Month: April 2015

It’s getting to be that time of year again, the time when I’m super pumped to go to SpiralHeartWitchcamp.

My first SpiralHeart camp was last year – I had been to one other Reclaiming witchcamp ages ago, and had done a lot of larger group rituals at Diana’s Grove, but I had never been to a “camper led camp” before, and had no idea what to expect. I wondered if it would be like the witchcamp I had been to before, a camp that used a traditional Reclaiming teaching team model. In 95% of the ways it could have been different, it was the same – just as moving, just as magical, just as full of love and trust and challenge. For that other 5%, it was different – more like my experiences at Diana’s Grove.

I love that SpiralHeart supports everyone being involved, testing their skills, trying on new roles…

Vinicius de Moraes Saravá,
Gedichte und Lieder,
Serie Piper, 1989

It will be like this, dear friend — one day
we’ll be watching the sunset
when we suddenly feel on our faces
a light kiss of cold air.

You’ll look at me silently
and I’ll do the same,  remembering….
then dazzled with poetry, we’ll pass through
the door open before us, to the darkness.

Crossing the border of the Secret
I will softly say, “Don’t be afraid”
And you will say, “Be strong”.

And like two ancient lovers
mournfully entwined in the night
together we’ll enter the gardens of death.

What would you do if a Pagan was being murdered by the police once a month? What about once a week? What about more frequently than that? What if a bunch of Pagans in some cities started protesting, but nobody else cared? What if a riot broke out? Would you stand there blaming those Pagans for being too violent?

Galina Krasskova has a new post addressing the problem of disrespecting the gods with our choices of how to describe Them.

I agree with Galina that calling the gods – or anyone – “petty” and “whiny” is diminishing, and that’s disrespectful. There are much more appropriate ways to describe whatever behavior was being observed that don’t include those kinds of inappropriate judgements. As do many polytheists, I’m sure, I often find myself offended when academic and religious writers write about our gods as if They are merely human characters in old novels, and not even terribly mature characters for that matter.

I understand that many ancient writers effectively used their pantheons of gods as a set of stock characters for storytelling about human issues, and that’s fine as far as it goes, but when modern writers derive their understanding of the historical gods only from those dramas without any consideration…