Tag Archives: traditional

The Harpy, The Humonculous

An insult of Wicca

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When did Witchcraft become a contest? They ask. But inside, my guts churn, and my blood boils, as I read the insulting lines that get pissed off at others unjustly judging poor, victimized Wiccans…the complaints of the “constant belittling” of Wiccans…whilst they so hautily, and casually belittle others.

Others’ complaints of Wicca is apparently horrendous bullying. Even though we are constantly told we are wrong, that our religion doesn’t exist anymore – or even told the horrible inaccurate accusation of saying ours NEVER exsisted? Look at the snide remark of

” (And that’s before pointing out that Traditional Witchcraft is an idea often so nebulous that it’s about as hard as “Wicca” to define, and with just as many varied traditions.)”

OH. Ok. So YOU can pretty much say “traditional” paths are BS, and you’re just “stating facts” – But we call  Wicca BS, and we’re belittling you?

Yes, Pot. The Kettle is black. But so the fuck are you.

I am sorry, but when you crawl up on a high horse, hijack other’s religions, boast falsehoods as reality, and then can stomach to produce and market such crap that, for example, bolsters the magical properties of a paperclip and how to force someone to love you (forever) ???

Paperclips and love potions?

This reads like a bad Weasley rip off.
The rest of the world is pissed off, constantly belittle you, because you are constantly making a mockery out of us. You spit in our face, commandeer our faith and rites, only listen half-heartedly to our myths and histories, pick and choose what you want to hear and throw away all the rest, then paste-over the parts you don’t like with someone else’s stolen faiths and do just the same to them all over again.
The entire concept of your faith is scattered, broken, confused and insincere. You don’t know what you want to believe, so you just show it all together and claim it is the “right” way to be, and then market your ransacked religion as *THE* religion of the modern age – when that is just flat out not true.

you are O N E religion. That’s it, one, singular path out of the many thousands of choices. You all are so entitled and proud, and think you are then end all, be all example of what a pagan should be.

No.

I’m not listening. I’m not having it. There are plenty who do not hate you, plenty who even adore you – plenty of people who are on your side and your team. And just like ANYTHING in life, there are also plenty of people who do not like you, plenty of people who hate and despise you, and I tell you what, I bet each and every one of us have our reasons, and how dare you try to tell us we do not have the right to be mad, or angry, or not like you, or disapprove.

Disapprove. That is the perfect word. Disapprove. I disapprove of everything about Wicca – it is not even a matter of disagreements. I disagree with Christianity, but I do not disapprove of it. It is simply not for me. I do not agree with Shamanism. But I do not disapprove of that either, it is beautiful and fitting for many folk – but does not fit me in the slightest bit. But to each their own.

This is different – Wicca has plagued me and mine with misinformation, discrimination, mockery, blasphemy and sacrilege. It has desecrated sacred oaths and practices, it has propagated our faith and our deities to nothing more than carnival tricks and novelty. It has sexualized every inch and cranny of our faith to make us all out to be nothing more than a bunch of horny nymphos using a “fertility goddess” as a shield to act like whores, and somehow be proud of that?
What Wicca does on a daily basis, every hour of every day is hurtful and shameful to those who practice traditional forms of the religions they have taken from.
It hurts.

It hurts. 

So yes, I am bitter. Yes, many of us are angry. But we have every single right to be so. It is not a “Cosmic Pissing Contest” it is those that feel wronged and insulted lashing out against the ones who have caused those insults. It may be childish at times, but I have never been a fan of ALWAYS taking the high road, and that is just my own personal opinion. I enjoy flinging shit when the other side is deserving of shit.  Spitefulness, bitterness, anger, pain – these are all valid, legitimate human emotions, and I won’t be told I am not entitled to my emotions just because you feel you should be more important than you are.

No. It is not a pissing contest. The fact that you would call it that just proves how completely self centered and detached your community is from ours.

-M

When Did Witchcraft Become a Contest?

Reviews & Articles, The Humonculous

Modern Paganism: Consciously Forgetting the Past?

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Recently, I was involved in a discussion in a pagan group about the ambiguous nature of how modern pagans identify themselves, and their, seemingly, complete disinterest in their historic roots or traditions. Specifically, modern “Druids” and those who claim Celtic Paganism, but practice a naturalistic or animistic path and make no mind or matter of the Celtic Pantheon. And though, unfortunately, the person who started this discussion, that brewed into an all out protest, turned out to be entirely misguided, arrogant and disrespectful, I couldn’t help but identify with the sentiments of his original posting.

It is no secret that I often feel alienated from the greater pagan community. Just today I read a poll about online pagan connections vs. real life interactions, and it is a sad realization that I have neither of these. I communicate plenty, but no more than an exchange of a certain topic, and then we both (or however many are involved) move on with our lives. I don’t actually have any Pagan friends or associates.

Too many times, I do not fit inside the neat little package of whatever is expected, and so I smile, and move on leaving those connections undone, and it is, for the most part, because of the Modern Pagan ideology. It can be seen all over the online pagan community, from places like The Wild Hunt, Witches & Pagans, and even sadly the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids – druidry, in its essence, has been boiled down to nothing more than a nature based spiritualism, and speaks nothing of the true nature of the practice.

Druidry, itself, began as an Irish practice, the word Druid itself  derivative from the irish word druí. The art and practice of the druid, of course, spread and could be found all over the celtic worlds – but where are these roots in the modern practice? There is no mention, whatsoever, of its Irish heritage, or any celtic influence whatsoever. They completely ignore the religious side of the practice, removing celtic spirituality, and relate it to nothing more than arts, creativity and a oneness with nature. All of which are well and good in their own rites, but where are the deities? Where is the pantheon? Where is the Leabhar Gabhala, the Mabinogi?

Even if one does not associate themselves as a Druid specifically, the same notion can be seen all over modern “celtic” paganism – which has become practically indiscriminate from Wicca. I see so many practicing “Celts” name praise to a Roman or even Hindu Goddess, raise up Egyptian iconology, invoke the strength of Viking, Shamanistic or even Native American spirits and deities, and yet keep a strangely absent figure of the pinnacle deities of the Tuatha De Danann – or even Danu herself, and the convenient lack of ANY God or male figure whatsoever, save in a few remarks in a highly sexualized consort, making any figure out to be a supplicant and lesser to the Goddess figure, not the equal that balanced the coupling that was so important – not only in a matter of divinity, but as an entire concept – to the celts as a cultural whole.

More than once I have come across those who do not know the tales of the Tuatha de Danann, let alone know the significance they hold to the nature of magic and spiritualism, as well as the arts and sciences in the mythos and canon. Too often I have come across those who have never read the Mabinogion, do not know the difference between Irish or Welsh. Where is the education? Where is the pride in your culture? Where is the faith? How can you call yourself a Celt, but know nothing of their culture and abandon their practices?

Have we reached a turning page in Neo-Paganism where we simply reinvent and redefine instead of making the effort to connect, and learn from our ancestors and our past? Do we really take such freedoms for granted, and take such free-reign liberties and entitlements with our faith that we feel we can just make up whatever we want?

It is a sad, and hurtful thought for someone like me who lives and breathes her Irish blood. Who is so closely connected to those deities of the past, and whose culture defines and shapes her everyday life. Where are we to fall, in this new-wave paganism? Where we do not fit in the past era of reconstructionism, but do neither do we frolic freely with culture appropriations of new-age spirituality. And what future do our ancestral roots hope to gain when they are so easily abandoned and ignored?

 

The Humonculous

It’s Beltane…and it’s not what you think.

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The obligatory Beltane / May-Day post.

Well wishes, happy harvests, and bountiful blessings for everyone this season – as it should be (or hoped to be) every season.

But, I can’t say that it is a warmly welcomed season so far. Every holiday / harvest day / celebration that comes around – I am bombarded with article after article and post after post from pagan communities, blogs and centers from all over blaring out, and sharing, and reposting on histories and traditions…….that just aren’t true. Or misconstrued, greatly.  And it’s disheartening. 

Now, if you are a Neo-Pagan, and you follow these modernized traditions – then you go for it.  BUT, when we are discussing histories and traditional ideology of where the celebration is rooted – that’s a much different discussion than simply talking about personal practices or customs. 

I’m sure you’ve all heard all the discussion of the sexual prowess of Beltane, and the Great Rite, and the copulation of the God and Goddess and the marrying of the Land and great orgies by bonfires for the sake of fertility.

And frankly, in my own opinion – that is all blasphemy. And insulting.

Beltane is a harvest festival. That is all. It is the celebration of the bounty of Spring, and welcomes Summer. Traditionally, it marked the “beginning of summer” and was a time that they would reap harvest, turn fields, begin the breeding season of certain livestock, and send the cattle out to pasture, and hope / pray for the fertility and ripeness of the land. 

As a celebration of summer, and the over-turning of the seasons, it was thought to be one of the pinnacle points of the year when the spirits were most active, and the veils between worlds was the thinnest – allowing the influence of the gods / spirits to be at a peak. They would make offerings to the gods for their blessings for the upcoming season, and they would perform special rites to purify and protect their livestock, land, and even the people themselves. 

It’s basis was centered around a sense of renewal, blessings, optimism and hope. Not a sex fest as modernism seems to have turned it into.  And yes, arguably – you can say that the idea of the rebirth of the land, and it’s heavy focus on fertility *could* be interpreted in a sexual and symbolic manner. Yes. That could be argued – but that interpretation and ideology has developed over the modern era, and was not *traditionally* what Beltane was about at all. 

Beltane is rooted in Celtic Ireland, and can be read about in some of the oldest, most influential Irish mythos – and has been well documented throughout the medieval era all over Celtic Europe.

We, of course, don’t know everything, in every detail about the very first traditions and customs of those first Beltane rites – but the fact that they had survived for so many centuries, and had been documented by many different cultures throughout the region leads us to a pretty clear picture of what exactly this Season, and celebration, meant to them. And to imply otherwise, or to perpetuate wrong-information as fact – or to state that modern interpretations and rituals as “traditional” is ignorant, and doing a disservice to the culture – regardless of if you try to walk a traditional path, or modern one. 

There is a reason why we are often looked at in society today as being little more than a bunch of free-lovin-hippy-cult-revival of over-sexualized debauchery – or why certain circumstances of criminal acts seem to be so scrutinized, and impactful to our community – because the community continues to influence the idea that our culture, and history, is rooted in nothing more than a prominent sexual overtone. Which is a very shallow, cut-and-dry image to paint to a culture that has so many depths and histories within it. 

We are much more than a Sex-cult. So on these days, lets try to share some of the proud, deep rooted histories of our people and customs so that others may see a different, and hopefully insightful, side to the people we really are.