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WITCH

When I was 16 – under the light of the full Moon at midnight – I performed a self initiation dedicating myself to the Old Gods and declaring myself – a witch!

The small research I had done by this time having convinced me that – beyond the shadow of a doubt – this was who and what I was.

At first I hid this truth from everyone – enjoying the secret world I now inhabited – only much later revealing my new identity to family and friends and to my spiritual community – something which itself was not without challenges!

As the years rolled on I met other witches, solitaries – like myself – and coven based. I dined in their homes and danced in their circles, drinking from the sacred cup and all was well with the world.

It was only much later – to my dismay –  that I began to see signs of the Wiccan community I loved shifting and changing into something unrecognisable to my eyes. I suddenly found myself amongst those more interested in moots and mead than spells and worship and concerned, that viewed from outside world I might be tarred with the same brush, I declared myself no more a witch!

For a while I tried – Priest of the Old Ways and then Magician and latterly Walkadour and Cunning Man and although these sufficed for a time none felt wholly and truly who and what I was.

From time to time the Old Gods called to me and although I listened it was always from outside the circle, never allowing the siren call to seduce me back to the Old Gods arms but recently synchronicity led me to the words and works of Doreen Valiente.

Doreen – who some call the mother of the modern witchcraft revival – is a bitingly honest writer whose passion for the Old Gods and down to earth attitude very much chimed with me and slowly … slowly … I was called back home.

I came to realise that part of the problem had always been that in the past I had feasted on the books of Janet and Stewart Farrer and Lois Borne, ignoring the older writings of the true founders of the witchcraft revival. These original books that I had read – as well as telling me who I was – told me too who I couldn’t be, whether that was because of my sexuality or spiritual practice. Creating a dichotomy within that made me feel both welcome – with one hand – whilst also holding me at bay wit the other.

I had never truly felt that I belonged and it was this that had always prevented me from finding – or founding – my own coven. It was this that had always prevented me from entering the circle fully – until now! Now the words of Doreen Valiente do quite the opposite and in her writings I have found again the voice of the Mother Goddess and that of the Horned God and so it is to THEM that I return.

Modern day Wicca can be what it wants to be … and so it should. All religions evolving to match the mood and moment of the time but this does not mean that I have to follow suit.

Neither do I have to conform to the visions of those other voices – be they authorities or not – that outline a path that is not recognised by my own Soul. For the path of the Old Gods is our own and belongs in truth to no one but ourself and the Divine.

So … on Samhain – Halloween of 2021 I rededicate myself to the Old Gods …

I am Edwin Courtenay – Spiritual Teacher, Author and Visionary Artist. Seer, Sciomancer, Cunning Man and Wych.

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