What My Neighbor Believes: Wicca (Part One)

by Lady Rose, Guest Blog­ger On the Horizon

Merry Meet Everyone,

It is a plea­sure to be able to write a guest post about a sub­ject that is near and dear to my heart — being a witch and my spir­i­tual path: Wicca.

Intro­duc­tion

First a lit­tle bit about me. I’m 53-years-young, mar­ried to an awe­some guy, and mom to a delight­ful daugh­ter. I work in a cubi­cle, drive a 10-year-old car, have a mort­gage, and own a cat (she is grey striped — not black). I don’t fly on brooms, have no warts, and only wear my black, pointy hat on spe­cial occa­sions (like a Hal­loween cos­tume party). The only slightly unusual thing about me that you might notice is that I have a few small tat­toos. But if you didn’t know me, you would not be able to tell that I am a witch by pass­ing me on the street. We are every­where! (just kid­ding) How­ever, the point is a witch can be any­one, from any back­ground, of any age, and we are just nor­mal folks going about our daily lives like every­one else. What makes us a lit­tle dif­fer­ent is that when the moon is full, you might find some of us out in the woods hav­ing a good howl. (again, just kidding!)

I was drawn to Wicca at a young age and read my first book about it when I was 12. I met a woman when I was 18 who I stud­ied with and was a mem­ber of her cir­cle for about 7 years. In my late 20’s, I was invited to be a guest speaker at a col­lege and ended up lec­tur­ing on sev­eral occa­sions through­out my home state for a few years. I also branched off on my own to form a Wic­can cir­cle. As peo­ple moved, mar­ried, and expe­ri­enced var­i­ous other life changes, the cir­cle dis­banded and since then, I have been a soli­tary Wic­can (witch). I do, how­ever, enjoy attend­ing pagan fes­ti­vals and open cir­cles or pic­nics that are held by Wic­can or like-minded eclec­tic pagan groups.

When try­ing to explain what it means to be a witch, it is use­ful to have some over­all def­i­n­i­tions, a bit of his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive, and clear up some com­mon misconceptions.

Def­i­n­i­tions

• Wicca or Wic­can: Refers to the “reli­gion” or prac­tice of the craft of the wise.
• Witch: Wise one, prac­ti­tioner of the wise arts; can be either male or female.
• Pagan: Some­one who prac­tices a reli­gion or spir­i­tual tra­di­tion that is not based on Chris­tian­ity. There are many, many tra­di­tions that are based on prac­tices that pre-date Chris­tian­ity. Not all pagans are witches, though Wicca is con­sid­ered a “pagan” tradition.

Not every­one who uses the term “witch” is refer­ring to some­one who is Wic­can. Often peo­ple call some­one (or call them­selves) a witch because they read tarot cards, light can­dles for med­i­ta­tions, work with herbal reme­dies, do energy heal­ing work or prac­tice any num­ber of var­i­ous “occult” (hid­den) practices.

How­ever, for the pur­poses of this post, I will be using the term “witch” to refer to some­one whose spir­i­tual prac­tices are of the Wic­can tradition.

His­tor­i­cal Perspective

Wicca is not and never was a “for­mal­ized” reli­gion in the days of old. Tra­di­tions were handed down mostly orally from fam­ily mem­ber to fam­ily mem­ber, or men­tor to stu­dent. The wise woman or man was often the healer of the vil­lage who knew the heal­ing prop­er­ties of plants, had a way with ani­mals, and served as a mid­wife, coun­selor or spir­i­tual leader of the com­mu­nity. Before reli­gion became “orga­nized,” the tra­di­tions of Wicca were prac­ticed widely and in many forms. Small vil­lages and com­mu­ni­ties cel­e­brated the sea­sonal changes together with large fes­ti­vals and feast­ing, and cer­e­monies to bless the crops and animals.

Unfor­tu­nately, dur­ing the Mid­dle Ages, as the Chris­t­ian church chose to spread its influ­ence and the med­ical pro­fes­sion began to be orga­nized for men only, cam­paigns were waged to wipe out any­one who believed dif­fer­ently then they did. Laws were passed pro­hibit­ing women from being mid-wives. Sacred places were destroyed, and often a new church was built on top of the remains. Fear and hys­te­ria were spread far and wide. Tens of thou­sands of inno­cents were falsely accused and sen­tenced to tor­ture and death in order to stamp out any faiths that were dif­fer­ent, and to ter­ror­ize oth­ers to fol­low the law and the reli­gion of those in power. In some areas of Europe, the female pop­u­la­tions of entire vil­lages were mur­dered in the name of the con­quer­ing reli­gion. Lies and fear were spread through­out many lands, until many tra­di­tions and prac­tices were dri­ven under­ground to be only prac­ticed in secrecy. Many were lost forever.

Out of cen­turies of secrecy, fear and mis­un­der­stand­ing grew, and the Old Ways were for­got­ten by almost everyone.

Mod­ern Day Witches

Witches today are an eclec­tic group that don’t fit into nice neat cat­e­gories. They can work as a soli­tary or with a group. Tra­di­tions come from many dif­fer­ent ori­gins and ancient cul­tures. Often var­i­ous tra­di­tions have been com­bined together to cre­ate new ways of cel­e­brat­ing spirit and hon­or­ing the Old Ways, the God­dess, and Nature. The prac­tice of the Wic­can tra­di­tions con­tin­ues to evolve today and will con­tinue to do so far into the future.

Next week: Wicca (Part Two) — Meet Your Friendly Neigh­bor­hood Witch

Bright Bless­ings,

Lady Rose
The Diet Pul­pit
2 Witches Blog

Invi­ta­tion to Serve as a Guest Blogger

I invite you to con­tribute to an ongo­ing dis­cus­sion On the Hori­zon about the var­i­ous belief sys­tems and, more par­tic­u­larly, what the many dif­fer­ent churches believe and teach. The invi­ta­tion also extends to those who, like me, are spir­i­tu­ally walk­ing beyond the walls of orga­nized reli­gion and per­sons of all dif­fer­ent faiths, not just Chris­tians, in order to fur­ther our knowl­edge and tol­er­ance of each other’s under­stand­ing of and approach to spir­i­tu­al­ity and belief.

Send your con­tri­bu­tion to admin at hope­ful­spirit dot com!

Tech­no­rati Tags: What My Neigh­bor Believes, Wicca

You might also like:

• What My Neighbor Believes: Wicca (Part Two)
• What My Neighbor Believes: Lutheranism (Part Two)
• What My Neighbor Believes: Lutheranism (Part One)
• What My Neighbor Believes: Jehovah’s Witnesses