Witchvox Article

Author: Sitara Haye
Posted: June 28th. 2009
Times Viewed: 930

Summer is here in all its sweat-inducing, watermelon-munching, firefly-blinking splendor. The children are truly settled into their vacation routine, screaming as they cannonball into the pool, screaming for ice cream, screaming because they’re bored. That last one really makes me crazy. What do I look like? The entertainment committee? Mom is just one step down from cruise director, I swear.

I, on the other hand, am an adult. I don’t get ten weeks of leisure with the worst problem on my daily schedule being which video game to play. While I can breathe a sigh of relief that puberty and the trauma of high school is well and truly past me, I have to inhale all the responsibilities that come with being an adult and a parent. No summer to sleep in for me… the alarm clock never budges from its perpetual 6:00 a.m.

And the Wheel keeps turning; days flit across the surface of our consciousness like dragonflies on the water’s surface. Silent and jewel-like, the days of June are barely there before they’re gone. Soon, Solstice alights on your shoulder and the realization that the days are really long flutters through your head. Where did the time go?

Summer Solstice is one of those Sabbats that I often feel gets a raw deal in the grand cycle of the seasons. There are plenty of traditions in various cultures that honor this peak of the solar year, so it’s not really a lack of things from which to draw. Maybe it’s just that we’re so busy, hurrying and scurrying, ferrying kids to day camp and weeding the garden. Who knows? As if our schedules weren’t already packed, this year there is an extra consideration: Summer Solstice and Father’s Day coincide.

When we were planning our events for the Sabbat, OldeForest (my group) had to make room for coveners to partake in Father’s Day events with their families. No big deal… we scheduled around plans and set a celebration time that worked for everyone. Later, however, I got to thinking about the lovely meaning behind having a Father’s Day on a day where the masculine energy – the Sun’s energy – peaks.

As a mother, I know that without the vital masculine force, I would not have the experience of motherhood. The child that has forever altered the person I am and who I will become would not exist had it not been for the contribution of a man.

As a woman, I know that without the vital masculine force, I would not enjoy the incredible sense of completion that I feel when partnered with a man who is strong in the energy imparted to him because he is part of the God.

As a priestess, I know that without the vital masculine force, I would miss the kinetic flow that occurs between the representative of the Goddess and the representative of the God. I would miss the ecstasy of the Great Rite as shared by two, which feels different than the Great Rite one completes within herself.

As a human, I know that without the vital masculine force, I would lack half of the Divine force, half of the polarity that allows the principles of attraction and creation to manifest, half of the interplay of opposites upon which so much current understanding is based.

Even if you aren’t straight, initiated, or a mother, you are human. You carry at least a seed of the masculine energy within you. And if it weren’t for the masculine contribution by your father, chances are, you would not have the gift of life.

There are times that I feel that the masculine contribution is often overlooked, downplayed, if not outright ‘hated on’ in pagan circles. Don’t get me wrong, now… I have some pretty strong beliefs about how the persecution of women during the Inquisition has set feminine wisdom among the White Tribe back hundreds and thousands of years, a place we are only now beginning to really reclaim. I also have some pretty vehement opinions about women’s lib, and how we do NOT prove equality among the sexes by acting more masculine in order to gain standing. Yes, I could go on for a long time about how short haircuts and pantsuits and 80-hour work weeks do not prove female equality but rather show how we can drift even further from our innate power and wisdom that NEEDS no proving.

No, what I’m talking about is how the Priest in our religion is often an afterthought. How, in so many circles and traditions, the High Priestess calls the shots and the High Priest is still basically a gopher, although a glorified one with cool Wiccan-Priest-bling to set him apart. How some Priestesses insist that they have nothing to gain from a Priest, won’t work with a Priest, can’t trust a Priest, and so on.

Before I get utterly flamed here, I will say that not all groups SHOULD have a Priest. Not all Priestesses MUST have a partner to work. All of that is dictated by a much higher power than I. What I’m pointing out is a trend that I’ve noticed in my particular neck of the woods. I would be willing to be that some of the trees in my neck of the woods probably look the same as the ones in your part of the world.

There is a joke that runs rampant about single pagan men having a bachelor shelf-life of approximately 45 minutes when surrounded by pagan women. Don’t laugh… it really can be that bad. We have to face that we walk a religious path that focuses on the Feminine. Honestly, we need to do the whole “up with the Goddess” thing to begin making up for centuries of repression. However, we do not need to do it at the expense of our men, our Priests, our Sons, our Brothers, our Fathers. A real question for our future is what are we doing to run off our good Priests? Why don't they stay? Why do we insist on emasculating them? Are we afraid of their power, afraid of them edging us out in the one arena that is ours? It's not an easy question to answer and really plays on some deep, deep fears.

One of the deepest taproots of our religious walk has to do with fertility. Fertility takes TWO. Male and female, man and woman (or any combination of masculine and feminine energies in whatever bodies with whatever plumbing happens to come attached) .

I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a postulation that I’d like you to think about, even if you ultimately decide you don’t agree with me. I believe that the healthy future of the Craft is directly dependent upon continued masculine involvement. When we marginalize our priests, the men in our lives, the male contingent of our pagan communities and covens, we also marginalize the quickening power that has been entrusted to them in the fertility process. In other words, we risk spiritual infertility, something our relatively still-new movement cannot afford to have occur.

I’m sure I am not the only Priestess that has bemoaned the lack of “good male Priests”. Those that just come for the booty don’t count here. I’m talking about the ones that come, that study, that open up and do the intimate work that is required to serve the Goddess and her representative by truly taking up and accounting for his own power and his responsibility in the sacred dance of life.

I’m talking about the ones that write the Coming of Age rites for the future young men of the Craft who will one day wed the daughters of the Goddess. I’m talking about the men who know what it means to be a warrior and protect the bounds of the circle, both the circle proper and the circle of lives that make up its human boundary. I’m talking about the men that restore faith in the words that make so many ex-Christians cringe, who restore honor to the phrase “God, the Father”.

It’s Father’s Day, and the idea of “father” has plenty of backlash for me. An emotionally and physically abusive upbringing, an authoritarian household that believed in a God of “love” that delighted in punishment for anything less than perfection. I know I’m not the only one who lived through hell as a child and so has no use for a religion that gives it as an option at the end of this road.

But it is complete sacrilege to allow our baggage to derail the train. Fatherhood is a sacred duty, a sacred obligation, and one that men are best able to fill. We need to have respect for what true fathers and true men are like: upright, loyal, honest, hard-working, strong, wise, funny, resourceful, loving, honorable. Whatever we may have learned from our childhoods and religious upbringings about what a Father or a Man is, we need to take a moment and give thanks for the Father God energy that animates this world and that radiates from every good-souled father and man out there.

As you celebrate Summer Solstice each year and revel in the light of the longest day, I ask you to pause and give thanks for your life, a life you wouldn’t have without the mystery of man and woman coming together to create you. I ask that you give thanks for the Sun that pours its quickening, fatherly energy into our world every day and ensures our survival.

I ask that you give thanks for all the men you know in your life that are good men and good fathers – and if you had a bad father or no father, you know just how precious they are. I ask that you take a moment and look at your own actions and question if you have any baggage that stands between you having good and balanced relationships with the men in your life, and if there’s baggage, why you still want to carry it around with you.

Women have a long way to go to restore the Goddess. Men have a long way to go to restore the God from the cruel and jealous tyrant held up for them as their example.

As we honor the day of the Sun in all His glory, let us also pause to honor the Father and the men who are, were, or will be the living manifestation of the God. They may not always get it right (then again, we don’t either) , however, I would be willing to bet that their success is dependent upon us and how open we are to the work they are doing.

Honor them. It is the open hand we can give that will help rebuild the circle of trust shattered long ago.

Copyright: (c) Sitara Haye, 2009.

ABOUT...

Sitara Haye

Location: Chattanooga, Tennessee

Website: http://www.sitarahaye.com

Author's Profile: To learn more about Sitara Haye - Click HERE

Other Articles: Sitara Haye has posted 17 additional articles- View them?

Other Listings: To view ALL of my listings: Click HERE

Email Sitara Haye... (Yes! I have opted to receive invites to Pagan events, groups, and commercial sales)

Home - TWV Logos - Email US - Privacy

News and Information

Chapters: Pagan/Heathen Basics - Pagan BOOKS - Traditions, Paths & Religions - Popular Pagan Holidays - TV & Movies - Cats of the Craft - Festival Reviews - Festival Tips - White Pages (Resources) - Issues/Concerns - West Memphis 3 - Witch Hunts - Pagan Protection Tips - Healing Planet Earth

Your Voices: Adult Essays - Young Pagan Essays - Pagan Perspectives (On Hold) - WitchWars: Fire in the Craft - Gay Pagan - Pagan Parenting - Military - Pagan Passages

Pagan Music: Pagan Musicians - Bardic Circle at WitchVox - Free Music from TWV

Vox Central: About TWV - Wren: Words, Wrants and Wramblings - Guest Rants - Past Surveys - A Quest for Unity

Weekly Updates: Click HERE for an index of our weekly updates for the past 6 years

W.O.T.W. - World-Wide Networking

Your Town: A Link to YOUR Area Page (The largest listing of Witches, Pagans, Heathens and Wiccans on the Planet)

VoxLinks: The Pagan Web: 8,000 Listings

Your Witchvox Account: Log in Now - Create New Account - Request New Password - Log in Problems

Personal Listings: Pagan Clergy in Your Town - Adult Pagans - Young Pagans - Military Pagans

Events: Circles, Gatherings, Workshops & Festivals

Covens/Groups/Orgs: Local Groups Main Page

Other LOCAL Resources: Local Shops - Regional Sites - Local Notices - Global/National Notices - Local Skills & Services - Local Egroups - Political Freedom Fighters

Pagan Shopping: Online Shops Index - Original Crafters Sites - Auction Sites - Pagan Wholesalers - Pagan Local Shops

Web Site Content (including: text - graphics - html - look & feel)
Copyright 1997-2009 The Witches' Voice Inc. All rights reserved
Note: Authors & Artists retain the copyright for their work(s) on this website.
Unauthorized reproduction without prior permission is a violation of copyright laws.

Website structure, evolution and php coding by Fritz Jung on a Macintosh G5.

Any and all personal political opinions expressed in the public listing sections (including, but not restricted to, personals, events, groups, shops, Wrenâ€™s Nest, etc.) are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinion of The Witchesâ€™ Voice, Inc. TWV is a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization.

Sponsorship: Visit the Witches' Voice Sponsor Page for info on how you
can help support this Community Resource. Donations ARE Tax Deductible.
The Witches' Voice carries a 501(c)(3) certificate and a Federal Tax ID.

Mail Us: The Witches' Voice Inc., P.O. Box 341018, Tampa, Florida 33694-1018 U.S.A.

Witches, Pagans
of The World

Current Topic
Editorial Guide

NOTE: The essay on this page contains the writings and opinions of the listed author(s) and is not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Witches' Voice inc.

The Witches' Voice does not verify or attest to the historical accuracy contained in the content of this essay.

All WitchVox essays contain a valid email address, feel free to send your comments, thoughts or concerns directly to the listed author(s).