{"id":1396,"date":"2013-07-02T14:46:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-02T21:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/myownashram.com\/?p=1396"},"modified":"2013-07-02T14:46:36","modified_gmt":"2013-07-02T21:46:36","slug":"1396","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/awitchsashram\/2013\/07\/02\/1396\/","title":{"rendered":"Haters Gonna Hate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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Yesterday a young, dynamic, new friend of mine posted on his blog that he was done with witchcraft. Definitively and decidedly done. His post is down now, so I won\u2019t bother to link to it. It was a problematic post in many ways, hurtful to his allies and dismissive of his own considerable talents. Yet there were some hard truths about the witchcraft \u2018community\u2019 in his post, some of which I want to address here, because he is not the first, and certainly won\u2019t be the last, to struggle with not feeling potent enough, talented enough or magical enough.<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>I have struggled with my place in witchcraft for many years. In fact, I am not a natural joiner and generally feel like the odd one out no matter where I am. Over the years I\u2019ve realized part of this is cultivated, as an act of self-protection. For a long time I was too Christian for the Pagans and too Pagan for the Christians. For the style of witchcraft I practice I tend to think I\u2019m too happy, too \u2018normal.\u2019 I don\u2019t wear enough black or pentacles or go to Renn faires. Other than children, I can\u2019t grow things at all. I wear jeans most of time, I listen to cheesy pop music and opera, and I watch a lot of cartoons with my kids. It\u2019s not a Dark Pagan Life most days. It\u2019s silly to get hung up on external trappings, but it\u2019s so easy to do.<\/div>\n
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\"Albrecht<\/a>
Albrecht Durer\u2019s Four Witches, also known as Vier Hexen, 1497.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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And then there are the doubts of magical efficacy, or growing understanding and connection to whatever spirits or gods we choose to work with. Feeling as though we have power in this world and can create change in our lives according to our will is, in my experience, an important part of the magical life. Sometimes it feels like nothing shifts, we\u2019re still stuck on the same issue we\u2019ve been stuck on for years, or our spells don\u2019t seem to work. These things can suck the joy out of our devotions and practice.<\/p>\n

I think these feelings are normal. I felt similar things when I was singing and when I was in graduate school. I\u2019m going to let you in on a secret: all of the people I know who hold PhDs (and I know a lot of them) have said they have felt like a fraud at some point. Clearly, these doubts apply to the best of us.<\/p>\n

That said, there are some serious poseurs and jack-asses out there. The internet is full of them, no matter the community. The wider world of Paganism has a love\/hate relationship with exclusion and inclusion. I find Traditional Witchcraft to be particularly persnickety. Some of this is due to the inherent nature of keeping oaths and not passing along publicly information that can be misconstrued or damaging to those who don\u2019t understand. This can sometimes make people feel that they are not \u2018worthy\u2019 enough for the \u2018secrets.\u2019 Yet some people have a way of communicating arcane wisdom without excluding.<\/p>\n

Some Big Name Pagan authors love to write with purple prose and in such a way that any reader not within the author\u2019s immediate circle will be obviously excluded. To those authors I ask, why write at all? Just send out your stuff on email lists and be done with it. But some authors, Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold being the first that comes to my mind, have an ability to keep obvious secrets yet write in such a way that any thinking witch or magician at any experience level can access something of worth.<\/p>\n

Sadly, there are always going to be people out there trying to keep others down in order to build themselves up. They feel special because they think they have something that others can\u2019t have. I myself have struggled, wondering if I have the Magic or the Juice. I\u2019m only just getting over that. I have long been too up in my head. I still can\u2019t trance easily. I don\u2019t see the dead. The gods don\u2019t talk to me often. I\u2019m more a mystic, a thinky theologian, than a shaman. And right now, shamanism is hot.<\/p>\n

But Trad Craft and the public face of it, is not the only kind of magic out there. I am finding my own magic. You, dear reader, have yours too. Maybe it isn\u2019t Traditional Witchcraft. Maybe it\u2019s Buddhism<\/a> or basket weaving. There is magic in almost anything. That thread weaves and that hum and thrum beats in the trees, in the waves of incense smoke, in the melodies of Schubert lieder. In my eyes, magic is an approach to life. In my studies of religions over the years, I have seen that all of them have magical lines, and those lines share certain aspects or techniques. There are many cooks, painters, singers, gardeners, parents, teachers -anything!- that have that magic in them and their lives. And plenty of Dark Witches and High Magicians that have none.<\/p>\n

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So here\u2019s my pitch to the struggling: don\u2019t give up on magic. Don\u2019t forget those moments that rang true for you. Don\u2019t discard the experiences that spoke to your soul. Get back before your altar (whatever that is). Get back to your basics. Cling to your truth, your experience, and the Magic will you lead you true.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, fuck all the haters and poseurs. I don\u2019t have time for them. I\u2019m too busy living my kick ass life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday a young, dynamic, new friend of mine posted on his blog that he was done with witchcraft. Definitively and decidedly done. His post is down now, so I won\u2019t bother to link to it. It was a problematic post in many ways, hurtful to his allies and dismissive of his own considerable talents. Yet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1300,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,40,42,1,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-magic","category-pagan","category-paganism","category-uncategorized","category-witchcraft"],"yoast_head":"\nHaters Gonna Hate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yesterday a young, dynamic, new friend of mine posted on his blog that he was done with witchcraft. Definitively and decidedly done. 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