Out of Fucks to Give

On my good-spoon days in cold weather, all I want to do is make huge pots of stew and chili or giant casseroles or a big roast chicken or lots and lots of pumpkin bread. But I also know it's not likely to be eaten quickly and I don't want to waste it.

Like... what makes it feminine? It holds things? Do men not hold things? Oh, it represents the womb as a receptacle for a man's seed. I have news about things that semen goes into. Like is a sock a chalice? Technically a penis holds a man's seed.

Is a seed library a chalice? The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is feminine.

Let's go the other way. Is a pilsner glass feminine? What about a beer Stein? What about an athletic cup? A farmer holding grapes?

If the answer to all these is yes- they are chalices and they are feminine, then we need to adjust the way we view femininity in this context. Because it was VERY feminine of me to not want to participate in the gendered part of the ritual. If I am feminine and dont want to participate, then not wanting to participate is a feminine act. It is also a masculine act. It is also a neutral act. Because I can be feminine without being female, just like I can be masculine without being a man.

Like I'm not saying that her beliefs were wrong, but I think that we get stuck in 'always' and 'never' when it comes to symbols and I just dont live there. I live in the 'sometimes and maybe.' Its important for me to have flexibility, and to be able to ask why.

Asking 'why' was one of the reasons they didnt like me at church, so when I get the feeling I'm not supposed to ask questions I feel a little backed into a corner.

I'm trying not to be shitty about other peoples beliefs, coming into a largely wiccan space (even if that wasnt the way it was billed) on a... very binary holiday. But this particular person knew that I'm nonbinary and that I'm pagan-not-wiccan. I 100% think that she didnt mean anything malicious by it. I'm sure she wasnt thinking it.

An Old Witch Muses on Tumblr: Witchcraft as a Religion

I often see the sentiment on tumblr that witchcraft isn’t a religion but an art, a craft or a skill.  I understand that impulse and realize a lot of it comes down to semantics.  However, I think its important to recognize the spiritual aspect of witchcraft and realize that while it might not fit a traditional definition of a religion, it can’t be totally divorced from the umbrella of religion either.

So let’s talk about why Witchcraft could be considered a religion and why it might be important to do so:

‪8yo: “I’ve seen this before.”‬

‪Me:‬

‪8yo: “You know how sometimes you go to sleep and you see things in your dreams and then later on you see them for real? Like that.”‬

I never get the lottery numbers or something useful, it’s always just random pointless bullshit.

Do you even know the consequences? It has come to my attention that some people are just hexing other people left, and right while most likely not understanding what that fully means to hex someone.

Sure they MIGHT be affected but..... They might not. The only people affected by hexes are people who are ALREADY in a lower vibrational energy.

YOU'RE HEXING YOURSELF: Regardless of your intention, and whether or not your hex reaches or affects that person in anyway, guess what? It's all gonna come right back to you 3 TIMES FOLD because of the energy that you are in performing such a spell you are in a vibration that welcomes this negative energy, and what goes around will undoubtedly like a boomerang come right back to you.

ITS NOT YOUR JOB TO DETERMINE WHAT SOMEONE ELSE DESERVES OR DOESN'T DESERVE.

And your belief in Karma is completely different from the actual meaning, Karma affects you in your reincarnations, not your current life.

hydrate yourself. 

have snacks handy in case you wear yourself out. Curses can be exhausting

Make sure you have time to unwind afterwards

ground yourself (unless otherwise specified) 

check for any hazards (fire safety, trip hazards, etc) 

The Queen of Heaven came to me painted in blood and exhaling ash; with every lightning crack the skull showed beneath Her proud face. She walked up out of the underworld carrying knowledge of life and death in Her curving flesh, and all the armies of man cowered before Her like dumb beasts before a lioness. I cowered too, for I was afraid of what She would demand of me. She is no gentle Aphrodite, no sweet-eyed Venus. She is Inanna, who dances on the battlefield, who strikes down mountains and laughs in Death’s face. 

But, Stand daughter, She commanded and I obeyed. When I looked upon Her again, She was not half so terrifying. She wore red silk, not blood, and smelled of roses and myrrh. She was lovely as the dawn and dusk, and all the stars in the sky. Every gem has many facets, She said, and I will teach you to love all of yours. That is what it means to own yourself. That is what it means to fight back.

I begin to understand now. I ignored Inanna’s softer aspects, scornful of the vulnerability of femininity, and focused only on blood lust as Her mode of defiance. But men fear anyone with more power than theirs, and they gain power by making us hate ourselves. In this world, to be a goddess of love is as revolutionary as a goddess of war. Inanna does not rebel against patriarchal oppression with sword alone - She rebels by loving Herself, by taking ownership of Her body and treating it like the sacred vessel it is. Inanna shows us that all we need do to break our chains is embrace ourselves. Self-love is the shield with which we may protect ourselves as we walk onto the battlefield.

I’m answering an unasked question that I had an idea about a post for right now because I think it’ll help explain something to a few people. But also I’m going to try to keep in the realm of what I personally experience rather than try to expand this concept further than that to prevent any wanderings into territory that I don’t feel comfortable discussing with tumblr at large because yall lost privileges. 

So for me, when I started working with witchcraft I started with spellwork, as a lot of you who’ve known me for a very long time know. it wasn’t until about six or seven months into my spell experimentation that I stumbled upon the whole religion and religious aspects, especially holidays. Holidays were already a pain for me, because they required a lot more attention than spellwork did that I could not do due to the way I was living (with my very religious parents). They required an altar set up, specifically made for a religion. They required deity things, which I did not have. And the holidays themselves were at inconvenient times for me, because a lot of times they didn’t overlap with the “secular” holidays that I am used to dealing with. Sometimes they’d overlap with religious holidays for my family, which proved problematic. 

My associations with religion in general stems from my family because there was a lot of abuse with regards to religion, and there was a lot of expectations of how you were supposed to act and live in that religious life. So from dress, to actions, to the way you stood, the things you did, how often you fasted, etc. The religious calendar was very full of a lot of things all happening at once. So you can imagine my instant dislike of holidays in the “Witch religion of Wicca.” Here’s another set of things that I “have to do” in order to be “a good practitioner” of my “religion.”

But I tried when I could, this happened for about a year or two before I came to the harsh realization that not only was I not practice Wicca by any means (because I was a) not practicing any sexual content with any regards, b) I was not initiated because I was not old enough anyway, and c) that what I was practicing lacked much of the internal mechanisms of Wicca which is built on a lot of Hermetic Dawn rituals and concepts), I decided that I needed to break down what I was doing into what was the most important parts and build up from there. 

One of the first things to go was of course Holidays (followed closely by Deities). Holidays are one of the few real big hallmarkers for me of a religion, because just in general the phrase “Holidays = Holy days” was beaten into my head for years. Even though I have plenty of experience with Holidays outside of religion (ie Teacher’s Day, Mother’s Day, etc) though my parent’s religion would take their chance to talk about these secular holidays in a religious way. So I see a lot of the need of a Holiday being a way to enforce a particular religious ideal or a particular ideal in general. Like the purpose of celebrating these holidays, and I mean celebrating not just as a recognition of the day but having any ritualistic behaviour because it’s that day and that behaviour is restricted to that day, and not like an average tuesday is a sign of that. 

Add on to this that I stopped associating the days of the week, month, and year with a time value or a spell value or a “deity” value - you might recognize those are “associations” but they are values. I stopped recognizing any calendar day as being really different in terms of their value than any other day, magically. 

 So I have a two fold form here, where I stopped valuing above and beyond each other - which removed any sort of “this day is more valuable than the other” or “this day is more important than the other” but I also stopped participating in the generic “Wheel of the Year” type holiday structure because it was so heavily religious and influenced by outer court Wicca. It participated directly with the two deities that are in Wicca, and it participates around the valuing of particular days in seasons and across seasons. 

So two things I didn’t want in my particular witchcraft. 

But what is that like? Well, what that is like is not very different than what you would expect. I don’t have anything “planned” for any other day because it’s a specific day. I don’t do things like “planning for the Full Moon” because the recognition of the day of the Full Moon adds value to that day above other days. 

I am very much subverting the norms when it comes to witchcraft because I refuse to associate value with days. 

The only time I plan anything is when it revolves around my personal calendar, meaning “when I feel like it” or “when I want to.” Like for instance, when I feel like doing an experimentation that requires me to following a particular day structure or an hour structure.* Rather than because it’s a special Tuesday with a special extra value day because here’s what I believe three things that This Particular Tuesday does for me magically or spiritually or religiously. 

“but isn’t that unfulfilling? to not have something to do throughout the year?”

Isn’t it stressful to have to push things around your calendar so that you have time to do things on The Particular Tuesday? Oh I can’t go out with you, friendo because I have an a Special Thing Todo Today that can’t be done on any other days because it’s not The Particular Tuesday? Oh you can get out of it? So why is That Particular Tuesday that important and fulfilling then? Or is this just a facade? Oh we don’t like answering questions that are intentionally made to be upsetting and put you on the defensive? Okay, we learned something. 

Just because I’m subverting a norm does not mean it’s “unfulfilling” to practice witchcraft. It just unfulfilling for you because you have a specific stereotype that you associate with witches. But for me, this is very much helping me and very much associating my witchcraft with my desires, my wants, and most importantly with my needs. I am very much someone who advocates having a witchcraft practice that works for you personally, rather than what the Stereotype of What Witches Do. 

For me, I don’t have a spiritual basis in my witchcraft at all. Which is another subversion of the norm in witchcraft, but it’s very much important to my particular practice. Because that leaves open room, because I don’t have dogma, or an expectation of how the “world works” or a forced understanding reinforced through a particular ritual structure, or a rigid set of beliefs that can never be questioned, for me to have my own experiences be the hallmarkers of my own practice. 

The reason I’m a Hard Polytheist is not because I believe deities exist, but because I have experienced that they exist. The reason I believe that spirits exist, is because I have experienced that they exist. The reason I believe people (and a lot of animals) have souls is because I have experienced that they exist, but caveat here is that souls are very unimportant. Which is a whole other belief cycle that I won’t get into. This very much based on my personal experiences as a witch (we getting close to two decades now of witchery), rather than someone telling me that they exist and then I experience something or nothing later. 

I used to be an atheist, until I had an experience. I used to think Spirits were blah blah conversation to make everyone sound more spooky until I worked with some spirit. I used to think that souls was just a concept that was used for religious morality as a “this is going on your permanent record” type of punishment deal, rather than a thing. 

But I have had room to change because I don’t have rigid structures. I’ve had room to experience without trying to fit square peg in round hole of dogma. So this works for me in the long run and fulfills what I need out of my own practice.

I used to say that while everyone else was “walking a path” I was in the bushes eating berries enjoying myself, rather than forcing to walk in a particular structure. Because I don’t have those, I can build up or destroy any particular component in my practice. 

Of course, I recognize that there are Holidays that are secular in nature, such as teacher’s day, veterans day, mother’s day, etc, which are part of a state run deal. And I could incorporate something like that into my witchcraft practice, it could be a thing. But I don’t need to, I lack the need to add holidays to my particular practice at this point. I haven’t … experienced… the need. If I ever do, then I will. But for now, all of my secular holiday practices and celebrations exist outside of my witchcraft in my secular humanist ways. 

Hope that all made sense!