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TWV Presents... Articles/Essays From Pagans [Show all] Views: 9,898,688 November 22nd. 2009 ... Rethinking Pagan Discrimination Caveat Mentor, or Watch That First Step! Ten Dumb Reasons To Join A Coven Interview With Openly Pagan Elected Official, Jessica Orsini Creating My Book of Shadows Intolerance: A Curable Disease Loving Spiritual Diversity Good Vibrations November 15th. 2009 ... Recovering From a Bad Coven Experience You Are Not A Tool The Dangers of Virtual Reality and Magickal Life: A True Story Diary of a High Priestess When Religious Intolerance Destroys Friendship Thinking With Your Heart Beauty in Death In that Moment: “Understanding Born From Sorrow” Raining Down A Different Kind of Peace November 8th. 2009 ... Why Many of Us Will Never Be Christian (No Matter How Hard We Try) Making Your Life Magical Soul Connection: The Means to Finding Your Life Purpose How I Met My Soul Mate. Twice Perfect Love and Perfect Trust: Thoughts on Love and Loving Love and the Use Of Magick Spiritual Transformation Follow the Yellowbrick Road: Sometimes Staying on the Path Takes a Miracle! The Path: A Spiritual Chautauqua November 1st. 2009 ... My Magic Doesn't Work! (Because It Sometimes Doesn't) Avoiding the Pitfalls of Paganism The Breath and Faking It Coming Out Of The "Broom Closet" Profound Fruit Loops Magick and Science I Want To Live A While Longer "Me Time" October 25th. 2009 ... Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone Touring East Coast USA for Samhain Lemon Magic My Black Kitty Autumnland: Pagan Path and Paradise The Modern Coven: Importance of Documentation Crossroads Rite (Version 11) Perceptions of Life The Challenge of Acceptance The Circle of Life October 18th. 2009 ... Honoring Our Elders, Leaders and Teachers Space Clearing: A Fresh Look at a Classic Tradition Group or Solitary: Which Is Best For You? Which Witch is Which? The Importance of Scientific Terminology. Soap Making 101 How I Maintain My Spiritual Practice in a War Zone To Be or Not To Be – In Pagan Business "Fusion" Magick October 11th. 2009 ... Italy, Clavicles and Witchcraft The Fairies of Samhain Horns of Gold, Horns of Red: The God as a Sacred Focus The Veil as Seen Through the Eyes of a Witch Owl Mythology, Folklore, and Magical Interpretation A Celtic "Young Goodman Brown" October 4th. 2009 ... What Should I Put In My Book of Shadows? How Do You Draw Your Pentagram? Your Book Of Shadows How I Became a Wiccan Five-Point Witches’ Self-Healing Plan The Responsiblity of Elders of Pagan Paths My Curse Thoughts on Death Dinosaurs and Druidry September 27th. 2009 ... When I Was A Christian Wiccan Shamanism: Seeing in the Dark Dream Invasion: What It Is and How to Stop it The Warrior Archetype and the Reemergence of the Goddess Twittermancy and Open Sourcery Past Life, Present Mission The Burning Times: May We Never Forget Ophiuchus, the 13th Constellation: A Call for Change Changes: Facing Them and Making Them September 20th. 2009 ... How I Found My Craft Name (and Tips on Finding Yours!) Life Without End: Death From A Pagan Perspective Creating Your Reality My Road To Wicca Officiating At A Crossing Over Ceremony NOTE: For a complete list of articles related to this chapter... Visit the Main Index FOR this section.

Moving On From 'Starting Out' Author: Posted: October 14th. 2001 Times Viewed: 3,013 Are you willing to play a little game with me? Oh, go on, puhleeeeeeeeze. You will? Oh GOOD! Bring up your favourite search engine and put 'Wicca 101' in the text box. Now count how many web-sites have a syllabus in place for 'newbies' to devour... ... What? You don't have time to count them all? OK, now try the same thing with Wicca 201 (or 202, or 102, or whatever the next level is - give me a break, I'm English!! School's different here!). Find any advanced lessons? Let me rephrase that. Did you find any advanced lessons that a) didn't require you to become part of a tradition/pay money/attend actual lessons or b) weren't a re-hash of Wicca 101? No? Me neither. About a year ago, I met a talented Tarot Reader who was Pagan. Although we spoke little about her beliefs, I was curious enough to start a little research project, firstly on the Tarot, and as time went by, on various facets of Earth Spirituality. I found much that intrigued me, quite a bit that made me laugh incredulously, and several key themes that struck my soul with the raw power of lightning. I had, in the words of so many whom follow these myriad paths, come home. I now have several hundred web-sites bookmarked on my computer. I have lists of correspondences in a card file. I have marked all the Esbats and Sabbats in my diary, along with astrological information and times. I have a Book of Shadows, or rather a Library of Shadows that consists of my Tarot Journal, Runes Journal, Dream Journal, Ritual Journal, Energy Practice Journal, Wheel of the Year Journal and plain old Diary. (Yes, I know that sort of over-organisation is probably unhealthy.) I have some basic knowledge about crystals, aromatherapy and astrology. I have a little more knowledge about the Tarot, Runes and palmistry. I have much more knowledge of herbs, whether that is culinary, medicinal or magickal. I have collated, and indexed, and cross-referenced many pieces of information. It takes up two whole shelves on my bookcase. And I have come to a full-stop. Where is the rest of it? Tell me more about magick, more about the Sabbats. Tell me more secrets, more signs, more words... I look, and there are no more correspondences. No advanced Candle Magick. No more Sabbats to learn about, no more Elements to call. No Intermediate Circle-Casting, or Advanced Rituals. Nothing. Every new web-site has the same Rede, the same Charge of the God/Goddess, and similar correspondences. Where is the depth? Where is the next stage? Before anyone starts e-mailing me with instructions to find a Tradition and become initiated so I can learn intricate arcane secrets, I am, and for the foreseeable future will remain, solitary. I don't want to work with a group, and I'm not going to apologise for it. I'm a Piscean, who admits to being a complete social chameleon, and I would be completely over-whelmed and swamped by the personalities of others. It happens to me all the time. But surely there must be something beyond Wicca 101 for a Solitary? I read all the books on Witchcraft I can find. I look for ever-more obscure personal web-pages. I print off yet another Wicca 101 Course (I think that is now 37 in total). Are there any of you who recognise this? It's information addiction. I have all this information. Files and files of it. I write in my journals every day - I'm creating even more information. I can look up all the 'right' correspondences for spells, and rituals. I can spend hours trawling the net, the bookstore, and the library looking for even more information. I am a Witch, I am a Witch, I am a Witch... About two months ago I stopped looking for new information. I was depressed, and beginning to wonder whether I had been 'taken in' by a bunch of well meaning, but ultimately deluded people. I stopped meditating, reading Tarot or Runes, and I missed a full moon ritual and didn't even notice. Was I any different now from the way I was before I discovered Wicca? No. I wasn't different at all. I felt cheated, a little stupid, and very un-magickal. Then one week I suffered from a bout of insomnia, which is something that rarely happens to me. Every night for six nights I woke up about two o'clock in the morning, and couldn't get back to sleep for a good two or three hours. By the third night, I'd taken to getting up, making myself a cup of tea and sitting on the sofa looking out at the stars. By the sixth night, I was almost looking forward to these midnight cups of tea and peaceful silence, with just my thoughts for company. On the seventh night, the moon was almost full, and I watched its passage until it was low in the night sky and almost orange. I can remember thinking that the moon was so very beautiful, and how natural it must have been for ancient people to have associated the waxing and waning of the moon with a woman's menstrual cycle. How it was such a logical step to worship a Moon Goddess, and to acknowledge the symbolism of the moon's phases with a woman's fertility. I mentally calculated where abouts in my menstrual cycle I was, and realised that I would be due to get my period around the New Moon. And that's when I heard it. A sweet sigh, and a whispered 'I knew you'd get it, given time.' I actually heard the words so clearly I jumped, spilling my tea all over me! I had never quite believed people who had heard the Goddess speak to them, however much in my initial enthusiasm I wanted to. But there was no doubt in my mind that was who had spoken to me. I went back to bed that night, and I haven't had insomnia since. When I woke up the following morning, I felt very different. It was as though I was seeing things not for the first time, but with someone else's eyes. I was aware of the first autumn leaf falling from the Poplar tree outside the patio doors. I knew where I was in my menstrual cycle just by looking at the moon, and I knew where the moon was in her cycle just by the way my body felt as it went through my own cycle. I felt connected, and no longer a single discrete individual. As time has progressed, I'm once again opening up my journals and files, reading and re-reading and analysing small pieces at a time. I memorised the Rede, and the Charge of the God and the Goddess just because I liked the sound of them, and it feels special to be able to recite them in a ritual without having to read the words from a sheet of paper. I've started meditating again, and I ground and centre each morning in the shower without even thinking about it. I have only cast one spell so far, and I didn't use every correspondence faithfully, like I would have done in the past. I picked a few things that felt important - a tall candle stick, a white candle, and a feather - and with a clear intent, I cast my spell. I don't know whether it has worked, at this point in time, but I'm hopeful as each day passes. For me, the stages beyond Wicca 101 are to go beyond devouring information, to move through using information, to finally living it, feeling it and being it. I don't need to look at my card files of correspondences any more, I can feel them. And I'm changing them! I feel powerful. I feel very special, and yet I am only a tiny part of the whole of the universe. THIS is my Intermediate and Advanced course, and I can't read it in a book, or off a web-page. My God and Goddess, both aspects of the vastness of the Universe, is patiently teaching me, going beyond words and pictures and using emotions, connections, symbols and omens. Therefore, I'm beginning to think it is impossible to write an Advanced Wicca. Dry words on a page cannot show me a systematic guide to being a more accomplished witch. Only the Universe in all its glory can guide me to that. She hasn't spoken to me so clearly since, by the way. But I'm sure she will, when I need that nudge in the right direction! Kiya Summerwind ABOUT... Location: , USA Bio: Kiya is a 31 year old English solitary living in the middle of nowhere and loving every minute of it. She is lucky enough to have a long-suffering and loving soul-mate who doesn't mind buying her a new keyboard for her computer when she spills her tea over it. She would love to be blessed with a familiar in the form of a sleek, graceful cat, but understands that the Goddess would prefer her companion to be a blue budgie with a loud voice and a bad attitude. She refuses to exit the Broom Cupboard because she likes it in there, although she did, rather daringly, put 'Pagan' in the box marked Religion in this year's Census. Other Listings: To view ALL of my listings: Click HERE Email ... (No, I have NOT opted to receive Pagan Invites! Please do NOT send me anonymous invites to groups, sales and events.) To send a private message to ... 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