Books can\u2019t tell you everything you need to know about living as a Witch. \u00a0Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m a voracious reader, and always have been. \u00a0There\u2019s plenty of great information out there worth reading \u2013 and there\u2019s also the inverse as well.<\/p>\n
Really, this post isn\u2019t a commentary on book learning, not at all. \u00a0Rather it\u2019s about looking at the Witch as practitioner versus participant.<\/p>\n
Nor am I about throwing around and pinning down labels and playing semantics. \u00a0I\u2019m talking about investigating the essence of a multi-faceted vocational path. \u00a0And understanding that that essence requires looking at the difference between being a practitioner and being a participant.<\/p>\n It\u2019s definition time! <\/strong>(cue daunting music)<\/em> Looking at how the Neo-Paganism movement has interwoven with witchcraft over the last half of a century, you can see two kinds of paths emerging from it. \u00a0One path focuses on creating community through building or rebuilding a religion, making it participant-minded. \u00a0The other path focuses more on power over the self and learning a craft, making it practitioner-geared. \u00a0Sometimes the paths do overlay. \u00a0But it\u2019s the latter path that builds my root definition\u00a0of the Witch.<\/p>\n Metaphor time!<\/strong> (cue cheery music)<\/em> And then there\u2019s\u00a0a person we\u2019ll call the captain for the sake of this metaphor. \u00a0The captain may care deeply for the other people who get on their boat, or at the bare minimum, just makes sure everyone gets where they need to go or do safely \u2013 regardless of who they are. The captain not only understands how the boat is made and how it functions, but the captain also understands how to read the water, the sky, the winds, and the sea-life. \u00a0The captain knows how to navigate and guide. \u00a0The captain knows their boat best and has an intimate relationship with it.<\/p>\n Can you guess who\u2019s the Witch in that metaphor? And why?<\/p>\n The Witch isn\u2019t in it halfway. It\u2019s all or nothing. \u00a0The path permeates everything they do. \u00a0It\u2019s not a once a month or once a week thing, something hauled out and dusted off, but rather it is a lens through which everything is viewed every day. \u00a0It defines how they interact with people, the world around them, and everything unseen as well. The Witch is the navigator of their own path and a guide for others.<\/p>\n And none of the above are things you can learn from any one book or series of the very best\u00a0books or\u00a0grimoires. \u00a0It comes with doing, with being, with trying, failing, observing, and learning \u2013 in real time and space, over an extended period of time, at your own pace. \u00a0A preset determination of guided years doesn\u2019t guarantee that actual experience, nor can it properly dictate the pace at which YOU will move. \u00a0AND you may participate in the activities of others, get on other boats to see how things are done \u2013 but you always come back to your own boat, guiding your way through your own ocean.<\/p>\n If you call yourself a Witch, where do you fall and why? Are you forging a path or following it?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome to the first part in a series of posts exploring the Witch, from a Modern Tradition perspective. \u00a0In the near future, I\u2019ll be tackling some sticky yet interwoven topics that create\u00a0and define\u00a0the Witch \u2013 including solo vs. group work, examining religion and spirituality, commerce, morals and ethics, etc.\u00a0 Books can\u2019t tell you everything you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2676,"featured_media":235,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,12,14],"tags":[137,22,88,139,7,4,138],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metaphysics","category-modernpractice","category-tradition","tag-modern-traditon","tag-paganism","tag-polytheism","tag-vocation","tag-witch","tag-witchcraft","tag-witchery"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Collage](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/654\/2016\/12\/anatomy.jpg\")
\nA practitioner is defined as \u201ca person actively engaged in an art, discipline, or profession.\u201d
\nA participant is defined as \u201ca person who takes part in something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nImagine a decent-size boat that\u2019s sea-worthy. \u00a0Everybody who gets on that boat may have similar belief systems and approaches to getting things done or maybe not. \u00a0They may know how to\u00a0make the boat run or drive, or how to build the boat, or maybe they just love being on the boat, looking out on the water. \u00a0Maybe they fish and do other activities from the boat. \u00a0They all really like getting on this boat for their own reasons.<\/p>\n