Second step post

Posted on June 17, 2013 by

I’ve written a new blog post for Witches & Pagans.  What’s up with that whole “power greater than ourselves” thing anyway? Check it out!

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Love and Tolerance of Others is our Code

Posted on June 10, 2013 by

I have a new post on my blog at Witches and Pagans.

It is about the latest epic drama to engulf the Pagan blogosphere.

Love and Tolerance of Others is Our Code

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Shadow Work

Posted on June 7, 2013 by

Things have been quiet around here but it hasn’t been for a lack of action and development in my spiritual program. Since the last time I wrote I have been to no less than four magical workshops. Two were full weekends, one was two days, and the final was a short half-day. Three of them were expressly Reclaiming-based, and the fourth was taught by a former Reclaiming/Feri priestess who now has her own mystery school.

These experiences have taken me deep into the realms of my own shadows. The painful realization is this; I have never once done an honest sex inventory on my Fourth step. Not because I haven’t tried, or wanted to do so. Simply because I haven’t been ABLE to. I have not had enough comfort and integration with my shadows.

I’ve walked through these shadows before, in therapy and through the Twelve Steps. But never have I walked through them with magic, through the use of ritual, trance, somatic work, divination, art, meditation, and chanting. It has lifted the veil into a whole new level of wounding that had not been touched by my previous efforts at healing. Starhawk and so many others talk about the three-part soul. I think my Talking Self was mostly healed by many years in therapy and through the Twelve Steps, but I am uncovering this whole area of hurt at the level of Younger Self that is still raw and desperate and powering me from a place I wasn’t even aware of. And the Younger Self is the connection to the God-Self, so what does that say?

There is much to do but one of the challenges is also to stop drilling through my pain like it is an obstacle on the path to Nirvana. I have to sit with it and honor it, listen to what it whispers, be open to the lessons and mystery it has for it. This is all HAPPENING because I refused to integrate this and shoved it aside. I cannot heal it while taking the same approach that it is too dangerous to even look at or touch.

I wish for myself a slow healing. So mote it be!

Don’t forget to like me on Facebook!

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New Post on Witches and Pagans

Posted on June 6, 2013 by

Please click over to Witches and Pagans and read my new blog post on Powerlessness and the First Step!

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The push and pull of Home

Posted on April 19, 2013 by

Home.

What a loaded word, for so many people. Especially for those of us whose home lives were shot through with the pains and tragedies caused by alcoholism and drug addiction or other compulsive behaviors. My concept of home was a dangerous one through the fault of three alcoholics. The first was my father, who brought violence into my life as a child. The second was my mother, who filled my nights with uncertainty as she drank glass after glass during my adolescence. And the third was me, who hit my bottom one summer in my hometown, filling that place with anxiety and bad memories that required many years of forgetting.

Newly sober, I would creep into my hometown on occasions I could not avoid with my head ducked down and my eyes warily scanning the landscape. I was terrified of running into someone who had been part of my meltdown that summer. Someone who would claim to know a “me” that I was desperately rejecting and trying to cast off. What was most terrifying were the things I didn’t know I had done—I was a blackout drinker, and so never really knew who I had met, what I told them, and where we had gone.

So, even though I have grown more comfortable with it over the years, and the fact that it is considered a “destination” by manner, I still resist the pleas to come visit. My husband suggests we spend more time down there and I wrinkle my nose and dither. I might make it down there three or four times a year-kind of ridiculous considering it is a beach town, only three hours away, and a place many people would be thrilled to have a free place to stay!

But this place, though absent from my life, is everywhere in my magic. I can’t get away from it. It is where I find myself entering the underworld in Shamanic journeys. It is where I am taken in dream trances. When someone asks me how I became a witch, I know it is on this land that I found my Gods. I grew up on a large tract of land on a Bay. As a young child this is where I searched everywhere for the hidden portal into the “Other” world. This is the specific marsh where I dragged an empty brass pot into a hidden spot in the reeds and began to do well magic. This is the lake where I once buried a box containing a photograph, a letter, and salt in my first banishing/binding spell. This lawn is where I would stand under the bright light of the mood and first raise my arms to the sky and feel that sense of holy power and love descend upon me.

I was taken to this place in a trance last week. I had shape shifted into a crow and felt drawn to eat of the crabs, worms and other creatures that dwelt in the mud. Again I shape shifted, this time into a younger version of myself, a fierce, worldless child that existed before I began abusing substances but after the great shattering that would lead me to them. Not speaking, she slowly covered her body in the dark, smelly and tarlike mud from the marsh, until her entire body was black, and you could only see the whites of her eyes staring out from the darkness. It felt like a baptism, or a call to baptism, it felt like a fierce assertion of my fetch that this place, this land is holy and needs my attention, needs my power. As I need it.

What place do you need? Do you feel called Home? Is there a push/pull?

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Galactic Energy

Posted on April 5, 2013 by

The first time I was led in a grounding and centered by a Reclaiming Witch, the top of my head felt like it blew wide open.

I had done many of these exercises on my own-and struggled. I had struggled to send my roots deep down into the earth. I had struggled to feel truly, deeply connected. I felt like I could easily float away. It was a very frustrating feeling for me. I wanted to feel bonded and connected to the earth, but I struggled to make connections “downward”.

The first time I was led, she took us downwards. She ran us through the traditional litany I was familiar with-sink into the earth, through the soles of your feet. Feel those roots go into the earth, through the soil, through the bedrock. Around obstacles like rocks, through where the earth is hard, through where the earth is soft. Down to where the Earth begins to feel warm, down to where the earth is liquid and molten. And draw that energy up, breathe it up with each breath, through those roots, until it reaches your feet. And then breathe it up into your calves, into your knees, into your thighs. With a deep breath bring it into your belly, let that warm earth energy meet the fire that burns in your belly always, let it rekindle that fire, and breathe it up still further, into your chest, into your throat, and into your head, let it touch your third eye, and feel the energy of the warm earth flowing through you, connecting you to the center of the warm earth.

This is where I stop.

But she kept going.

Now let that energy burst out of the crown of your head.
Let it stream into the sky and begin to reach towards the distant light of the stars.
Reach towards the stars, towards the far reaches of the solar system.
Begin to drawn down that cool cosmic energy. Bring down the cold, star energy. Draw it down, draw it down into the crown of your head, into your body, feel it fill your head and touch your third eye. Breathe it into your throat, into your chest. Feel that cool energy fill you with the dark lushness night set against the ferocious glow of the stars. Breathe it into your belly, and feel that cool energy of the galaxy meet the warm energy of the earth, feel it coil together at your center, and know that this power is always here, waiting for you.

Holy shit.

I am a channel between earth and sky. I am a conduit for energy between the two. This is why I felt so uncomfortable before—I was only opening one valve.

When this witch showed me to open the second, the feeling was extremely powerful.  My head buzzed with a clear, fine high vibration. A tight band I hadn’t realized was there had been removed from around my forehead. My mind no longer felt like it was confined to the space of my brain, but was instead able to expand and extend several inches up and around my head.

I feel very connected to cosmic, galactic energy. I feel very drawn to the stars, and the idea of immense space and infinite possibility. The creator goddess in Feri Witchcraft, from which Reclaiming was born, is the Star Goddess. She is not Mother Earth, she is not Gaia. I spoke with a Reclaiming Witch a few weekends ago who told me that she sometimes struggles with even considering Reclaiming and Feri as “nature” or “earth” religions, because she feels so strongly they are linked to the energy of space and the cosmos as much as and maybe even more than they are of Earth.

I’ll reserve my judgment on that, as five months spent studying and celebrating in the Reclaiming tradition doesn’t really give me a solid foundation on which to make a statement like that, but I certainly relate to her feelings.

This experience is evidence to me of how important working with others can be. I don’t know that I’d have made this connection and understood that there can be a powerful connection to be made with the energy of the cosmos all on my own. I doubt I would have.

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On Having No Baggage

Posted on April 4, 2013 by

I have no baggage.
Jesus was never thrust on me, unwilling. In fact, we had a great experience together, once, at a youth group skiing trip for over-privileged private school kids. He was totally buddy Christ, hippie Jesus, Socialist Jesus, Ragamuffin Gospel Jesus. I was there because my best friend was there; she was there because a guy she had a crush on was there. She ignored me the whole time, so I paid attention during the nightly sermon and singing. I had already begun to identify as a Witch by this time, but there was nothing about my claiming of this title that was about a rejection of anything else. It was simply an affirmation. And so getting swept up in the romance and energy of the story of Jesus’s sacrifice was very easy for me, that week at an isolated ski lodge. I felt something dawn inside of me that was natural and so I reached out and accepted it.

I think I identified as a Christian for a few months after that. I remember sitting in front of what had been my altar, making the sign of the cross in the air trying to banish the sign of the pentacle that a coven-sister had traced there with words indicating it would hang there forever. But slowly I returned to my Pagan ways, called by a deep connection to the land on which I lived, the many bays that surrounded me….Isle of Wight, Assawoman, Sinepuxent, and of course, the Great Chesapeake. Growing up in the Coastal Bays Watershed, what chance did I have to not be a witch? I grew up on 40 acres on the Bay. Nature’s glory at my doorstep. Of course this happened. Blame my parents.

Leaving Jesus behind (on friendly terms) was no struggle. My parents were not ardent Christians. I barely remember going to Church except for Easter and Christmas. My parents split when I was 9, so regular Sunday church-going where we met my paternal grandparents ceased after that. I have some fuzzy memories of Sunday School but not many. So, like I said, no baggage. When my mom found out I was practicing witchcraft, she wasn’t upset about me going to hell. She was more worried about me embarrassing her (because the snooty school I went to knew all about it and we were in trouble!) and getting involved with dangerous people. So I had to hide it, but not for long.

I tell all this to reveal that I am unprepared to understand the baggage that many Pagans bring with them when they step into Paganism. And furthermore, I am unprepared to understand the baggage that many Pagans bring with them when they step into 12 step recovery. I was about to be in ritual last night with several people, and I jokingly said something about being inspired by “the Holy Spirit”. Several people in the room recoiled visibly. They explicitly reject that language as it is so strongly tied to something they were forced to endure. Whereas for me, it is a concept that can be owned by a Witch just as much as it can be owned by a Christian.

The same disconnect exists for me in 12 Step Recovery. When I discovered that some Pagans used rewritten versions of the Twelve Steps, I was disconcerted. It really bothered me. “Just another example of an alcoholic thinking they are unique precious snowflakes who can’t do it the way everyone else did it,” I thought. But I have to look beyond that initial response and question where my blind spots are. I have no trouble in a meeting where people say “He” when referencing their higher power. Damn, I first joined 12 step recovery in Ohio where people said “Jesus” and I was ok with it. I guess I fundamentally took the whole “God as you understand it” part to heart. I’ve never felt like anyone judged me for speaking my truth about my own conception of a higher power, and no one has ever challenged me or told me mine was wrong. But other people are coming to these meetings with years of struggle, years of being treated as different, years of being told, “What you believe is wrong.” Does that fall firmly under the heading, ”Their shit”? Sure it does. But if it gets in the way of their recovery, then it is a problem. And maybe then, it makes sense for someone to have written alternative steps.

When I look at the “Spiral Steps”, the issues that Pagans seem to struggle with become clear. There is no admission of powerlessness. The reliance on a higher power to restore the addict to insanity is replaced by a vague belief in “hope for healing”. The decision to turn the will and life over to the care of God is supplanted by an honoring of the connection with the divine and an acceptance of the process of change. The sixth and seventh step, where traditionally the addict and alcoholic prepares and then asks their higher power to remove their character defects is replaced by a willingness to seek a higher good, and a letting go of dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors.

Where my Twelve Step alarm bells start ringing is that the complete and total removal of a reliance on a higher power. This is Twelve Step Recovery 101. You tried to do it on your own, you failed. Now, do it God’s way. I understand why this is problematic with Witches, who have learned to do deep inner work, move energy, and be frankly powerful agents of change. To suddenly surrender so much agency, will, and sovereignty seems to go against everything they have been working towards. Why would they ask their Higher Power to remove their defects when they can do it themselves through ritual or kala? Why would they surrender their will when their will is holy?

I can sympathize with this because I am coming at it from the other direction. After not being active in Witchcraft for several years, and very active in Recovery, I have struggled with being more assertive, more willful, and more proud. I am currently working the Iron Pentacle through Thorn Coyle’s Fiat Lux program and each point seems to be a real struggle as I break down my initial, recovery oriented reaction to it. Pride? Power? Self? Oh my.

I know there is somewhere in between these things. I know, because I am finding it. I have found fulfillment in the Pride point on the Iron Pentacle and I am still working my third step. I am beginning to use words like claim, own, birthright and will and am understanding them in a way that is informed by my recovery and by my witchcraft. I am finding the alchemy that happens when these worlds are brought together in a place of love and curiosity. The authors of the Big Book spoke of a “Broad Highway” and I think this is where I am currently walking. In future posts I hope to explore some of these particular sticking points-like will- more closely.

I know there is somewhere in between these things.  I know, because I am finding it.  I have found fulfillment in the Pride point on the Iron Pentacle and I am still working my third step. I am beginning to use words like claim, own, birthright and will and am understanding them in a way that is informed by my recovery and by my witchcraft.  I am finding the alchemy that happens when these worlds are brought together in a place of love and curiosity.  The authors of the Big Book spoke of a “Broad Highway” and I think this is where I am currently walking. In future posts I hope to explore some of these particular sticking points-like will- more closely.

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