Love and Compassion

I’ve spent this winter rearranging how I think and speak in the world.  Most likely in the next few months, I will be blogging some reframed ideas. 

 At Lammas, I had an intimate experience with the Goddess Brigid.  She is the most compassionate, patient goddess who really does truly care, not just for the community but for the individual.  Her heart is huge.  While aspecting her for Lammas, I found that my heart was bursting open, overflowing with compassion as well as feeling the pain and struggles of the human condition.  She seemed very invested in making sure people did their work, progressed in their growth, and took up both the banner and yoke of caring for each other and the planet.  She made me feel that my heart was breaking.  I like to think that this is what a crustacean, bug, or snake feels when they crack open their shell or skin in order to grow bigger.  I burst into tears and felt pretty open and emotionally exhausted that night.  It took days to feel “normal”. 

At Between the Worlds conference in December, this same overflowing compassion returned, and added to it was a purity of purpose.  Amazing work was done, ritual was incredible, and new and deeper connections were made.  I felt alive and fully in my purpose.   The world seems more positive since then.  I would say that it was just my perspective of the world, but some of my dreaded visions of the future have been washed away.  The world seems relieved that the Mayan “end of the world” did not come to pass.  Or did it?  I hope for a new world in the years and generations to come. 

So, my word of the year is compassion.  I am attempting to deepen love and compassion, connection and empathy.  I find this gentle, flowing shift very uncomfortable and difficult.  Isn’t this lovey stuff supposed to be easy?  My normal mode is too cardinal and Saturnian for this to be an easy process.  I am deepening my personal practice, my spell craft, and the work with my current and future Gods. 

 Today, I found it easier to be positive.  Things are moving and shaping is some really good ways.  This article, http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/01/theres-no-such-thing-as-everlasting-love-according-to-science/267199/?miaou, hit me really hard too.  It gave me yet another missing piece of how to interact and treat people in my life.  Friendly is not just a social moray and polite, but a way to actually add in every moment to the re-enchantment of the world.  Maybe this is obvious to most, but it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Please note that I live in Northern New Jersey as well, a very cutthroat harsh environment. 

Yesterday, I constructed an internal ally to use as a tool for interaction as well.  The image that came to me was not Jupiter, that I was aiming for, but Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, one of his lovers.  All of this came to me from pure imagination rather than conscious guidance of the process.  The image I am working with is the sapphire queen.  Fittingly enough, I have paintings on my desk at work of personifications of the Moons of Jupiter.  Now, before I get sappy, blessed be!

Is Wicca no longer Occultism?

So the first thing I read this morning was an article on the Wild Hunt Pagan News Blog, that the library of congress has reclassified Wicca and Paganism from the Occult to the Religion section.  I am all for mainstreaming and being recognized as a religion.  However in this particular case, I am of two minds.  Wicca is my religion.  Many of my magickal and witchcraft practices I would say that "Yes, they are occult practices".  I don't just mean in the occult means hidden sort of way.  Spirit evocation, the bending and warping of time in ritual, the changing of outcomes in the world, all of these things I would call "occult".  The root of this concern is that  I came into Wicca  and Witchcraft in an overt way when I was looking deeper into the occult.  I was always, even as a child, into crystals, psychicism, and new age topics.  When I started to be pushed to go deeper, that was when I dove head first into ritual, spell craft, and worship of Pagan Gods.

Would I have found Paganism if it had been in the religion section instead?  I would have to say that most likely I would have.  At the time, I was also reading Qabala, the Tibetian book of the dead, the Gnostic Gospels, and anything else I could get my hands on.  I was certainly seeking.

But, are we embarrassed that we engage in occult practices and witchcraft?  Are we still trying to sugar coat the power of what we do with over-emphasizing "harm none" (don't even get me started on that one) and "love and light"?

Right now my personal practice and engagement of the Gods and the Mysteries is about digging deeper, diving down to the dark depths and rising back up to meet the sun.  My next post will be about how deep into the hidden mysteries we all really can go.

Blessings,