aka Why I'm a solitary...
When I started studying and researching Wicca, witchcraft, and paganism back in the early to mid 80s, I didn't have a lot of direction on what was good or bad in what I was finding and soaking up like a sponge [I exhausted my junior high school's paranormal section in just a few months, but reread everything several times over the course of those three years]. Looking back with those 20/20 hindsight glasses, I cringe at some of the things I took as set in stone back then.
Covens were one of the biggest things that got hammered home in the books I read. It was vital that a Witch have a Coven to belong to. I had all these fanciful notions of being accepted into these covens with traditions that traced back centuries, of eventually becoming the High Priestess. Oh, I had such dreams back then! The follies of youth and all…
I've had the opportunity to work with a number of people in circle over the last eighteen years since I came out of the broom closet. Most were pretty positive experiences. Some definitely weren't. One of the biggest issues I've had in the groups that I have worked with is the politics of it all. I don't want the political backstabbing and gossip when I'm doing ritual work. And I definitely don't want to be in circle with people who would stab you in the back and throw you under the bus if it would benefit them and their agenda.
When I first started doing any sort of pagan rituals in 1989 and the nearly 90s, I was completely by myself, locked away in my dorm room. I tried to create the equivalent of a full coven ritual by myself. Wow! Those were some crazy rituals, and my energies were all over the map. Thankfully, I never really had a lot of roommates in those early years of college, so it was only me dealing with the fallout of my attempts.
In June of 1994, on the blue moon, also known as the Strawberry Moon, I did what I consider my first major ritual: dedicating myself to openly being Wiccan. I came flying out of the broom closet and never went back in.
In 1997, when I moved halfway across the country to live with The Couple, I got my first taste of group ritual work, both formal and informal. I liked working with these people. The Couple and I had what I thought was really nice group chemistry at the time, but hindsight says was me looking through hormone-tinted glasses. To be fair, there was some good chemistry there, but it was misguided, to say the least. But we had a large group ritual with mutual friends, complete with a drum circle, and I loved how it made me feel. It was a far more laidback experience than I'd expected for group work, as they definitely weren't a coven by traditional standards.
When I moved to the West Coast to live with Mama Bear, I found a kindred spirit of a kind. And when we added Oak's father to the mix, the magic was fascinating. They joined/co-founded a coven-like group. I participated only once in one of their rituals, but it was different. It felt too structured and too heavy for me. Plus, there were some personality conflicts for me, which always makes things so much fun…
In 2002, Mama Bear, Oak's father, my partner at the time, BD, and BD's partner at the time were involved in a group ritual to celebrate the conferring of my first degree. That proved to be more than slightly problematic, due to personality conflicts between BD's partner and Mama Bear and Oak's father. It was a strange conflict of interests for me, because I had emotional ties to all parties involved and felt in the middle of a situation that shouldn't have been happening at such an event for me.
Even doing small group rituals with BD's partner were difficult as she had a very strong sense of what she wanted and really didn't back down or compromise all that easily. After the three of us were living together, she decided that we should work with a local coven. We went to an open group ritual for Imbolc that was interesting. I liked aspects of the ritual, but felt far too much an outsider with the core group. We never went back. To this day, I regret that happening. I don't know if things wouldn't have changed if I'd gone back and gotten to know that group of people.
Working with BD, on the other hand, has been nearly seamless over the years. It's not exactly the same as working with Mama Bear, nor should it be. Both have qualities that work for me. Both can complement me nicely, rather than work against me. There's a definite give and take in our work together, even if Mama Bear doesn't practice anymore, that allows me to really do the work I need to do when I need to do it.
A couple of years ago, BD and I did a craft fair with a local pagan group. I was excited to potentially have such a group nearby. But that excitement waned rather quickly when I actually was around some members of the group. For the most part, they were lovely people. But, as so often happens, there were a lot of fringe members of society in this particular group, and they made spectacles of themselves in ways that BD and I were very uncomfortable with. Now, I'm not saying that fringe members shouldn't be allowed into pagan groups or even mixed company groups, but being at a mixed company craft fair is not the place to be loudly declaring your bisexual and BDSM tendencies with no regard to anyone else around you. While I understand that the Shrieking Harpy [because she had that kind of voice] was speaking with a friend and covenmate, when I can hear your "private" conversation from about forty feet away in a crowded, noisy room as if you were standing right next to me, you're doing it wrong. She also had a very predatory, selfish vibe to her that rubbed us the wrong way. It was because of her that we never dealt with that group or their craft fair again. And we found out late this past year that the one member of the coven that we really liked had left to start his own coven closer to his home. That pretty much solidified our decision not to work with that group ever again.
And yet, despite all of this drama, there is still a part of me that wants to belong to a coven. When I got my first degree, Mama Bear did a draw down of my primary goddess and Hekate. Both told me that I was supposed to start my own tradition, my own coven, with my soulmate. At the time, everyone assumed it was my partner, and when that relationship went to hell in a hand basket in less than a year, I put those plans and dreams on the back burner. That knowledge has never left me in the past ten years now, but I've been trying to figure out how to do what I needed to do when it was really just me doing anything, and BD joining in when she felt it was appropriate.
Recently I've realized that maybe there's still a shot for that tradition that I was told about, but with BD. Neither of us is in a proper head- or heart-space right now to work toward that goal, but when we are, I think it'll happen. And perhaps that tradition will allow me the opportunity to get more involved in the pagan community, so I can find the right mix of people to create a coven that doesn't make me break out in hives at the thought of the drama llamas.
No comments:
Post a Comment