Divination For 2021

Last updated on: January 1, 2021 at 3:01 pm By John Beckett

If there was ever a time to demonstrate the limitations of doing generic, widely focused divination, it was 2020.

Like magic, divination works best when it’s specific and narrowly focused. When you ask a vague question (“what’s next year going be like?”) you’re going to get a vague answer.

Beyond that, the answers you get require interpretation. Even the wisest of us will only see what we think is possible.

Astrology is generally more useful for spotting big, long-term trends than divination. Still, I know of no astrologers who predicted a world-wide pandemic for 2020. Most talked about “challenges” in a generic sense. A few simply said “this is going to be a very difficult year.”

Late in the year, I heard a couple say “I was afraid to tell people how bad it was going to get.” Divination is an inexact science, and there are ethical issues with giving people very bad news when you can’t be 100% sure you’re right. I was taught “never tell someone their spouse is having an affair” – if you’re wrong, you’ve needlessly damaged a marriage. Same thing with “never predict a death.”

But sometimes the Death card really does mean death.

Looking back on my Divination For 2020, the cards were there to warn us. The Nine of Swords and the Ten of Swords in the same reading was a warning that bad things were coming. I correctly called the need to conjure resources, but I completely missed the context of why we’d need to conjure them. The Six of Swords as the final outcome for the year is very accurate, whether we’re talking politics, the pandemic, or pretty much anything else related to moving on from 2020.

But I literally couldn’t imagine what we would experience in 2020, so I couldn’t see it in the cards.

So why even do large-scale divination?

Broad divination is less like a photograph and more like a jigsaw puzzle. We don’t see the big picture at the beginning. But as pieces fall into place, patterns start to emerge, and we’re better able to figure out what pieces are missing and where they might come in. What I couldn’t see in this reading in January was starting to come into focus by May, and by September it was clear.

Large-scale divination is often less about preparing and more about understanding.

Perhaps the most useful observation in last year’s divination was this:

If you go to the trouble of doing divination or astrological readings or such – or going over the readings of those you trust and respect – take it one step further and keep what you learn in front of you during the year.

And with that, let’s take a look at 2021. For the fourth consecutive year I’m reading with the Celtic Tarot, which seems to speak to me better than any other deck.

My question for the cards was “what does the new year hold for me and mine?” The closer you are to me, the more this applies to you. If you do ritual with me in my back yard, it’s very relevant to you. If you follow a Pagan polytheist path like me, it applies a fair amount. If you’re a casual blog reader, less so. But the fact that you’re reading this post means there’s some connection between you and me, so I would not recommend dismissing it as irrelevant.

Four Shields – much of 2020 will continue

The first thing that stands out is that like last year, there are four Shields (Pentacles in most decks) in this reading – and two of them are the same cards. It’s not unusual (either magically or statistically) to have cards reappear in different readings, but when they do we need to pay close attention.

Last year the Queen and the Six were two of four Shields that advised us to conjure resources and to use them wisely. This year they fall in the “what is passing” positions. But we also have the King of Shields in the “major influence” position and the Ten of Shields in “hopes and fears.”

What we did in 2020 will impact our lives in 2021. That’s hardly a revelation – it’s simple cause and effect. But too many of us are expecting that January 1 (or January 20) will mean an end to our problems. It will not.

What got you through 2020 – caution, commitment, and resourcefulness – will get you through 2021.

The theme for the year: the Wheel of Fortune

Many of my Tarot-reading friends don’t like the Celtic Cross layout. I use it because I’ve found it to be accurate and helpful, especially when the positions are viewed more as guidelines than actual rules.

The first card is “the heart of the matter.” For 2021, that’s the Wheel of Fortune. At its core, this is a card of randomness, of chance, of luck – good, bad, and indifferent – and of opportunity. It reminds us of the limitations of divination: we can only see what is likely to happen, not what will happen.

The King of Shields “crossing it for good or for ill” is a reminder that material resources can moderate the impact of random chance (insert sermon on economic justice here). Make use of what you have, both to survive random difficulties and to take advantage of random opportunities. That will put you in a better position to deal with whatever comes with the next spin of the Wheel.

Identifying and making use of random opportunities will be the difference between surviving 2021 and thriving in 2021.

The work of the year: magic and spiritual depth

Despite the continuities, 2021 will not be a clone of 2020.

Aces are cards of new beginnings. This reading includes the Ace of Cauldrons, and The High Priestess (in the “what you seek” position), who is working with a large simmering cauldron. Immediately over the Ace of Cauldrons in “the environment in which we work” slot is The Magician.

This is the year to own your witchcraft. Yes, mundane problems require mundane effort, but they can be helped with magic. Plus we don’t call it “practicing” witchcraft for nothing – the more you practice, the better you get, and the better results you get. “Whenever you have need of anything” break out your sigils, your herbs and stones, your wand, or your cauldron. Or all of the above.

2021 is also a year for deep spiritual work – the kind of “off the map” Otherworldly journeying that scares people with good sense and attracts some of us like cats to a can opener. I did some of this work last year – I need to do more this year.

Pay attention!

Sometimes the simple “little white book” interpretations are the most accurate. The Four of Cauldrons tells us that when we feel like we’re missing out on something, oftentimes the reason is that we’re not seeing something that’s just at the edge of our perception. I don’t know what this card points to for me, much less for you. I do know it’s a call to pay attention.

Other times, reading the cards requires more knowledge and subtlety. The Ten of Shields is usually understood as a card of completeness and happiness. But in the Celtic Tarot, the woman is Aranrhod. She is about to step over the wand that will cause her to give birth to Lleu Llaw Gyffes and entangle her in a series of conflicts.

Watch your step, especially when you think our difficulties are behind us.

The Ten of Swords, again

I did not want to see the Ten of Swords in “the final outcome” position.

This is the third card that repeats from last year’s reading. I minimized it then – I won’t do that again.

I will say – as always – that the cards show what will be, not what must be. This painful ending can be avoided – individually if not collectively – if we take steps to change course and create a different future.

The other nine cards show the way. Use your resources wisely, especially those you gained in 2020. Pay attention, both to the traps in front of you and to the opportunities that random chance sends your way. Work your magic, diligently and deeply.

I wish I could show you a bright and happy future for the coming year. I started to draw more cards to add clarity to the Ten of Swords – I was told “no!” loudly and clearly.

This is the reading for the coming year. Keep it in front of you. As the pieces start to fall into place, think about what’s likely to come next – and about what you can do to make it work out better for you and yours.

The Evolution of My Pagan Ritual Liturgy

Last updated on: December 13, 2020 at 10:23 am By John Beckett

Tomorrow’s Winter Solstice Ritual will be the seventh online ritual I’ve done this year. All of them follow a similar ritual order and framework – a liturgy. We often think of liturgy as something Christians do, but the word comes to us from the ancient Greek lēitos meaning “public” and -ergos meaning “working.” Liturgy was Pagan long before it was Christian.

I’ve been using this particular liturgy for several years, but it didn’t start here. It’s been a journey. My Pagan ritual liturgy has evolved, and likely, it will continue to evolve.

To be clear, when I say “my liturgy” I mean “the liturgy I use.” I didn’t invent any of this. I’m not sure anybody invented any of it, at least not in our era. People have been doing these things for hundreds and hundreds of years.

I don’t even own this exact combination of ritual elements. Much of this liturgy evolved in my work with Denton CUUPS, and with other groups and individuals. Rarely have we sat down and tried to determine the best possible liturgy. Rather, we’ve added and removed elements because of specific needs at specific times. We kept what worked and discarded what didn’t.

This is how I got here, through 10 years of solitary practice and 17 years of group practice.

Under the Ancient Oaks Online Samhain Ritual – 2020

In the beginning was Scott Cunningham

Like most Pagans of this generation, my initial instruction was from books, in particular Scott Cunningham’s Wicca: A Guide For The Solitary Practitioner.

I’m not sure it would be fair to call my early workings “ritual,” much less “liturgy.” I was primarily focused on low-level magical workings. It would be a long time before I tried anything resembling high magic, much less devotion. Most of what could be considered liturgy was cleansing, casting a circle, and calling the quarters (a term I no longer use).

I wasn’t the only one. When I finally started going to public rituals, I mostly saw cleansing, casting a circle, and calling the quarters. I went to several rituals where there was ten to fifteen minutes of elaborate opening, ten minutes of elaborate closing, and maybe five minutes of an actual magical or religious working in between. That’s one of the reasons I’ve always emphasized “make the main event the main event” when I teach ritual.

My first public ritual – thank you ADF

The first time I led a public ritual was Summer Solstice 2003. That occasion has its own blog post, including how I was so nervous I almost backed out.

I wanted to do a Druid ritual, I didn’t know where to start, and most of the Druid rituals I found on the internet were from ADF – Ár nDraíocht Féin. I still have the script – it follows their Core Order of Ritual almost exactly.

Unlike Wicca and OBOD, ADF doesn’t cast circles and call quarters. The “world building” part of their liturgy focuses on the Fire, the Well, and the Tree. Over the years I’ve kept casting circles and invoking the spirits of the elements and directions – I explained why in a 2017 blog post (short answer: I find it helpful – my liturgy is very utilitarian).

But from ADF I learned to do a pre-ritual briefing, to let everyone know what you’re going to do and how to participate. I find that helpful even in a closed group that’s been working together for years.

I got the idea of a grounding meditation from ADF, and I still use a version of their Tree Meditation in my daily practice. It was a major part of my liturgy for many years, though lately I find myself using it less and less.

ADF introduced me to the idea of the Three Kindreds – the Gods, the Ancestors, and the Nature Spirits – and also to the idea that if we invite them into our rituals, we should make offerings to them. That gradually made its way into my liturgy.

ADF priest Rev. Lauren Mart and the members of Nine Waves Grove lead ritual at the 2018 Texas Imbolc Retreat

OBOD and “borrow and blend”

I joined the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids in Fall 2004 and began their training program. OBOD is part of the Western Mystery Tradition: they cast circles and call the spirits of the elements and directions much the same as Wiccans. That made it easy to move back and forth between my solitary OBOD rituals and my public CUUPS rituals, which were still heavily Wiccan.

Writing a ritual is hard, and when trying to do it for the first time most people do what I did: they find something they like on the internet and use that. The problem is that they throw together a bit of Wicca, a bit of ADF, a bit of traditional witchcraft, and a bit of something they saw on TV – and it doesn’t work. If you’re going to borrow, you have to blend – you have to give the whole ritual one theme and one voice. The same is true for rituals written by several people – someone has to edit it to make it sound like one person wrote the whole thing.

From about 2004 to about 2011, my liturgy had been borrowed and blended into a fairly consistent order. Pre-ritual briefing. Opening bell. Ground and center meditation. Formal opening. Cast circle and call quarters. Invoke ancestors and deities. Then the main working. After that the simple feast, reversing the grounding meditation, thanking the Gods, dismissing the quarters, uncasting the circle, a benediction and the closing bell.

Most of that liturgical framework remains. But there have been changes over the years.

The emergence of a polytheist

In 2010, if you had asked me if I was a hard polytheist or a soft polytheist, I would have said “yes.” By 2014, I would have said “I’m a polytheist – soft polytheism is pantheism.”

There were always deities involved in my rituals. Sometimes they were individual deities (I first met the Morrigan at Lughnasadh 2004), but many times they were simply “The Goddess” and “The God.” Reciting The Charge of the Goddess was a frequent ritual element.

My liturgy was quite flexible – it worked either way. But invocations and offerings became more important, as did choosing the right Deity of the Occasion. Figuring out that we need to honor Lugh at Lughnasadh or Brighid at Imbolc is easy, but who do we honor at Beltane? Sometimes it’s Whoever says “I want your next ritual” – we can’t nail the Gods to a calendar.

Honor the Morrigan at the Summer Solstice? If She says so, yes! Under the Ancient Oaks Online Summer Solstice Ritual – 2020

The Fair Folk demand their due

The Fair Folk are not to be trifled with, and whenever someone tells me they want to “work with the fairies” I send them to Morgan Daimler and hope they can be persuaded otherwise. But Denton CUUPS and its members have had a rather unique relationship with the Good Neighbors since before there was a Denton CUUPS. We have, upon occasion, acknowledged them in ritual and tried to maintain neighborly relations.

One such time was Beltane 2016. We invited the Fair Folk, we told some of their stories, and we were – in our opinion – quite hospitable toward them. They thought otherwise and helped themselves to an entire pitcher of wine.

Before the ritual we poured wine out of bottles into a glass pitcher and set it on a table near the main altar, to use in our simple feast. It sat there for at least a half hour. And then at one point in the ritual, with nothing going on around the table, the pitcher simply split, like what happens when you pour cold water into a hot glass. Except there was no sudden change of temperature anywhere.

For this and other reasons, I am now obligated to acknowledge the Fair Folk in my rituals – I can’t dump them in with the land spirits like I tried to do for several years. If you’re participating in one of my online rituals and you’re not comfortable offering to themselves, then don’t. I completely understand, and to a large extent, agree. But I no longer have that choice, and so my liturgy now includes recognizing and offering to the Fair Folk.

The central fire

Early on my Pagan journey I learned that some people invoke Center as the fifth direction. I did that a couple of times, but never gave it much thought. Later, I learned about the Greek Omphalos and the Norse Yggdrasil – mystical centers of the world.

ADF teaches that the fire is a gateway to the Otherworld – but so are the Well and the Tree. But there’s something special about fire, going back to the idea that the campfire was humanity’s first sacred circle.

In this short video, I talk with ADF Archdruid Jean Pagano about the importance of fire in ADF ritual, and in Indo-European religion in general.

My invocation of the central fire varies from ritual to ritual, but it always begins with the statement “this fire is the intersection of all times, all directions, and all worlds.” It ends with “we make this offering, that our journeys may be safe and fruitful.” The fire is the mystical center of the ritual.

Going forward: make changes mindfully

I run into some Pagans who dislike the whole idea of liturgy. For them, Pagan ritual should always be “spontaneous.” They are, of course, free to conduct their rituals however they like.

But while there’s a place for spontaneity, it’s mainly in solitary and very small group workings. In a medium to large group ritual, it usually leads to disjointed and ineffectual workings.

The Greeks – who gave us the word “liturgy” – had an order to their sacrifices and other public rituals. The Egyptians had a liturgy for everything – we have them because they painted them on the walls of their temples and tombs. In some cases they were literally carved in stone.

As I hope this post has demonstrated, our contemporary Pagan liturgies need not be permanently fixed. When there’s a good reason to make a change – either as a one-time thing or going forward indefinitely – then make the change. If it works, keep it. If it doesn’t, don’t.

But I encourage you to make changes mindfully. Break rules on purpose, not haphazardly. You don’t have to justify your changes to me or to anyone else. You just have to convince yourself that you’re changing a liturgy that works because something else might work better, not just because “this is cool and I want to do it.”

Good liturgy should be a living thing. This is how my liturgy has evolved over the years.

The Role of Belief in an Orthopraxic Religion

Last updated on: December 8, 2020 at 6:09 am By John Beckett

My Paganism begins with experience. It is a religion of relationships, and it is orthopraxic not orthodoxic – it’s more important to do the right things than to believe the right things.

But that doesn’t mean belief is unimportant. There’s a place for belief in Paganism, even if it isn’t at the center of our religion(s). In this post, I want to look at the matter of belief: what it is, how it arises, and how we can develop beliefs that are meaningful and helpful without falling into false and harmful certainty.

What is belief?

Merriam-Webster lists three definitions of the word “belief.” All three are intertwined and all three are good, but it’s the third that’s most relevant here: “conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence.”

Too many people think that belief means accepting something uncritically and without evidence, that it’s mindlessly repeating what you’re told instead of thinking for yourself. There are other, better words for that: “indoctrination” “mind control” “unresolved trauma” and all too often “intellectual laziness.”

Done right, belief is an interpretation of our experiences and the experiences of others. All we know with certainty is that we saw, heard, and/or felt something that defied conventional explanation. We use the process of discernment to try to figure out what happened, and more importantly, what it means for us in our lives. That interpretation becomes a belief.

Over time, beliefs that are robust are affirmed by other experiences, whether our own or those of others. They grow stronger and deeper as we become convinced that they really are meaningful and helpful, even if we can never be sure they’re true.

Foundational assumptions provide context for beliefs

We can only believe what we think is possible. And what we think is possible is controlled by our foundational assumptions: our basic, gut-level ideas about the world and the way it works.

I think that some of our foundational assumptions are an orientation we’re born with. But many come from what we were taught as very small children: from what we picked up by observation as much as anything we learned in kindergarten or Sunday School.

If you’re convinced that nothing exists except matter and the product of its interactions, you will find it difficult if not impossible to believe in the reality of spirits. If you are convinced there is only one God and that polytheism is a “primitive” superstition, it will be very difficult for you to relate to one of the Many Gods.

If you’re convinced people who aren’t like you are always trying to “take what’s yours” it will be very difficult for you to practice good hospitality.

Most people aren’t even aware that they have foundation assumptions. They think that’s just the way things are – it’s “common sense” or “what everybody knows.”

Identifying and challenging your unstated assumptions is very, very hard. It’s also very important, because our foundational assumptions control what we can believe.

The order of belief

I’ve shown this diagram multiple times over the years – a version of it is in The Path of Paganism. Practice, experience, and belief form a “virtuous circle.” One leads to the others, and over time it leads to an ever-deepening cycle of meaning. When I first drew this diagram I said you can enter at any point and travel in any direction. In general this is true.

But in an orthopraxic religion we begin with practice. When we do the practices (properly and consistently) we have experiences. When we interpret our experiences, we form beliefs. And those beliefs inspire us to keep practicing, which continues and deepens the virtuous circle.

An orthopraxic religion never asks its followers to believe mindlessly. Rather, it says to do these things because they’ve proven helpful. The practices lead to experiences (which, to be clear, are often ordinary and not otherworldly), and the experiences lead to beliefs.

Belief comes third.

Common practices lead to common beliefs

You can have your own individual beliefs and practices, but religion is what we do together. It’s how we form sacred relationships with our Gods and ancestors, with the natural world, and with each other.

We practice together. We observe the same cycles of the moon, we sing the same songs, we pour similar offerings to the same deities. These common practices naturally lead to shared experiences. And especially if they’re grounded in a common culture and common foundational assumptions, we’re likely to interpret them in very similar ways. Common practice leads to common beliefs.

Over time, this runs the risk of turning into orthodoxy – of shifting from “these are our most consistently helpful interpretations” to “this is the only valid interpretation.” But if we keep our primary emphasis on action rather than on interpretation, we can remain open to unorthodox interpretations that may be helpful for an individual, or for many individuals.

And more importantly, we can avoid becoming stagnated in beliefs that may have been helpful at one point but that are now outdated and harmful.

Beliefs are necessary to explore the world of spirit

So why even bother with belief? Why not just practice, experience, and leave it at that?

I don’t know about you, but I can’t just leave it at that. If I have a spiritual experience – from the very ordinary to the deeply mystical – I can’t help but wonder what it means. In part, I wonder what it means for me. But I also wonder what it tells us about the nature of the universe.

I experience the presence of another person who I cannot see or touch. I interpret that as the experience of a God. What does it mean that there are Gods? What does it mean that this God is called the Morrigan? What does it mean that She wants me to prepare for a time of upheaval? What is changing? What is changing that I cannot see? What does that tell us about the nature of the Otherworld?

All these questions demand answers. Maybe you can decline to answer them – I can’t. And every answer leads to yet more questions.

Taken in total, these questions and their tentative answers form a model of the worlds (two? nine? many?) and how they work. They tell a story that provides context and meaning. They help us orient ourselves in the big picture.

Good beliefs don’t shut down curiosity – they encourage it.

Good beliefs require humility

Whatever we learn through this process of exploration, it’s important to remember that our conclusions are beliefs, not facts.

Science doesn’t have all the answers, but the answers it has are generally reliable, and we ignore them at our peril. We make further mistakes when we assume science tells us something it doesn’t – bad science makes for bad religion.

Multiple experiences over time lead to confidence in our interpretations, especially when they align with the experiences and interpretations of others, and with the stories from our pre-Christian ancestors. This is a good thing. When I say I know there are many Gods and some of Them want certain things from me, I am expressing a confidence that comes from years of consistent practice and experience and from interpretations that have been affirmed over and over again.

And I still recognize that our understanding of the Gods is like cats’ understanding of humans.

Whatever confidence we may have in our beliefs, whether individually or collectively, ultimately they are our best guesses.

They might be wrong.

While we explore our beliefs as deeply as we can, we must hold them loosely. If we discover or are presented with evidence that our beliefs are wrong, or that a different belief is more meaningful, more helpful, or more accurate, then we must have the integrity to change our beliefs.

Practice remains primary

When your religion is centered on beliefs, what do you do when those beliefs are shown to be untrue?

Christian fundamentalists deny the reality of evolution, the age of the Earth, the equality of women, and the dignity of LGBTQ persons because their religion is centered on the belief that the Bible is the literal and inerrant “Word of God.”

When you build your religion on belief you build a house of cards. Without a historical Adam and Eve, the whole doctrine of original sin falls apart. And so fundamentalists reject reality rather than change their beliefs.

Meanwhile, in one of our CUUPS Imbolc rituals everyone made offerings to Brighid. Some offered to the Goddess, some to an aspect of the Divine Feminine, some to the saint, and some to the ideals of poetry and smithcraft. What we believed about Brighid was less important than the fact that we all made offerings to Brighid.

Practice leads to experience. Experience leads to belief. Belief motivates us to practice more deeply. There is a place for belief in a religion centered on practice and on right action.

It’s just not at the center.

My Biggest Mistakes as a Pagan

Last updated on: January 23, 2021 at 4:25 pm By John Beckett

Thorn Mooney of the Oathbound blog has a very good post and video titled My Biggest Mistakes as a Witch. It’s quite good and well worth the 13 minutes it takes to watch it. And, as good blog posts usually do, it got me to thinking about my own mistakes as a Pagan.

I don’t dwell on mistakes – I obsess over them. In the moment that can be devastating. But after they pass, I’ve learned to examine them, evaluate them, and figure out what I need to do differently next time. I advocate being compassionately honest, but I have an easier time doing that with other people than I do with myself. I expect perfection from myself, even though I know that’s not possible.

So this wasn’t the easiest blog post for me to write. But I saw value in Thorn’s post, so I decided I should do one of my own.

Here are my biggest mistakes as a Pagan.

Refusing to start at the beginning

In school I was a quick learner and I got bored very easily. I made a habit of skipping around, looking for something new, and assuming I already knew all the basics.

That worked really well in elementary school. It worked OK in junior high and high school. It didn’t work well at all in college. But the habits I picked up as a small child were hard to break – particularly when “the beginning” was something I didn’t want to deal with.

When I discovered Wicca I wanted to dive right into the magic. That was understandable – so do most people. But I was trying to work magic while still dealing with the impact of growing up in a fundamentalist church that said magic was evil and coping with it by relying on scientific skepticism that said magic was a delusion.

Is it any wonder I spent eight years going nowhere?

I had to begin at the beginning and wrestle with basic questions about the nature of the universe, the Gods, and life itself. Once I started that, things began to pick up in a hurry.

When I wrote my first book The Path of Paganism, I made sure the first chapter was on Foundations – the things I avoided when I got started.

Trying to ignore the Gods

At the core of refusing to start at the beginning was trying to ignore the Gods. Part of that was not dealing with my fundamentalist baggage. But even after I started doing that, I still clung to the idea of one almighty divine being. Old ideas die hard.

I gradually exchanged the angry God of the fundamentalists for a loving Mother Goddess, but I continued to ignore the many Gods. That didn’t change until I spent nine nights in meditation, each one with a different deity of Egypt. My experience of Isis was very different from my experience of Nut or Tefnut or Osiris and very different from my experience of Set. And it finally hit me that if I experienced the Gods as unique individuals then I should relate to Them as individuals, even if I could never be entirely sure.

I still had a long way to go. But when I began to understand the Gods as individuals, my work with and for Them began to grow, and things have never been the same since.

Waiting too long to start attending Pagan gatherings

I got serious with my Paganism in late 2001. In early 2003 I realized I needed a group and I went to Denton CUUPS – that worked out well. In 2004 I attended the CUUPS Convocation, my first large Pagan gathering. It was a great time and a great learning experience.

And then I didn’t attend another overnight Pagan gathering for five years.

There are reasons, that may or may not be excuses. I was busy with the OBOD course. My paying job was stressful, and I didn’t have as much vacation time as I do now. My travel budget was less. But I really could have used the experiences, the conversations, and the relationships that I’ve gotten from attending Pagan conferences and conventions. They certainly helped once I started going to them.

I feel bad recommending Pagan gatherings when we don’t know when we’ll be able to have them again. But eventually we will, and when we do I encourage you to go to one or two if at all possible.

Not working more magic

I’ve had a life-long interest in magic and witchcraft – it’s one of the things that drew me to Paganism in the first place. When I first discovered real magic I started practicing and experimenting. But that didn’t last long.

If I had a need I would work a spell. But doing magic for the sake of practicing magic? I never did much of that.

I think part of it was that since I knew how to do magic I assumed that was all I needed. But magic is like any other skill: you get better the more you practice. And if you don’t practice, your skills start to fade.

Eventually I incorporated magic into some of my daily devotions. And a while back I started working deliberate spells at every full moon. I’ve continued that practice and my magic is stronger for it.

Assuming other people shared my vision

The first four items in this post are mistakes on my spiritual journey. This one is a mistake in my spiritual leadership.

Those of us who are tolerant and of good will sometimes say “deep down we all want the same things – we just disagree about how to get there.” That’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not true. It’s not true in politics – some of us want a democratic society where everyone is equally valued, while others want an authoritarian society where straight white Christian men rule and everyone else knows their place.

Our differences need not be so ethically opposed to be just as real.

I want a religious community with a strong public presence, one that reaches out not to proselytize but to be visible and available for those who are interested in what we do. Some people in my community prefer a closed group that’s focused internally. Neither of these approaches are inherently better than the other, but they’re very different. I haven’t always recognized that.

That’s one example – there have been many others where I assumed everyone was on board with my vision. In some cases they said they were but either didn’t fully understand what I was proposing, or they got into it and changed their minds (which they were certainly entitled to do). And other times I made assumptions I had no grounds to make.

This has happened at many levels: in person, online, and otherwise; in formal organizations and informal associations. I’ve learned to be very upfront about my goals and expectations, and to listen carefully for other people’s goals and expectations.

This remains a challenge for me.

Learning from my mistakes

The only person who makes no mistakes is the person who never does anything.

Modern Paganism is a new religion and we don’t have it all figured out yet. And we won’t, because Paganism is a human religion and a living religion. Even where we have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t, we’re all living our own lives. What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa.

My Gods do not expect perfection. But They like it best if I don’t make the same mistakes over and over again. So do I.

These have been my biggest mistakes on my Pagan journey. I’ve learned from them. I hope you will too.

Reading the Current Omens and Signs (and there’s a lot of them)

Last updated on: October 29, 2020 at 7:16 am By John Beckett

Have you had an ominous dream lately? Not a bad dream or a strange dream, but a dream where you woke up thinking “there’s something more to this.”

Seen unusual signs in Nature? I like to remind everyone that most times a crow is just a crow doing crow things, but sometimes a crow really is the Morrigan. Or Odin. Or Someone else trying to get your attention.

From what I’m reading on social media, a lot of you are seeing, hearing, or feeling things that have gotten your attention. I’ve seen several reports from people who are experienced in these things and who don’t jump to unwarranted conclusions. And I’ve seen many more reports from people with less experience, who still get the point that yes, sometimes dreams are more than your brain’s routine sorting and filing.

Add me to that list. My dreams lately have been unusual. None of them rise to the clear and unambiguous prophetic level I get once a year or so. But I can’t explain them away… at least not all of them.

So I did what I advise everyone to do when you’re hearing an unclear message – divination. I broke out my oldest Tarot deck (oldest to me, that is), the Robin Wood Tarot.

I’m convinced that Whoever or whatever is at the source of what I’m hearing is also at the source of what everyone else is hearing. So while some of this is specifically for me, most of it is applicable to all of us.

I drew one 10-card reading and one 3-card reading. The arrangements you see here were done afterwards, to make for a more clear and straightforward presentation. But my reading of the cards hasn’t changed since I first laid them out.

The Nine of Swords: thank you for your keen sense of the obvious

This card came up very early in the reading. This is the night terrors card, the card of crippling anxiety. While I’m convinced that some of what I’m hearing – and some of what I’m dreaming – is Otherworldly in nature, let’s not overlook the obvious mundane situation. This is a time of high anxiety.

We’re now less than a week away from a critical election in the United States. We’ve managed to survive four years of Trump – we don’t want to have to survive another four. Even after the election is over, we have no idea when we’ll know the winner. And even if Biden is the clear winner, a lame duck Trump can do a lot of damage in the next two and a half months.

Oh, yeah – we’re also in the middle of a worldwide pandemic that has killed almost 1.2 million people and shows signs of getting worse, not better.

Plus all the usual stresses of trying to live in late stage capitalism and Tower Time.

A lot of what people are hearing and seeing – and especially what they’re dreaming – is ordinary stress and anxiety ratcheted up to extraordinary levels. We need to recognize this and do the kind of ordinary and spiritual things that help us cope with life’s difficulties.

But that’s not all there is in the omens and signs.

The Eight of Wands: rapid change is coming

I’m very reluctant to read a specific meaning into this card.

It’s tempting to interpret it as predicting a Biden win. But it could also be interpreted as a contested election leading to a complete governmental collapse (something I think is highly unlikely, though not impossible). It could be interpreted as the pandemic suddenly fading away, but also as it becoming more widespread and more lethal.

In the context of our current omens and signs, I don’t see a specific literal meaning to this card. I didn’t when I pulled it and I still don’t as I write this post.

What I see is “be ready.”

Which is something some of us have been hearing for quite a while. Let’s hope more of us pay attention this time.

The Eight of Wands directly preceded the next two cards, and I think that’s very important.

The Ace of Wands and the Ace of Cups: creative force

The aces are cards of creation and new beginnings. They represent the elemental forces of everything in their suits. They were two places apart in the original reading, so I’m inclined to read them together.

If rapid change is coming, we’re going to need something to guide and power our response.

What are you feeling right now – besides the anxiety? What spark is flickering deep inside you, waiting to be fed so it can burst forth into a flame that enlightens everything around you?

Your opportunity – our opportunity – will be here soon. Be ready.

The Star and The Moon: remember who you are

One of my daily prayers is that I will do what must be done. And for most of this year, I have.

So have the vast majority of you. You’re dealing with Covid, and you’re doing everything you can do to make this country and this world a better place. Sometimes that means spreading love and light. Sometimes it means something decidedly not.

Friedrich Nietzsche famously said “if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” I’ve spent more time gazing into the abyss this year than I like.

And also, while I have always dealt with both religion and with politics on the blog and in my life, this year has seen a strong push toward the political. It was necessary – I’ve done what must be done.

But at my core I’m not a political activist, I’m a Druid and a priest. No matter how the election goes, no matter how the pandemic goes, I have to get back to the deep spiritual work I’ve largely set aside the past several months. I have to remember who I am.

Have you gotten so caught up in current events you’ve forgotten what’s most important to you? Have you ignored your deepest calling?

There is no shame in doing what must be done. Quite the contrary, it’s both honorable and necessary.

But at some point, the greater necessity is to remember who you are, and what’s most important to you.

The Knight of Pentacles: it’s time to go to work

As with the Waite-Smith deck, the Robin Wood Tarot depicts the Knight of Pentacles mounted on a draft horse in the middle of a plowed field. This is not a card of flashy combat, but of hard work. Some of it has already been done, but plowing the ground is only the first step.

Whatever happens in the next week and in the coming weeks, there is much work to be done.

I have two general outlines for what I need to do, depending on how the election goes. They are very different plans, but they both involve returning to my higher callings. And they are both long-term endeavors that depend more on perseverance than on anything quick and flashy.

This was the last card I drew. The context of the reading doesn’t allow me to label this as “the final outcome” but it is where this particular “look down the road” stops.

It stops with us working toward a better future.

The Knight of Pentacles isn’t The Sun or The World or the Ten of Cups. It’s also not The Tower or Death or the Ten of Swords.

I’ll take it.

Embrace the Art of the Possible, not Accelerationism

Last updated on: September 23, 2020 at 6:40 am By John Beckett

Otto von Bismarck – who unified Germany in the 19^th century – said “politics is the art of the possible, the attainable, the art of the next best.”

As we approach Election Day, most of my friends seem to have embraced the wisdom of Bismarck. Very few of us supported Joe Biden in the primary (I voted for Elizabeth Warren), but Biden is the Democratic nominee. Biden is possible and attainable. He won’t fix all our problems, but he’ll make a far better President than Trump.

A few are still holding out. Some are clinging to ideological purity – Biden doesn’t share their position on this issue or that so they don’t want to vote for him – as though Trump is more likely to deliver what they want. A few claim there’s no difference between Biden and Trump. I can’t comprehend the amount of naivety or willful ignorance it must take to think that.

But some are just fine with a Trump win. Not because they like Trump but because they think four more years of him will make things so bad that people will finally revolt and destroy capitalism and create an anarcho-communist society or some similar utopia.

I learned a new word a short while back: accelerationism. It’s the idea that rather than trying to reform the system and make incremental progress, it’s better to accelerate the system’s “inevitable” demise. The term originated with Marxist thinkers, but in recent years it’s been adopted by white supremacists and others on the far right.

Whether from the left or from the right, I find accelerationism to be intellectually bankrupt and morally repugnant.

Accelerationism is apocalyptic thinking

The attraction of accelerationism is the wishful thinking that if we can just blow everything up, a perfect society will emerge from the ashes. This is a form of apocalyptic thinking.

An apocalypse is not a great destruction – the word means “revealing.” The important part isn’t what happens, it’s what comes afterwards. Some apocalyptic prophecies say that after the revealing everything will be perfect. Others say we’ll all be dead. Either way our problems will be over and we won’t have to worry about them anymore – we won’t have to build a better world ourselves.

Some apocalyptic thinking is obvious. Many fundamentalist Christians support Israel and their violent policies toward the Palestinians, but not out of any love for Jewish people or even a respect for the Jewish religion. Rather, they believe that a strong nation of Israel located in Palestine is required for Jesus to return to Earth and end the world.

Leftist accelerationists believe that if we make things bad enough – if we allow people to be hurt enough – the common people will rise up in revolution, or at least they’ll finally elect a real socialist as President. Right wing accelerationists believe that if we make things bad enough – if we hurt people enough – white people will rise up and put other people in their place. Whether that place is “somewhere else” or “in the ground” depends on which white supremacist you talk to.

To be clear, these two “utopias” are not even remotely morally equivalent. I would gladly vote for a democratic socialist, and I find the idea of a classless society intriguing, though ultimately unworkable given human nature. A society based on racial purity and segregation is simply evil.

But apocalyptic prophecies have a 3500-year track record of being wrong every single time, and the accelerationist versions of them are no different. They are dreams of something that will not happen.

What – and who – are you willing to sacrifice?

So you want Trump to win so things get so bad people are finally willing to embrace revolution? Who are you willing to sacrifice to get your revolution?

It looks like Trump is going to get another Supreme Court pick so Roe v. Wade can be overturned – shall we give him Stephen Breyer’s seat too? Shall we allow him to continue gutting environmental regulations and denying climate change? Continue encouraging and enabling the “very fine people” who drive cars into protesters?

And let’s say things got so bad there actually was a revolution. Revolutions are violent things – how many people are you willing to kill? We joke (or perhaps, fantasize) about guillotines, but do you really want another Reign of Terror? Are you sure we can manage to kill only those who deserve to be killed?

Want to accelerate the demise of industrial society so we can create some eco-primitive future? That’s a death sentence for people who are dependent on insulin and other drugs to keep them alive. People talk about everyone returning to subsistence farming. I’m 58 with a bad back – I don’t like my life expectancy under those circumstances.

Who are you willing to sacrifice in the name of revolution?

Beheading of nine people during the Reign of Terror, 1793. Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

Triggering events spark change, not revolution

Police have been shooting black people at a disproportionate rate for many years. But there was something about the murder of George Floyd that got the attention of people who had been ignoring it all their lives. The hard work of changing police policies, training, and practices is still in front of us, but at least we’re finally having the conversation.

The fact is that the vast majority of people – including those who are oppressed – do not want revolution. They just want to be able to live their lives in peace – and stop being oppressed. It’s easy to talk about revolution. But people revolt violently when they feel like they have no alternative – and the vast majority of us have alternatives, even if they’re less than ideal.

Burning it all down is easy – building it back up is hard

If you want me to help you burn it all down, you’re going to have to show me your plan for building something better in the aftermath. No one ever has a plan for that – just an assumption that whatever replaces it has to be better than what we have now. History says that not only is the aftermath of burning it all down rarely better for ordinary people, it’s often worse. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

So much of what accelerationists of all stripes dream about are simply fantasies with no substance to them.

Embracing the art of the possible

Revolution almost certainly isn’t going to happen and even if it did it wouldn’t bring what most of us want. So let’s embrace what’s possible instead.

Let’s elect a President – and a Congress, and state and local officials – who will move the country in the direction we want. It won’t be as far as we want or as fast as we want, but it will be in the right direction. Take what we can get today, then work for more later.

Let’s keep the pressure on them to reform the police and our criminal justice system. Let’s stop building prisons and embrace restorative justice.

Let’s elect people who respect science. Donald Trump is not responsible for Covid-19, but he is absolutely responsible for the weak response to it that has resulted in 200,000 American deaths. If any reasonable person had been President that number would be considerably lower.

Let’s elect people who understand that climate change is real and that human activity is making it worse. And then let’s support them when they make political moves to reduce its impact, even though that won’t be as far as some of us think necessary and also much farther than others would prefer.

Let’s keep fighting to treat refugees and immigrants with dignity and compassion, to respect people of all religions and of no religion, and to insure that human rights and civil rights include everyone.

These aren’t the only issues. Whatever issues are important to you, I encourage you to vote for candidates who will lead the country in a positive direction – not further down the wrong direction.

Democracy is messy and it requires work

Democracy only works when we do. It’s not enough to vote for a progressive President once every four years. We have to vote in every election, and then engage with our elected officials on a regular basis.

And perhaps more importantly, we have to build the kind of society we want on the ground, with our friends and neighbors, without waiting on government to do it for us.

I know – most of us just want to vote and then go back to living our lives the way we want to live them. But there is always someone trying to take advantage of others, using either the power of government or the power of wealth or both. Someone has to keep them in check… that someone can only be us.

Most of us intuitively understand this. That’s why we’re voting for Biden, even though we’d rather be voting for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or one of the other 20 or so candidates who ran for the Democratic nomination.

But if you think that four more years of Trump will finally bring the kind of cataclysmic change you’re hoping for, I urge you to abandon accelerationism and its apocalyptic thinking.

Instead, embrace the art of the possible and the attainable, and help us move in a better direction.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: We Will Fight On

Last updated on: September 19, 2020 at 5:03 pm By John Beckett

I screamed “NO!” when I heard the news.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is dead.

We thought she would live forever… or at least for another five months. And why shouldn’t we? She beat colon cancer in 1999, then beat pancreatic cancer in 2009 and again in 2019. But it returned this year. She willed herself to stay alive until her replacement could be appointed by someone more in line with her philosophy of the Constitution.

Her will was strong, but she was still human.

She was 87.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2016. US Government photo – public domain.

A brief biography

Joan Ruth Bader was born in Brooklyn on March 15, 1933. Her father was a Jewish immigrant from the Ukraine; her mother was from New York, part of a family of recent Jewish immigrants from Europe. Both worked blue collar jobs during her childhood.

Ruth graduated from Cornell University in 1954, then married Martin Ginsburg. She moved to Oklahoma with him when he was in the Army. She started Harvard Law School in 1956, one of nine women in a class of 500. When Martin graduated from Harvard and got a job in New York City, she transferred to Columbia Law School, where she graduated first in her class in 1959.

Ruth and Martin had two children: Jane (born 1955) and James (born 1965).

She worked as a law clerk, a research associate, and a law professor. In 1973 she became the general counsel for the Women’s Rights Project of the ACLU. She was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, and to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1993. She was confirmed by a vote of 96-3.

The Senate was a very different place in those days.

60 years of legal excellence

USA Today has a list of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s most notable opinions as a Supreme Court Justice. The first is United States v. Virginia (1996), where the court struck down Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admissions policy as a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. In it she said

A law or official policy that denies to women, simply because they are women, equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in, and contribute to society, based upon what they can do … is presumptively invalid.

Last year she wrote the opinion for a unanimous decision that the 8^th Amendment’s prohibition against excessive fines applies to states and local governments and not just the federal government.

The protection against excessive fines guards against abuses of government’s punitive or criminal law-enforcement authority. This safeguard, we hold, is fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty.

Ginsburg is perhaps best known for her dissents, especially Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in 2007 (on pay discrimination on account of gender), Gonzales v. Carhart in 2007 (on abortion restrictions), and the infamous Hobby Lobby case in 2014, where she wrote

Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be perceived as favoring one religion over another, the very risk the Establishment Clause was designed to preclude. The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.

She was known as a brilliant jurist and was respected even by arch-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. She worked tirelessly for the rights of all, but especially for those who have long been denied them.

She will be missed.

This shouldn’t matter so much

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s story is inspiring and her service to her country was outstanding. Right now we should be pausing to honor her life, not crying in despair. A judge – even a great judge – shouldn’t be this important. As Chief Justice John Roberts said during his confirmation hearing, the job of the judge is to “call balls and strikes, not to pitch or bat.”

But the history of American government has been one of saying and writing noble ideals and then failing to live up to them. It falls to the judiciary to hold politicians accountable to their commitments. Sometimes they have (Brown v. Board of Education, Obergefell v. Hodges) and sometimes they haven’t (Dred Scott v. Sandford, Citizens United v. FEC).

Congress has abdicated its responsibility to lead. No one wants to go on record voting for something controversial; most are more interested in getting re-elected than in actually getting something done. Congress’s inaction has left a power vacuum that the courts have filled out of necessity.

And nowhere has this been more important than with individual liberties and basic human rights.

But it matters a lot

When Mitch McConnell stole President Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland, at least the judicial mix of the Supreme Court remained the same. But then Anthony Kennedy retired and was replaced by Brett Kavanaugh. Kennedy was very pro-business, but also progressive on social issues – he wrote the majority opinion that established marriage equality as the law of the land. John Roberts tries to be a centrist and sometimes delivers, but sometimes not.

If Trump is allowed to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat with another conservative, the mix of the court will shift, likely for at least a decade. Conservatives are anxious to overturn Roe v. Wade, but they’d also like overturn rulings on marriage equality, decriminalization of same sex conduct, and the ruling that underpins them all: Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which legalized contraception and established the right to privacy.

Plus we haven’t just lost Ginsburg’s reliable progressive vote. We’ve also lost her legal reasoning and advocacy skills. Her voice was sometimes enough to persuade a more moderate justice to abandon Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito’s thinking and join with hers.

Ginsburg’s position as senior justice on the liberal wing now falls to Stephen Breyer, who is 82. Her role as the most visible female jurist in the country falls to Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. They all have huge shoes to fill.

First we mourn

The outpouring of grief since last night is far more than the fear of a remade Supreme Court. We didn’t just respect Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legal work, we loved her as a person. We called her “the Notorious RBG” – she loved the name. We loved her intellect, her determination, her wit, and her humanity.

And so we mourn.

My Jewish friends tell me that comments referring to an afterlife are considered inappropriate at times like these. Contemporary Judaism is rather ambivalent about an afterlife, preferring to focus on our actions in this life. We do not know what Justice Ginsburg believed or expected, if anything. We should honor her Jewishness and respect that tradition.

Instead, the proper words are “may her memory be a blessing.”

I am confident it will be.

And then we act

Mitch McConnell has already said that Trump’s nominee will get a vote. He has some twisted logic as to why that’s right even though he denied a vote to Merrick Garland, who was nominated almost 8 months prior to the 2016 election. His clear goal is to put as many conservatives on the Supreme Court as possible, principles and logic be damned.

The Senate has 53 Republicans, and Vice President Mike Pence breaks any ties. We need four Republican senators with the integrity to insist that the precedent McConnell set in 2016 is respected in 2020.

If you live in a state with a Republican senator, write and call them and insist that no confirmation vote take place until after the inauguration in January.

It is unlikely a vote could be held prior to the election. Expect McConnell to try to ram it through in the lame duck session in November and December.

Vote – elections have consequences!

This was the #1 reason I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Donald Trump has put 200 conservatives on the Federal bench, out of about 800 positions. He’s already put two young conservatives on the Supreme Court and may very well get a third.

Will Stephen Breyer live another five years? I don’t even want to think about the damage a 7-2 conservative court would do to the country.

Vote for Joe Biden for President. Whatever your misgivings about him, at least he’ll stop the bleeding.

Work to flip the Senate. I donated to Amy McGrath, who’s running against Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. That’s a tough race. CNN lists eight seats more likely to switch from red to blue, plus two more in danger of flipping to the Republicans. If you have money to contribute to an out-of-state candidate, pick one of these.

Vote for progressives in state and local elections. Government is so much more than the President and the Supreme Court. Most of the regressive laws passed in recent years have come from Republican state legislatures.

I’ve seen several people saying that if an 87-year-old judge was the only thing holding our system together, it wasn’t a very good system to begin with. I won’t argue with that, and I’m open to suggestions to make things better.

But making things better begins with stopping the bleeding.

Vote.

Become the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I am distraught over yet another significant loss in this year from hell, losses exacerbated by injustice and misrule.

Still, I cannot help but be inspired by the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Defending our rights was her life’s work and she kept fighting until the very end.

I said it’s the job of the judiciary to hold politicians accountable for living up to the ideals of this country, and that is true. But first and foremost, holding them accountable is our job as citizens. If there was ever a time to take that job seriously it’s now.

Democracy only works with an engaged citizenry.

I do not know if I have the resiliency and determination of the Notorious RBG – I’ve never been challenged to the extent she was challenged. She had a strength few of us have.

But what strength I have I will use to fight on, for justice, fairness, and compassion.

Let’s make RBG proud.