today. But Grey Cat's end of chapter source points include many books a student won't find 'on the Llewellyn shelf', a good sign that a book does reach beyond repetition of 101 material.

2015 Begins

So, it's the fourth now. 2015 has left the womb and the cord has been cut. I mention it so I can have a quick laugh at myself for being so distressed almost immediately on midnight of New Year's Eve that I had 'nothing completed and ready for 2015'. A few days later and coming up out from a small swing of depression, I am pretty happy with the early days of this new year.

First selfie of 2015 - gotta share it.

During the Yuletide season itself, things were a bit touch and go. The scheduled cleaning did not go according to plan, meaning following the 'welcome in' Solstice dinner, the cat was worried by something unseen and I was hit on the head. I have tried to make amends and things seem to be getting better between us. As I don't really celebrate after the Solstice beyond New Year's Eve kissing, my partner spent plenty of time with their family. Alone and contemplative, I was hampered by depression and guilt over not seeing my own family enough. Again, already in 2015, I'm making a conscious effort to improve that.

As a heathen unlikely to raise children, and indeed with a non-heathen partner, I am still thankful that I've got the wherewithal to try and have a heathen home. I have seen written before that the future of heathenry today lies heavily upon families, and I won't be excluded on the basis of not being a parent. Family and kinship have always been more than blood and parentage, and as location means more than blood, it will be said that when I lived under my grandma's roof as an adult it was a heathen home, where I can be seen to praise the gods, thank my ancestors, and respect the unseen.

Who knows? Though I will have no children to follow in my footsteps, perhaps in years to come some children will look back and say - my great aunt was a heathen. The lady at the end house was a heathen. What did she do every day - for her elders - for Yuletide? It's nice to think one might be part of a great beginning.

Every day I try to put in some creative effort, towards keeping the home clean and characterful. The Telvanni banner in our living room now hangs with maps of Vvardenfell and Cyrodiil, the kitchen is now more homely and rustic (I will probably hang more cow horns on the walls there before this is all over), my craft room is at risk of becoming over populated with jars but the shrines now look like I care about them... It is daunting to leave your mark on a place where you fear you are unwelcome, and fear it cannot last. I'm just proud of myself for trying.

I'm looking at 2015 with hope, and more than a few dreams. To have half the garden I desire, to begin a new book of flowers from all over the local area, to keep working for my company and do good there, to have a happy partner and a sound welcoming home. We step out together, small steps individually towards a great future. May it stretch to many happy days.