inclusive Wicca

Occultea 1: impact on community

/ Yvonne Aburrow / 3 Comments

Joanna Wiedźma (polish.folk.witch on Instagram) has shared some prompts to get people thinking about online witchcraft community. To participate, use the hashtag #occultea and tag her on Instagram or Threads.

Topic 1: Impact on Community

• What is my personal reasoning/inspiration behind sharing my practice online?

• What am I looking to achieve by participating? Do I seek to educate, learn or connect?

• How do I believe social media, as a whole, has impacted the community?

• How do I think social platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have each impacted education/sharing information?

• Is consuming witchcraft content becoming a substitute for practice?

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Happy birthday Doreen Valiente

/ Yvonne Aburrow

Happy birthday to Doreen Valiente 🕯️🕯️

“Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente (4 January 1922 – 1 September 1999) was an English Wiccan who was responsible for writing much of the early religious liturgy within the tradition of Gardnerian Wicca. An author and poet, she also published five books dealing with Wicca and related esoteric subjects.”

Wikipedia

I was lucky to hear her speak at the Pagan Federation conference in 1997. You can find a transcript of her speech on the inclusive Wicca website.

One of the things she said during the speech was this very important thing:

“In every period of history, in every country in the world there have been gay people, both men and women. So why shouldn’t Mother nature have known what she was doing when she made people this way? I don’t agree with this prejudice against gay people, either inside the craft of the wise or outside it.”

One of the loveliest book reviews I ever received is from Misha Magdalene who said about Dark Mirror:

“a clear, pleasant writing voice reminiscent of Doreen Valiente, equal parts ‘straightforward instruction’ and ‘chatting over tea and biscuits.’ As an academically trained feminist nerd with a taste for systems analysis, this approach makes me positively giddy with delight.”

Reviews of Dark Mirror

You can buy Doreen’s books (and two of mine) at the Doreen Valiente Foundation shop).

Why I left

/ Yvonne Aburrow

Changing Paths challenge day 11 — why I left

I left Unitarianism in the end because of archetypes. The archetype that fits me the best is that of the witch, and it’s an archetype that sits uncomfortably in the Unitarian path. (The combination may work for others: didn’t work for me.)

I left Christianity because of its exclusivist views on salvation and the institutional homophobia.

And when I left Paganism for a while in 2007, it was because of it being excessively heterocentric / heteronormative, and other reasons too lengthy to get into here.

Read the rest of the post at the Changing Paths blog

Ritual

/ Yvonne Aburrow

Changing Paths challenge 6 — ritual

Candle flames flickering, incense smoke curling in the twilight, standing in a circle of firelight, chanting sacred words. Deep in the woods where everything is transformed by the moonlight. Where the warm summer rain falls softly on the leaves.

The atmosphere of ritual is like no other: electrifying, life-enhancing, comforting. It can jolt you out of your complacency and reconnect you with your deepest desires, your authentic self, sometimes both at the same time.

Read more at the Changing Paths blog

Gardnerians speak!

/ Yvonne Aburrow / 3 Comments

Recently some transphobic people claimed that they are more traditional than Gardnerians who are welcoming and inclusive. Several people have written or spoken to refute their transphobic nonsense and their claims to be more traditional, including me, Mortellus, Jack Chanek, Jason Mankey, Ash the Gardnerian Librarian, and Dylan. I’m going to try to collect all the YouTube videos, Instagram videos and posts, blogposts, and tweets here — so please add a link to yours in the comments if I missed you out.

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Coven structure & roles

/ Yvonne Aburrow / 2 Comments

I recently listened to an interesting podcast from Circle Talk: Four Witches on Coven Hierarchy. I was pleased to note that most of the speakers on the podcast were advocating for a pretty flat hierarchy. I have written a fair amount about the roles and expectations of the different degrees in Wicca (in All acts of love and pleasure: inclusive Wicca) and quite a lot about coven leadership and the concept of “elders” (in The Night Journey: Witchcraft as Transformation). I regard the Wiccan degree system as being like the apprenticeship system in medieval guilds (apprenticeship, journeyman, master). There was very little in the podcast that I disagreed with, except the one guy who makes his first degree coveners clean the coven brassware. I’m with the woman who said she is happy when people volunteer to help, but she doesn’t make them do tasks.

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