EDIT : Credit for the questions goes to Miss Aine of The Deepest Well @ http://deepestwell.blogspot.com/
Since having an anxiety attack has prompted me into blogging again, I've been trying to catch up on the blogs I follow. I started with a lady I consider a Bloggy Godmother, and even though I've barely scratched the surface of all I've missed on her blog, I came across a bit that sort of stuck out and hit home.
Are you a Witch or Wiccan?
Do you belong to a group/coven or are you solitary?
Do you abide by The Rede or oany other Rule in your practice?
Does your belief system include a deity or deities? If so, explain who they are, your relationship with them.
Does your path include magical practices?
Do you/how do you celebrate seasonal changes/Sabbats/Wheel of the Year
Do you agree with the statement "All Wiccans are Witches, but not all Witches are Wiccan" ?
Do you believe that Witchcraft is a religion?
I'd like to answer some of those questions, or at least take a crack at them, but I'm frustrated by the words that I do not have. I find myself going around in circles around words that don't explain much. Suddenly an aversion to labels renders me mute. How can you identify something without words that label it? But how can you label something too grand to put in a jar?
Am I a witch? I don't know. Who decides if I am? Do I? What is a witch? If I come from a people that can make the sun come out and answer to them, am I a witch? And if my son can make the rain fall down, does that make me a witch? And if I can dream the future?
When does the strawberry become jam? Is it in the pot or in the jar? Does the secret lie in the mashing, or is it only jam when it has finished? Is a human being ever finished? I don't think so. I think death is our end as humans. I'm not done growing and learning and transforming until then. Then I have become the jam, I suppose.
Am I solitary? More solitary than most can know. So alone it isn't funny, but I belong to a people if I am not with them. I belong to them, even if they do not embrace me like I long to embrace them.
Maybe, like Aine, my winter has just become too long. I'm ready for life again, for picnics in the park and running the soccer fields with Bratexander the Great. I'm reaching for a life that I feel people are trying to tie up and take away. I don't do well in cages. I'm not an animal meant for them, if there are even any that are.
No, to the Rede. As for rules.. I think all things work by them. I must as well, even if I do not know them.
As for the rest.. I want to answer, I may even come back to them.. but I just don't have answers in me right now. It all comes back to language. What is magic? If my mother can scare disease from your eye is that magic? What is a deity? When my orphan child of a mother looked out on the mountains covered in flowers that no one had planted she knew that something bigger than herself was at work and calling to her, but she didn't call that thing God. At least not right away. Sometimes it seems like God is just a word. A name. It is a thing, like I am a thing, like all things are things.
-Angelwick
Bloggy Godmother!! YAY! I love the addition to my title collection. Some are not nearly as nice....
ReplyDeleteAs for the definition of Witch, well - I guess it depends on who you ask and what time period you are living in. Back in the day you were given the witch title for creating herbal remedies and delivering babies. (oh, and if the neighbors cow stopped producing milk.) Today the title often needs to come with a certificate (my personal pet peeve as you probably know.)
I have a personal definition - I think it's written somewhere in my blog but I am going to go out on a limb here and say something that usually gets me into trouble. A witch practices magic. Does it matter what kind? No. Somewhere recently I read (sorry forget where) that the difference between a witch and a magician is that a magician uses science and a witch uses magic.I think they both use magic, only one form can be explained scientifically and the other cannot (yet.) Anyway I know there are many people out there who call themselves witches and do not practice magic at all.
Anyway, these are hard questions really and it has taken me years to have answers that haven't come from a book, but from my own experience. That's why everyone's answers will be different and should be.
Oh yes ma'am. You've been a bloggy godmother for some time now. Your words are often a guide for me and mine, your wisdom always appreciated.
ReplyDeleteYou know.. I meant to put a link up and give you credit for the questions and it sort of slipped my mind as I've been plenty addle brained lately. I'll be sure and go back and edit those in.
I tried to answer the questions as honestly as I could. Which means a lot of my confusion shone through. It also means that some of them got answered with more questions. Right now since I'm in the middle of many many many health problems, I've hit that alcie 12 step area of the process. I'm questioning everything.
It always does cheer me up to think on your personal definitions of witches and magic Miss Aine. Mostly, because you'd consider my mother a witch and that just tickles me pink for no reason at all.
In other news.. How are you? How is all in your realm?