lighting candles

When I was young I yearned to be Catholic or Jewish. Raised Episcopalian, I found nothing in my family's spiritual practices which seized my imagination. I longed for candle lighting, holy cards, eating proscribed foods, mezuzahs, hairs of saints, bitter herbs, and statues of Mary or Jesus around the house. What I wanted was more stuff. Stuff that symbolized something else, that was ascribed power and meaning. No wonder I eventually chose to become a witch!

A Pagan Sojourn turned me on to a great series of articles by Jeff Lilly at DruidJournal on choosing a religion. He makes the excellent point that this is the first time in history that so many of us have choice in regards to religion. In the past, if you were raised in the Catholic, Jewish, or Episcopalian faith, that is what you were. Not now. The majority of us witches come from other faiths, and our children by far know they have choice around whether or not to claim themselves pagan. Even within the Craft, we have a plethora of choices concerning traditions and practices. Nowadays it's not unusual for Jews to be Buddhists, and Lutherans to see God in the Goddess. Choice in religion now abounds, even within religions.

No matter what God/desses are worshipped, all religions I know of have some manner of asking the divine for assistance and of thanking them when it is provided . As Caroline Casey has pointed out – The Gods are here to help us, but spiritual etiquette demands we ask. Prayer is one form of asking, as is spellwork. Hecate recently turned me on to an interesting blog post on prayer by Heathen Robin Artisson, one that makes the point that indeed, prayer is part of the shamanic lifestyle, is something that witches do regularly.

I’ve been considering the difference between prayers and spells for some time, and noticing for myself, how similar the two are. Both are essentially communication with the divine. For me, spellwork just uses more stuff. The child I was longed to communicate with the divine, but understood that communication best in the bells and whistles of other faiths. Witchcraft is rich with bells, whistles, and incense and candles galore. It has remained true that I communicate with the divine best thru the manipulation of stuff. My home is an ongoing spell and prayer with the divine, a constant communication thru my stuff.

For inexperienced witches and grandiose ones, often doing spellwork is a kind of bossing the gods and guardians around, and assuming that somehow we know best. One thing most people who follow any religious path find out is that it actually turns out to be true that the Gods work in mysterious ways. Sometimes the small thing I want to have happen is exactly the wrong thing to happen if I had a wider eye view. So I’ve learned to make my spells and prayers more general, and see them as a kind of putting my shoulder to the wheel of a turn that the elements of life are already engaged in. And I say thank you a whole lot more.

I am going to pray and do spellwork on this full moon, along with Hecate and others. As it turns out, I won’t be working specifically to find the scientist who can remove carbon from the atmosphere. On reflection, I know that I don’t know for sure if that will be the thing needed. Science is full of inventions that solve one problem only to create ten more. The offering of the award money does point to a turn towards waking up and dealing with climate change. That, I can breathe into. I continue to reflect on the words projected on the screen during Melissa singing during the Oscars. Pray that people find the strength to change. Yes. This is what my spellwork and prayers will focus on. And you can bet that candles will be involved.