Dancing Down the Moon

Give it Up for the Goddess

My Goddess is a demanding one.  It's barely even the edge of Autumn, and She's making Her wishes known to me in ritual and meditation.  I am asked to tithe to Her in devotion, time, and even skin. 

Those are the easy part.  There's more.

Once you move deeper than the outer layers of Wicca, once the symbols and the holidays are part of your life and you're ready for something more spiritually intimate, you hit what is, for a lot of modern people, a snag:  God is neither a fairy godmother nor your bitch.  For every prayer answered, for every spell that succeeds, a sacrifice must be made. 

Younger generation Americans in particular hate the notion of sacrifice, I've observed.  A lot of people feel like they're entitled to "have it all" with a minimum of actual effort.  Meanwhile, the older generations raised in the shadow of war and Depression understand the idea of sacrifice, but for them it tends to be about sacrificing for the family and for country, not for self-actualization.  Personally I was born at the butt end of Gen X, so I have no work ethic, but I don't expect much, so it all evens out to a nice manageable level of slackerdom.

The fact, however, remains the fact:  there is no give without take.  A relationship must flow both ways in order to be healthy; that holds as true for a relationship with Deity as it does for a marriage. 

I've said all of this before, of course.  And of course, those new to the idea of Paganism and Wicca should note that when I say "sacrifice" obviously I'm not talking about cute furry animals or children.  Nope, you should only sacrifice ugly hairless animals.  Children are always okay.

Just kidding.  Calm down.

When I say "sacrifice," I don't mean to imply that there's a giant tote board in the sky keeping track of your deeds and wishes granted, or that the universe is a giant zero-sum game.  I mean simply that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.  If you want something new and wonderful in your life, room must be made for it.  You have to work to clear the ground and prepare the soil; if it's full of roots and rocks, you're less likely to reap a good crop.  If you want to be healthier, you can't just sit around filling yourself with white light and humping your crystals--you have to make real, practical changes in your real, practical life, the life you want transformed.  Life doesn't just happen on the astral plane; neither does magic.  Show the gods you're willing to make the sacrifice necessary, and willing to accept the consequences of the changes you have asked for.  Life is like wearing a white shirt to an Italian restaurant.  There will be deliciousness and satisfaction and succulence, but there will also be marinara on your shirt.

Of course, what that means is, be careful what you wish for.  When it comes down to it, is your goal worth what you'll have to give up?  Is it worth the time, the extra work?  Is a new relationship worth breaking off an old one?  Is a more fulfilling life worth moving, changing jobs, losing friends?  Are you truly willing to let go of the old way and embrace the new?  If you're not, you will not succeed.  If your closet is full of baggage, don't expect the gods to hand you a new wardrobe.

This is a minor sticking point I have with the Charge of the Goddess--that line about "nor do I demand aught of sacrifice."  I'm sure that it was written with the intention of stating clearly that Witches don't off bunnies and kitties and babies in their rituals, but it is a bit misleading in a broader sense.  No spiritual evolution has ever come freely.  However, I suppose the point is that  the Goddess doesn't force us into anything--in the end, we have to decide for ourselves if we are willing to give what must be given.  We always have the option to walk away, to let life continue until it becomes utterly unbearable.  Unfortunately what tends to happen is, if we don't walk into the sacrifice willingly when we have the opportunity, eventually things will get so horrible that we are forced out of our inertia into much more difficult choices.  Life will change; that is its nature.  Our freedom and responsibility is to create that change ourselves instead of allowing circumstances to dictate our stories.  To quote Natasha Bedingfield, "Today is where your book begins; the rest is still unwritten."

The important thing is not to confuse "sacrifice" with "suffering."  It doesn't always have to be painful, although we tend to cling so hard to our possessions and past that we bring a lot of undue pain upon ourselves.  Sacrifice isn't about agony, it's about significance. As we come into the waning time of year, when Death and the Dark Queen step onto the stage, They will surely ask you:  What is your heart's desire?  And what do you offer Us in return?

Only you can know the answer.

For more on the concept of sacrifice in religion, read this excellent article over at Breathless Noon:  What Are You Willing to Give Up For It?

The Three Catalysts

This post started out as a continuation of the Pagans and Depression series but ended up taking on a life of its own, so please forgive its length and rambling-ness. 

Whether your spiritual path is Wicca, Buddhism, Catholicism, or the First Church of Some Dude Named Leroy, what gives it validity isn’t the name or the vocabulary words, nor is it the tools and trappings. What makes a path valid is its effect on your life. 

Does your spirituality help you cope with the slings and arrows of daily life? Does it encourage you to become a better person? Does it lead you to grow and change? Does it give you tools to transform yourself and your world?

If so, then in my mind it doesn’t matter if you’re an AnarchoFeminist Klingon Pagan or a Semi-Radical Ninja Feri. There are plenty of people in this world who cling to dysfunctional or stagnant ways simply out of habit and tradition, and whether those ways fall under the umbrella of mainstream acceptance or not, religion is not spiritual if it doesn’t change you. 

In my experiences in the Craft I’ve come to the understanding that there are essentially three kinds of transformative experiences on a spiritual path, each with its own blessings and pitfalls. Eventually all three are going to find you; it is through the dynamic interplay of the three that we become mature practitioners. 

The three categories are ecstasy, practice, and breakdown.

Reader-Inspired Topic #1

I've blogged a bit in the past about crises of faith as an important opportunity for spiritual growth and reaffirmation, but the question still arises:  when you are in the midst of such a crisis, what do you do?  How do you get through it?

I'd like to say I have definitive answers on this, but I’m still working it out myself--my last major crisis was in 2004, and I handled it, er, rather badly.  The wisest thing I did was to take a sabbatical from writing and teaching and focus on my own recovery (this particular crisis started off as a family tragedy and spiraled into what I can only describe as a nervous breakdown complete with medication).  I can't say, based on my behavior, that I am some kind of expert on the subject, although the experience has left me with a few bits of insight.

Ashes to Midol

Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

~TS Eliot, "Ash Wednesday"

Ever since I was a child I've had a fascination with Lent.  I grew up Southern Baptist, but our small town had a large percentage of Catholics, and the comparatively strange rituals of Catholicism seemed magical even though Catholic Mass, I quickly discovered, was no more engaging to me than a typical Sunday sermon.  All that standing up and sitting down baffled me.  A pancake breakfast, in comparison, was a much more accessible ritual.

Mass did have two things over our services, though--ceremony, which my spirit craved even at a young age; and a noticeable lack, comparatively speaking, of brimstone and Bible-thumping, or as I like to call it thanks to a certain t-shirt I saw once, Hellfire and Dalmatians. (And He sayeth unto them, "Bad dogs!  Bad!")  Little did I know that our local priest was engaging in some, er, extracurricular activity in the rectory (though thankfully not with altar boys in this case).  The whole Pope thing made me uneasy, and the older I got the less attracted I was to Catholicism's dogma, though the idea of being a nun did, and still does, intrigue me.

Still, as a child I would frequently "give things up for Lent" (with about as much success as most kids, I imagine) and would stare, mesmerized, at the smudge of ash across a friend’s forehead on Ash Wednesday.  I was always too self-conscious to ask what it was supposed to mean, or why you had to give something up for Lent.  It seemed like a game more than anything else.  Local restaurants offered (and still do) special fish meals during Lent, and to me this seemed a particularly grueling sacrifice as I didn’t like eating fish.

What does this have to do with Wicca?  Not a blessed thing, although it does provide an interesting contrast in worldview.  Wiccans, after all, don't generally devote much energy to concepts like penitence and atonement.  Guilt isn't really our stock in trade, as we do not view the world as fallen or human beings as inherently sinful and in need of redemption; although I have observed that, thanks to the religious experiences of our youth, many of us still carry around a great deal of residual guilt that takes years to exorcise. 

I'd like to say that this has led me to an in-depth exploration of the concept of guilt and its place or lack thereof in Wicca, or at least a lengthy meandering about the difference between guilt, which cripples the soul's evolution; and regret, which can empower us to create change and heal wounds that we all inevitably cause during our EarthWalk (unless of course we cling to it and transform it into guilt)…but alas, on this lovely warm Ash Wednesday in the year of the Common Era 2007, I am beset by a much more immediate affliction than guilt:  cramps.

Therefore, I leave you with this astoundingly brief and fairly pointless post, and go on a holy quest for a bottle of ibuprofen and my thermonuclear heating pad.

(This post was sponsored by our good friends at Acme Parentheses, the world leader in punctuation for confusing asides.)

On crises of faith

Sara Winn over at Pagan Godspell posed an interesting question yesterday about Pagans and crises of faith.

I started to comment on her post, but as usual got so long-winded I decided just to ramble about it here. I suggest reading her post, as well as the comments, so you'll have a better idea what I'm on about.

Grace and Gratitude

Once again I must apologize for my absence of late.  I blame Mercury.  Hey, it's as good an excuse as any, right?

I am at present toying with a couple of new book ideas (or rather, old ideas that are resurfacing because obviously I don't have enough to do with my time), and the one that I think is most likely to see print first is a book on my approach to Wiccan values, the Graces.  I believe in a system of virtue-based ethics, and "Graces" is simply my name for those virtues I feel are most in keeping with Wicca as I practice it. 

Spiritual Priorities

In my last post I mentioned that if you were to ask ten average Wiccans (assuming you could figure out what an average Wiccan is), “What aspects of your spiritual practice are the most important to you?” you would get ten different answers.

What do I mean by “aspects?” Well, for starters, I would hope that most Wiccans would place some variation of “devotion to Deity” at the top of the list. If you were to ask, say, the HPS of a coven, she might add “creating transformative group ritual” and “counseling/teaching” to her list. A solitary Wiccan who practices yoga and participates in activism to save the oceans might add those things as important parts of her spirituality. We all have different priorities as evolving practitioners and children of our gods.