SageWoman Blogs
For some people, magic isn't something they do, it is what they are. This blog focuses less on theory and more on lyrical mysticism, applied spellcrafting, experiential awareness of Divinity, and related topics. A haven for you who long to become your myth and live your poem. Faerie tales do come true.
Old fashioned Witchcraft and Pagan Monoculture
Comments
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Thursday, 12 June 2014
Wise insights. Thank you for shedding light.
Native Americans value their oral traditions and believe that a living language changes and grows, but once written down ( with hard fast rules) it is a dead language. I feel it is somewhat the same with old craft or witchcraft traditions - hard and fast definitions and rules take away from the very individuality and personal power that is the core of these belief systems.
I have struggled with labeling myself and currently settle for pantheist and follower of the old craft traditions. -
Thursday, 12 June 2014
JudithAnn, I could not agree with you more about oral tradition. Most people do not understand when I say oral tradition dies if written, so I am glad to see you saying it too! Though I write books, I never simply write out my oral teachings in them. Instead, I construct lessons that work on the page.
I am glad you found a label that works for you right now, rock on! Finding the right words to describe your spirituality can be so challenging! -
Thursday, 12 June 2014
Dear Francesca, this is so spot-on. It's a shame that the people who really need to hear it will be the last ones to ever listen!
I'm new to this particular community, though I have been an intuitive metaphysical practitioner my whole life under various labels and self-identifications. My "real-world" experience is for the last 37 years in the Yoga community—in which I ran into the exact same tunnel vision that you so excellently describe here.
Every lineage claimed to be the Only One that preserved the ancient way Yoga was originally taught by oral tradition—a truly ridiculous statement, since none of us could claim to be 7,000 years old, or to remember having been there in the beginning to really know. Every major school that developed in the West became ego-centered on the personality of its founder (something which, to their credit, most of those founders did NOT want to happen), and it became a badge of social distinction to be able to claim studentship under them. The really ironic thing, in our case, was that the Sanskrit word Yoga is supposed to mean "Unity!"
I wrote an article for the AZ Yoga Association newsletter titled "The Tree of Yoga" - an image promoted by, among others, B.K.S. Iyengar. My thesis was that we were supposed to imagine a Tree so ancient and vast that our own branch was separated from a different one on the opposite side by miles and miles of foliage—so far away, in fact, that if we ever glimpsed it, we might not even recognize it as part of the same tree. But that would be an illusion caused by our own lack of perception; we would still be connected to the same trunk, and through that trunk to the same roots in the same soil. My advice was to never say of someone else's practice, "That isn't Yoga." In fairness, all we could rightly say was, "That isn't the sort of Yoga that I do."
Obviously, my adaptation to the present discussion would be to never say, "That isn't Magic." We should rein-in our egos and simply observe, "That isn't the sort of Magic that I do."
And, by the way—thank you for making me look up pleonasm! -
Thursday, 12 June 2014
It is sad that stifling codification happens in every tradition, within a couple generations of its founder. (Codification need not be a bad thing per se. But that is a totally different type of codification, outside the bounds of this dialogue.)
In my case, I never meant to start a tradition. Yet some of my students argue about the one right way to practice the tradition. I wish they'd at least wait until I died, LOL.
I love your tree analogy. And, like you, I just try to share that my experience is different, as opposed to it being the only possible experience.
As to pleonasm, I was so excited to get to use it!
As always, I am grateful that you read my blog and grateful for your comments about it. Take good care of you. -
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Thank you for your wise words.