To celebrate, here are some photos of my esoteric book collection.
inclusive Wicca
The inclusive Wicca symbol
How the inclusive Wicca logo happened.
I was making a poster for a LGBT+ ritual in 2014, and trying to think of a symbol that expresses LGBT+ Wicca. So I took the standard Wiccan triple Moon symbol and added a heart.
🌛🌝🌜 + ❤️
I didn’t really think about it — the symbol sort of came down my arm, bypassing my brain, and manifested on the paper.
The heart could be seen as an hommage to the Sufi winged heart or Tughra Inayati symbol (and there is a connection between Sufism and Wicca, via the friendship between Gardner and Idries Shah).
The Sufi winged heart image (public domain version)
The heart mainly represents the idea that love (in all its glorious diversity) is the central mystery of Wicca. Also that Love is love, or “All acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals” — hence also the title of my 2014 book on inclusive Wicca.
What is a witch?
A video in which I read an excerpt from my book, The Night Journey: Witchcraft as Transformation. I was particularly pleased with this chapter, as I think it’s very poetic and has some powerful imagery in it.
The Two Chalices Ritual
One of the rituals of inclusive Wicca is the two chalices ritual. This has evolved over a couple of decades to become something more than I originally envisaged, as is often the way with traditions, which are evolving and fluid. It started life as a ritual for women-loving-women, and evolved into a ritual for everyone, but retaining its original symbolism.
The Inner Work
A video in which I read an excerpt from my book Dark Mirror: the Inner Work of Witchcraft, all about the inner work and why I think it’s important.
Coming Out: An Act of Truth
In 1983, when I was in my teens, my best friend came out to me as gay. The world was very different back then: no same-sex marriage, no civil partnerships, no Internet, no mobile phones, no sat-nav, and obviously no social media either; not even digital cameras.
New Instagram account
I thought regular readers of Dowsing for Divinity might like to know that I now have a public Instagram account, @birdberrybooks, where I will be posting videos, talks, photos, book reviews, and news of upcoming events and workshops.
What is oathbound?
There is much talk in initiatory Wicca of things being “oathbound”. However, a piece of knowledge cannot be oathbound. Oaths and vows are binding on those who swear them, not on the things they swear to protect or keep secret. A person is oathbound, not an item of knowledge.
Towards an inclusive Wiccan theology
Wiccans can be polytheist, animist, pantheist, monist, duotheist, atheist/archetypalist, or “all of the above depending on the day”. Most Pagans believe that the divine is, or deities are, immanent in the world; and that includes most Wiccans.
This theological diversity works in ritual settings as long as everyone can “translate in their head” and have a certain amount of flexibility as to practice and the wording of rituals.
![The goddess Artemis. Photo by Jason Youngman [Public Domain, CC0]](https://dowsingfordivinity.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/goddess-2774132_960_720.jpg?w=400&h=225)
The goddess Artemis.
Photo by Jason Youngman [Public Domain, CC0]
An inclusive wheel of the year
Some versions of the Wheel of the Year (the eight festivals of Wicca and Druidry) can feel excluding, particularly those that focus on the God and the Goddess interacting through the cycle of the seasons. This mythological construct excludes both polytheists and LGBTQIA people. Some versions of the story are uncomfortable for feminists, as they don’t exactly promote consent culture. It is worth noting that the “cycle of the God and the Goddess” doesn’t appear in any early Gardnerian Books of Shadows (e.g. November Eve, 1949, February Eve, 1949, May Eve, 1949, August Eve, 1949). The solstices and equinoxes were added to the Wiccan year-wheel in the 1950s.
For all sorts of reasons, then, I prefer to go back to the original mythology and symbolism associated with the festivals.
