Winged Migration

I should have written this post months ago, but I wasn't sure what to say.  Bear with me a moment, for my thoughts are a bit disorganized of late, and I don't mean any offense in the following--as with everything I've ever written here, it's about my own experiences, and your mileage may vary.

I know very few Elder Wiccans.  I'm told that they're out there--in retirement, or working with their own groups, or in a few cases out in public trying to establish and maintain the tenuous crack-addled spider web of Pagan Community.  But where are they for my generation?  Where are our counselors, our role models?  Who do we look to when our spiritual development hits a wall, or our lives fall apart and the usual 101 or even 201 rituals prove inadequate? 

Are we supposed to turn to the coven leaders sleeping with their coveners?  Website authors who attack other authors or blatantly copy their entire sites?  Or the online forum folk who pounce on every newcomer and brand him or her "fluffy," "Neo-Wiccan," or whatever, automatically labeling him not worth their time?  Should we cast ourselves to the trolls for guidance?  Because it seems that online communities are made up of mostly trolls and Wicca-er-than-thou types who want it made very clear that they are NOT NEO WICCAN, whatever that means, that they're the REAL DEAL.

When the true Elders are impossible to find because they too have been driven out of Community by, well, the Community, who do we turn to in a spiritual crisis, especially if like many Wiccans in America, our own personal tribe is made up mostly of people near our own age, the Gen-X and Gen-Y of Wicca, who self-taught and built covens from the ground up with our bare hands while ripping our hair out and trying to negotiate jobs, families, and a hostile political climate without going insane.  Many of us started teaching less than five years in, so we aren't much more advanced than our students, most of whom may be older than us.  Hubris, perhaps--but it kept Wicca moving.  The idea of a religion like ours sparks a fire deep in the soul of many, but that fire takes tending. 

Who is tending the fire now?  Who will tend it then?  It's easy to start a fire and to put one out given the right equipment, but to keep one burning takes time, patience, and attention.  It takes knowing when to add fuel and when to bank the coals.  Who can we count on for this?

Where we fall short is that stretch of time after conversion and initiation but before...well, really, what then?  Except in a coven or someplace online like Cherry Hill Seminary, which most Pagans can't afford, where is our advanced training?  Is that really something we can do ourselves?  What does that term mean, anyway? 

And what is it that we're looking for?  Magical power?  Personal empowerment?  Spiritual gnosis?  Mystical union with the Divine?  A chance to get laid eight times a year?  There's only so far you can go in Wiccan teachings without simply running aground and having to look for another vessel.  So I've seen many, no most, of the advanced practitioners I know over the years wander out of Wicca and into Buddhism, Hinduism, self-created general Paganism, Judaism, Catholicism. 

Tell me this.  If Wicca is so damn old, then why does it have nothing in place to cope with later life and deeper spiritual questions?  Centuries underground you would think would give Witches time to ponder these things.  Did medieval Witches have crises of faith, or were they too focused on not ending up at the stake, in which case, how is Wicca supposed to adapt to life where that doesn't happen anymore?  Was the best our ancestors ever got dying of the influenza at 30 with no idea what would come after?  And if so, how does this religion that's supposed to be the Olde One apply to our modern lives at all? 

At the opposite end of the spectrum, where my own beliefs lie, there is a conundrum just as daunting:  there's nothing.  There are no great tomes, there are no trodden paths.  Oh, sure, we're supposed to figure things out for ourselves, but when have humans ever done that?  We are a social species for a reason.  We have our shamans and our healers and at no time before in history has everyone expected to be everything to everyone.  Who are we, exactly, and where are we going?  Do any of us even know?  Or are we simply slogging ahead day by day, festival by festival, without looking at the larger picture of what we're creating together? 

None of these are new questions.  None of them have easy answers.  I'm not writing this to start some kind of huge flaming debate over the future of Wicca, or because I expect the community to rise up and reassure me.  I'm writing this because I, personally, have no answers.  And I think it's time I admitted how deeply that runs.

For over a year now my spirituality has been nonexistent.  It may even have started before that.  Every attempt I've made to rekindle that precious spark has met with a broken pilot light.  I've tried calling, and not calling; going with the flow and creating reality.  And to tell you the truth I'm just not sure anyone is listening anymore.

The rituals of Wicca as I learned it have ceased to have any meaning for me.  The ideas and ideals of Pagan spirituality still do, but I'm not sure how much really resonates, and how much just sounds good so I cling to it even though, at heart, I come up empty.  Group rituals make me deeply uneasy no matter how intimate I am with the other practitioners--and not just Wiccan rituals, any kind.  I just can't do it anymore.

What do I still believe in?  I believe in the Earth and Sky, the trees and rivers.  I believe there's some kind of God out there and that it cannot be confined to one gender or shape.  I believe that this God is love, and this God is interested in its creation, not abandoning us to the whims of an uncaring universe, but actively involved in every molecule. 

But I don't believe so much in Sabbat rituals and athames and elaborate Circle castings.  It's not that I think those things are fake, or unnecessary to Wicca, I just don't think they mean anything to me anymore.  Maiden/Mother/Crone symbology always bothered me.  The traditions and myths my religion is based on squicked me out with their implied incestuous symbolism and their duly assigned gender roles. 

Just like I don't believe I need Jesus to save me or Buddha to liberate me or to observe kosher law to be worthy or to jump up and down in a three-cornered hat singing "I'm a Little Sacred Teapot, Motherfucker" to earn the love of God.  I don't know what sacred hoo-ha I need to feel right about religion, but I haven't found it yet.

I've tried so hard to keep myself in some kind of Wicca-shaped box, for fifteen years, carefully reshaping the box around me into groups and traditions and covens and realizing every time that the box still didn't fit.  I finally realized that it's not the box that's the problem, it's me trying to live in a box when I'm supposed to be building a circle. 

I'm not declaring myself un-Wiccan or anything like that, at least not at present.  I'm certainly still a Witch, for the arts of Witchcraft are a part of me.  What I am doing is dropping all the bullshit.  Here's the truth.

I have no idea who or what I am or what that means.  I don't know where I'm going and I don't know what all I still believe in.  I don't hear the voice of God anymore, I haven't for a long time.  I feel nothing in Circle.  That connection to Deity I worked so hard to foster for so long--and wrote an entire book about--just isn't there anymore.  Poof!

So I'm going to find it.  Not force it, not drag it back, but put a call out to the universe: 

Single White Witch Seeks Divine Presence.  Enjoys ecstatic dance, dark chocolate, good sleep, occasional mind-blowing sex, and living by her values.  If you're a visceral, sensual, compassionate but firm teacher, a lover, a friend, a mother, a father, with a great sense of humor and an even better sense of rhythm, please send a universal clue-by-four or sacred messenger (animal form ok) to Sylvan's Seventh Chakra ASAP.  Must love cats.  Nonsmokers only.

What does that mean for this blog?  Well, it may not mean much.  Obviously I haven't blogged this past year anywhere near the volume I did the year before.  What I'd like to do is continue to write about my personal journey and my various rantings and meanderings on spirituality, even if they have nothing to do with Wicca, and document where I'm headed....if indeed I'm headed anywhere.  I'd also like to start up with Stumbling Towards Ahimsa again, although I think I may change the focus a little (more on that later).  For now, you my gentle reader have stumbled upon the blog of a woman whose entire soul is in flux.  I don't know what's going to happen, but I hope you'll stick with me, out of morbid curiosity at least, as it does. 

Thank you, as always, for reading.  Knowing that someone is listening, sometimes, is all that keeps me going.

Comments

[Pomegranatemoon]

I have been feeling so much upheaval in my life lately, so I open my favorite blog (yours) to find exactly what I need. It is good to know that I am not alone. Thank you for your honesty, your humor, your inner beauty, and all else that makes you uniquely yourself. Whatever path you take, I'm with you sister :)
By the way I have to say that "the Agency" was brilliant. I loved every second of it!!
Blessings and light,
Pomegranate

[Danmara]

I went through this myself, wandering aimlessly through several paths and I eventually set out to create my own.

Somewhere along the line, that plan got de-railed. It was no longer a driving force...I had no idea where to turn, starting and building from scratch. Where were MY elders?

I found the group I am currently with, and I am currently happy to be a part of that group. It's not ideal in every way (I wish I wasn't hundreds or thousands of miles away from other members of my Tuatha for instance. I would love to have rituals where I'm actually in the same room with the others...) but it suits me.

I don't know how long I'll stay here, if I'll go on to teach or if I'll learn what I set out to learn and then turn down another path. And you know what? That's OK. Every leg of our journey teaches us something. All that you've done so far has got you to this fork in the road, and now you've earned the choice: left or right?

It's yours to make. Don't fight it, embrace it.

[Desh]

To quote a Wise One: "I believe in the Earth and Sky, the trees and rivers. I believe there's some kind of God out there and that it cannot be confined to one gender or shape. I believe that this God is love, and this God is interested in its creation, not abandoning us to the whims of an uncaring universe, but actively involved in every molecule."

And it may be as simple as that. Our coven has been disbanded for more than a decade; I can't remember the last time I was in a formal ritual. But I am still Witch. It is what I always am, was and will be.

My first vision included the booming words "Time and space are completely irrelevent!" Profound, perhaps. But, boy, was I ever pissed. How is that *helpful*? Over the years, I've continued to grump -- and also come to realize it's how we live that matters.

As my time right now gets shaved to ever smaller windows, its posts like yours that poke me where I'm still sleeping. To stir the deepening shadows and remember that surrendering is an act of will. That Nothingness is part of Everything-ness. That if the Divine is All, and All is both outside and within -- then feeling disconnected inside is just part of this crazy-ass ride of a life.

I ask "How can I help?" I hear what my hight priestess tells me in times of crisis. Be willing to be willing. Keep showing up.

I hear "You Will Find Answers." Yikes. Well. Glad I kept blathering until that came through. I hope they're what you're looking for...

[Veleda Spakona]

I think everyone at some point on their spiritual path goes through the same kind of "fog" that you seem to be describing. What you find when the fog starts to lift will differ in what other seekers find, but rest assured that Deity in some form or another will give you what you seek when you're ready for it. I am also confident that you will come through this fog an even more amazing, enlightened, true to herself woman and witch than what you are now.

Personally as far as elders or community is concerned, I am quite happy and content with Sacred Mists, which is an amazing online training community and coven.

Brightest Blessings,
Veleda

[J. McNett]

You are a true voice, and that's so rare. It's easy to stick to what you know, going through the motions in an attempt to stabilize yourself...but I think it takes guts (and feels so much better, doesn't it?) to admit that you need more and reject the bullshit. It's like that liberating feeling when you leave a diseased relationship or an unsatisfying job. You may feel like you're teetering in the process, giving up anchors that made you feel normal. But searching for something truly meaningful, even in the face of uncertainty, is always better than settling for the familiar and being miserable in the process.

I feel like it was serendipity that I found your blog[s] less than a year ago, especially now, because I'm going through the same thing spiritually that you are. I've given up my attachments to Wicca that I held onto for the better part of a decade. I realized that I was assigning meaning and shapes and names to things that were too vast for those kinds of restrictions. So now I'm looking for something greater, and without giving up my magic, I'm slowly finding it. I think I was led here to read your words for a reason. Maybe we'll find our bliss together from across a distance. Or maybe we'll travel parallel roads that will lead to the same destination in the end. Either way, please speak your truth without worrying about what others might expect from you. I enjoy reading it, and more than that, it has become a comfort to me. I find that reading your words is seeing my struggle in another person like me, and it helps me to feel not quite so alone while I'm walking down this thrilling but completely unfamiliar road.

[Pax]

Before I jump into the serious comments...

"...or to jump up and down in a three-cornered hat singing "I'm a Little Sacred Teapot, Motherfucker"... "

First let me just say something about this quote... which has been lurking through my mind like some sort of surreal mantra for the last two days...

Best. Pagan Pride. Circle Casting. EVER!!!

(I'm just saying...) Mind you I am not sure how well the rest of your community would take it...

I have to third (or possibly fourth) what Sia and Hecate have...

Religion, once we find it, tends to be stable unless one encounters some truly extraordinary circumstance...

Spirituality, however, is often described as a journey... Keep to your practices and what has worked in the past even as you seek after more.

Keep writing, your fiction and your Witchcraft, because writing seems to be something that feeds your soul... that's important and don't let anyone (including you) tell you otherwise!!

Your honesty and intelligence and humor touch so many peoples souls... look to those three qualities as your guides, these parts of ourselves that truly resonate with others are often things we should look to in spiritual dry spells.

Peace,
Pax
witch*er*y/ n. 1 witchcraft. 2. power exercised by beauty or eloquence or the like. ~Oxford American Dictionary of Current English New American Edition (2000)

[Thalia]

You want Elders? I see 35 of them ahead of me.

You can only do what you do.

Are you feeling guilty for failing somehow, spiritually, over the past year?

Because it seems to me that over the last year you have been primarily occupied with *surviving.* And you *have.* That is no small thing; and I would not be at all surprised if you are simply exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Give yourself huge amounts of credit for even being here.

You are where you are; it is always the right place. You will go where you will go; and it is always the right path.

I think, probably, that there is no easy answer, and that that is the answer. You can only find out for yourself.

I don't know. I'm not Wiccan, myself, being I suppose an Eccentric Pagan; and I'm wondering if it isn't actually a failing, but a triumph on Wicca's part that you and so many others end up where you are. In another religion, with structures and history and vast support systems in place, how many are ever forced to find things out for themselves?

But that's the only way it's ever been done.

[Southern Pagan]

Over the past 16yrs, I've learned modern pagan ritual practises with an eclectic 'wiccan' bent, but my path is purely pagan and not Wiccan (deliberate capitalisation to refer to the initiatory based, definite lineaged coven supported path which has an elder network you are supposed to be able to rely on) and as such and that sits fine with me.

There are the Pagan Elders out there, and I have to say, they *do* keep their noses mostly out of the public 'Community' because their contribution is not seen to be valued or they are sick and tired of the political bullshit that goes along with so many peope trying to build an ego power base etc

Best of luck in finding the support you need.

[spiritscraft]

In my little coven we have an elder, it makes a big difference to have someone who has walked the path for 40 years or more.

There are some dark times for the soul that witches go through. I would only recommend that you keep on with your practice and experiment with areas that aren't working into new areas.

Being solitary does not lend itself to immense amounts of support. A friend of mine is in an online coven, and their elder recently died, but even then, the wisdom she left them with keeps her going often.

I really think that to sustain itself witches have to meet with other witches, regularly. And in a variety of ages and experience levels. All with perfect trust and perfect love--as long as that takes to earn and learn.

[Maura]

Strange thing is that I was looking for an almanac today, turning and turning around the bookshelf and as I made my third turn around the island of books I saw *The Body Sacred* and *knew* I had to pick it up, I had to read it, if only because it would help connect me to someone who has walked a similar path.

I understand this post so much, and I will stick with reading your blog because of the sheer honesty in which you post these questions. I often find myself wanting to go to church on Sunday like I did when I was a child *just* to be with others in a place together.

Wicca may be a path that a seeker often wanders alone, but it doesn't mean the path isn't lonely or empty at times, and I don't think I am telling you anything you don't already know.

I hope you find that your cosmic call out is answered, and I hope you continue to share the experience...because to some of us, like a lone girl in the winter of Wisconsin, you may not be an elder, but your experience is a valued gift that I am grateful to have stumbled upon, even if it was only a root of a tree traveling through.

[Fey]

I am right there with you. Especially right here:

What do I still believe in? I believe in the Earth and Sky, the trees and rivers. I believe there's some kind of God out there and that it cannot be confined to one gender or shape. I believe that this God is love, and this God is interested in its creation, not abandoning us to the whims of an uncaring universe, but actively involved in every molecule.

Paganism as a political path, a lifestyle, a modality of being, still works for me. Group ritual, the polarity and fertility focus in Wicca, and the contentiousness within the community, not so much.

I think something is afoot, and I think we're growing up.

[Juniper]

HI there! Excellent post. I too have felt very much the same way. These are questions we need to be asking ourselves as we close the first decade of this millennium.

I am perhaps not as friendly about expressing it as you have been. I thought you might be interested by a couple of "essays" I wrote a little while back on a similar vein:

http://walkingthehedge.net/blog/2008/11/making-do-without-elders/

http://walkingthehedge.net/blog/2008/10/why-are-there-no-more-gardners-and-crowleys/

I will be adding your blog to my link list.
Cheers,
Juniper

[sczjkws]

Thank you for writing about your personal "spiritual" struggle. It's nice to know that it isn't just me struggling with everything spiritual. I just know that what worked before isn't working now. So I, too, am on journey to find what works for me. Maybe it's journey meant to go full circle and end up in a different place in that circle journey than what we thought was the beginning...

[Kitty O'Toole (Lisa)]

Fantastic post as always, and actually what you've written resonates with me too. I'm struggling, BIG style at the moment following the death of my best friend, and I actually feel abandoned by all the god, goddesses and anything else Wicca related...I feel as though my soul has cried out for answers and despite that the selfish b*stards haven't bothered to reply. My altar is no more- I took it down to clean and lovingly tend all my working tools and haven't bothered to construct it again..I feel like I deserve some answers, some sympathy and have railed against my beliefs. I feel very hard done by, having invested time and a lot of money in my faith...
That said, at my heart I know what I am is still true. When I walk my dog outdoors on a cold frosty morning I still feel that sense of wonder I've always felt at Mother Nature...and perhaps that's where the answer lies...perhaps I have set my aspirations too high and expected too much.
I have no doubt that I will return to the bosom of the Goddess, but at the moment I'm sore and healing. But I know when that time comes I'll rejoice again, because at the moment I feel empty.
Thanks for your post Dianne.

[Aquari]

(I know you said you aren't trying to start a debate about the future of Wicca. But what happens to a community, happens to the individuals in it, and vice versa; and I'm hearing similar stuff from so many people, all at once, that I can't see it as a series of individual, isolated crises of faith anymore. Sorry if I ramble a bit.)

When paganism was just an ember, keeping it from going out - bringing these ideas and practices back to a world that had forgotten them - was enough of a reason to practice. But now that more information than anyone could ever want is available to anyone interested (complete with bad clip art!), perpetuating tradition for its own sake isn't enough of a reason anymore. A few of the more vital traditions (Feri, Reclaiming) seem to have some notion that their religion is /for/ something, other than to go on existing, and I think that's something missing from the larger community.

Communities that have no common goal or project, lose coherence. They have no compelling reason to pull together or overlook their differences. People start arguing about who is a legitimate member or legitimate leader, because they no longer have the clear and simple criteria of 'people who make contributions and get things done.' Ideas get endlessly rehashed because no-one is doing anything new. People who sense things falling apart try to hold them together by micromanagement instead of leadership, which makes it worse. And the upshot of this is that the people who want to 'go further', the ones with passion, realize there's nothing left for them and forge ahead on their own.

I think that explains where the elders have gone. The best and the brightest always self-select their way out of stagnant communities, places where they have no future, which causes those communities to stagnate further. What reason have they got to come back, except for a chance to do public service? And that means the community's stock of wisdom stalls at a certain maturity level, which in turn perpetuates the need for people to leave once they reach the 'tough questions' stage.

Maybe if you had have found a coven to join two hundred years ago, you would have tapped into something richer and wiser than what exists today; or maybe you would have found the fragments of a rural fertility cult struggling for relevance in an industrializing society, like so many of the worlds less-secret indigenous traditions. Or maybe you'd have found Gardner really was spinning a tale after all. Either way, what has come down to us is depressingly sparse. People reviving the other barely-documented pre-Christian religions are in the same position.

It's like what the early settlers of modern Israel had to do, building themselves an entire modern Hebrew language out of what they could reconstruct from old texts. Whatever the scrolls didn't have a word for, they had to invent, or else repurpose some other word. Here we are, they must have thought, finally rebuilding the long-lost kingdom of our ancestors, and we have to ... make things up. I think I can imagine how that felt.

So you've come, like them, to the place where the sidewalk ends. And like I said, it's not just you. And each person it happens to discovers that going on like nothing's changed isn't an option. We, collectively and individually, have a choice. If we find ourselves a concrete mixer and come to some sort of decision about where we're aiming to arrive at, we can do the sweaty work of extending the sidewalk. Daunting, yes, but a community with a shared vision has a chance of surviving as a real community.

Or we can acquire hiking boots and machetes and each thrash our way through the bush in whichever individual directions we choose. Less aggravation, but as you say, damned lonely. Whatever advantages solitary spirituality has, solitary confinement is a massive disadvantage. We find the Divine, among other places, in each other; alone, we turn in on ourselves, and I've seen lots of other people 'lose the thread' the same way. For that reason alone, I think, it's worth keeping the fire lit. (I'm doing my best, over here. Good luck to you, over there.)

[Ariel]

Great rant! I love the questions and the questioning. There is great power in the midst of a spiritual crisis. It is a highly underrated medium of transformation and power (The dark night of the soul and all that goes along with it). I've been in the Craft just under 30 years, and each time I have a crisis of faith I find that I come out of the other side of it with a deeper commitment to the Craft and my students, coven and family than I ever imagined possible. I'm not saying that staying in the Craft is necessarily what you need, but I do love the honesty with which you are demonstrating how deeply you have dug into your soul to find the answers you require. I know from the depth of my being that the answers to all your questions are on their way to you. I think, by just reading your post, that you are the kind of person who will be capable of receiving them graciously when they arrive.

[chelsea]

dearest -

i, too, had a hunger for your posts and for your books. i bought them and read them and re-read them and cried and laughed. i appreciate ya, i guess is what i'm going for. :P

but what i want you to know, and this is only from my humblest perspective far away in kansas city, is that if a break is what is needed, take it. a break from blogging, a break from the pang in your heart that you haven't posted at ddtm, or the posts are infrequent, or whathaveyou. though as a reader, i enjoy everything you write (from the happiest to the most lost, questioning posts) i would much rather know you're taking a break and taking care of yourself than posting because you feel a need to give the readers something. if a break is what is needed, please take it.

if not, write whatever you please. i have a strong feeling that all of your readers not only enjoy your refreshing, realistic take on spirituality, but we also enjoy you telling a story about putting a skinny, ohmygodiworkoutlikeSOmuch twat in her place at a bookstore. i just don't want you to feel tethered, heavily anchored, or obligated to write at a certain pace, with a certain frequency, inside a tiny box of accepted topics. i want to hear about you seeing a dude fall down and laughing uproariously just as much as your posts on spirituality.

in other words, our hearts are big enough for yours to fit inside. do whatever it is you have to do to wake up happy and fulfilled. if that means no glittery gandalf robes and hours of scripted ritual, leave it. if that means taking a walk a day and naming your favorite ice cream flavors, do it. if that means hibernating from the pagan world at large, so be it. if that means screaming into your pillow, counting light poles as you drive, befriending spiders and giving them a backstory, listening to bohemian rhapsody over and over, eating a vegan ice cream bar a day, collecting bundt cake pans, then do it!

scott cunningham drew you here, but you and you alone are responsible for the windings of your path. just know you have many who care about you, who will honor your silence, who will listen to the screams in the pillow, laugh at your jokes, e-hug you when you cry, and send you bundt cakepan links. i just purchased a lovely one in the shape of an octopus. :P

we're here. you're here. and they're up there, somewhere, and they care. but if all you want right now is the people down here, grounded on the same earth, staring at the same moon, feeling as lost as you feel, utilize us.

essentially, that was an incredibly long-winded way to say that though we've never met, i care. and i want you to do what ya gotta, leave what needs left, hollow out schemas that need hollowed. we'll be here.

-chelsea.

[R]

I know EXACTLY how you feel. It'll be 13 years this Ostara and I have never felt more like precisely what you described. The questions, the descriptions, seemed pulled straight out of my own heart. So thank you. Your work is still guiding me, making me feel less alone, and I cannot express to you how deeply I appreciate that.