Iâm tired. I am so very, very tired. I am utterly exhausted. I am exhausted and tired from trying to fit my witchcraft into the boxes presented to me. I am tired of being corrected on things that are barely understood as it is, especially when those âcorrectionsâ are not themselves correct. I am tired of trying to justify why I donât want to be initiated into this tradition or that, and I am tired of trying to justify why I should or should not do things in my own mind. I am tired of being undervalued and dominated. And so I will not allow it anymore.
I am removing myself from tumblr, and from the witchcraft community. Ironically, none of this has happened online, but all of it has shown me that being online is not for me. I donât make any worthwhile posts anymore, I donât learn anything new, and I donât care.
The time has come for me to accept that I have no tribe. I have no people. I belong to no group. I am as wayside as it gets, not even finding my people amongst witches. There is no feeling of belonging even amongst friends, and thatâs because I donât belong. I donât belong to these groups or these people. I am condescended to, I am looked upon as a child, I am treated as if my content with simplicity is a phase, as if I need to dig deeper to be a full practitioner, and yet I have never been more empowered with my practice in my life. I am not just a practitioner of witchcraft anymore, I AM a witch. And I do not need people to condescend to me anymore. I do not need people to âcorrectâ me anymore. I do not need people to treat me as if I am a child who does not know their way through the woods. I have a long, long, LONG way to go yet. But I will get down the road on my own, tripping and stumbling, being scratched and poked all along the way, until I find myself before the only thing that matters.
I am not going to delete my blog. People can still see what Iâve posted and hopefully pull what they can. But I have nothing else to offer. Itâs time for me to move on. If you are interested in keeping contact with me, youâre welcome to message me and Iâll give you my Facebook information. If youâre in the Pacific Northwest and are a trad-crafter who wants some ritual company every once in a while, feel free to hit me up. But before I go, I need to say one more thing, and that is a very large, very pointed THANK YOU to each and every one of my followers. You guys have helped through some of the craziest shit in the world. Your tarot purchases have literally helped me get into and pay for continuing semesters of school. Youâve challenged me, made me look in the mirror, and given me a great deal to think on. Thank you all for one hell of a blogging experience.
The witchesâ Sabbath is fundamentally a communication with the dead; but it is not necessarily and not merely a âjourney into the realms of the dead,â if this refers to the shamanistic migration of the soul in a narrow interpretation of shamanism. The main evidence of the connection between the presumed shamanism and witchcraft are examples of the female type of sorceresses; consequently the âjourneyâ of the witch to the Sabbath and her carrying the living there is more likely to be seen as an act of possession. Undoubtedly related to the field of possession is the most frequent âpopularâ form of witchesâ Sabbath in Central Europeâthe feast of witches, which often takes the form of a fairy feast, though both versions bear the characteristics of the most archaic type of possession, the possession by the dead.
Ăva PĂłcs, Witchcraft Mythologies and Persecutions
(via ophidiansabbat)
Donald Trump, I curse you by all the spirits of justice and righteousness to fail at your plans of oppression. May you be powerless to harm those you intend to oppress.
I was seeing a lot of Doreen Valiente on my dash today, and I wanted to reflect on how influential she has been on Traditional Witchcraft, the path she pursued after she parted with Gardner and went looking for something she could consider more authentic. She got to know a lot of the figures who practiced different witchcraft traditions, from those as bizarre as Charles Cardell of the Coven of Atho that faded into obscurity, to her close friend the very influential Robert Cochrane, she even got to meet Austin Osman Spare whose quiet influence on Traditional Witchcraft is greater than most people know.
What strikes me the most is how like us she is. Look at her young vibrant face there, selfie-photographing the goat foot candle sticks she obviously was proud of and photographed often. Doreen was proud of her education and reading, the tools and artifacts she collected and used, and her mystical experiences as a witch. She was a prolific and amazing writer, yet always wrote for a general literacy rather than an ye olde obscurantist style. She never seemed to be too big for her britches showing a humbleness and wonder at witchcraft that somehow aligned without contradiction to her self-empowerment.
We canât ever know for sure, but based on how she interacted with media in her own time: I am confident that if Doreen were young today she would be blogging along with us and sharing instagram photos of her books and tools and writing up her latest poetry for her community to use and reblog. The Lady witch that did so many dignified and authoritative interviews wouldnât shy from Youtube vlogging. She balanced her oaths and secrecy and privacy with a love of sharing what could be ethically shared freely with grace. We are still learning so much about this woman that seemed so public yet held so much back. This is my witch mighty dead role model. When folks get grumpy and make fun of how much we share and document of our practice, I always think of her and how she traversed the world of the witchcraft revival and documented it with common sense and attitude. Â Much of what we know about important witchcraft figures is from her testimonials and historical research.
Something interesting I have been learning about Doreen is how much undercover spy work she did. According to her biography she served during the WWII in decoder groups, one of her early marriages might have been a front, and after the war she even joined Far-right groups and White Nationalist groups in order to spy on them for the British Government. She was openly supportive of Gay-rights and Feminism as well as very positive about the value many different ethnic cultures in her writing, so its unsurprising that her views did not align with these groups that she infiltrated. She is even more of a hero knowing the kind of work she did undercover!
In most witch tales involving the Devil, there includes a very specific detail about signing a book.Â
The witches would sign the Devilâs Black Book in blood. It marked the beginning of their life as a witch.Â
The term âblack bookâ also pops up in much other folklore on witches. It is their book of magic, usually gifted to them by the Devil. It held not only all of the infernal knowledge imparted to them, but some of their magic as well.Â
If this sounds familiar, itâs because it is. Most magical circles call these grimoires, or Book of Shadows for Wiccans.Â
The signing of the Black Book was thought to be one of the first steps in the witchâs journey. Makes sense. Their first step was to sign their personal book of magic. It signifies not only a new beginning, but a dedication to their craft. Signing something in blood is not something to be done lightly.Â
Every time I begin a new grimoire, I sign it in red ink. Yes, you can use red ink to substitute blood in magic. Many witches make their own inks with red ochre.Â
It will empower your book and bind you to it. It will be yours.Â
It will be your very own Black Book.Â
Hi, in ritual/spell work or anything really. I'm not good with words or wording anything. Even when I took a writing class I never excelled, partly because of my dyslexia & stammer. I see so many users on here who are adept in their writing skills and I stumble in writing anything. Do you have any advice?
No one is good with words at first. If you want to get better, just ad-lib. Literally do it all the time. I do. I can rant and rave quite successfully, and I can do it because I've monologued, and spoken; and written excessively. When I'm in ritual, I don't follow scripts, save for a few here and there. I let the mood move through me. I let the words flow as they come. If you want to get better with words, practice.Or do away with them. Let the mood move you to do what is natural. Words are not for everyone. Words are powerful, but there are greater things available to a practitioner. Elect not to speak. Create, destroy, move, sit still, tread a mill, or stand stationary. Words are not always a requirement in witchcraft.
Army Corps opens public comments on Dakota Access Pipeline
Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers has begun accepting public comments on an environmental impact statement for the Dakota Access pipeline. Members of the public have until February 20 to weigh in on the proposed $3.8 billion project, which has faced months of resistance from members of hundreds of Indigenous nations, as well as their non-Native allies.
Patheos Pagan, owned by an evangelical Christian corporation. is now censoring their writers. Here is a post they deleted.
The following is a repost of an essay deleted by Patheos Pagan detailing the changes theyâve made and their intention to censor their writers.
We are republishing this because it was deleted by Patheos and the author was locked out of his account, effectively censoring it from the internet.
Please consider reposting this widely, and even hosting it on your website in case of legal threats to us.
Iâve been writing at Patheos for 4 years now (blogging for 6 years in all). In that time, Patheos has changed in some significant ways. The three editors of Patheos Pagan that Iâve known â Star Foster, Christine Hoff Kraemer (who hired me on), and Jason Mankey â weâre each very different in their own way.
The biggest change, though, is that in the last couple of years, there has been increasing pressure to make Patheos profitable, and that has resulting in changes like increasing use of invasive ads (I still canât read my own blog on my iPhone 4) and pressure (albeit of the soft variety) from the editor to post more frequently. Most recently, Patheos was purchased by Beliefnet, which is owned by an evangelical organization.
Today, the other shoe dropped. Our editor, Jason Mankey, gave me the heads up late last week that a new contract would be coming with a different pay structure, but what he didnât say was what else was in the contract.
Under my original contract I make $50 a month. Twice in the 4 years I have been writing here, I made $100 because of especially high page views. (Incidentally, neither of those posts was anything to be proud of.) Fifty dollars is not much, but I know it is a lot more than most writers at Patheos Pagan make. I have it on good authority that only three of us at Patheos Pagan make that much. Under the new contract, I would make a little less, but since Iâm not reliant on the income from Patheos, I really donât care about that.
Others Patheos Pagan writers would make a little more, which I am glad for. But while five or ten dollars a month is more than nothing, it is still a pittance. Jason has repeatedly told me that Patheos is suffering financially, the implication being that we should be happy with what we get. Of course, we havenât seen their books, so we donât know how much revenue Patheos receives from ads and other sources, or where it is going. Needless to say it is common for miserly employers to claim poverty when employees demand a living wage. (I do find it interesting, though, that Patheos can afford to fly its editors out to visit their corporate headquarters and to other events, but they say they canât afford to pay their writers more than third world wages.)
The new contract also requires writers to post with a certain frequency, two to three times a week. While I donât care that I will be earning less, it does irk me to have my income cut and then be told I have to write more in order to earn it. Jason has assured us this provision of the contract will not be enforced, but in my experience as a lawyer, the only reason to include a provision in a contract which you say you donât intend to enforce is so you can later spring it on the person. Itâs a classic way for employers to fire someone for a discriminatory reason, for example: They decide to suddenly start (selectively) enforcing a contract provision which was not previously enforced so they can claim to have a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for the termination.
But the real problem with the new contract is the increased editorial control. The new contract reserves the right to edit any of our posts, and even to change the format of the post or to use the content to create a quiz (?). We are explicitly prohibited from using profanity (with some minor exceptions) and the âtoneâ (a very subjective term) is expected to resemble that of other online media with which Patheos compares itself, like Slate or Huffington Post. The contract also prohibits advertising or self-promotion. We are also barred from posting a âfarewellâ post without approval, and even approved farewell posts will be deleted after 7 days. (What is that about?) And Patheos can delete any post it deems, in its sole discretion, to be âoffensiveâ â another subjective term.
Now, hereâs the thing, in the contract, Patheos compares itself to Slate and Huffington Post. But I write for the Huffington Post, and I didnât have to sign anything like this to write for them. Nor did I have to sign anything like this to write for Witches & Pagans. Or Gods & Radicals.
Finally, we are prohibited from âdisparagingâ Patheos âor any of its related companiesâ. This is potentially the most problematic part of the contract. For example, one of the other writers here brought to my attention that the American Centre for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a group founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson, is a partner with Affinity4, which is itself listed alongside Beliefnet and Patheos on the BN Media page. The ACLJ lobbies for the death penalty for gays in other countries. Under the new contract, ACLJ could be considered a ârelated companyâ that weâre not permitted to disparage. (And thatâs just one related company that weâve discovered in less than 24 hours.) Well âŚ
FUCK THAT SHIT!
Oops, I used profanity. Actually, this whole post would probably be considered âdisparagingâ of Patheos. So donât be surprised if this post is deleted soon.
[UPDATE: Hereâs a list of some of the groups that may be considered ârelatedâ Patheos and whom we cannot âdisparageâ under the new contract: National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Focus on the Family, Promise Keepers, Concerned Women for America, American Family Association. https://www.affinity4.com/npo%5D
While some of these contractual provisions are common in the industry, Iâve learned that âstandard in the industryâ is code for âwe can screw you over and thereâs nothing you can do about it.â And while some of these changes might be dismissed if considered in isolation, the fact that it all comes at once, the fact that it was sprung on most of the writers with little to no notice, the fact that it was written unilaterally by Patheos corporate without input from the writers, and the fact that it goes into effect tomorrow, makes it all seem pretty suspicious (not to mention draconian).
Itâs difficult to avoid the observation that the situation at Patheos is a microcosm of some of what has been happening on the national stage recently, with the power of corporations expanding and those same corporations (through their political lapdogs) trying to put limits on our freedom of speech. It makes me wonder if the timing isnât coincidental: An evangelical company acquires Patheos. Trump is elected and sworn in. A number of Patheos bloggers are critical of Trump. And now, the new owners of Patheos want to exercise more editorial control. Coincidence? Maybe.
Jason has assured us that Patheos will not be censoring its writers. But you know, it usually doesnât happen ⌠until it does.
Donât let shitty people make you think your voice doesnât matter. Apathy is bullshit. We need your voice, too. We all matter. Speak. Scream. Write. Whimper. Do what you can even if your voice shakes. Even if it scares you.
In case people were wondering, I stand with the people. With you.
I want everyone to be free. People have the right, merely by being alive, to be afforded the same opportunities as the person next to them, regardless of race, gender, culture, nationality, religion, or any other thing someone might want to hate on someone else for. I want people to be happy, healthy, and safe in their daily lives no matter who they are.
Five years ago, almost to the day, I wrote this post on tumblr. It was half rambling and half prophecy. Those fears still hold and things are far darker than I could have imagined. The issues are different but the same fear is there. I asked myself questions in that post. I asked if I would be willing to fight. The answerâs yes. The answer has always been yes.Â
Listen to the voices of those being affected. Listen to the people who fear for their lives and loved ones. Listen to their fear, listen to their anger. Support and help them. Fight with them.
The 45th isnât my president and I fight the policies that come out of this administration. I will fight with the resistance and to protect everyone I can.Â
The Cunning Hearth @phoenix-fire-witchcraft - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
