Everything is Magic!!! Everything is Holy!!!

…or magick, if you prefer.

I am writing this as a reaction to Hecate’s post regarding some comments she’s gotten on the fabulous Calendar post of hers.  There is also a fantastic Elemental Castings podcast where T. Thorne Coyle interviews Jason Pitz-Waters… that touches on this and is inspiring me to rant.

While this may not help make my rantings any clearer at the very least it provides the careful reader with something resembling context.

It works like this, at least for me it does…

“If you harm none, do what you Will.”

Note the capital ‘W’, it’s important.  It relates to the concept of True Will, which while not intimately or commonly associated with Witchcraft, is one worth looking at.  Especially since whoever introduced The Rede ™  into modern Witchcraft probably had seen some mention of it in Crowley’s works or had read up on Thelema…

“It is defined at times as a person’s grand destiny in life and at other times as a moment to moment path of action that operates in perfect harmony with Nature. This Will does not spring from conscious intent, but from the interplay between the deepest Self and the entire Universe.” ~ from the Wikipedia entry on True Will (accessed 10:17pm 12/30/3008)

As a modern Witch, whatever your Tradition, you have to deal with The Rede, either as a requirement of your practice, or as an outside Not-so-bad-idea but nowhere near the core of your practice ~ that is automatically associated by others with what you do.  The thing is that this idea of True Will becomes important when your Circles and prayers and invocations start to align you with the Universe.

Not that this is to be seen as a process that ends.  We, like the Universe, are in a state of change, growth, evolution.  Unfolding like a thousand-fold lotus of enlightenment on the waters of intuition.

So we chase after this True Will, this Higher Self.  We practice and study magic, or magick…

“What is a Magical Operation? It may be defined as any event in nature which is brought to pass by Will. We must not exclude potato-growing or banking from our definition.” ~ A.C. or” Evil Uncle Al” in  Magic in Theory and Practice

So anything we do, from the most ornate and moving of rituals, to the simplest of every day tasks are magick… if we let them be so, magick and holy.

Holy, because just as we and the Universe are constantly growing and changing, so to are the Gods.  Mercury is the God of Bike Messengers, Fax Machines, and Cell Phones.  Freya and Aphrodite are rocking the house in clubs across this planet!

Holy because the divine is everywhere and the Gods are a part of every atom and cell of creation.  Some Deities are more…fully present?…accurately reflected?… not quite sure how to say this but by an example.

Aphrodite, for example, is present in all the world.  But where there is love, and passion, and beauty She is more fully present or more accurately reflected there.  That part of Her which is a part of all Creation is more …there in those moments and things which reflect Her essential nature.

Every atom, every cell, all of Creation is holy and sacred and of the Gods, if we let it be so!

… I’m ranting. again… as I reread this I think this is one of those spiritual things that makes perfect sense to me at this stage of my growth, but is, just out of reach of explainability unless you’re right there with the person you are trying to explain it too.

I remember when my dear friend PK  (the ceremonial Magickian, Chef, and Great Geek Bear of the Moutain) had tried, as part of my request to help me learn the more ceremonial / formal Magickal side of things, to explain some of the above to me…

PK~”Any act is a magickal act, picking up a glass of water and moving from one table to the next, is a magickal act…”

Pax~(blink, blink) “uhm, ok, but that doesn’t sound very magickal?!?    So what was that book of essays by Regardie again, and is his writing any easier to slog through than Fortunes???”

I’m either growing, or falling off my rocker, at least life isn’t dull!

Peace and a Happy New Years!

Pax

Happy Winter Solstice and a Blessed New Year!

Cookie decorating a Tradition in our home...
Cookie decorating a Tradition in our home...

Yule is…

For me at least the turning of the year is one of the facets at the heart of Yule.  I’ve been trying to identify these core facets of the Sabbats ever since my life’s journey took me from Alaska to Florida, from the Sub-Arctic to the Sub-Tropical.  So setting aside some of the climactic and seasonal associations of the Sabbats and trying to find the core concepts has been concerning me of late.

“New Year”, not just cause Yule is followed closely by the secular/calender New Year, but for me Winter Solstice has always felt more like the turning point of the years from one to the next.  Naturally enough I suppose for someone who spent 33 years of his life living in a land where Winter Solstice sees around 4 hours of daylight, and you know that from that point on the days get 5 minutes longer each day…

This is when we turn our focus and attention from the Beloved and Honored

Not a bad substitute for a hearth, sometimes...
Not a bad substitute for a hearth, sometimes...

Dead of Samhain, to the Honored and Beloved Living.  We turn from the introspection of inner mysteries to the mysteries of the hearth and heart and home.  We make cookies and prepare feasts and call up friends and family far and near.  We come back out of the shells of our introspection, that so many of us turn to at Samhaintide, and start to connect and reconnect with our families of biology and choice, with our dear friends, and to the earthly world around us.

It is a time to reconnect to that most essential of questions,

‘What can I give, what can I do to bring joy and peace into the world?’

It is easy to lose site of this aspect of the Yuletide with the crass commercialism of the modern day, but isn’t sharing our love and spreading joy to those we love and hold dear what this time of year is all about?

Yule is a grounding into our earthly lives as we prepare to honor the cycles of the world once more starting with Imbolc.

I spent this Yule at work at the park for a part of the day.  That evening I spend some quite time at home, took a few minutes to enjoy the night and the quite and thank the Divine for this Yule and the last year and the one ahead, and then snuggled up next to The Big Guy for a good nights sleep.

Not the flashiest Yule observance, but a nice and quiet one.

Happy Yule to all!

~~~~~~~~~~~

A few delightful links that speak to me about Yuletide…

Why Santa Claus is a Kachina

Bringing Light Where You Can

It’s a Narnia Christmas

Pagan Yuletide Media (mostly from Youtube)

A Pagan Yule

Solstice Bells (this I discovered thanks to Evn)

So it’s the Full Moon…

I close my eyes and open my heart

And I pray, pray, pray.

I raise my hands and I raise my voice

And I pray, pray, pray.

Lady, shine, shine down on me.

Lord, walk, walk away with me.

As I walk this journey

Through the mystery

I raise my voice and I kiss my hands,

And I pray, pray, pray.

~Pax 2008(C)

Solstice collors on the Crepe Myrtle
Solstice collors on the Crepe Myrtle

The temperatures have been chilly and wintery, for Central Florida anyway, with days in the 60’s and 50’s and chillier nights.  The Crepe Myrtle in the front yard is almost asleep, only a few leaves, green and gold and scarlet, clinging to its uppermost branch tips.  Counterballanced by the Live Oaks, which have shed all the leaves they care to, thank-you-very-much, and are rustling in the breeze.

Tonight there is an open Moon Circle that Tracie The Red has suggested I attend.  I am going to.

I have run hot and cold about being involved in the Pagan community down here.  Cold lately but I’m warming up again.

Lots of reasons, but I think the biggest one is that I just haven’t ended up getting out and making any friends of my own since moving down here.  I need to work on that!  I’ve made a couple of friends down here or but not close see you every week and hang out friends.   Mostly, I’ve made friends with Gene’s friends and that strange relationship alchemy of his friends becoming our friends has occurred.  Yet I miss having some close, close peeps of my own!

Anyhow I must soon be off…

Peace,

Pax

One Witches Journey… into activism and optimism

So…

I am blogging a lot more on my other site.  Or at least I am working on the site, and adding links and adding to the blog roll and learning a lot about my LGBT community.  I am also learning a lot about myself.  I am learning about my ideals, and my hopes and dreams.  I am also seeing, once more, the parallels between my two communities… the GLBT (or LGBT if you prefer) and the Pagan.  I find myself trying to figure out how to balance my new found passion for standing up for the Highest Ideals, with the practicality of working an exceptionally part time job and looking for work in one of the worst economies in the last 100 years.  Yet I feel more alive, more truly myself, when I am working on my GLBT civil rights blog, and when I am contemplating similar projects within the Pagan community.

In re-reading this post and contemplating publishing it I looked again at that last sentence…

Yet I feel more alive, more truly myself, when I am working on my GLBT civil rights blog, and when I am contemplating similar projects within the Pagan community.

Hmm… I am reminded of my ideas about Beauty, and my thought that when we are striving to live our Virtues as Witches, and to live out our Highest Ideals is when we are most Beautiful.  I also find myself remembering some of the times where I have invoked the Lord and Lady, and how at those times too I have felt most truly alive (if not necessarily myself).

I know that the weeks and months to come will require me to keep a balance between feeding my pocket book and feeding my soul.  In the past keeping a balance between my professional (or job) life and my spiritual and personal life has been a difficult zig-zagging between priorities.  I would like to believe that I am at a point in my life where I can actually do this, seemingly simple, balancing act.  So many other folks make this sort of thing look so blessed effortless!

I know that in these times feeding oneself, ones family, and ones pocketbook, is becoming increasingly difficult.  I know that there are a lot of tough decisions and times ahead.  In the end though, I am not afraid.

I know that the Lady and Lord are with me.

I know that if I continue to tread the path they have laid out for me, if I continue to speak and live in accordance with Truth, and Beauty, and the Highest of Ideals, if I strive to find within myself Love for All Beings, including myself, if I honor Them, and remember to honor the Gods and Godesses of my heart and the Heroes of my Nation; if I do these things I will find a way through the troubled times and I will be able to keep my ballance and do right by my Gods, my family, and myself.

Freedom of Religion?

Ok, folks time to get busy!!!

A mother has been denied custody of her child because of the mere
perception that she is a Wiccan!

http://www.wildhunt.org/2008/11/slandered-wiccan-denied-rehearing.html

The lady in question may or may not be Wiccan( or a Witch, or a Pagan
for that matter), but the mere perception that she might be has caused
one intolerant judge to deny her custody of her child!  And another
group of judges to uphold the decision!  What can we do?

Prayers, spells, petitions to our many Goddesses and Gods, these
things can work wonders.  This is a part of my faith and philosophy as
a Witch.  Acting in accord also works wonders, making a phone-call, or
writing letters to the editor, writing your State representatives if
you live in the U.S..  Send letters to the ACLU and to who ever else
you can think of.  Please do something in both the physical and the
metaphysical world to stand up for Religious freedom and basic human
rights!

Peace,

Pax / Geoffrey
https://chrysalis1witchesjourney.wordpress.com/

http://gaymarriageorsomethinglikeit.blogspot.com/