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| Author | Topic: Your Magick Alignment? |
| Briar |
posted 2/2/10 7:41 AM
I was just responding to Sab's question about what we create with our magick, and I began to think about my path of balance. Which brings up an interesting question that you might want to consider...what is the alignment of your craft? There are witches who work with light and those who spin with dark energy, and those who walk a path of balance. I myself am a balance witch, which is also akin to my idea of a druid. I imagine that most hedge witches, being in tune with both night and day and all the seasons, work in balance with the forces of creation and destruction. After all, you have to uproot one plant to favour another, and you must destroy the wild garden in order to create according to your will. Just like mother nature takes life in order to create new. But I can see how others would be drawn only to lightwork and the healing aspects of herbalism. Maybe there are even some dark witches out there who, I don't know, only moon garden or only weed out around what grows naturally on their property, therefore only aligning with mother nature's dark, mysterious side. I used to be a white witch, working only with life-giving light. Before I stepped onto the field each morning towards my woods walk, I'd weave a spell into my steps to avoid the harming of any living creature under my feet, and made it so that I only spread life-giving energy to the creatures throughout my land. I often especially entreated life-energy to the deer, as I feel a connection with them. This went on until I decided to move across the country. In the midst of my preparations, I was involved in a gut-wrenching accident in which I hit a deer on the road, later revealed to have been a heavily pregnant doe. I was stricken that all of my goodwill could backfire so destructively... The understanding came that I had been imposing my will upon the balance of nature, and though my intentions were good, I had built up a backlash of destructive energy that had to be unleashed with my decision to exit the space. The doe and the new life in her belly were my tithe. I learned that all beings, including me, must live in harmony with life and death. We all must leave a footprint.... I do wonder though that perhaps there are those more skilled than myself in the white arts that could have found a way to neutralize any possible backlash within the original spell, and with only their intention. As for me, my way now is to carefully consider what must be destroyed in order to keep the balance in my creation spells, and either the spell itself comes up neutral and in alignment with the mother's will, or I offer something up for the taking should I find it feels harmonious to do so. Now it seems to me like gardening is the epitome of this law...the life of a weed for an herb to thrive, our compost for its food, our sweat for its effect. In this same line I also pose a question of the Wiccan reed, "And do as thou wilt, an it harm none." Does this fully reflect the compact with nature that a balance witch lives by? Or is it incomplete? Is this where the difference between a wiccan and a hedge-witch is apparent? Or are the definition of each too vague for a theological discrepancy, and therefore mine a totally personal objection? Well I've made multiple points, many of which can be interpreted as questions or at least points of elaboration for our forum community...I'm interested in your response. Blessed be! |
| Rowan |
posted 2/5/10 7:08 AM
Your ideas are very interesting, I have never heard of a balance witch, but I can understand your way of thinking. Your way seems very similar to the way of Zen Buddhism, except that in my understanding, there are no good or bad happenings. If you are trying to live well and with good intentions and you have hit and killed a mother deer as a result, this to us seems bad, but I can also see it as part of the river of life. In itself, the situation wasn't bad, it was the feelings that it manifested in you that felt bad. If we can see past the horror of an event, we can also see that good comes of bad and bad comes from good, the river of life is alive and must go where it must to its destination. We just bob along as a part of that river, we are here to observe. If we can influence the flow in some way, we are changing things, but are not aware of the wider conclusions. Your mother deer may have been a necessary sacrifice to avoid something else, perhaps a crash with a whole herd of deer, or a bus load of school children? Or perhaps your crash with the deer stopped you that day from winning the National Lottery? But if you won the National Lottery that may have been the result of another horrific accident, or it may have been the answer to all your dreams. Everything you do and everything that happens because of it all pans out, good, bad, good, bad, is just the way our human minds perceive it and we see each situation, measuring our lives and time like the ticking of an immense universal clock. Thank you for your interesting discussion, please return!! By the way, if you felt traitorous to the deer that may be your spirit guide, I think that actually it was a confirmation that the deer IS your spirit guide, because it seems that the event was a pinnacle in your life, a lesson that you will return to in your mind and will learn from again and again. Rowan. http://www.wiccaboxofglory.co.uk Supplies to support modern Celtic/Pagan lifestyles, traditions and religion |
| Asherah |
posted 3/27/10 2:22 AM
I'd left this website for awhile because I found an awful lot of trite stuff going on. Your post brought me back. Wow!!! I could go on and on about the light vs. the dark, what is good...what is evil? The shadow of death visited me much too early in life and gave me a whole new perspective of the Craft. In fact, I pretty much dropped the fluffy stuff that I'd been practicing as a wiccan for so many years (hence - the hedgewitch path). Having realized that no matter how much "white" magic I did, the dark still descended on me, one way or another. It gave me a blast of reality. Nature is loving, giving, nurtering; nature is cruel, relentless, unforgiving. But despite the pain, I still adore her. I'm an herbalist (by profession) and recognize the healing as well as the sickening power of herbs. It is what it is. Just to recognize that was, for me, a spiritual breakthrough. "And It Harm None"...well, tell that to nature. I'm still fighting to get rid of all that moral/ethical b.s. we humans demand of one another and get back down to basics. Life is sweet; life is cruel. Life is worth living; I can't f*!&ing wait till it's over. And that, as they say, is that. Thanks so much for your incredible post. |
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