Tools and Trappings

Have you noticed that spirituality, regardless of tradition, offers the opportunity to collect a lot of chatskis? Oops! I meant to say “sacred objects.”

There are books, of course, and inspirational pictures. There is statuary in all forms – saints, deities, faeries – you name it. There are crystals, censors, symbols and altar tools.  We have candles, candlesticks and snuffers.  Chimes, bells, drums and oils adorn our homes and our bodies. And that’s not even taking into account special items for holidays!

We consider many of these items essential for our spiritual growth and practice. We need our tools. After all, you can’t build a house without a hammer.

I’m a fan of tools, and of chatskis. I like mementos, reminders and pretties. I have a lot of them. And I want more.

In my professional practice I use tarot. That’s a tool, too. Most professionals use tools of one sort or another.

Spiritually, there is a danger in making it be about the tools rather than the spirit.

I remember being asked to consult with a spiritual group – a women’s coven. They were having a hard time finding their focus and their group identity. I was in the High Priestess’s office in her home, which was the covenstead – the place where the group met every month.

Her office was like the most wonderful new age shop you have ever seen. There were cauldrons, statues, magickal tools of all kinds, crystals, candles, censors and much more.

I was agog at her collection, and said so, complimenting her on all her wonderful stuff.

Her answer brought her group’s problem into sharp focus.

“It’s everything to me.”

The priestess has been so focused on the trappings of spirituality that she was unable to lead her group into the true experience of spirituality.

How often do we do this in life? How often do we value the thing more than what the thing represents?

We can create, treasure and enchant our tools, giving them power beyond the inanimate.  But that power comes from a greater, living source.

The power of our tools comes from the power of symbol and myth. The power comes from our own energy. The power comes from the power of the living Earth. The power comes from Spirit.

Take the tool away and all that power will still exist.

Take the tool away and all that power will still be accessible to you.

We love our chatskis, and that’s fine. We use our tools, and that is how it should be.

But we need to remember that we are not cartoon superheroes whose strength comes from something we possess. We are not characters in a fantasy adventure in search of a sacred object to set things right in our kingdom.

Our strength and our power will always be with us, regardless of the objects around us. 

Maypoles I Have Known and Loved

Beltane (May 1) conjures a lot of memories for me. Because it is a spring celebration and there are so many fun Beltane traditions it is typical to celebrate the holiday with other people, even if you tend to celebrate other turns of the Wheel more privately.

My first Beltane gathering was also the first time I acted as priestess for a large group. I didn’t priestess the Maypole, but I did perform a handfasting at the day-long event.

This gathering happened at Devil’s Hopyard in Connecticut in the 1980s. It was the first time I had ever seen a Maypole.

Well, I had seen pictures of schoolchildren dancing the maypole. Discovering the maypole as a fertility rite was quite a different matter!

A few years later I was honored to be priestess at a Beltane celebration at a private home. I’m afraid that the pole was a bit short and the hole was a bit shallow. I ended up sitting on the ground and stabilizing the pole during the dance. The energy of that was amazing – to be sitting in that vortex of fertility and creativity.

I ended up having to do that same thing a few years later at a Beltane Tarot Circle meeting. A member had made a beautiful maypole out of a coatrack.

One year I rented a conference room in a hotel and we used a maypole in a Christmas tree stand. Our ritual honored the four elements. We had ribbons colors for each element and each person had to dance with a ribbon that honored the element they most needed to bring into their lives.

My son was born in early May. After he came along our Beltane celebration would often include a birthday celebration for him.

When he was three we gathered at Kettletown State Park in Connecticut. We had a wonderful day with our kids, dogs and guitars. Our huge maypole was a multi-colored extravaganza as we laughed and danced. Ultimately we ran around the maypole until we were dizzy.

In another field in the same park we found a solemn group of Wiccans with their own Maypole wrapped precisely with black and white ribbons. We were all dressed in tied-dyes and colorful prints. They were in somber black robes.

It was nice to see other folks enjoying their traditions in the same park, and nice to see how each group expressed the magick of Beltane – so differently in some ways and so much the same in others.

I was lucky to be a presenter at a large Beltane festival in Connecticut. There we danced a thirty foot maypole to the tune of renaissance instruments.

The following year at the same festival I led the women in digging the hole. I wrote a chant for the occasion.

We prepare the Earth
With reverence and mirth
It’s the season of rebirth
It’s Beltane!

I’ve used that chant every year since.

I led a much smaller skylad Beltane two years in a row. The second year we created a chant for the men as they fetch the pole.

We prepare the pole
with reverence and soul
rebirth is our goal
It’s Beltane.

That year I learned that it can be a problem to use streamers as ribbons. The first year it wasn’t humid at all and the (inexpensive) crepe streamers worked well. The second year the crepe was soggy. Many of the ribbons ripped. That was probably the least successful maypole of my life.

Last year I did a small maypole with a group of women. It is interesting how the Beltane energy is expressed in sisterspace.

This year the Beltane season has brought us a lovely new home. I am already scoping out where to put the maypole for next year.

If there is one thing I have learned over the years it’s this. There is no one right way to do things. Some ways work out better than others. At the end of the day it’s not about the size of the pole or the perfection of the dance. The celebration of spring, renewal and fertility is all that matters. In that way, and in many others, the maypole is a wonderful analogy for life.

Don't Put Your Angry Foot Forward

This week the case of Psychic Sophie caught a lot of attention in the Pagan community. This happened not because Sophie is Pagan, she's not. It happened because much of the community of professional diviners is Pagan.

Basically, the case as I see it is this. Like many other professional diviners, Sophie is expected to pay a nominal business license tax in the city where she works. Sophie didn't think she should have to pay her tax because what she offers is "spiritual counseling." The courts did not rule in her favor.

This case concerned the community of professional diviners partially because the court affirmed the local government's right to regulate and tax professional psychics.

How is this news? City, county and state governments have always had the right to regulate all businesses, and psychic reading is most certainly a business.

That regulations in some cities and counties are discriminatory against diviners has roused some understandable Pagan ire. Many are claiming this as a clear case of Christian discrimination toward Pagans and diviners. In my opinion this is not what is truly happening.

What is really happening is that most local governments' experience with "fortune tellers" is negative. They receive many fraud complaints. The vast number of visible professional psychics is comprised of those who extort large sums of money to "send demons back to hell," reunite lovers and lift curses.

These practitioners often litter parking lots with poorly spelled propaganda. They rarely participate in community events or attempt to give back to the greater business community.

When local officials think of professional psychics, this is who they thing about. They don't think about the Pagan Pride Day that brought business to local restaurants. They don't think about the local tarot meetup that raised money for the homeless. They don't think about the tarot readers who volunteered to do readings at Relay for Life.

In my opinion, this is not because of a religious predisposition. It's because those who harass and defraud are more visible than those who contribute and help.

It is always easier to claim discrimination than it is to actually make friends and let people get to know you. But if every angry Pagan and diviner made an effort to be a positive, visible force in their local communities we would have an opportunity to educate folks about who we really are and what we really do.

Anger is a good motivator toward action, but it rarely works well toward creating real change. Martin Luther King, Jr. was effective because of his commitment to non-violence in civil resistance, not because of his anger at racism.

There is certainly a lot of misinformation and discrimination against Pagans and diviners. Of course we are angry. Let's let that anger motivate us to put our best foot forward; to show our communities that we are good neighbors, loving parents and smart business people.

If we want to take advantage of a tax exempt status let's do it the right way - form a board of directors, have regular meetings and apply for the status the way every church, temple, grove and coven has to do.

Let's work to correct misinformation rather than adding to it. If we are in business, let's act like professionals. If we are spiritual, let's act with responsibility and love.

If we want people to view us as valuable members of their community, let's show them our value, not our anger. 

Wings and Brooms

There is a popular quotation traveling around the internet that goes something like this. “Women are all born angels, and when someone breaks our wings we simply continue to fly....on a broomstick.....Be warned ~ we are flexible like that.” This quotation runs up my spine every time I see it. So here’s my rant about it.

I understand that the general population uses the term “angel” generically to describe people who are nice and sweet. I also know that people use “witch” to describe women who are not so nice. I often tell people this – don’t use the “W” word when you mean the “B” word. They don’t mean the same thing.

This quotation seems to say that women are all basically nice.  If people hurt us we will stay strong, but become less nice. That’s not a bad message, although I am not sure it is true. Not all women are inherently nice, any more than all men are nice. And not all people respond to hurt by becoming less nice.

I see a lot of my Pagan friends posting this quotation, and I have to wonder why. What I see in this statement is just as offensive as it is erroneous.

I see the implication that angels, which are an Abrahamic construct, are pleasant, and those who “fly on broomsticks” are much less pleasant.

I understand this is just supposed to be a cute, funny thing – not worthy of my deep introspection or offense. But there was a time when people who responded poorly to racist jokes were told to get a sense of humor.

I really believe that if Pagans tolerate and propagate stereotypes that promote witches as bad, even in jest, we deserve what we get in terms of discrimination and misunderstanding.

I remember a joke from when I worked for the National Womens’ Political Caucus.

Q. How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. That’s not funny!

It is hard to find the right balance when it comes to humor. On one hand, I don’t want to be “that woman,” the person the light bulb joke is portraying. On the other hand, at a time when real discrimination happens every day and misunderstanding is rampant, I want to speak out.

Angels are thought to be spiritual beings who act as helpers to humans. It is impossible to know if angels actually exist, although many of us believe they do. There are living humans who identify themselves as witches. We don’t actually fly on broomsticks, although many of us use brooms (besoms) as magickal tools.  There is no question that we actually exist.

There are some interesting historical theories about how the image of the witch on the broomstick emerged. Some people say early Pagans would straddle the brooms and jump to show the crops how high to grow. Others say witches would tie broom straw around a priapic wand to disguise it.

There has been so much fabrication of “Pagan history” that it is hard to know what is actually true. What is true today is that some modern Pagans do refer to themselves as witches, and some use a broom in ritual.

There is nothing about witches using a broomstick that suggests behavior that is unkind, not nice, or less than angelic, so to speak. There is absolutely no reason to warn people against those who “fly on a broomstick.” Witches are not dangerous. The irony is that, in the Bible, angels are portrayed as absolutely dangerous.

Witches do not use broomsticks in response to being hurt. We use broomsticks to clear and create sacred space.

It is good for women to affirm our power, and to affirm that we will always have power, no matter how others may try to disempower us. I would like to see us find a way to say this without disparaging the witches around us.

Most of us avoid “ugly witch” costumes at Halloween/Samhain. To me, this internet meme is the verbal equivalent of the “ugly witch” costume.