Ghostes on postes
Oct. 24th, 2005 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloOne of my party pieces when I was a Wiccan was, "Look, Halloween ain't that special. We celebrate eight festivals and they're all of equal importance."
It irritated me when journalists came a-calling and all they wanted to talk about were spooks and skeletons and magic pumpkins. "No," I said, "Wicca is just as much about spring flowers and high summer and icicles hanging on the wall...."
But I was always an awkward cuss. Show me an orthodoxy and my instinct is to start doing some spadework round its foundations.
For example, our temple was dedicated to the Sun.
Hermes, Aphrodite and the Unconquered Sun- those were our patrons- and as often as not we worked in daylight.
I was impatient with the mystification, with the smoke and mirrors, the mind games. I cut that stuff back and cut it back until finally I was standing in an open meadow with the sun directly over head and a clear view in all directions.
Then I shouldered my scythe and left the field, shutting the gate behind me.
Clink!
It irritated me when journalists came a-calling and all they wanted to talk about were spooks and skeletons and magic pumpkins. "No," I said, "Wicca is just as much about spring flowers and high summer and icicles hanging on the wall...."
But I was always an awkward cuss. Show me an orthodoxy and my instinct is to start doing some spadework round its foundations.
For example, our temple was dedicated to the Sun.
Hermes, Aphrodite and the Unconquered Sun- those were our patrons- and as often as not we worked in daylight.
I was impatient with the mystification, with the smoke and mirrors, the mind games. I cut that stuff back and cut it back until finally I was standing in an open meadow with the sun directly over head and a clear view in all directions.
Then I shouldered my scythe and left the field, shutting the gate behind me.
Clink!
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-24 11:14 am (UTC)But I like balance, too- that 'third way' that is not all light or all shadow, or all science or all intuition- but rather, an integrated interlacing of the two.
I know fluffy whitelighter newage sorts who would not go near anything they perceive as 'dark', and I pity them because they will not see the extra dimensions that shadow lends to something. And I've known crunchy-granola earth lover types who are horrified that I could describe the earth remaking her crust as 'defragging'. Or that I would dare use a mathematical or chemical equation to illustrate a mystery. How dare I use my marquee screensaver as a prayer wheel!
I dare. It works, and there's a cheeky bit of humor in there, too. I think that last is probably the most important part.
I like poking holes in the wall between modes of perception. Like my friend's 'smoke theory' of electrons, it's just enough cognitive dissonance to move the little self aside and permit the actual Current to flow.