"J" is for: Is it My Job?

I’ve received many responses to my post  A Witch Who Cannot Hex, Cannot Heal, (“H” for the Pagan Blog Project). The majority have been supportive and positive. Some people have even said that they have felt liberated by what I said. Wow! Other people have disagreed, and that’s fine. Not everyone is going to be comfortable with the ideas in the post.

But one argument stands out for me as totally absurd: that I shouldn't write these things because  it will give the rest of the world the wrong impression about Witches; that it only confirms to the world that Witches are all about curses, people will take it the wrong way...Etc.

Oh, please! Why should I be responsible for what other people think? I can’t control that. It’s not my job to try. I don't represent all Witches everywhere, and though yes, I expect that my words could influence thought, its not my job to control the outcome of this influence. I am reminded  of what’s been said a thousand times to LGBT people by other LGBT people: that they should modify their behavior (i.e. not be too “flamboyant” or demonstrative) in order to be “accepted” by society. Oh yank, yank, yank. How does that usually turn out? The same has been said to every oppressed group in history, from women to African Americans, to indigenous tribes everywhere, to Witches.

For this week’s Pagan Blog Project post, I am inspired to write for “J”: “Is it my ‘Job’?”.

My job, and the job of Witches, is to answer to our higher selves, and to embrace our CALLING. Not to obsess about what the neighbors will think. I am not saying that sometimes it is not necessary to stay on the down low for self-protection. That is survival, and I get that. But to be less than oneself in order to “accepted”? Ha! News flash ya’ll: if you have to make yourself smaller for anyone, they’re not going to accept you anyway. That’s how it is, that’s how it’s always been, and that is how it will be. Don’t you think that the witches who were hung and burned thought about modifying their behavior to get along before they ended up on the stake or gallows? Don’t you think that many tried this to see if maybe they could be “accepted”? Besides, you’re not being accepted if you are changing who you are. Some charade that you are acting out is being merely tolerated.

I had a long conversation with Laurie Cabot the other day, as we were preparing for my interview with her about her days as a Bellydancer. (interview to appear in Belly Dance New England magazine soon!) We talked about this idea of one’s calling, and how it is essential that, in order to be truly empowered to answer a calling, one MUST NOT entertain the smallness of some minds. To do so is pointless and a waste of energy. Laurie Cabot is one who has sacrificed a great deal to be true to herself as a Witch, as an artist, and as a woman over many decades. Though she has paid the price, she still felt that it was essential, for true sovereignty over one’s life as a Witch and/or simply as a human being, that we not expend energy what “those people” say.

Jungian psychologist James Hillman, in his book The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling, talks a great deal about the dangers of not answering the call that comes from within. He says that we are all born with an “acorn” (seed) or “daimon” (not demon, read carefully, please). He asserts that when the daimon within is thwarted for whatever reason (“acceptance” by society? “Sacrificing” for the “sake of the kids”?) the person becomes twisted up and passes this fucked-up-ness down into the next generations. He says that in order to have a healthy, empowered life, one must answer the calling fully. This is not a selfish act; on the contrary, it creates an empowered path to health that is then passed down to those who come after. And check it out: we then become the best elders and ancestors we can be! How about it? Win-win.

Whatever our stance on hexing and healing, I think that it’s a waste of time for any of us to hold back our ideas and feelings just because “we’re not accepted in society yet.” Seriously? How long should we wait? I’m not holding my breath. I’m going to set my intention to do my real job, which is to be myself, fully and lovingly. Acceptance starts within.

And as within, so without.

A Witch Who Cannot Hex, Cannot Heal ("H" is for Hexing and Healing)

“A Witch who Cannot Hex, Cannot Heal…”.
 This statement is often met with a sharp intake of breath, as though the utterance of the statement is in itself a curse.

  But don’t you know about the threefold law? I do know that some people believe in that law, but I do not. Experience has shown me that there are laws in Nature of cause and effect, that there is the power of intention and attraction, and that all things are interconnected. Nature is not moral; She just IS. She wants balance most of all.

 I think of Jung’s concept of The Shadow. We all have it; we all have dark unconscious material that exists inside the psyche, places that we cannot or will not accept. Places that we’ve pushed down, or shut out, or just don’t know are there, but guide and inform our actions nonetheless.

 I think that if one is to do magick well and with real ovarios, one must be able to truly see oneself authentically. Otherwise there is too much unconscious shadow in the working. If one sees oneself as a practitioner of Light and Healing only, then its almost 100% likely that there is a lot of shadow material present. No one is all light and goodness. To see oneself in this way is willful naiveté. It’s also dangerous. The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.

 I think that in order to be a powerful, empowered Witch, one has to be aware of, and accept, Shadow. We have to know that we have Shadow, and to embrace this part of ourselves. A Witch who is worth her salt must be able to travel into the Underworld and deal with the Shades and Shadows who live there. Like Persephone, we all must become initiated Queen in our own personal Underworld spaces.

 Part of the job of the Queen of Darkness is the ability to curse. It’s just a part of the deal. We must have the balls to use this power sometimes. Not a lot. Not every time someone gives us a hard time. But when it counts, we need to know what we are doing. And we can’t be guilty or ashamed about it. It needs to be owned.

 Because of the laws of Nature, we curse knowing that it will come back to us. "When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."--Friedrich Nietzsche. We lose innocence. Maybe more. But this is the part that takes courage. This is the sacrifice.

 Scorpio, the 8th sign of the Zodiac and ruled by Pluto (Persephone), is the sign that deals with both hexing and healing. Scorpio natives are known for being the best in the Zodiac at seeing deeply into any situation. When unevolved, Scorpio can be all too ready with her stinger when she feels crossed. Then, maybe the need for a new way to handle things comes along, a need to integrate the dark psyche to become more whole emerges. There can be resistance, swinging the other way, a time of going through a “no, not me, I only use MY powers for good!” denial stage. But when evolved, she soars above resentment and denial, and uses her deep powers for knowing the right time for the right medicine.

 We all have Scorpio somewhere in our astrological charts, representing the area in which these transformations can happen.

 “Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light but making the darkness conscious.”--Carl Gustav Jung

I think of the veterinarian who has to euthanize the 4 legged. Or the surgeon who must cut into the body to get to the cancer. The friend who must tell the friend about the infidelity. The Fall that takes away the Summer, and the Winter that must give birth to the Spring. Where does the healing end and the hexing begin? And vice versa? They are two sides of the same thing.

Published as a participant in the Pagan Blog Project. This week's theme is "H". 

The Grey and the Shadow

I am a Wolf mother. And I am pissed.

I just heard today about the release of a movie called The Grey. It stars Liam Neeson and is about a group of men who brave the Alaska wilderness and are attacked by a pack of Grey Wolves.

I understand that like all fictional movies, it is supposed to be fantasy. So here is what I have to say about this particular fantasy: it sucks.

Over the last few centuries wolves have been terribly persecuted, tortured, killed, and used for all sorts of reasons, including entertainment. At one point in the continental United States there were only 200 wolves left after many thousands were wiped out. For such a huge area of land that's a pitiful number. While Native Americans lived harmoniously with wolves, learning from them with respect and honor, white Europeans generally did not. In some instances wolves were captured and  their mouths wired shut and re-released into the wild to die a slow, excruciating starvation death. At one point in the Western United States there was a road made of wolf skulls. Right now there are only 2000 wolves left in the United States and they are fighting for their very survival.

In truth wolves are loving and family oriented. They shy away from humans in the wild and you'll rarely even see a wolf even in wolf country. Attacks on humans are very, very rare. At a time when they are in desperate need of our support, the release of this movie is highly irresponsible and mean.

Like women and people of color, wolves have had to bear the projection of Shadow onto them. They are depicted as dangerous, vicious, cruel, wiley, the qualities that I would say actually belong to the Sarah Palins out there who enjoy hunting them. But that's what shadow projection is, it's the pot calling the kettle black, it's a way to deny that one has qualities that they don't like to see themselves. And it's easy to project the shadow onto the voiceless. So it is up to those of us who love wolves to be their voice.

Please make your voice heard and sign the petitions by White Wolf.

And make your voice heard with your wallet, too. Do not pay to see this movie.

And as I am finishing this article, I have heard an even more gruesome thing about the harming of wolves in relation to this movie: Liam Neeson stated in an interview that he ate wolf meat as part of his preparation for filming The Grey. Read more here: Liam Neeson and ‘The Grey’ Cast Ate Wolf Meat. 

Whoa. Anybody still want to say that this is just "fantasy"?

Witch Dance

I love this piece Witch Dance, the one for which Mary Wigman is of course most famous. The German Expressionists certainly knew how to do shadow material!