Halloween

[poliphilo]

When I was a practicing Wiccan I used to give interviews about Halloween.

I was a Wiccan spin doctor. I was smooth and middle-class. I would explain how Wicca was just a religion like any other- like Methodism for instance- And how Halloween was just a religious festival like Easter or Christmas.

But I wasn't merely bland. There were ideas to get across. About God being a Woman. About Sex being OK. About the importance of Ecology. My reassuring manner was the spoonful of sugar that helped the medecine go down.

I have my regrets. I was one of those who helped move Wicca into the mainstream; I drew its teeth, I made it respectable.

And now that it's just a fluffy New Age cult like all the others I no longer want to be part of it.

But this happens to all religious movements. The early Methodists were wild- eyed revivalists. They collapsed in fits, they foamed at the mouth. A generation passed and Methodism had become the religion of grocers- the very epitome of Victorian propriety and dullness

Wicca was a eruption of fin de siecle naughtiness in the dullest of British decades- the 1950s. Its founder, Gerald Gardner, was a gamey old chap with a taste for Swinburne, nudity, flagellation and girls on top. By a speedy and startling process of evolution this old man's wet dream developed into the spiritual arm of feminism. Which is where I hopped on board. Another decade and it had been overtaken by society. What had been shocking was now normative. Wicca had won all its battles. The Church of England acquired women priests, it was routine to refer to God as She, Green was good and sex was guiltless. TV shows like Buffy and Charmed gave us witches who were adorable icons of female empowerment.

Wicca was emptied out. Its power was expended. It had done its job.

Comments

[craftyailz.livejournal.com]

But we had some fun, setting up our own coven etc.,

The first five years were exciting. We wrote our book, we disagreed with what we had written by the time it was published. We packed it in.

But what memories - Now where are we going?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.

Yeah, it was a great few years, but by the end it had become a terrible drag.

What next? Well there are quite a few Bergman movies we haven't watched yet. :)

[craftyailz.livejournal.com]

Ain't that the truth. It became like Sunday School. I feel sorry for our last couple of initiates - though Rik seems happy enough with our teaching - it felt like we were doing it by rote. My health problems left me with very little energy, which in turn sapped a lot of yours - looking after me and the house, neither of us had it to give.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's true.

But by the time we bailed out Wicca had become a side-show. We were Wiccans at the best possible time- when Wicca had outgrown the initial silliness and was fighting for some important principles. Our side won the war. And now the action has moved elsewhere.

[craftyailz.livejournal.com]

That's true, we were always having to fight our corner. I wonder if I became a magistrate now- would there be all the fuss or would I just be accepted? (I'll never find out!).

I'm grateful to Wicca, it helped us compound our relationship.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It gave us a framework...

[craftyailz.livejournal.com]

It gave us something to talk about - met and married in 4 months - we didn't know that much about one another. Shared no interests, Wicca provided a bridge while we learned about ourselves and one another. Now we have the perfect marriage (except - or because - we write to one another on live journal rather than talk).

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Some people might find that a worrying concept, the LJ vs. talk... I quite like the notion of allowing the written word to occasionally enter even into everyday communication; it does something so very different to the spoken word, somehow.

Interesting to witness, at any rate; a somewhat less juvenile, and more sympathetic, version of Big Brother, perhaps. Reality TV made real, so to speak, and thus somehow losing the goldfish bowl aspect and instead becoming an extended privacy.

*pondering who to vote on for eviction*

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

A earlier generation was adept at writing letters. The phone killed off that skill. And now it's back again in a slightly different form. I revel in email and LJ. Writing gives you the chance to consider (and edit) what you have to say.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I'm a terrible letter writer, I'm affraid. I do e-mails okay, but I believe that is an entirely different medium. The immediateness of e-mails somehow dictate a different style and tone from that of the actual letter, and I find it hard to adjust accordingly.

Some 6-7 years I had great letter-exchanges, writing 4-5 pages to a friend of mine every week, but with e-mails and mobile phones we have somehow stopped doing that.

LJ obviously takes the immediateness of the e-mail one step further, in that it allows for a discussion to unfold more or less as on any instant message system, apart from making the exchanges public. I do like this plethora of written communications that seems to spread before us these days; as well as the good old classics (letters, 'letters to the editor' and so on) there are now new, and far more interactive and interpenetrating, ways of using written language. -Not to mention the way this whole 'global village'-thing necessitates using several languages in order to be able to use these mediums to their full potential. (Had my journal been Danish-only I doubt I should've had much response from overseas...)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a long time since I last wrote a "proper" pen and paper letter. I think I'd find it difficult now- though I was once quite skilled at it.

I write lots of emails- including letter-like ones ones that begin "Dear X" and end "best wishes, P".

I find these new methods of communication amazing. I love it that I now have all these friends all over the globe whom I have never met in the flesh.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Hmm... The last actual 'letter' I've written was, I think, a letter of condolences, thus conforming to an even tighter standard. (It was a nightmare to write, as it had to be semi-formal in order to mean anything to my ex-mother-in-law after she had lost her mother; she's too stiff upper-lip to appreciate the more touchy-feely letters I'd normally write in bereavement situations...)

And yes; it is amazing to have friends and acquaintanes in such different localities and positions. I must say I've had a tendency to have friends a bit here-and-there even before I became a seasoned internet nerd, so to me the difference lies mainly in the fact that a) I've never met these virtual, semi-fictional people and b) that it is so easy to stay in touch on a regular basis, so one does not feel the physical separation as an issue.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

These days I very largely conduct my social life over the Net. I was never one for small talk- and with LJ and email every exchange can be to the point.

[craftyailz.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of communicating with people. I resisted LJ for a while - even though I had a journal of my own, but am now enjoying expanding my world. Plus poliphilo isn't much of a talker, he's much more fluent, and articulate, when he's writing.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

And somehow we are all different when we write as oposed to when we speak; the medium affects the meaning conveyed, so to speak. Form and functionality are, as always, linked, so we become these very detached, cerebral creatures in an entirely written world. Recently I posted a picture of my foot (somebody asked for a body-part on a pedestal... Nevermind; won't make much sense, no matter how I try to explain!), and a few of my LJ-friends commented on the absurdity of the notion that sorenr might actually have feet! The spoken word is somehow more physical, more visceral, in that it is not merely a line of signs, but an actual physical impact on our body in the shape of alternating air-pressures...