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The Author's Corner |
Out of the Broom Closet: 50 True Stories of Witches Who Found and Embraced the Craft
The Way of the Hedge Witch: Rituals and Spells for
The Way of the Green Witch
Solitary Wicca for Life:
Power Spellcraft for Life
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Solitary Wicca For Life: TWPT: I was just reading
through your bio on your website and it talked about a creative writing project
that you were working on a decade ago that led you to discover alternative
spiritual paths. Tell me about the theme of this writing project and what it was
about the research that you did that was so compelling to you that led you
further in? AMH: I was researching the background of a character for a
cooperative oral storytelling project with friends. In this case, the occult
and the supernatural figured largely in the plot proposed by the person who
initiated the project. Once I’d decided that my character was going to be a
witch, I went out to do my research in order to write a full profile on her in
order to help me get a handle on who she was, and develop her fully. For any
creative writing project I like to get lots of material down in black and white
to help me get to know my characters really well: I write up background, life
story to date, life philosophy, biography, and so forth. Because the story was
set in the modern everyday world, I looked into modern witchcraft. On my first visit to the local occult bookstore I stayed for
over three hours exploring what was on the shelves. I chose three books: Lid Off the Cauldron by Patricia
Crowther, Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary
Practitioner by Scott Cunningham, and Everyday
Magic by Dorothy Morrison. Looking back, I find it interesting that I chose
three books that each address a very different aspect of neo-Paganism: Crowther
focuses on the When I become interested in something, I read as much as I
can about it. I love to research! I went back to that occult bookstore and kept
buying books, this time for myself. The cooperative storytelling project went
on for about a year, four or five of us meeting once or twice a month, and
while my original research had allowed me to create a believable character, it
wasn’t long before my continuing research showed me just how much deeper real
witchcraft was. It is a way of life; it is a spiritual path. TWPT: Did you have any
predominant spiritual or religious views that had to be rethought as a
consequence of what you found during your research and if so how difficult was
it to begin to change those ideas and bring them into line with these newfound
spiritual concepts? AMH: Not really. I was raised Anglican, but not in a strict sort
of way. My parents taught me to respect and honour the people around me, as
well as nature. I was a church goer until my and active in the church community
for years until in my late teens I was pressed to donate even more of my time
and energy. I’m a shy person, and trust has always been a big issue with me. In
this case what I finally realised was happening was that the community was
drawing an incredible amount of energy from me, but I wasn’t receiving an equal
amount of support and nourishment in return, on either a personal level or a
spiritual level. In fact, church had become simply a secular and mechanical
entity that ate up time: flower guild, altar guild, nursery duty, youth group… and
what had happened was that there no longer existed a spiritual element to any
of these things. I understand that every institution needs to be run by people,
but I felt that I was valued only for my time and skills in these areas, not as
a child of God with a soul and spirit. I never officially left Christianity; I just did what so
many volunteers do when they burn out. I faded from the scene. I never rejected
God, either. I still talked to the Divine, and felt joy when the spirit of the
universe moved in such a way as to touch my life and remind me that moments of beauty
and happiness are gifts from the Divine Spirit. Neo-Paganism was more of an
“Ah” moment for me; it gave a name to many of the beliefs I already held, such
as animism, immanent Deity, and pantheism. I’d say my spirituality evolved over
time, not that it changed as a result of any one event. TWPT: Once you had worked
through many of the issues brought up as a result of a change in spiritual
paths did you have anything in mind as to how you should go about putting this
new path into motion in your life and what were some of those beginning steps
in your case? AMH: As I wasn’t an active adherent to an organized faith at the
time, there really weren’t many issues to work through; it was really a very
smooth transition. It didn’t entail a huge deliberate adjustment at all. Neo-Paganism
very easily and gently just began to entwine through my life. Entwine is a good
verb, actually, because it moved like roots and shoots and tendrils. It really
wasn’t much of a stretch when I discovered neo-Paganism; in fact, once I
understood what neo-Paganism was, the rest of my life filled out and felt much
more comfortable. What did present a challenge was the actual physical
performance of ritual. I adore doing ritual now, but after the first couple of
months of reading everything I could get my hands on and internalizing it, I
understood that in order to actually practice
this spirituality meant that I had to physically do something. Looking at a calendar and knowing that it’s a Sabbat
or a moment in a particular moon phase is one thing. And certainly, the root of
any ritual you do lies in your thoughts and emotions. But in order to avoid the
“armchair Wiccan” syndrome, you have to get your nose out of a book and
actually stand up and do something. One of the aspects of Wicca that I’m
particularly thankful for is the focus on the experiential acquisition of
knowledge. You can read and talk until the cows come home, but if you never try
to connect personally with what’s out there – God, Goddess, the energy flowing
through the world – the base and heart of your spiritual practice is going to
be missing. Knowing this, it took me a good long while before I could
get over the odd stage fright that held me back. Intellectually I knew that neo-Paganism
was my thing. On paper, it answered so many of my needs. The idea of actually
casting a circle and meeting my gods spirit to spirit scared the heck out of
me, though. Was I ready for that sort of thing? It was a huge commitment, and
was very important to me, so I thought about it for a long time. It took me months from the time I began reading to the
moment when I finally did my first ritual at Imbolc. And I know that I must
have waited for the right time, because it was a positive experience. I was
filled with such a sense of joy and gladness and “this is right”. It was quiet,
but wonderful. TWPT: Tell me about
writing in your life. Did you always want to be a writer and when was it that
you remember starting to write material on a regular basis? AMH: Well, my high school graduate blurb in my yearbook says that
my ideal future career was a novelist! Actually, it goes a lot further back
than that. I was writing stories at the beginning of grade school. I was an
early reader, and something about the written word has always fascinated me. And
I’ve always had a facility with words, so the fact that it’s not hard for me to
write helps a lot as well. I wrote my first official novella at the age of
twelve. I wrote cooperative stories throughout high school with a group of
friends, as well as more novels that helped me develop as a writer. I’ve always been a creative writer first and foremost, so
the fact that my third non-fiction book is about to be published in spring 2006
amuses me as well as being somewhat ironic. I still write fiction, too. And
before I was a writer, I was a reader. I fully believe that the amount of
writing I’ve been exposed to since birth has helped confirm me as an author. TWPT: How is it
that your educational background prepared you to be able to open up to what you
found along your current path? Do you think that those who are predisposed to
seeking knowledge through universities are just as open to alternative
spiritual paths regardless of whether they represent a majority view or not?
AMH: Wow, what an interesting question. First of all, I don’t think someone’s level of education
limits their spiritual potential at all, no matter what religious path they
choose to follow. The neo-Pagans I know are a well-educated lot, but that may be
a reflection of my circle of friends being both neo-Pagan and
university-educated. I do believe that the more you learn, the more open-minded
you have to become in order to absorb and hold various (and sometimes less-popular
or minority) points of view. That being said, the ten years I spent in university doing
literature analysis and criticism taught me an awful lot about different points
of view, and I can appreciate them without agreeing with them. I think I would
have been just as open to neo-Paganism even if I hadn’t already completed a
university degree, simply because of the kind of person I am and because the
time was right. I do know that my academic background provides me with the
ability to start reading something and know almost right away if it’s crap or
not! It also gives me the ability to read weaker stuff and pull out the bits of
valuable information. And I certainly do my part to search out more academic
and fact-based books for local neo-Pagans to read and include in their material
for study. That’s one of the aspects of being a teacher that I love:
introducing students to new authors, new ideas, and material that they can
really use as a good solid base for further research as their spirituality
develops. TWPT: How is it that you
came to be involved in the AMH: Through a small series of coincidences I ended up working at
the occult bookstore through which I’d made my original discovery of neo-Paganism.
For the shop’s tenth anniversary, we brought in a series of authors for
lectures, workshops, and signings. Silver RavenWolf was one of those authors, and
I had the opportunity to sit down and have dinner with her. I discovered that
her personal views on spirituality and occult practice were much more complex
and challenging than her new generation witchcraft series of books presented
for the general public, and after a few months of thinking and meditating, I
accepted her offer to join the Black Forest Clan to explore the body of
knowledge and practice they offered. I and four others ended up training long-distance, with one
or two long visits to TWPT: Ultimately you
became a 3rd degree Wiccan High Priestess within this group. What
was it that this initiation brought to your spiritual path and how did this fit
in with your solitary practice? AMH: My third degree initiation served two purposes. First, because
it’s a tradition initiation, it’s awoken and solidified certain
tradition-specific things inside me. Being oathbound I can’t go into detail, of
course, but ultimately while the experience of the initiation itself was
incredible and opened my eyes to a few different things, it hasn’t impacted my existing
spirituality in any sort of headline-making way that I can see right now. I
think it’s going to take a few more years before I’m in a position to look back
and focus on the tiny ripples the elevation made throughout my life, both
spiritual and mundane, and what sort of changes those ripples made. Second, the third degree elevation introduced me to a new
experience: teaching others privately within a coven environment. In the new
coven my husband and I formed for this purpose, we discovered that it’s a lot
more difficult to train someone personally than to teach a course once a week
through a structured program where you know what’s coming next. It’s also hard
when someone comes to you for answers, and all you can do is facilitate their
own search for the answer that’s correct for them. That’s another aspect of
what my third degree elevation is teaching me: when to be hands-on, and when to
be hands-off. I have a tendency to encourage everyone to find their own truth,
but at times that’s not the type of help people approach me for. Everyone gets something different from an initiation or
elevation, and to be honest, my third degree elevation is teaching me more
about administration, training others, community, and handling interpersonal
issues as regarding spirituality and religion. And that affects my whole life,
not just my work within my tradition. TWPT: Tell me about your
first book Power Spellcraft for Life. When and why did you decide to write the
book and how was it that you ended up at Provenance Press? AMH: I was working with Provenance Press as a consultant when the
editor suggested that I write one of the books in the For Life series. She
proposed the spellcraft title, and as I’d been teaching a two-part course in
spellcraft for a while and had material that I could use as a basis for the
book, I agreed. It was the first book I wrote for publication, and it taught me
a lot of important things about the process. So I didn’t set out to write a book on spellcraft. A book
for people who’d worked through a couple of Wicca 101 books and who needed
something intermediate to expand the basics had always been the book I thought
needed to be written. (I never thought I’d actually do it, though, and I don’t
flatter myself that I’ve written the be-all-end-all of intermediate Wicca books
in Solitary Wicca for Life, but when
the publisher asked if I could do it in an emergency, I did.) So Power Spellcraft for Life was one of
those mysterious domino-like effects in a string of pleasant coincidences. I’m
very pleased with the book, though. It was certainly a different experience
than writing the Wicca book. I found the spellcraft book easier to write
because it was about mechanics, whereas the Wicca book is about spirituality.
It’s a lot easier to talk about nuts and bolts than about an
individual-specific eclectic mystery religion! TWPT: One of my first
questions about your new book, Solitary Wicca for Life, AMH: Absolutely, and I cannot stress this enough. Different
personalities require different structures within which to work, and as a
result a practitioner may gain more from one or the other based on their
temperament, but you can’t point to one environment and say, “This is the best
way for everyone to practice.” The experience will be different, not better or worse. It’s
like comparing apples and pears. You may have a preference, but there isn’t
more intrinsic value in one over the other. There are certain formal traditions
where you have to operate within a coven environment in order to receive the
information and knowledge being communicated to you, of course, but that’s not generally
true of eclectic Wicca, and obviously not of solitary eclectic Wicca! TWPT: Your book jacket
says that you spent 5 years of your 10 on this path as a AMH: Working within a coven offered me reinforcement, community,
feedback, and the ability to learn how to work with others. Like most solitary
practitioners, I doubted my own knowledge base and intuition. Once I’d taken
the step to go out and take a public class, I realized that I was more than
fine on both those counts. I would have been content to going back to being
exclusively solitary, but I was coaxed into teaching what I knew, and that was
the end of that! It was through teaching, working in the local occult
bookstore, and doing Pagan community
work that I met the people who eventually formed the first coven I worked with. I began as a solitary, but I certainly didn’t stop working
on my own once I began working in a coven. In practicing alone I can work with
concepts that I want to explore, which the group as a whole may not be
interested in doing. For me, the two environments supplement one another. Some people have told me that I can’t be both a covener and
a solitary, and I’ve never understood the either-or mentality. If you believe
that you can only practice in a circle environment with others, then I think you’re
missing one of the points of Wicca, which is to make it a way of life. In my coven,
I work with others within the structure of a tradition; alone, I work in a much
more free-form fashion, but I still work within the Wiccan configuration. I
celebrate sabbats and moons both alone and with my group. I find I get
different things out of each method. In the end, it all comes down to you and
the gods, after all. TWPT: What were some of
the goals that you wanted to accomplish with this book AMH: The market is absolutely flooded with 101 books, and there’s
a dearth of 200-level texts. There’s a reason for this: it’s very easy to
address the basics for someone who’s starting from scratch, but in a personal
experiential mystery religion like Wicca, it’s hard to know what different people
will require as the next step to further clarify what they’ve encountered in
introductory books. The biggest problem with a concept like “intermediate” is
that everyone defines it differently, based on their own needs or experience. I
thought about the questions lots of people have asked me over the years after
they’ve worked through a few 101 books on their own, the common obstacles that people
encounter, and went from there. I really didn’t want to repeat the very basics
that are easily found in other books, so apart from doing a review of what
Wicca is, and a necessary brief restatement of the basics in a couple of places
before further developing the topic, I looked at things not usually addressed:
how to write your own invocations, how to break down a published ritual into
different sections, how to aspect, how to enrich ritual, and so forth. In addition, I wanted to create a book that explored the
“why” we do certain things. So often a 101 book tells the reader “we do this
step in ritual” but rarely does it add the second half of the thought, “because
it serves this purpose”. I also wanted
to suggest a couple of techniques or slightly different methods that people may
not have come up with on their own. A solitary path is about developing what
works best for you, and a lot of people feel awkward about coming up with their
own versions of different things. A solitary practitioner often needs the
encouragement to develop their own liturgy, their own style. I wanted to
encourage them to try a couple of techniques that they may not have felt they
could do, to get them to write their own invocations instead of using ones
found online or in books, to get them to really feel out their position in
relation to their gods. And in a sense, a lot of that has grown out of the
classes I teach. Sure, there are times when I lecture, but more often than not
I’ll give a bit of information and then encourage those present to get going on
a project or assignment that explores how they feel or actively puts into
practice a theoretical technique they’ve been given. We learn by doing in Wicca,
and that’s why throughout the book I suggest trying this, trying that. It’s about practical spirituality. TWPT: Are there other
books out there that take this approach to practicing the AMH: If you practice as a solitary, your approach to Wicca is going
to be unique as a result, because you don’t have to subscribe to someone else’s
details beyond the basic Wiccan structure. You’re creating your own path within
the larger Wiccan borders. So in a way, every
author’s approach is unique, as is every reader’s. This is one of the reasons
why it’s interesting to read various 101 texts: you can see how each author
takes a different view of a certain aspect of practice. But in general, I think the focus of most books is on the
Wicca part as opposed to the solitary part. It can be frustrating to pick up a
book as a solo Wiccan and come up against rituals written for more than one person.
My solution for that has always been to simplify the ritual so that you can do
it alone (providing you don’t lose the thrust of the ritual, that is), but
then, I’m a big fan of kitbashing, and I have no reluctance in taking a bunch
of speaking parts myself! Solitary eclectic Wiccans get so much of their source
material from books that I wanted there to be a book that said, “It’s not all
about the books, it’s about you.” I’ve encountered people who say “I can’t do
that” when they read a ritual or a technique in a book, for whatever reason:
too many people, too complex, too challenging. If you really think you can’t,
then you’re right – you can’t. But what
if? What if you tried? Or what if you wrote something else that you could do? Eclectic Wicca’s not about the
rituals in books, it’s about you and your relationship with the gods as you practice
the Wiccan way. Discovering what your own personal way is can be so wonderful.
And that discovery never ends, because we grow and change and our practice must
evolve with us to continue meeting our needs. TWPT: Tell me about how
Solitary Wicca for Life is laid out and was there a AMH: A lot of it was intuitive. It just made sense to begin with
a review of what Wicca is, where it came from, and what the underlying
philosophies are. From there the next step was sacred space, working with
circles, then energy work that goes on inside a circle. Then I turned to the
various parts of a basic Wiccan ritual, writing ritual, working with deity, and
so forth. I like to go from the general subject down to the more specific
topics within that subject area, and in as linear a fashion as possible. When I write a book the chapter order that gets published is
never what I’d originally planned, though; things get moved around as I write
in order to present the smoothest and most logical flow. My outlines and
proposals usually have fewer chapters, too. Some chapters tend to split early
on into two or three very distinctly different ideas as I begin to write them,
which have to be separated in order to address them correctly. In fact, most of
the chapters in this book could be books themselves! TWPT: Is your book aimed
at a certain skill level for the reader to be able to AMH: The book is written with certain assumptions in mind, namely
that you’ve at least read a couple of beginner texts and tried your hand at
some rituals. While I do mention basics in passing to make sure every reader’s
on the same page before we go on to focus on something specific, I don’t belabour
them. Actually, I’m regularly surprised at how many people have
practiced for years but have never truly grounded, or attempted to connect
directly to the Divine by aspecting in ritual, or have written an original
ritual. To seasoned practitioners these things may seem basic, but there’s a
lot of people out there who haven’t gone beyond a very basic circle-cast and seasonal
observation for various reasons. I wrote Solitary
Wicca for Life (and Power Spellcraft
for Life too) for those people who have gone through the 101 books, and
feel that they need something to help them get a handle on how to truly make their
solitary practice their own. TWPT: When you practice
as a solitary you have to depend on yourself to figure Trusting yourself is a huge thing as a solitary. We worry
about doing things incorrectly, offending the gods, hurting ourselves somehow.
We’re stronger than we think, and we know more than we think we do. I’m not
advocating slapdash ritual or energy work – far from it! – but when you can’t
find an answer to something, necessity requires your creativity to rise to the
occasion. TWPT: Does the
information contained in Solitary Wicca for Life have any What it comes down to is that by writing my books, I want to make people think about what they’re doing and how they approach it instead of doing it “just because”. I’m not interested in telling people what to do; I’m interested in helping them see what they’re already doing in a different light. And if even only a handful of people read one of my books and discover something new, or think about a single aspect of their practice in a slightly another light to get a different view of it, then I’ve accomplished something. TWPT: Having spent time in both the coven environment and as a
solitary If you’re looking to work within a coven, there’s the whole
mess of locating an open group and so forth, or of starting one yourself with
people you know; both avenues have their difficulties. But when joining a
working group, an important thing to focus on is the group dynamic, both on an
interpersonal level and the energy dynamic. Does it feel comfortable? Is it
nourishing? Is it supportive while being challenging, so that you can grow?
Trust your instincts in the initial evaluation of the group; if anything at all
gives you pause, think long and hard about working with them. The experience of
working with a group isn’t worth going against your instinct. In the end, if
you’re willing to give it a go, working in a group is a trial and error sort of
thing. I’ve had the honour of working with individuals who are marvelous
people, and with whom I work well on a one-on-one basis, but who just didn’t
fit into the energy of the working group as a whole. And you just don’t know
until you try. If you’re a solitary looking to revitalize your practice, my
suggestions are simple. My first is to take a class of some sort. It doesn’t
have to be on your actual path; in fact, those can be hard to find. Instead,
take a class on mythology, literature, or a religion of a culture that
interests you. Let it raise associations in your mind about your own spiritual
path. My second suggestion is to go back to the basics. What was the first
thing you did as a Wiccan or Neo-pagan? Go back and do it again. Take note of
how you feel, what you do differently. Hopefully you took notes or journaled
your experience the first time around, so compare and contrast. Continue
retracing your first steps. Meditate on how your views and approaches have changed
since then. And third, take a good long look at yourself and your path, and
honestly re-evaluate your needs and what your path provides for you. We don’t
do this often enough, and as a result we often become mired in the same old
same old. We change, after all; our practice should evolve with us. Think about
what drew you to the system and path originally, and how you see the path now.
Sometimes we forget about the simple heart and soul of our spirituality. TWPT: Readers tend to learn something new when they pick up a
book with an open AMH: There’s nothing like writing something that’s going to be
published to really force you to define what you believe in. I deliberately don’t
try to push my own beliefs on others, but in order to talk about Wicca in any
way you have to think through how you see the path, and then try to put it into
words. One of the things I strive to do is to get people to readdress their
foundations instead of charging onward, so in essence this was a re-evaluation
of how I perceive the foundations of my own practice. TWPT: As a resident of AMH: There are some important things that have been happening in
the past five or so years here in There’s currently a new Canadian pagan census being done by
Dr. Síân Reid of the New age shops have opened up all over Canada over the past
five or so years, something I saw happen while working in the local
metaphysical shop that supplied wholesale products across North America.
There’s obviously the need for these shops, so someone moves to fill that need.
If the need is there, then the Neo-pagan movement is alive and well, and
tolerated well enough in the Canadian public opinion for these shops to open
and, in the majority of cases, thrive. TWPT: Earlier we were talking about your new book Solitary
Wicca for Life but AMH: The Way of the Green Witch is an overall look at the
practice, not aimed at any one level. AMH: Bearing in mind that we don’t direct Wicca, it evolves as
our needs change, there are a lot of things I’d hope to see happen worldwide in
the Wiccan community. I’d like to see more freedom of expression, and the
freedom to practice the religious system of one’s choice. I’d hope people
outside Wicca be more tolerant of diversity of Neo-pagan belief and practice.
I’d hope to see more respect for personal choices within the Wiccan path, as
well. I’m continually stunned at the lack of respect shown to other people, no
matter what their religious choices. Putting people down because they practice
a different way hurts everyone involved, and it’s petty. What a waste of energy
one-upmanship is. Speaking of energy, I’d like to see people of different
paths working together instead of apart, sharing knowledge and theory with one
another. I’m not talking about mashing everything up in one big puddle,
destroying the uniqueness of a path or system, but a respectful sharing of
non-oathbound information that can enrich everyone’s path. I’d like to see an
increased awareness of the evolutionary nature of Wicca, and less of the myths
that are created and perpetuated in order to lend modern religions a sense of
validity. And of course, I’d like to see an increased awareness of actual
history, basis and foundation of various traditions and families within Wicca. AMH: There will be times when your spirituality seems stalled.
You’re not alone; everyone goes through periods of retrograde, an apparent
cessation of motion or seemingly backwards movement. It’s frustrating, and it
can lead you to think that you’ve gone as far as you can go on this path, but it’s
part of a cycle. We need these times to chew over where we’re at, to reassess
where we want to go, and how we want to get there. They’re no fun to work
through – I’ve had my share, and will have more! -- but they’re just as important as those times
when everything’s flowing and you feel as if you’re moving in harmony with the
universe around you. If the books have helped you, I’m glad, but you don’t need them or any other book in order to practice. Rely on yourself and your intuition. Find your own groove and believe in it. Enjoy your relationship with the gods, and know that they’re always there for you. TWPT: Thanks so much Arin for making time for this interview in your already crowded schedule and I want to take this opportunity to wish you much success whether you spend your energy/time on your family or on future book projects. I appreciate your participation in The Wiccan/Pagan Times as will the readers who get a chance to take in this interview. Be well. |