The New Year has arrived. We all had a wonderful party and cavorted and argued and munched and danced and smooched until 3am. Occasional libidinal excess is so good for the soul.
This year I am hoping the lived practice will deepen. My relationships are holding steadier and I am finding the grounding rituals and acquired patience a great help. Because we as alternative spirituality practitioners live in a way that takes account of intuitions and dreams and body responses and promptings from nature and mythic archetypes, it is important to have a strong grasp of shared reality, identity and common sense.
Those of us who work alone need to pay attention to our processes and develop an awareness of why we do what we do. Those of us in relationships that involve magical workings and shared rituals need to look closely at interdependence and mutuality, reciprocity, check out the power relations and unvoiced but manifest needs. The occasional imbalance. When I have participated in groups and talked with others, exploring the Craft or myriad worlds of magick-working, I am sometimes dismayed to see how the Glamour invisibilises abusive or controlling behaviour. As well as the spurious posturing of power-hungry magicians. Many could benefit from a simple primer in setting effective boundaries or couples therapy. A post-modern Merlin banishing his psychic ememies is often just an insecure untenured academic just acting out against hostile projections. Schemes to generate material prosperity are usually the psychic equivalent of scummy pyramid fraud.
‘Magical thinking’ is not a good thing in my book. It often comes across as manipulative and unrealistic daydreams of power and control. Or as a byproduct of the desperation found in denial and helplessness.
When I am standing out in my garden on a summer morning with both feet planted firmly on the ground, I am not often thinking of the dryads or plant energies or benevolent but vague entities all around me. In all likelihood I am thinking about how I maintain my own financial independence so that I am not overly reliant on others or warring with my bank manager. I am wondering how to get the washing machine fixed, and how to nail up a new trellis against the far wall of the garden for passion fruit climbers. What to buy a friend for her birthday, and what to make for supper, and when I should have the car reserviced. This is the rich but unpromising stuff of life. If I am thinking clearly and practically and ethically about the responsibilities and demands of my life, I am living as a creative hedgewitch.
From this caring for the practical there flows freedom and competence. The down-to-earth housekeeping of your average witch is what defines her at her most skilful.
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