Category Archives: Spirituality

Work Avoidance

Tripped across another one of those wretched quizzes. I have been so good for so long, but I broke down and clicked radio buttons and discovered that I am…

The Goddess Life:
Pure, innocent, naive; the embodiment of sweetness and light.
Represented by the color white and the element air, Life is all that is good and true.
She loves order, stability, and all things beautiful and serene.
Shows an inexplicable affinity for operas, curly hair, and corsets.


Er. Okay. Half of me, maybe. I checked out the other possible answers and found my other half, which, fittingly enough, happens to be…

The Goddess Death:
Dark, moody, logical, pessimisstic; probably sarcastic, cynical, and frighteningly intelligent.
Dark, morbid, appropriately represented by the color black and the element water.
Death is reserved, intellectual, introspective.
Rarely does she do anything requiring a lot of energy or display of emotion —
but when she does, anyone within a few planes would do well to duck and cover.


See? That’s why net quizzes can be so disappointing. They only take part of you into account.

Silly net quizzes.

The Ongoing Insomniac Saga

Nope. Still not sleepy.

Terribly thirsty, though.

I spent much of Friday moving things around – books, furniture, stuff like that – and by doubling up books on most of my shelves, I managed to not only find place for the stacks of books on the floor, but empty half a shelf. Just look at that, I thought to myself, all pleased. Now I have room for the books that will no doubtedly come my way throughout the next months. To celebrate, I stopped by the secondhand bookstore before heading out to the pub for various birthday celebrations, and wouldn’t you just know, in the philosophy/mythology section I found five books that I had to own. I mean honestly, a hand-bound copy of Joseph Campbell’s The Mythic Image? I teach this stuff, for heaven’s sake, how can I pass that up? And the book on creation myths around the world? And an original mass-market edition of Harner’s Way of the Shaman?

Needless to say, that half-shelf is no longer empty. But I’m still thrifty and virtuous – I paid less than thirty dollars for the lot of them. These days, the Campbell alone sells for about seventy-five dollars.

Already it brims with Post-It notes, ready for lecturing. (This is proof of my geekiness too, isn’t it, Skippy.)

Wiktory!

My first ever seminar taught at CEGEP went terrifically well. I was blessed with forty attentive Champlain College students who made eye contact, smiled, and asked questions, some of whom even thanked me personally afterwards. I always forget how young CEGEP students are; they’re almost half my age (let’s not dwell on that for too long, shall we?).

The problem, of course, is trying to narrow down one’s sphere of knowledge to an hour and ten minutes of lecture. What do you leave in? What do you abandon? What concepts are important? How can you explain them simply enough that they will understand, but in enough detail that the depth of the concept isn’t lost? Do you have to present X other concepts first in order to make the final concept understandable?

I know I gave them a lot of information, but they all kept up with me. I mixed my personal experiences and choices in with technical stuff so that they’d have a balance of the two. All in all, I think I managed to prove to them that yes, there are still people out there who live their lives inspired by the same beliefs and principles held by the ancient Celts, which was the point of my guest lecture.

I’d love to do it again. Heck, I’d love to teach a full-semester course on alternative spirituality. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

Scattershot

Yesterday night was:

– The first thunder/lightning storm of the year. Cool. Very, very cool. (Except when the power cut out for a second or two while my husband was watching the ongoing election coverage. Bad moment.)

– A turning point in Quebec politics as the Liberal party was voted in by a severe majority. Let’s see: my in-laws’ house just increased in value by $20,000; industry will begin to revive; investors will return. My one regret: we don’t own property ourselves. Ah well.

– The last meeting of the Monday night class that I co-teach. There will be plenty of student meetings throughout the summer, and activities planned, but this was really the end of a serious commitment for everyone. Now I devote myself to my Saturday morning class, and the scattered lectures and workshops I will be teaching in the near future, such as the guest lecture I’m giving on modern Celtic Pagan worship at Champlain College this Thursday. I’ve spoken with the teacher, who sounds like a great guy, and I’m looking forward to it. I was a bit at sea about what exactly to focus on — he teaches a humanities class of mythology — but we worked out a basic hour of personal experience talk regarding how I worship, what I do, what I believe in, and so forth. It’s a great opportunity, and promises to be quite the experience.

April 2003 Concert Review

I had an absolutely smashing concert last night, attended by friends whom I hadn’t known were going to be there. Apart from not being thrilled about half the selection of music, I enjoyed myself immensely. It was decided that rather than using the traditional concert seating, the viola section and the cello section should switch, putting the violas on the outside and the cello players between them and the wind players in the centre. I think it worked quite well, and I hope we stick with it.

I know I’ve complained about the Mendelssohn for months, but it came off beautifully. Pretty much everything did; there were no major or minor disasters, although the music was technically challenging. The pieces were mostly crowd-pleasers, and the audience certainly seemed pleased. I’m pleased to say that the only place I lost my focus was in the Brahms Hungarian Dances.

During a concert, I’m living in the moment to such an extent that it’s always a surprise when it’s over. Now I’m stuck humming the last piece on the program (Strauss, who’s not my favourite composer by a long shot, damn it all), defiantly pleased that I can pack away most of the music, sad to leave other pieces (such as the overture to Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which I have always adored; playing it in concert fulfilled one of my life-long dreams). It was an enjoyable evening, followed by coffee and doughnuts at our place and a darned good sleep.

I wonder what we’ll be playing next, for the Canada Day concert.

My private seminar on Friday night was lots of fun, too. Whenever I teach a basic class, I wonder if I’m just rehashing stuff they already know, but I’m always told that no, I’m filling in blanks and connecting dots for them and they’re terribly grateful for being shown the whole picture. I suppose I lose perspective a bit, having studied all this for eight years or so. Anyway, lots of fun, yummy food and wine, and we’ll definitely do it again. Also on the class-subject, some of my current Saturday morning students have asked me to put together a meditation class for them. I feel a fuzzy inside when things like this happen – you know, sort of, “You like me! You really like me! And you evidently think that I’m a good teacher!” I also appear to be inspiring students to create their own one-session workshops to share with other students, which flatters me beyond belief. I never, ever thought that I’d be An Example someday. Never. Now I feel like I have to live up to it, somehow. Okay, yes, evidently I believe that I’m a passable teacher, or I wouldn’t keep on doing it; but a compliment like this always surprises me, for some reason.

On Misfiling And Missing The Point

I’m collecting information on the books that are coming out within the next few months within one of my fields of specialisation, and at Amazon I made a sickening discovery.

Out of all the decent books out there on witchcraft and the occult, I am horrified — no, that’s not quite right; shocked? dismayed? spitting mad? — that the top-selling book in that category is The Book of Shadows: The Unofficial Charmed Companion.

So help me Gods.

You know, in every interview I do, I’m asked my opinion on shows like Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My response? “Hey, I’m a huge Buffy fan. But Willow’s not Wiccan, and what she does isn’t real magic.” If they press me about Charmed, I usually say something about Wicca 90210 and heavily stress the 90210 part, because Charmed has even less Wicca in it than Buffy does.

These shows, and films like The Craft and Practical Magic, are double-edged blades. On one hand, they introduce a whole new crop of people to the idea that people who practice a discipline like magic aren’t, by definition, automatically evil, which is great. On the other hand, they’re an incredibly inaccurate portrayal of the path. Wicca’s about spirituality and responsibility, not spells, demons, and warlocks (don’t even get me started on that inaccuracy).

This is why I still do interviews with students, for newspapers and on radio, and why I continually write articles. I’m trying to raise the general level of awareness out there. And most of the time, people walk away with a better idea of what it’s all about. Sometimes, though, you just can’t get through to them, and they walk away determined to find “a real witch” who will teach them how to change their hair colour without the aid of L’Oreal.

It’s not easy. I’ve chosen to teach and educate on this path, though, and if this is how I’m being called to serve, then this is what I’ll keep on doing. However, if you ever feel inspired to do a bit of reading on Wicca, please, please ignore the sales ranks at Amazon. Read anything by Doreen Valiente, and Vivianne Crowley, and Gerald Gardner. Or read something like Essential Wicca by Paul Tuitlean and Estelle Daniels, or Scott Cunningham’s Wicca- A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. But for the sake of all that’s intelligent, stay away from books that purport to be about spirituality and use pop TV shows as source material.

My skin feels all crawly. I’m going to go make more tea.

Almost Home

I’ve been going through an avoid-the-phone phase, but today all three times when the phone rang, I picked it up. I managed to have an hour-long chat with Elim, and another hour-long chat with t! later on, and in between I spoke to my husband for a total of seven minutes. And then, tonight, my oldest friend came over for tea and a chat about art, which sort of evolved into a general talk about life and love and dreams. It’s been a good day.

The only vaguely bad thing so far has been my discovery that I cannot burn ten-inch tapers on the lower shelf of our new mantel. At least, not until they’ve been reduced to seven-inch tapers by being burned somewhere else first. I’ve covered the smell of barely-scorched paint by burning frankincense resin. Otherwise, the candles look lovely in front of the huge mirror (which I had to polish again today – how do so many fingerprints end up on it?), which reflects the candleflames beautifully, creating a lovely glow in the living room.

I spent today unpacking the fragile things I own, like my irreplaceable signed Royal Doulton Coalport figures, our masks, and the tiny also-irreplaceable collectibles passed on to me throughout my life. We now have things hanging on the walls of the bedroom, so it doesn’t feel so sterile any more, which is a relief. We’re almost there; it’s almost home.