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Paganism and Parents: Advice for Pagan Children

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:21:17 +0100

I just got a piece of email from a girl re: a comment I made on this Catholic article about a book on the dangers of Wicca, thanking me for my telling my story and how I gave her hope about being a Pagan child of restricting Christian parents. Lauren said that both she and her mother are natural healers and that she often recieved crystals as gifts, but after her parents read the aforementioned book, she was forced to throw them out. She has never come out of the broom closet, and is afraid to now more than ever, and feels as though her only outlet and method of practice is now gone.

So here's the response I wrote to her:

Thanks so much for your kind words, Lauren. It's nice to know that my words make an impact on somebody. ^.^

I tend to find that argumentative speech with practitioners of other faiths only makes the situation worse. When my parents first found out about my conversion, things went really badly. My father is a convert to Catholicism from being a Southern Baptist, so he's more studied in Catholicism than most that are born into it, and he and I would fight like cats and dogs over my beliefs and he nearly pushed me away until a friend of mine whom he had never met but who had heard me fighting on the phone with him took the phone when I ran away from the conversation out of anger and frustration and told him that, whatever he was doing, all he was succeeding in was pushing me away.

Now, our conversations take on a much more intellectual tone, and tend to focus on the philosophies of beliefs. My father's favorite topic tends to be challenging the Rede, and it gives me some practice in clarifying my personal beliefs and new ways to look at problems and find answers for myself, and there are times where he'll bring up issues that I haven't thought about before. In the challenge that he presents, I learn and grow.

I suppose what I'm saying is, if you choose to talk to your parents about your faith, remember to keep it calm and direct, express your emotions with your words and try to avoid attacking them, even if they attack you and your faith. The truth behind their reaction is most likely because they are worried for you. I know my parents were, and I think they still might be, but they understand now that they won't shame me or trick me into leaving my faith, and the best they can do is ask me questions and have open dialogue with me about my beliefs, and then voice theirs.

My favorite way to tell people my ground rules for religious discussion is to say that I enjoy conversation and even debate about religion, but the minute someone starts preaching, the conversation is over, and I'm not listening. It's a challenge to others to keep a truly open mind (open-mindedness is the willingness to examine a point of view and decide for yourself how valid you believe it to be, not to believe what someone says just because), and a challenge to myself to do the same.

I'm sorry that you have such troubles with your family, and I wish you luck in your life and your relationship with them. Try to see it from their perspective and remember that they love you, even if you feel like they're smothering you or restricting you. The Gods give us challenges to overcome and make us stronger, more capable people. In this case, emotional outburst may happen, and you may be its target, but your challenge is to remain calm and reasonable, and to wait out the emotional flood until they are calm enough to discuss.

I generally leave my beliefs unmentioned in my house, keep my Tarot cards out of sight, and leave my statues and candles in my room when I go home, and wait for my parents to ask me something or start the conversation. I wait for an appropriate time to talk about it because it is their space and they aren't entirely comfortable with my practices, so I leave it to them to decide when they want to face it. That may be what you end up having to do. It's been a struggle of about 5 years at this point to get here, so be patient.

In addition to this, I've got a few more points to make in general about interfaith discussion and coming out of the broom closet.

The major problem I see when one faith talks about another, or during interfaith conversation, is misunderstandings that root in the language used by the religion. No, I'm not talking about language like French, Spanish, and English, but the vocabulary of the faith and the particular definitions used. For example, Catholicism uses the words worship, honor, and pray to to mean different things, while Pagans and Protestants think of worship and honor and pray to as interchangable terms for the same concept. This is where the misconception of Catholics worshipping Mary and the Saints comes from. God (the Trinity, where God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are one entity with 3 facets, much like the Triple Goddess, lovelies) is worshipped as the Creator and the All-Powerful and is the entity through which all miracles and blessings, etc. occur. Mary is honored as the Mother of Christ, an elevated being born without original sin and chosen by God to be the mother of the Savior, and is prayed to in hopes that she will intercess on behalf of the supplicant. The Saints are similarly honored for being messengers and vessels for God, and are prayed to for intercession and for help in the various areas that God grants them the power to help with. The concept of a patron saint (such as St. Jude, the patron saint of children and hopeless causes) is similar to arts patronage; the saint focuses energy and prayers on certain causes and topics, and vice versa is given power by God to help with those things. (Their area of patronage tends to relate to their causes and focuses in life.)

However, Pagans use the term worship in relation to their patron deities, honor in reference to deities outside their normal interactions, and prayer as interaction with the Divine.

Let me point something out: pray is interchangable with ask in English. Thus, the phrase pray tell is equivalent to please explain or tell me. So, to pray is to ask something, whether it's asking for help, information, or even that the subject of your prayer be honored by your attention. (Not the best phrasing, but I can't think of another way to say that.)

It's not so much that x faith is against y faith, but is more likely that there's a massive miscommunication between them because there's a whole different lexicon for x than for y.

So here's the advice: make sure to be as clear as possible when using faith-specific words or words that have a different definition in your faith than in your parents' faith (or whomsoever you're talking to), or try to use the equivalent term that they would recognize. Ritual is essentially liturgy or service or Mass in Christian (or Roman Catholic in the last case) terms, magick is working with your Gods (I find it useful to relate magick with Divinity to the adage "God helps him who helps himself"), prayer is a request for support and a way to feel connected to your Gods. There are, of course, concepts that don't necessarily translate, so it can be a task to explain them to someone with no frame of reference.

The thing I also feel I need to stress is this: it's okay to admit that you don't know or that you haven't addressed something that someone may bring up. For example, my father challenged me on the basis of the Rede that my wearing my pentacle where he could see it caused him harm because he saw it as a sign of Satan's deceiving me away from God and that, by the Rede, I should take it off so I didn't harm him. (For reference, the full version that I use says An it harm none, do as ye Will; An it cause harm, do as ye wish.) I responded that his wearing his cross in plain view caused me harm because it made me feel alienated and cornered when I came home from school because I wasn't accepted by my family because I was Pagan, but it's unreasonable for me to ask him to hide his cross because I felt uncomfortable. But, he responded, it's not a Catholic belief to harm none, but it is a Wiccan one. (I'm not Wiccan, but it still follows since I do use a form of the Rede.) I responded that it's harming me to remove my pentacle because, in addition to its being the sign of my faith, I see it as an amulet and a form of protection from harmful influence and, none in the Rede includes myself, so I cannot harm myself just because he says I'm harming him.

Which brought up the question: what do you do when the problem harms one person, but the solution harms yourself? I hadn't thought of that.

A lot of Pagans feel that we need to be able to snap back with a quick answer to any question someone throws at us. Well, the Christians might be able to do that in simple cases (and they might think the questions they're asking are simple), but the highly individual nature of Pagan paths means that we don't have rote answers to issues. And, if they were to be honest, most Christians don't think about the more complex issues for themselves, and the Church or their pastor or the Bible may not have a direct answer. For all religions, the moral code is a guideline for decision-making. The Rede is the basic reference to decide whether to proceed with an action and how to do so. There is a thought process that simply outlines how to approach a situation:
Does it cause harm?
No: Then do as your conscience and spirit guide you to do.
Yes: Then do what you feel must be done, and do what you can to minimize the harm caused and to treat the harm that cannot be avoided.
Is this important enough to risk causing harm?
What harm can be caused?
Can it be avoided, and if so, how?
If not, what can I do to put the harm right?
Is this important enough to risk the harm?

It's not a hard-and-fast rule; it's an ideal to which we aspire. Explain that, and the thought process the Rede is intended to lay out. Explain that "do what you Will" doesn't translate to "do whatever you want," but that the Will is your higher conscience and spiritual purpose, and that you should do what it guides you to do and attempt to minimize your harmful impact on the world around you and yourself. Draw the connection for them between the Rede and the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you").

I hope that I'm being helpful. All I can do is go off of my personal experience and recommend what's worked for me.

I will post some links to episodes of the Pagan Centered Podcast (http://pagancenteredpodcast.com) when their website is back up and running - their hosting service was facing imminent flooding of their server housing as of a couple days ago and the servers were shut down to minimize damage.

Email questions!

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 05:28:54 +0100

Oh, excitement! I got my first bit of email back in October (I know, it's been a few months, but anyway) from a lovely girl named Selena. I asked her if I could put her emails and my answers on the blog, and she said yes, so here's the transcripts!

Hello Miss Myst,

My name is Selena, I was wondering if you could tell me more about being a Nocturnal Pagan. I've been trying to find my religion and I came across Dark Paganism while looking at Neo-Pagan religions and found Nocturnal Paganism by extension. After looking into it a bit I found it sounded kind of right... What does it mean do part of this religion (even if it's just what it means to you), is there any specific websites or books you would recommend, and anything else you wouldn't mind telling me^.^

Thank you!

Hello, Selena. Nice to hear from you.

Nocturnal Paganism is the label I applied to my particular practice back when I started in with it a few years ago. I have been a child of Night since my days as a baby witch. Simply put, it is a Pagan practice that centers on the Night and the powers and beings associated with it, and my cycles are more closely related to the Lunar cycles, rather than the solar Wheel of the Year.

I was claimed very early in my practice by the goddess Nyx, the Greek personification of Night and one of, if not the very first beings in existence, according to one iteration of Greek myth. It has always been more of a Mother-daughter relationship between us, more than a patron-servant or even -devotee relationship. She guided me and held me close, helping me rebuild the shattered foundations of my spiritual life. I had been Catholic all of my life, and had an experience where the Christian God told me that I was not one of His children and that it was time for me to go home. This realization broke me, having been taught that nothing else was right, and I had no concept of where "home" was if it wasn't the Church. When I started my search and stumbled upon Paganism, it just clicked. My first book was Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions by Joyce & River Higginbotham. I highly recommend this book.

Later on, I stumbled upon Nyx's name in a fiction series, The House of Night by P.C. and Kristin Cast, and noted a quotation from Heosid's Theogany in the beginning of the book. The name struck a chord, even though I'd never heard it before. I did some research, discovering that Nyx was indeed a Greek Goddess, along with her fierce and fearsome reputation. The Casts did not present her this way, but more as a loving Mother to Her chosen people (in the series, they were vampyres, but this is semi-unrelated), and the notion also struck a chord. So, with a dearth of information on this Titan-Goddess, the note in my soul, and questions in my heart, I did the only thing I could think of: I asked Her. She came and embraced me, and it was very much a home-coming. I burst into tears at the feeling of being flooded by this pure love and acceptance after being left cold and alone by my parents' God. She was a shadow, darker than the depths of the ocean, deep and shielding. I felt purely at peace and fully exhilarated at that moment. This was my Mother. This was home.

Through my practice, which includes divination (Nyx had Her own Oracle back in ancient Greece) and finding uses for my vampyrism and the inherent talents to help my natural proclivity as a guide in transition and as a mystic, I have developed a familial and working relationship with the Dark Gods and Goddesses of the Greek pantheon, mostly those of Nyx's family. Nemesis and I have a sisterly relationship in which She likes to throw me curveballs but also backs me up when I have been wronged. (She's currently teaching me a very difficult lesson, but that's to be expected on the Dark side of things - the lessons aren't always taught gently.)

I have also come to discover a connection with the Egyptian Bastet, one that is older than I had thought, as She had claimed me when I was in elementary school. Our working relationship has become stronger in recent months, and She is my Solar balance to Nyx's lunar influence. The two pantheons seem to mesh well enough, I think given the time where the Greeks ruled Egypt. I don't work much outside this group, mostly because I've never been able to find such nocturnal deities in other pantheons. I talk to Hermes occasionally, and I've had a chat or two with Coyote, but not much outside of that.

Given that much of my practice is trial-and-error, and I'm not aware of many others who practice in this sort of realm, I can't give you much to go on as far as books go. Even the anthropological texts I've been able to find don't have much on Nyx's family. As far as resources, I like Encyclopedia Mythica (www.pantheon.org) and Theoi Greek Mythology (www.theoi.com) for reference. I'm also working my way through reading Heosid's Theogany, which I bought in ebook form from Amazon for $1. It should be on the Gutenburg Project's website as well.

I'm glad that I could be part of your pathfinding, and please feel free to ask me further questions. I'm glad to help.

-Myst

Ever since I was little (I'm only in highschool though) I never felt connected to the Catholic religion. About a year or two ago I really started to question it and at one point it felt like its God had stopped being a father, he was there because he is my parents god. At one point I felt a strong feeling of him telling me I don't belong as one of his children. I felt lost so I started looking for a different faith, that's when I started looking into the Pagan religion. I feel connected to it, but not the bright. sunny side. I understamd there has to be balance and I feel connected to the darker side. How did you ask the Goddess Nyx if you were one of her claimed children, though meditation, trance, fasting, ect? How do you recommend finding if a God or Goddess has claimed you? Also on your blog it said that you were a vampyre, what does that mean and what is it like? I really appreciate you answering my questions an being a part of my pathfindng.

Selena,

I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you about this.

I started questioning my faith around 7th grade (the 2002-03 school year), and it was less questioning its validity and more questioning my belief in it; whether I belonged there. After the revelation with the Christian God, I had a similar feeling as the one you describe. He told me to "go home." After the hurt subsided, He and I have developed almost an uncle-niece relationship, albeit somewhat antagonistic.

When I decided to explore my resonance with Nyx's name, I cast a circle (I had already started an elementally-driven practice) and asked Her to speak with me. I offered up myself and presented Her with the fact that I was lost, felt at home and safe in the Shadows, and that I was looking for my home. Nyx and I have a very direct sort of relationship, and I am encouraged to ask questions, get my hands dirty, and take a very active role in my own development.

As far as determining as to whether you have been chosen, the first thing I would encourage you to do is to read. Do as much research into the myths and symbols of the Gods and Goddesses that draw you. Don't rely on things in the New Age section; a lot of those resources aren't the most accurate when it comes to myth. They have a tendency to say that Isis is a loving, gentle mother figure, when according to Egyptian myth, she dismembers the god that killed Osiris. Not a nice person. Then, it's a matter of keeping eyes out for signs of deities that seem to show up a lot in your life. There is also the option of doing rituals and inviting different deities into your circle (make sure you don't bring in rivals - that's asking for trouble) and see who you click with.

Don't expect to be claimed immediately, or by one or two deities. You may have a group, or just one, or you may be a free agent for a while. Paganism is an exploratory group of paths, and it's trial and error as to what works. The one thing to remember above all: Don't be afraid to make mistakes. You'll learn more from your missteps than you will your successes. Question everything. Experiment. Read, Talk to people. Look for a group or a teacher in your area. Explore, but be safe.

-Myst

Thanks so much, Selena, for your questions, and I'm really glad to be helpful.

I noticed that I missed a question of yours! You asked about what it means that I'm a vampyre and what it's like.

Vampyrism is a condition where a person does not maintain necessary levels of spiritual energy (I use the Hindu term "prana" though you may recognize chi, ki, or life force) and must feed upon the energies of others to replenish the energy levels. This can be done by drinking blood or bodily fluids or from drawing energy psionically. (This is a skill fundamentally akin to energy work and directing energy, but it pulls it inward instead of directing it outward.) Blood drinkers are called sanguinarians or sanguine vampyres, and the energetic versions are psychic or psionic vampyres. A good amount of the Pagan community are disbelieving of vampyrism, and see psychic vampyres as being malicious and power-hungry, but this is not the case for most of the vampyres I know.

Hungry vampyres suffer various physical symptoms, such as unidentifiable cravings, migraines, decreased immune response, nausea, dizziness, irritability, depression, psychological issues, worsening of existing medical issues, etc. with no identifiable physical cause. Feeding regularly abates these problems.

Psychic or psionic vampyres, like me, tend to note a natural talent for energy work, and I use this talent in my personal magickal methods to ease pain and help the healing process as well as doing simple energy work to work in my life.

The Yule/Christmas Debate and Why It's Utterly Ridiculous and Embarrassing

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 03:06:26 +0100

I really don’t understand why Pagans and Christians have to spend a season that is supposed to focus on internal examination, celebration of the return of the light, and the coming of the Solar God (whether it’s Sol Invictus, Mithras, or the symbolically-Solar Jesus Christ) arguing about which is valid, where the traditions originated, and whether Christmas is a stolen holiday and even Christian at all.

What does it matter to you?

Okay, I can kind of understand the Christian side of things, given that Christianity is founded on the concept that it is the only valid religion and, in order to prove its validity, must invalidate all other paths. Whatever. It doesn’t matter what we say or do, they will continue to attempt to invalidate us. I personally couldn’t care less whether the customs were adapted from various Pagan traditions across cultures. It should be expected from a religion that is designed to convert.

But what does it matter if Christians took the date of Sol Invictus, Saturnalia, Yule, or whatever other Solstice holiday that happens to share mythic similarities to the birth of Christ? What impact does it have on our celebrations? Why can we not take a look at Christianity with the same eyes that we examine ancient Pagan religions with and see the mythic and archetypal similarities in Christian and Jewish teachings that we can see between Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Mayan, and Celtic myth? Or is it just that we’ve got too close ties to Christianity and that, since most Pagans leave Christianity because of some perceived trauma, we feel the need to declare this relatively young religion invalid? Does it have to be wrong? What happened to the concept that all paths to God are good and it may be right for them?

This is the problem I have with both communities. We insist upon attacking each other. And it happens every time a major holiday overlaps in the Wiccan Wheel of the Year and Christian liturgical calendar. Yule/Christmas, Ostara/Easter… Who the hell cares? What does it really matter?

If you go back, Wicca has stolen and invented holidays that did not belong to it, reverse-engineered a monomyth for the Wheel of the Year from various Classical and Celtic myths, and then tries to validate itself by claiming that it is an ancient religion when, in fact, the earliest it can claim its origins is the 1920s. It takes many things from British Traditional religion (not BTW, but the ancient Celtic and Anglic practices) as well as other religions and ties deeply into the Western archetypes that most practitioners grew up with, but it’s a modern religion. Does this invalidate it? No, of course not. So why does the fact that Christians adopted symbols and dates from the older Pagan religions in order to survive in unfriendly governments and to further the message they feel obligated to share invalidate them? It doesn’t.

My advice to my community: Just celebrate your holiday. Keep it sacred in the ways you feel are right. If you get involved in the debates, don’t attack, merely explain that you share traditions and parallels. Be good ambassadors for our community, not violent, belligerent, childish reactionaries.

Christmas is Christian because it celebrates the birth of their God. Yule is Pagan because it celebrates the Solstice and the birth of our Gods. Leave each other alone, wish each other happy holidays, regardless of which you celebrate, and let’s not forget everyone else that gets left out in the assumption that you celebrate Christmas in whatever form you might. It’s true that Christmas is not the only holiday, but it’s up to you to keep your holidays sacred, not the rest of the world.

Blessed Solstice, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and a joyful wintertime holiday (or summertime for anyone in the Southern hemisphere) for everyone else in whatever religion you practice. If you don’t practice, then I wish you comfort in the new season and a happy New Gregorian Year.

Thanksgiving Issues: What's the issue?

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 02:42:58 +0100

For some of my readers, I'm going to sound like a total heartless bitch with my next statement. I'm sorry, but it's my real opinion, and I ask that you at least read the whole entry before you judge. And please, feel free to comment.

I think the people making a huge deal over Native American rights and appropriation and what-have-you are just wasting their breath. No, really. Nobody's listening. Nobody cares on Thanksgiving because they're watching the football game, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and running around like mad people cooking for the huge family gatherings that happen on this day in America.

Yes, I understand that the traditional Thanksgiving story is a crock, and that the Native Americans suffered a lot of heartache, and still do. I'm of Cherokee blood myself (though the much larger amount of various kinds of European blood overwhelm most of it), and I know a bit from my research to tie my heritage into my practice, and I am sympathetic, but there's not a damn person listening in the US today. And what does that have to do with today's Thanksgiving holiday? Not much.

You know what I do take an issue with? The fact that no one seems to pay attention to the words that make up the name of this holiday: Thanks giving. The whole point of Thanksgiving is to celebrate what we have; to be truly grateful for our lives and the good things in it.

My aunt was in the hospital last weekend. She suffered an abcess in her stomach and a ruptured appendix. As most of you know, a ruptured appendix is a dangerous thing, possibly fatal and extremely uncomfortable. With the abcess, the rupture was even more of a problem. She was in the hospital for several days after having to be opened up with a midline incision to clean everything up, rather than the usual laproscopic procedure.

She got the concept this year. She was just happy to be there.

Here I am complaining about this, but I'm just as guilty as the next person. I don't give a damn about this holiday anymore. I hate the parade, I don't care about football (and the Iron Bowl isn't til Saturday - War Eagle!), and I don't get to have as much fun cooking when my mother's running around like a madwoman. (Still really proud of that apple pie I made, though.) And on top of that, Thanksgiving is just the gateway to Christmas shopping nowadays, rather than an actual celebration of life, family, food, and everything we already have.

For many Pagans, especially those who are Wiccan or whose practice is based in Wicca, Thanksgiving as a national holiday is a redundancy. We've already got Mabon, back over 16 weeks ago. Mabon a harvest celebration, much like most Pagan festivals, celebrating the main harvest of the year and thanking the earth and the gods for their bounty and blessing. Regardless of the fact that Mabon isn't directly related to any pre-existing holidays, it's a practice that most of us take more seriously and spiritually than pretty much any family in the country. And then there's Samhain. (Well, I say Hallowe'en, but that's the fact that I'm not Wiccan nor a Celtic practitioner, but I digress...) An honoring of our dead, offer them food and drink, appease the spirits that come through the Veil, practice transformative magick, and celebrate and give thanks for the final harvest.

Thanksgiving here is a national excuse to eat too much, sleep too much, watch football, and get up at ungodly hours the next morning and literally trample people to get discounts on presents for yet another commerciallized holiday. I'm not trying to get preachy, but it's rather disgusting how things have devolved. When parents brawl over Tickle-Me-Elmos and one woman outright kills another over a Barbie doll, I think people have forgotten the point.

Okay, so maybe I was ranting. Rant over.

I am so sorry, everyone....

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 02:56:48 +0100

I know, I know. It's been since April that I've posted anything. And my life has gone and turned itself on its head in the meantime.

So as not to pull the drama into my blog, I won't go into my extreme hatred of the girl involved in my breakup, I have broken up with my fiance, and so I am now single. I'm not sure how well I'm handling this, but I've been told that my management of emotions and my responses to them is actually healthy, so I'm supposedly doing well. Still hurting, but I'll live.

This is mostly just a status update, because I've been a bit locked down on my magick recently, so I haven't got anything to talk about right now except for personal drama.

Be expecting a post sometime in the future about my first real experience with grief, and why I think death is easy for me but this breakup isn't.

Destruction in Alabama

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:02:12 +0100

As some of you may know, I live in North Alabama, USA. As more of you may know, yesterday, 27 April 2011, North Alabama, as well as the Birmingham and Tuscaloosa areas, was hit by three waves of extremely intense tornadic storms that generated 128 tornados. Huntsville, my hometown and where I was located, had 28 form and/or touch down in its limits, and Birmingham and Tuscaloosa were hit by tornados that I heard were classified as EF5 tornados. Parts of the cities and U of Alabama are now flattened and utterly destroyed. The death toll for the storm system has, just today, risen to over 200 in Alabama alone. The storm system has crossed into Georgia and is expected to hit the Carolinas as well, at least from what I have been able to learn.

Huntsville and the rest of Madison County, as well as most of the Tennessee Valley, is completely without power. The main line that feeds Madison County, which then feeds power to other areas, was damaged and disconnected, and the nuclear power plant it connected to ran its automatic shutdown process because of the disconnect (which is exactly what it was supposed to do). The hospitals are running on generators, as is the Huntsville Airport. The TVA and Alabama Power companies have cited that it will be 2 to 3 days just to get the hospitals and utility plants back on-line, but the focus will then trickle down to businesses and then homes around the area.

I may sound like every one else in this, but I am begging you to help out in any way you can. Prayers, spells, energy, supplies, money, blood, and time are all appreciated. Volunteers are supposed to be tasked with assignments tomorrow. I managed to get out of the area and back to my fiancé’s house with my little brother in tow, and our parents are in Florida for the final shuttle launch, so we are all safe, as is all of my family in the area, but there are so many more that will need help. There are trees that have fallen over or have been broken in half, downed power lines, displaced and homeless families with no way to contact their relatives, and places like Cullman that have had the water shut off because of the damage to water systems. Please, please help.

I know that Nyx was watching over me and mine last night. We had just enough power from a battery backup unit and operational phone lines that we could access the internet video feed from the local weather and Facebook long enough to hear that the threat had cleared Huntsville before it died. I had some cell service to call my parents and my aunt that has power in Athens, AL, and time to figure out a plan. My house is undamaged, I had two cars full of gas and one with a functioning radio. I had somewhere to go and a way to get there. I am very grateful for it.

Please, keep us all in your prayers.

Darkest Blessings of peace and healing to all,
Mystère de la Nuit

Bad Pagan attitudes

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 19:18:51 +0100

I follow the #pagan tag, and it’s Easter (Happy Easter to my Christian friends, by the way), and almost everything I see is some bitchy comment about how Easter is a stolen Pagan holiday with an attitude to suggest that it is invalid just because it happens to share timing and themes with Ostara.

Why are you all being such asses?

This happens on nearly every major Christian holiday, and you wonder why so many people hate us. I’m ashamed to be a member of the community when this happens. I understand that many of us are former and recovering Christians and that we harbor a lot of resentment. I have no delusions about this. But why do we have to turn around and tear down everything that they believe in, just to validate ourselves. Isn’t that what we always complain that they did to us?

Does the fact that the Egyptians, the Greeks, Mayans, and the Norse all have risen Gods make any one of them invalid? Then why does it not work the same way for the Christians? If Ostara is a celebration of the Spring and the return of life to the world, then what is wrong with the Christians celebrating the rebirth of their God whom they believe that, by his death, cleansed them? If the egg is a universal symbol of new life, and the Egyptians and Romans exchanged them at this time of year - and some of us do as well - does it really invalidate their use of the symbol as well?

Remember that the Christians in ancient times did suffer persecution in Rome, and they changed their relatively new celebration of the birth of Jesus to coincide with Saturnalia because there were common themes between the holidays, and they wouldn’t be held suspect because everyone was celebrating. Remember that old Christians were converts from various Pagan religions who didn’t want to abandon their traditions and cultural symbols, so they became repurposed for their new faith. Archetypes don’t change because religions do.

Don’t many of us still give Christmas gifts along with our Yule celebrations? Don’t we often still buy the chocolate bunnies and eggs and take advantage of Easter holidays from school or work (if we get them)?

Get off your high horse and realize that they are people just like us.

It's time for a Change...

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:51:51 +0100

Tonight is the Full Moon, the brightest time for a Night Childe like myself. The velvet black is midnight blue tonight, and Selene, another Childe of Nyx, shines down in the darkness, a full woman now. Tonight is the time for metamorphosis.

Things have been painful, recently. I’ve felt childish, overemotional, unbalanced. I’ve injured myself, both physically and emotionally, and I feel unfulfilled. Tonight, my blood cries for a change. My soul screams for fullness of being, and my body feels thin and ephemeral for this being charged with Darkness and Moonlight.

Maybe my language is formal and literary, but I’m crying for primal satisfaction and ritualism.

Tonight, this Dark One will grow.

Yuletide and Personal Examination

Sun, 19 Dec 2010 23:02:27 +0100

In recent weeks, I’ve found myself in a bit of an unclear situation spiritually. I’m honestly in a bit of a slump. My life has been so dialed in on my schoolwork and mundane life that my spirituality and my magick have fallen by the wayside. Perhaps, then, it is a good thing that Yule is coming up.

The thing about most of the world that celebrates a holiday around the Winter Solstice is that there is a major focus on the Light. For the Christians, Christmas is the coming of the Light of the World, Jesus, and the star that marked His birthplace. For the Jews, Hanukkah is also a festival of lights, celebrating a single night’s worth of lamp oil burning for 8 nights. And, for the great majority of Pagans, Yule is the Solar holiday, honoring the return of the Sun and the birth of the God. But the Dark is often ignored this time of year, especially with the frenzy of decorating and the blinding light displays fueled by neighborhood decoration rivalries.

And people wonder why I’m not fond of holiday decorations.

There’s a different perspective, and one that I think is important for modern Pagans to consider for this time of year. It’s important to remember that, even in the “love and light” varieties of Wicca and other new Pagan religions, the Dark half of the year is a time for introspection and self-honesty. It is time to quiet and rest, and take stock of ourselves for the coming months. In the rush to participate in the secular holiday and family time that Christmas has become, this often is forgotten.

I’ve been wondering for the last couple of years what these Solar cycle holidays really mean for me. I’ve never really jived with the focus on the Light that’s pervasive in modern Paganism. I think that there’s something to be said for finding a personal meaning for your holidays. It’s easy to go through the motions on the prescribed meanings of a holiday, but if we wanted to do that, we’d likely not have converted. If we didn’t want our holidays to be personal and meaningful, we’d probably never really been concerned about what faith we were practicing.

One of the major teachings across the Pagan board is to seek balance. Some don’t consider that this balance is not limited to learning to control the flow of your own personal energies, but also to be in tune with the Light and Dark halves of the year. I’m not saying that everyone should be Gray, but the energies and symbols of the seasons should influence your life. To truly be in tune with the cycles of the Wheel, you have to acknowledge and honor Light, Dark, and Everything in-between.

So this year, I will be keeping vigil on the eclipsing Moon in the dark hours of Solstice morning, contemplating myself and my place in the world and in the Universe right now, and celebrating the peak of the Dark’s power on the longest Night of the year. Though the Sun may be reborn, the Dark Gods still rule until the Equinox, and Their challenge to us is to consider our selves.

Rejoice, take joy and happiness in your families, and celebrate the birth of the Sun, but consider the Darkness at Its peak on Solstice Night. Think about the Dark Gods and your relationship with them. Open yourself up to Their desires and lessons for you, and consider that your magick may need to be focused inward.

Darkest Blessings, and Blessed Be.

Yours in Moonlight and Shadow,
Mystere de la Nuit

Facebook Like Page!!!

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:28:13 +0100

I'm psyched. This is really just an update on the linking I'm doing to put the blog out there. There's officially a Facebook Like page, a Like button on the Home page, and the FB is linked to my Twitter account, MystoftheNight. Also, there's a dedicated email for the blog posted on the front page, mystofthenight@gmail.com. (Nightwitch was taken.)

I've also got a Facebook account myself, Mystere de la Nuit.