I think I have found my relgion

[Rising Phoenix]

wicca.....I have done a lot of reading and have friends who have been practicing for years......I am about to order all the stuff I need for an alter and a sacrad circle........please anyone who has anything to contribute.....speak up

[Inchworm]

1. I'd like to contribute

a big HELLO! :hi:

:party:

How's tings?

::)

[Rising Phoenix]

3. just fab inchy

how the hell are you?

[Inchworm]

5. I'm a little re-mad at broadcast TV decisions..

so you guys are stuck with me :D

Weee!

:*

PS: I saw your pic waaay down there. Your sis, friend is marvelous!

:)

[Rising Phoenix]

8. isn't she

she is a babe.....and wicked funny and fun.......best friend ever.....I raised her, and I think I did a damn good job

A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves - a special kind of double. ~Toni Morrison

[elshiva]

19. You both are sexy! :)

That is some killer cleavage there. :loveya:

[Inchworm]

I'm Inchworm, and I ..hec.. I forget what they say!!! omg

but I agree!

:)

[pokerfan]

27. It's impolite to stare

"Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun, you don't stare at it. It's too risky. You get a sense of it and then you look away."

[elshiva]

33. Wise words. Thank you.

[billyoc]

2. Nothing to contribute, but I sure miss Halloweens in Salem.

:(

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. My dear Rising Phoenix!

Good for you, sweetie...

I hope it brings you much joy and peace!

:hug:

[Rising Phoenix]

6. I think I have finally found my place

I have ordered an alter stater kit and a sacred circle........
i any one wants to pm me abo0ut wicca I would love that

[Solon]

7. I'm sort of an Agnostic Wiccan, but I guess the key is if it feels right for you...

then go for it, I never knew anyone else that was Wiccan, IRL, so you have that. I guess the thing to remember is that its a religion, and if you are actually interested in it, then study, study, study, and then practice. If it fulfills your needs, then go for it, if not, then move on, or find your own eclectic path.

Oh, and go to this site:

http://wicca.timerift.net/

Its very useful.

Oh, and good luck! :)

[Chovexani]

21. Thank you so much for posting that link.

Friends don't let friends read Silver RavenWolf. :P

(Ya, I'm a stuck up former Alexandrian, what's it to you?)

[Solon]

24. LOL, Silver RavenWolf is horrible!

x(

Oh, and its nothing to me! Heehee. :P

[emilyg]

9. Good for you!.

Many resources available on net.

[Rising Phoenix]

10. yes

and I have some great books and friends who are wicca

[DarkTirade]

11. Most of my wiccan friends refer to it as the 'make-your-own-religion kit'.

:P

[Lucian]

12. I don't conisder myself a Wicca...

but I do like some of what they practice, especially the part of revering nature. Speaking of Wicca, I'm going to be getting this tattoo soon:


Good luck and I hope this works out for you. :hi:

[RadiationTherapy]

13. Ceremonies and spells are concrete methods of asserting our (abstract) wills.

The key is asserting the will; the rituals, etc are tools to help.

[Schema Thing]

14. imagine no religion

mas beautiful

[Chovexani]

17. Imagine no trolls.

[Schema Thing]

40. indeed

[flvegan]

15. Wiccan morality is much in tune to the Bodhidharma

"If it harms none, do what you will".

So...veganism?

[LeftyMom]

22. You simply must have this conversation with OC.

While I listen in.

:popcorn:

[flvegan]

30. I find that with religion, too many folks buy in to what's convenient.

You know, Jesus was an Essene. It's shameful how folks put so much stock in their "belief" but transcend that because of how something might taste. It's further insulting based on just how little most of these same people know about nutrition.

So...I've got science and religion on my side. How sad, considering.

[LeftyMom]

32. Well, we can ascribe any traits to Jesus we want, since we don't really have any good evidence

that he existed. ;)

And I'd argue that you can make a religious argument for anything.

I'd just like to see this argument made to OC, because framed that way he'd probably get it.

[flvegan]

37. BUT, just for the sake of argument...

Jesus Christ would have been, would be and would support liberation.

Jesus would've worn a balaclava.

That should be my new sig line.

[LeftyMom]

39. He handed out fish. He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey

Now if he'd fed the masses with pita and hummus and boosted the donkey from an uncaring owner I'd see your point.

[Rising Phoenix]

28. haven't decided yet

[Chovexani]

16. That's neat.

Wicca's a really neat religion, and it was my first exposure to Paganism. I practiced for a number of years and am a lineaged, initiated Alexandrian. I found Wicca a little too limiting though, and after about eight or so years I drifted more towards general Paganism; my path now is what I like to call Dark Paganism with Indopagan influences.

If you have any questions feel free to ask (though I obviously can't share anything that's oathbound :)). You should come visit us in the Ancient Wisdom and Pagan Spirituality group, too. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=262 It's a slower moving group but we're friendly and mellow. A lot of us also post in the Astrology group as well.

One thing I would point out though is that you don't necessarily need to buy a lot of stuff to practice Wicca, contrary to what a lot of 101 books will tell you. I'm a sucker for elaborate altars myself (working with Hindu and Babylonian gods will do that to a person:P), but it's important to keep in mind that they're just tools to help you get into the proper mindset for ritual. Your brain and your heart are the most important tools you will ever use in the Craft.

[SacredCow]

18. I dated a wiccan girl before I came out....

one of the few girls I'm still friends with....

[LeftyMom]

20. Bloody hell, you can order kits now?

Traditional practices rarely involved anything you can't find around the house. Because traditionally people either couldn't afford or didn't want to be caught with obscure or potentially incriminating items. In other words, if it's not in your kitchen right now, you probably don't really need it.

Is it an inherent human trait to take even the simplest thing (and traditional folk magic stuff is silly but largely harmless) and turn it into a means of self-enrichment?

[Chovexani]

23. Fiona Horne and $ilver RavenWolf have sold kits.

I'm not sure whose are worse. Fiona's, I think, because at least "Mama $ilver" has some thin veneer of religion on her spell in a box nonsense.

I've never been much of a humble folk witch sort (I'm a High Episcopagan, kthx), but one of the things that annoyed me when I still considered myself Wiccan was the mindset that you couldn't actually do anything unless you had a brazillion tacky tools out the AzureGreen catalog.

The most powerful stuff I've ever done involved nothing more than my finger drawing in the desert sand.

[Solon]

25. Yeah, kits are totally unnecessary, I made my altar out of old scraps of wood...

a wand from a fallen branch of a backyard tree, etc. I won't say I made all my tools, but you don't need that "uber special" crystal wand they sell in catalogs for one hundred dollars.

[Chovexani]

38. I won't lie, I love shiny shit

My very first altar was stocked from stuff in my tiny front yard, and the dollar store. I was 14 and broke, okay? :rofl:

I won't lie though, I love shiny shit, and my deities love shiny shit. I just remember that I don't need them to work. and it's cool. The thing is, I rarely buy the Pagan kitsch you see in new age shops and catalogs. It's all so garish and tacky for the most part. How many pentacles can you possibly put on something? :wtf: I tend to get my stuff from museum shops or particularly cool things from swap meets, yard sales and antique shops. Out of the way types of places.

Wands I've never bought, though, every one I've had I've either found or it was made for me. My current one is one that my girlfriend made me, and it was sort of freaky because at the time she had no idea which deities I was working with, and she intuitively incorporated all these things that were sacred to them (moonstone, amethyst, the wood itself was rosewood).

This is the main working altar I had, before I moved:



My favorite thing on there is the tiny vial of sand from the Sahara desert, that my friend brought back for me from a vacation in North Africa. :)

[LeftyMom]

26. The kid's dad is old school Wiccan

In the got-properly-initiated-in-a-proper-circle-by-properly-initiated-people sense. He can be a bit formal and uptight, but he's a good guy.

He says Silver Ravenwolf in the tone of voice I reserve for Sarah Palin. :rofl: Which is saying something, because he has a hard time being even slightly negative about any human of the vagina-bearing variety.

[Chovexani]

31. LOL. That's pretty much my background.

My mentor/adopted father/Jedi Master was a 3rd degree Alexandrian who could trace his lineage back to old Uncle Jerry and I was initiated by him in a coven, etc. My training was very old school, aside from the way martial arts were incorporated into it. I have fond memories of it and even though I'm on a different Pagan path now, I still use a lot of the stuff I learned back then.

And yeah, Silver pretty much is the Sarah Palin-cum-Benny Hinn of Wicca...without the moose shooting. :rofl:

[XemaSab]

42. Silver RavenWolf?

You've got to be kidding me...

I've never heard of this woman before, and she already sounds like a flake.

As a biologist and sometime pagan, the whole "power animal" trip cracks me up. People are always a fucking wolf or a raven or a cougar or some shit like that... NOBODY's "power animal" is a duck or a sheep.

Too funny... :rofl:

(And FWIW, animals and their qualities are not what humans see or expect them to be. For instance, most birds are very ill-tempered and antisocial. The birds that are social are usually either "stupid" or cruel. YMMV.)

[Deep13]

29. Well that's your prerogative of course...

...but why believe in irrational things in the first place? It is entirely feasible to be completely happy and moral without any religious belief at all.

That's my honest view of it.

[Lucian]

35. Agreed.

But if it makes her happy, and it doesn't harm anyone else, then who cares? I say more power to her. :)

I'm a freethinker/secular humanist, by the way. :hi:

[LeftyMom]

36. It took me a while to adjust to the idea that I simply wasn't religious.

After I tried mightily for some time to be Christian, eventually I decided it didn't work for me (I didn't believe in it, I didn't see the point in so many harmless things being sins, etc) but I wasn't ready to describe myself as non-religious. Too much baggage in our society. So I identified as wiccan, because it was the gentlest, most harmless religion I know of, and nobody'd care if I was half-assed and non-literal about it.

A non-dogmatic, DIY belief system can be a good stepping stone to being open with one's self and others about one's lack of belief in gods.

[Chovexani]

41. Wicca is not about religious beliefs.

It's about ritual and experience, what we do rather than what we believe. Nowhere in Wicca is anyone expected to hold to a religious belief or any sort of dogma. If you get three Wiccans in a room and ask them what they think about the Divine, you'll get five different answers. The only rule in Wicca basically boils down to, "don't be a douchebag, okay? Otherwise, cool."

I know a lot of atheist and agnostic Wiccans, in fact. They don't believe in literal gods, but see them as Jungian archetypes, and think of magic in more psychological terms than literal manipulation of reality. I don't get them (I'm pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum), but they're no less Wiccan than I was when I followed that path.

[pokerfan]

34. I like the Wiccan Rede

Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill
An it harm none do what ye will