To Pray or Meditate

It seems to us that people pray too much. All they're doing is asking some unknown deity / juju to help them with a mundane problem--not a spiritual problem but a mundane one. It reminds us of the sticky-faced kid sitting on Santa's lap in the mall concourse asking for expensive Christmas presents. Meditation, on the other hand, is listening, both to your inner self and for spiritual guidance in your problems.

In days gone by when Grandpa followed the plow and Mother did the laundry by hand on a scrubboard, they spent time with their hands busy and their minds open to receive information. This is the ideal of meditation. You have probably heard that you must sit in a certain fashion with a white robe of unbleached fabric and say certain mantras or yantras to release the mind from daily cares. Most of this is pure blah-blah (for want of a ruder term) window dressing. Yes, we teach meditation; but it is extremely elementary and certainly free from esoteric hoodoo. The only thing that sometimes worries us is that people do not do any protective measures, just to be sure that no naughty occult practitioner is playing games and sending bad vibes or entities against you ... and knows enough about such things to be effective. ("Psychic attack! Psychic attack! Squawk! I'm under psychic attack! Oh gasp.")

But once you have established a connection with the Beyond, connecting to the entity we call a Guide, such protective measures become less essential. All you need to do is sit down quietly and wait for answers to come to the questions you may have. We recommend doing it always at the same time every day, when the sun is below the horizon. We also recommend that you take a drink of red wine and perhaps eat a piece of dark chocolate to adjust your endorphines so that your body will be more relaxed. Another way of relaxing the body, of course, is to have a good strong orgasm a few moments before going into meditation. Perhaps you might want to think of meditation and prayer as the two sides of a coin. The prayer is the asking; meditation is the receiving. What is the good of asking if you never bother to wait and listen for a reply?

Everyone Get Up and Come

It's time to get Gavin out of the house and back onto the road ... after fourteen months of dealing with old back injuries and the health insults resulting therefrom. Sitting around in pain is no fun, and traveling probably won't be any day at the beach either. However, we're going to try.

The first trip we foresee is to a dual festival: one site, two events back to back. The festivals? Sirius Rising and SummerFest at Brushwood Folklore Center near Sherman, New York, just east of Erie PA. This is a wonderful site of over 400 acres that will hold up to 1,000 happy campers and Witches and pagans, not to mention others of diverse spiritualities. Large parts of the grounds are clothing-optional. There will be excellent lectures, of which Gavin and Yvonne (probably attired) will give eight (8).

And you are invited to come and meet with them, because seriously: this may be the last time they'll be traveling. On the other hand, we hope it is the first time of a new series of travels, though this, candidly, we doubt. All that is in the hands of the Elder Ones.

What can we say? Sirius Rising kicks off on July 16; SummerFest begins on July 23. If you stay through SummerFest it will end on July 29. Find details of the whole thing at

Brushwood.com

We recommend that you book early--and arrive early too so you can claim a good campsite, either in the woods or on the field. Of course there will be hundreds of vendors there as well, selling everything from clothing to mead, from sculpture to violins and books. We expect everyone to have a wonderful time.

Accepting all Pantheons or None

When we first put together our course on Witchcraft in 1968, we recommended that students of the course select a pantheon of deities relevant to their individual background. Many modern Witches choose to revere the various Celtic gods and goddesses; other Witches choose other pantheons. We have also recommended that people who are into Christianity can use Father/Son/Holy Ghost or Mary as their pantheon. A surprising number of circles use Mary. It is simply amazing to realize that over 90 percent of the churches and cathedrals of old Europe are dedicated to her. Open-minded theologians surmise that Mary is just the most recent name for the Mother who has been worshiped for untold centuries--She of many, many names.

In the cultural matrix where we westerners find ourselves, Christianity is the default religion. Still today many people don't dream that another system exists with a whole other nomenclature.
Within the modern Witch/pagan subculture there is a high resistance to use of the Christian pantheon in rituals. Can we not accept these people as true seekers, even though they use the default nomenclature--and can we perhaps also accept Witches who have a view of the world slightly different from our own? In general they are just as eco-friendly as any modern Witch. It is only when they are attacked on the truthfulness of their holy book that they distinguish themselves from the Witches, who in general are willing to discuss and perhaps compare their pantheons and ways of worship.
It is this very closed-mindedness that separates many Witches from the mainstream. Guys and gals, we wish you'd give it up. The problem, you see, is that when anyone defends a specific pantheon and excludes all other possibilities, they become divisive. We find many modern Witches are equally divisive in the defense of their own specific pantheon. Can we not take what is good from everybody's practice and if we like it use it, disregarding the parts that we don't like? Your pantheon is necessarily as personal as your toothbrush. That fact can (and should) go a long way toward smoothing out jealous differences.
Remember that, after all, some of us have little or no use for named pantheons of deities. Such pantheons are merely the names of tribal heroes and heroines that have been passed down to us. Yes, you can call on the great goddess Gaea to help with your growing crops; but equally you can get out into the yard and put up a hex sign that might encourage the plants themselves to grow. Or you can do a chant with the same intent in mind. Such an act need involve no third party at all.
In India for centuries this acceptance of the good and rejection of things which are not liked by a specific group has worked successfully. You can go to festivals that honor many different gods and goddesses--yes, including even the Christian pantheon--and everybody gets along happily. We, Gavin and Yvonne, know full well that many people totally reject our own magical practice and the precepts that we espouse--yet thousands of others find within them truth and strength.

Tell us, dear Reader, either how we can improve our ways or how we can convince others that we are not dogmatic divisive dictators.



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Not in your DNA

One of the most frequently asked questions we get at the School, whether from Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or Muslims, is whether people of other religions can be Wiccan. The simplistic answer is "no". Someone who is an active practitioner in the precepts of Christianity and its avatar Jesus, for example, will have difficulty in adjusting to a system of multiple gods and goddesses. Ruthlessly simplified, this might be expressed as either/or. If you are a classic Hindu, you might be able to adjust more easily because in Hinduism revering multiple different deities is not only accepted; it is approved. Unfortunately, in recent years much of Hinduism has become mired in the same monotheistic thinking and petrified mindset that we find in Christianity and in Islam.
Thus within Hinduism, for example, we are now finding groups of Shivites who firmly believe that Shiva is the one and only true god. Conversely, we are finding that out there in the big wide world many people who profess themselves to be Christian are willing to discuss the idea that perhaps there are other god and goddess forces working in the world "outside Christ".
For many years we have deliberately avoided accepting those people who, it seemed to us, were too rigid in their theology to make good Wiccans. Not only in their theology, we hasten to add, but also in their lifestyle. All too often a rigid philosophy leads to a rigid attitude to life. This means that many people cannot enjoy the many-splendored thing we call life without feeling guilty or without rejecting happiness and pleasure as "sins" of the flesh. Of course you can examine (for example) Wicca without ever practicing it, as you might study high-school cheerleaders without ever leading a cheer.
Let us now imagine someone who gives lip service to a religion other than Wicca but who in fact is more than willing to revere many different gods and goddesses and willing to enjoy the pleasures that life offers them without feeling sinful. We believe now is the time for us to appeal to this huge volume of people who are searching. They are not going to throw off the shackles of the default religion inflicted on them during their early training until they realize that over the horizon there is something vastly better available to them, available just for the taking.
The Church and School of Wicca offers such an alternative path. If you are not rigidly committed to a single god or goddess concept, and can make your own moral/ethical judgments, it is time for you to think about investigating Wicca. Certainly without any danger you can investigate it. It's not contagious. As a federal judge declared, it is a genuine religion deserving of all the rights and duties of any other religion.
Despite all the wonderful research being done on DNA, no one has yet found a gene for Hinduism, for Christianity, for Islam, or for any other religion. All of the above are (for want of a better word) culturally inflicted.

Mountaimtop Removal

It's 10 p.m. and the stars are out, and we're just about ready to meditate again. It's another beautiful night in beautiful West Virginia. I hear the train whistle that sounds about the same time every evening and several times during the night, signaling that another 100,000 tons of West Virginia mountaintop coal is being shipped to Norfolk, Virginia, for an overseas destination to power either European or Chinese steel-making plants. For the West Virginia coal being exported is of high quality: it is called mechanic quality, so pure that it is bid for around the world.
This afternoon we drove to our local state park, where we like to swim. Right now the countryside is purely beautiful. Spring has sprung and everything is green and lush. The deer have retired to the forest to hide out until winter; yet we can imagine them cropping the grass. We are truly fortunate in that we live in a part of the state which is based on limestone, so we don't have to fear the endangerment of our local streams with coal-mine fill (the "overburden") and we don't have to worry about monster machines stripping away the beauty and turning the local area into a moonscape--such a moonscape as we can see only 20 miles away over the mountain in the next county to the west.
When you hear someone urging support for the EPA and protection of our landscape, come here and see within an hour's drive what happens when the EPA's regulations are flouted and the coal companies bribe state and local officials to allow mountain-top removal.
The resulting pollution of air and water is creating tumors and fatal illnesses not just in the deer and the birds and the fish; human beings are falling prey to toxins released into the environment in the interest of coal-company profits. Those profits amount to sums that can buy nearly any elected official and any judge. Proud to be tax-payers? You bet we are.

Nation in crisis

Okay. So this nation's elected President has said he favors same-sex marriage. Oh, the spasms of squealing and gasping and sanctimonious whining at the thought! Oh, the posturing and the elbowing for camera angle, each poseur claiming, "I'm more outraged than he is! Vote for me, and I'll turn the U.S. into a theocracy for sure!"
What the heck, people? Optional is not mandatory. If there's a pizza restaurant out at the edge of town, and you don't like pizza, don't patronize the place. How complicated is that?
If you don't think same-sex marriage is a good idea, don't enter into one. If you think this nation is going straight to hell for having SSM available, tell it to your god. Sure, the nation is going to hell--but not because of SSM. Just look at what Congress is doing and has done; then make sure your passport is up to date.
Do you remember from your study of the Revolutionary War the anger summarized in the phrase.
                                                      Taxation without representation

It kicked off the Boston Tea Party and the revolution itself.

So today, if gay people pay taxes, surely they deserve the same freedom of choice, the same representation as the "straights" do ... or am I wrong?

How Might a Rational, Responsible Adult Behave?

In all the to-ing and fro-ing and hanky-twisting over Obamacare and related topics ("Who's going to pay for what?" "Where's the money going to come from?") there's a deafening silence on the single topic that nobody--nobody--dares address; to wit,

"What are the responsibilities of the ultimate benefactee--the patient?"

I see people stuffing their faces--voluntarily, mind you--with all manner of toxic edibles and high-fructose corn syrup and factory meats, on the arrogant assumption that might be expressed this way:

"I'm entitled. I'm entitled to gorge my gut with these alleged foodstuffs. I'm entitled to break all my bones repeatedly in daredevil ‘sports'. I'm entitled to stay up all night in mindless partying. I'm entitled to abuse the body in all its parts in every way I can think of, thumbing my nose at sensible behavior, debauching it in a quest to contract the venereal disease du jour, disregarding every known fact about sensible, health-promoting nutrition. And I'm entitled to do all this at somebody else's expense. Then once I'm healed, I'm entitled to walk out the door of the hospital and start the same kind of behavior all over again."

In all the millions and billions and trillions of dollars pouring down the drain for medical care, I'm fool enough to believe that I bear some microscopic responsibility for my own state of health; that I owe it to myself and to the generations of my descendants who will still be paying for my recklessness in health matters to behave in an adult and responsible manner with regard to my health. Am I all alone here? Does any other being feel as I do: that we have a share in our own health outcomes? Let me hear from you.

Blessed Be. Yvonne