Positive Reactions

Hey, Readers,

As members of a minority religion/spiritual path which is still largely misunderstood in the United States (I don't know about other countries first hand), we often swap stories of prejudice and discrimination. Often, these stories are funny and provide an opportunity for us to laugh at our own stereotypes and feel a sense of bonding--we are not the only ones to experience these negative situations and we can grow from them together. Stories of negative experience are important, both for this camaraderie, and for educating the rest of the public as to the prejudice that, yes, actually happens.

If you're anything like me, you've also heard people talk about how much we "complain" or "cry discrimination," or say that we like to feel persecuted because it makes us feel special in some way. (If you haven't heard those things, good for you and the people around you!) But far from always crying about how prejudiced against we are, and how horrible it is to be a minority, we also have a lot of great, positive stories of acceptance. I'd like to share some recent stories of mine that fall under that positive category.

During my recent job as stage manager for a teen musical workshop, I got a lot of compliments on my various pentacle necklaces! Kind words came from both my cast, ages ranging from 12 to 17, and from my co-workers on the crew, ages ranging 14 to maybe in their 40s. You already heard in a previous blog entry about the director and tech director asking me about my sabbat and esbat (the summer solstice this year fell close to a full moon), but here are some other short exchanges that I haven't already told you:

1. While standing behind the box office counter at the theatre, one of my female cast members leaned over the counter to look at my jewelry. I was engaged in another task and did not notice until she asked, "Hey, what's your necklace?" Having heard a lot of Christian-centric banter the previous summer at the same theatre, I wasn't sure whether the teen crowd was as religious as the younger kids I'd worked with before, so after a moment's hesitation when I wasn't sure how I would phrase my answer, I simply told her the truth. "It's a Goddess pentacle," I said. "Oh!" she smiled and said, "That's really pretty."
2. Another evening, the youngest girl on the cast (12) got a look at another of my pentacles, and simply said "I really like your necklace!" Probably not all kids raised in a Christian town would recognize what a pentacle is, but this girl is very sharp. I've worked with her twice now. If she doesn't already know the meaning of the symbol, I'm sure she'll find out.
3. One of the first nights I started working in the booth with my board ops, I was wearing my moon phase pentacle and one of my ops asked, "Are those the moon phases on your necklace?" After I said yes, he said "That's really cool." The other board op, overhearing this, took a closer look and agreed, "Yeah, that is really cool." My board ops are 14 and 16, and both atheist/agnostic.
4. One of the show nights, I again wore my Goddess pentacle, and getting a look at it, the second board op from the previous story laughed and said "Wow, that's gutsy." "What?" I asked, and he said "Wearing that necklace here." I asked him why, and he said "Because this is SUCH a Christian town!" One of the boys on cast was also in the booth at the time and said "Yeah, don't let [the director] see you wearing that," to which I said "[She] has known me for years, and always seen me wearing pentacles. Not only has she never said a negative word about it, but you guys all know she wears crystals and talks about the sun and moon phases ALL THE TIME. I think a lot of the people here have pagan leanings, if they're not actually pagan." Another member of the cast, the son of the tech director, confirmed my suspicions with a knowing nod and "I'm pretty sure my dad is Wiccan." After that, there was just a silent acknowledgement of the awesome possibility that in the middle of that little Christian town, there could be a whole room full of people of differing beliefs who were all respectful of each other.

I can think of two other stories from the theatre, but those involve people sticking up for my views when a member of the cast bombarded us with Christian subject matter. So while they are stories of acceptance and people not being at all afraid to stand up and say that they supported me, they could also be looked at as stories of prejudice, with the Christian person first giving me grief. So we'll stay away from those for now! But the theatre is not the only place I've gotten compliments or positive feedback on my views:

• At the medieval faire, I'm always complimenting people on their pagan jewelry or tattoos. But the best compliments I've received so far at the faire were probably those from two patrons of the faire who were not in costume, looked like it was their first time there, and had approached just to ask me for directions, not to talk about the Runes (which is what we sell at the stand I work). After talking to me for a moment and finding me helpful, they decided to chat a bit about the weather or something equally mundane, and then the young girl asked, "Is that a pentacle you're wearing?" I said yes and she said "That's very pretty." Then the older woman, presumably the girl's mother, looked closely at it, smiled, and said "Oh that is pretty!" Then they said it was great to meet me and went about their way.
• Three or four of the people at the faire have revealed to me this year that they watch my YouTube channel. Most, if not all of them, started watching due to the medieval faire videos I post, but all said they continued to watch more, and love them. This, of course, means they know a LOT more about me than I know about them! Actually, it's even weird to write this, since they may very well read it someday. Hey, you!
• At craft shows where my mother and I sell pagan-themed things, we've had several people come up and either express like-minded views, or ask us to tell them more about paganism or magick. We have not yet been approached by someone for that type of conversation who has not been open-minded and positive about it all.
• At the UU church I attend, we have started hosting a Magick Class. Four months into it, I keep meeting more and more people interested in magick and paths that incorporate it. These people are not all pagans themselves, but include UUs (of course), Jews, and self-titled "Recovering Catholics." Others have never really given their beliefs a label. Most of us came from Christian/Catholic backgrounds, and a few were raised in pagan-ish beliefs.

An old logo picture I made for my channel, which
shows the three pentacles mentioned in this post.

And finally, a story I briefly related as part of my "Shit People Say to: Pagans, Neopagans, Wiccans, Witches, etc." video: My sophomore year of undergrad, I was a teaching assistant for a freshman colloquium (as I was for the rest of my time there). One of my students was also my dorm floor neighbor, and one day, in my dorm room, he caught a glimpse of my "heavy duty" pewter pentacle necklace, with the Theban alphabet around the circle. A Christian boy from Texas originally (but living in Ohio for years), he took a deep breath and said something to the effect of, "Okay. Cara. That necklace you're wearing. I've been taught that it's bad, but you're wearing it, and you're awesome, so. Could you please tell me what that symbol means to you?" Amazed at this perfect learning opportunity, I quickly obliged, and afterward he thanked me and said that that made so much more sense than what he was taught, because in knowing me as a person, he knew I could never be part of the negative images that he had been taught to associate with the symbol. Today, he is engaged to a mutual friend of ours who used to be a practicing Wiccan/Pagan. As far as I know, she still holds a lot of the same beliefs, but no longer actively practices.

It's sort of amazing what can happen when people simply talk to one another, without judgement. But at the same time, it's not amazing, because it really does happen more than we mention. I mean, it shouldn't be amazing in the sense that we gasp and act surprised when it happens--it should be the default! (Yes, the word "should" is problematic, but you see my point.) People always tend to talk about and report the bad experiences, but we owe credit to the positive experiences, too. It is important to bring the bad stuff to light in order to educate people and learn from it, but I also think it's great to talk about the wonderful people we meet who act as people should always act toward each other--with understanding and mutual respect.

Blessings~

-C-

Experimenting with Magick, Observing Results

Hey, Readers,

This blog entry goes along with a video I did today for The Pagan Perspective, about the science of magick. I want to provide a little context here so that this blog entry can be read alone, as well as in conjunction with the video.

In the video, I talked about how we can study or experiment with our magick by recording our methods and results, somewhat like a lab report. From what I learned in my course last year (the one in which I did my research on prejudice against pagans, where we learned about many different groups throughout the whole class, from weightism to racism to ageism to discrimination against differing levels of financial wealth, and more), the way many of us (at least, I think many of us do this, I'm not actually sure!) record our magickal work is basically a way of conducting empirical research. We are noting our methods/process, writing down everything that could be relevant to the "experiment," and then recording/reporting what we observe occurring. This can be used to further our practice by tracking what is effective and what is not. As I mention in the video,

You can't say it means MAGICK DID THIS definitively, but you can record what you did and what you observed. You also can't say IT WORKS THIS WAY ALL THE TIME because I personally believe magick differs from person to person, so the methods I have found to work best for me MAY work best for you but they may not. Still, each individual can try various methods, write down exactly what they did, and what they observed. Then you can go back and see, okay this method didn't work at all any time I did it, at least not that I could see any results from. But I did see results each time with this method, so I will scrap that other one and do the one that works.

Here is my personal example:

For years I tried to cast circles as described in books. While I did everything right and visualized it correctly, I still felt like I was just going through motions and it wasn't working, or actually doing anything. So I stopped casting circles for the most part because to me, it didn't matter. It was more effective for me just to call the quarters/Deity than to go through the circle process, so that's all I did.

Now, in order to understand the whole experience, you have to know how I believe energy works in my body, personally. You may have learned the opposite or not use these ideas at all, but it's relevant to my interpretation. I believe in energy circuits through the body as therefore meaning we have a sending and receiving hand. When we put our hands together, energy flows in a certain direction. You can change the direction, of course, but I believe one way works best for each person, or is the way energy flows easiest, following a charge like a battery would. For me the dominant hand is the one we use to send energy and the non-dominant is the receiver. I am right-handed. So for me, energy moves counterclockwise, from my right hand into my left and back through the whole circuit.

When I would cast sunwise circles, up here in the northern hemisphere that means walking to the right, but I wanted to use my SENDING hand, which is also my right hand. As you can imagine, this would mean walking to my right, crossing my right hand in front of my body to cast the circle to my left. This was incredibly awkward! So instead I just used my left hand (my downstage hand to use a theatre term, the hand toward the circle's edge). In retrospect, I think this is exactly what affected my results, because I was attempting to CAST energy out using the hand that I believe brings energy IN.

When I started doing shadow work last year, the book required counter-sunwise circles during the waning moon. (During the waxing moon, I still cast sunwise. This idea makes sense to me, so I adapt based on the phase that way.) To cast countersunwise, again being in the north, that meant I was walking to my left and using my right hand, which was comfortable AND felt effective. And when I opened the circle, I was then walking to my right and using my left, receptive hand, to draw the energy back in. From the very first time I did this, I physically felt vibrations and tingling in my receptive hand as I brought the energy back in. As I went around the usual three times, the tingling traveled up my wrist and lower arm. It did not continue once I was finished opening the circle. THAT to me is a definitive result showing that for ME, casting with my sending hand and opening with my receiving hand has a noticeable effect.

When I used to do it the opposite way, I never felt any kind of physical difference. In my early journal entries, I wrote things like "I don't think it did anything," "I didn't feel any change in the environment." But when I switched directions and tried it a different way, I observed a positive difference in results. So while various books I read at first said never to cast a widdershins circle, I immediately took to the practice once I tried it. It felt more natural, made more sense from a body positioning standpoint, and actually "worked" for me.

As I said, that doesn't mean everyone should do this instead because "it works better." It just works for me. And as I mentioned, I do still cast sunwise during the waxing moon, because I believe in the circuit of energy flowing a certain way in relation to the moon, as well. But I have begun using what I feel is the "appropriate" hand for each part, and just positioning my body differently so I don't feel as much that I am awkwardly crossing in front of my myself. Actually, I think in a few circles I didn't use my hands at all, but just walked around, which removed that obstacle. (Which is another experiment you can do! I tried it standing in one spot and turning in a circle, and then later I tried it physically walking around the circle. I found I have a personal preference so now I don't use the other way.) Anyway, it all depends on the individual circumstance and what works best at the time.

And no, I wasn't originally going to put ALL OF THAT in the video, but since I decided to post it here, I did add a little more so that it would make sense when read, rather than leaving it as short notes for me to read from. =)

Do you record your practices for your own personal reference? What kinds of things have you discovered through trial and error (of course only things you would share, as I certainly support keeping some things private)?

Thank you for reading!
Blessings~
-C-