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Warning: This is a candid blog. I wrote it on the spot, might have changed somethings before I posted it, so if it's a bit confusing think of it as a rambling conversation.

Every year, ever since I've been on the internet and been poking around forums and discussing my various beliefs with people, the dreaded “holy days” of paganism come screaming up into my face with a thousand wishes of “Happy -insert here a named sabbat or esabbat-” and a lot of questions demanding what I have done to pay reverence to whatever Pooh-Bear-Likened God/dess this year. Now, I understand that some people will find offense to me calling their gods kind cuddly little bears who eat honey like they is no tomorrow, but that's what I feel like when I'm looking at certain people's altars or discussing what they've done for their “Holy” days. Suddenly I'm stuck in a mountain of “honey” and somewhere along the way I lost my shoes.

Sometimes I feel like I should prance around with a hunny [lol] pot and allow everyone to dip their fingers in for a “smackeral” of the substance. Why? For not all “hunny” is the same as “honey” and some “hunny” might be a bit bitter to the taste. Maybe it'll give them a realization that not everyone whips out their wheel of the year diagram and knows exactly what holiday is what holiday, nor should I feel the need to comment about how it is very common in Paganism to use different cultures holiday names in one wheel of the year diagram. I have never actually formally learned the holidays for which most pagans and playgan practice. I'm not religious, so I don't feel that I should be expected to know when “Yule” is or what yule is about. What is Yule about? Nah, don't bother to explain it to me, I'll forget it after I've read about it.

So what does a non-religious witch do for any sabbat that may happen to come across her way? She wishes everyone else their happy times during the season and hope that they celebrate with in an inch of their soul [because a holy day is not holy when it's is celebrated for a measly five minutes, IMHO]. She wishes everyone a good festive filled day and good sacrificing [when needed]. She hopes that the Gods that are being praised and worshiped on these days are smiling upon those who have come together and prepared for the day. She claps with the drum beats outside of the circle, smiles at those who smile first, and leaves before any celebration ceremonies become underway [her presence may be offensive to the Gods, and she does not wish to penalize anyone else for her lack of holy-day reverence].

I do absolutely nothing for the “holy” days of the sabbats, unless they happen to fall under a Hallmark gift card holiday of the public. Then I might do something [such as go trick or treating with my BF and celebrate our year anniversary on November 1], but in most cases I do absolutely nothing. It's like a normal day for me, except I get a million and twenty comments and questions about it afterward. Silly me, I sometimes actually forget there was a sabbat going on.

It may sound depressing. It may sound offensive, but let me ask you. Is it better to practice a religion half heartedly, knowing full well that you do not believe in it, or is it better to practice no religion?

Personal Experience is something that everyone has had with a various items, but I feel like this hasn't really been addressed yet – the value or rather the lack of value of a personal experience in a discussion or it being used as an argument to prove a point.

There are a few things that I would like to say:

1)I don't discredit people's personal experiences – if someone says that they've seen the flying spaghetti monster who the hell am I to say that they haven't seen [in their minds, possibly made up] him? However, I will discredit people if they say the FSM is made up of lunar rocks and cream cheese based upon that's how “they” saw him when I can point out very clearly in the FSM's description and lore is that he has meatballs and noodly appendages with which to touch people with – at that point it's either a) a new kind of Flying Monster or b) something someone made up. One of the two.

2)I do believe that personal experiences are important ESPECIALLY when it comes to techniques or using tools. These are the BEST, BEST possible descriptions and the best possible ways of learning how one -does- what one does. However, this does not mean that techniques or tool use describes a person's beliefs [though in some cases where faith is believed in/created by the practices it does it very accurately] nor do these personal experience prove a point in a discussion about WHY someone should BELIEVE a certain thing or not. These kinds of personal experiences serve only the person of HOW and WHEN, but not really the 'why.'

I do not believe that personal experiences should be used as counter arguments. Just because Kali came to you in a dream with a large pink phallic does NOT mean she's suddenly become the goddess of sexual freedom and feminine wiles. It is quite possible that that was a DREAM and not a VISION [the fine line between the two welll... is fine]. Or because you felt the breath of your phoenix spirit guide on the back of your neck during a ritual, that you've suddenly become empowered with the fires of hell and that all should power to your flaming glory. These are PERSONAL experiences and perhaps they should remain that way, personal. I feel like a lot of these 'experiences' [in some cases I question them because they get told in public so freely] are merely just one of those “I caught a fish that was twice as big as your fish” tales and nothing more. I feel like the sacredness of them becomes diluted by loose lips. Each time you push those experiences away from you, you lessen the effect of them IMO.

I do believe there is a TIME and a place for personal experiences – and a theoretical discussion or a discussion based around certain types of mythology or literature is not the place for them.

But perhaps I am wrong? But I doubt it.

(Originally this a reply)

For me, magic = energy. :'D TEEHEE! Therefore, I do not practice "magic" as magic is a thing that exists without me believing it (as a type of energy).Witchcraft is what I practice - and some of which I am not capable of describing as I'm bound.

How do I practice Witchcraft? Well witchcraft is not necessarily just a "thing" or singular "thing" like say divination or spellwork is a singular "thing" one does. Witchcraft includes multiple (and depending on the culture and type of witchcraft what these are) practices that usually all over lap. My witchcraft includes, but of course is not limited to: Energy Manipulation ("Spells" without being Spells), Divination practices (Tarot and Pendulums are by far my favorite), Spellwork, and Talisman Making/Consecration.

My Spells usually have a set rigid line of events:

Pre-Spell Cleasing

In this, I try to cleanse myself from my own distractions (mental image of self, self doubt, selfhatred, self-sympathy) because I don't need to focus on my "self" during spells as well as removing outside distractions such as every day life, boyfriend/family troubles, etc etc.

I do this by first dirtying/covering myself/rolling around on the ground until covered in a layer of dirt or completely nasty with earth: dirt or leaves. Sometimes I have clothing on (aspects of "every day life") and sometimes I do not. This is marking the first "greeting" of the elements (which I will not go on into detail about).

After sufficiently nasty/dirty, I take a shower or a bath. I "wash" the physical dirt along with the "spiritual" pollutants like my own issues with me and my issues with the world. I do not "bathe" in special water, I do not mix powers in the water, and I do not use salt water. Just plain tap water. This is the second "greeting."

By this time, I have started the phase of "silence." Meaning I do not speak very much and I am usually entirely silent after this point. Not for any particular reason but more or less because I am focused. If I happen to be doing something with someone else and they have not gone through the same washing I will speak to them as to give them directions because they would not understand anything otherwise. At this point I will be naked until the last "greeting."

I light a candle and either burn an attached piece of hair at this time, or a burn it later on (which I will mention). This is burning of hair (or if it's too wet, then I will wave my hand through the flame multiple times) is combined with the visualization of me "burning" whatever residue is left that is still attached to me. I usually visualize my body being covered in flames and "burning off" what shouldn't be there. This is the third "greeting."

Next I light an incense stick and use it from head to toe (literally) to "brush" and purify the rest of my body. I use the smoke as a "line of sight" reference to air literally being able to go "through" me because I am "transparent." I bless myself with this incense and then I usually recloth myself and go outside to do my spell. This is the final "greeting."

NOW for the circle/opening of the spell.

I didn't much understand what people believe a circle to be so I took it very literal when I was first learning about it, and it's kind of stuck.

I put the earth representative (leaves, dirt pile, and rocks) at north, the incense and holder at east (air marker), the candle (fire holder) at south, and a glass (tubberware, whatever I got to hold water with) to the west (water holder). Very a-typical. Then I draw a line using my finger with either energy or salt (yes, SALT) starting with usually North but I've started at anywhere just so long as I end up back in my original position, staying inside the line while making sure the items show the "barrier" between where the world "begins" and my section that I'm cutting out. I completely do 360 degrees and end where I started. I will usually do clockwise only once, but if I'm with someone else I will do three circle cuts (clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise).

Then I purify and remove all energy that was not mine (or the person(S)) from the circle. I have now "cut" myself from the world but it's more like I drew a curtain (like in the hospitals) between me and the world. I have a present for the world and I don't want the world to find out juuust yet, so to speak. I purify around, below, and above. Sometimes in that order, sometimes not. :3

At this point I'll burn my hair during some shiz.

Then I do some shiz. And some other shiz.

Then some more shiz. And a couple more shiz. And then maybe some other shiz... and... that's about it.

Needless to say if you've never been in my circle, you'll never know what happened and you'll never know what it's about. So basing a practice off what I've written here would be an epic failure and I do wish you the worst failure in attempting to practice this without a) knowing my ideal/reasons for doing it and b) not actually getting all the details with this VAGUE vague vague explanation, finally c) for not having been trained by me and thinking you could rock this style. I may have lied as to exactly WHAT I do and you have no guarantees that this won't summon up a soul sucking horsefly. :'D

But I'm honest. :"D

Ok, that makes sense.

/Backstory/

I was stacking wood in my backyard in a wood shed that my family and I had built a while back. It was a fair amount of wood that had been chopped and split and I was just going through the motions of stacking the pieces in place so that they wouldn't move or fall down in large groups. Also so that they were pushed against the other rows so that it wouldn't be top heavy and spill over.

During this stacking wood time, I had been thinking and processes as I normal do. I'm very strange. A lot of times I don't have schemes, thoughts, or ideas going through my brain however when I do, they tend to be pointed, powerful, and well life changing. This would not be the first time that I've had the experience of what someone else described was similar disassociation. The visual here would be someone to the effect of being dehooked from life/body/the world and the sense of being part of the enlightened. For me, disassociation tends to be unpleasant and disrupting - at least in some senses of the phrasing.

As I was standing there in a quasi-active meditative state, a random thought popped in my head, "Egyptians believed that the seat of the soul was the heart." This lead to a rapid series of jumps of intuitive leaps which linked the concepts of soul and heart with a combined sense of disassociation with the function of what I was doing.

/Backstory/

The Soul, is something that is a more or less a concept that most people associate with themselves currently. You are the *essence* of the soul, the mirror of the soul, the soul in walking form. The issue with this, which is will always been the problem, is that it assumes that the soul cannot be any different from the personality that is inhabiting the body. It assumes that the soul *is* the personality. Or that the personality (rather) is the soul or even a mirror reflection *of* what the soul is like.

That assumes far to much and in my state of quasi-active meditation, I realized that it was so totally wrong that it burned the statement in my mind. How could the personality be *the* soul or be the reflection *of the soul* if the soul is...?

The soul is a collection of memories - more specifically a collective of personalities formed together. This made me stop midmotion.

It cannot be a singular personality, and likewise the soul cannot be limited to only degrees of what you (the personality) believe in/like/see/hear. A soul could be anything, it's flexible, it changes, it doesn't have a constant aparatus. Why? Because the soul has to go into multiple different bodies. A static soul couldn't fit into a rabbit if it was used to humans. It couldn't swap from different social experiences. It couldn't swap between anything with too far a degree of difference. This is only purely human limitation on the soul. The soul is something that is *beyond* the human idea of change, because it can function as a full collective, intermengling experiences and depths of understanding.

This means that the Soul's personality is not static. This means the Soul's personality is derived. If the soul's personality is derived from life experiences and personalities, how does the soul get those experiences, those personalities?

Contract.

The Soul and Life within a Body are like the signature of a contract, ink on a piece of paper. The soul powers the body through life as part of an agreement that the body will be the "machine" the tool by which the soul gains memories and personalities, gains experiences. The Soul powers the body through....

The heart. The heart beats and the body lives. The heart dies the body dies (in general theory) though the exchange of hearts (via surgery) doesn't really matter because the body is the body. Just because it's a change of a throne doesn't make a King any less of a kind or any less the power behind the body.

Then why doesn't the soul just pick bodies it likes to have experiences with...?

Simple, it doesn't know when it picks a body. It doesn't "choose" a life experience to have. It doesn't say hey body you're fated to become a superstar, I like that. It simply goes into a body. This means that experiences like abortion, murder, rape, happiness, having children, being gay, being abused by society, being an upper classman doesn't factor in with the soul's choice. It's just a free body that needs life.

Doesn't the soul influence the personality? Why would it? It's powering the body to live every nano second, press your hand to your chest and feel the dormant soul beating your body into life. I pressed my hand to my chest and felt my heart beat, and then felt the world rush back to me in a line of understanding and perfect knowledge.

The Soul focuses it's "power" to make the body live, it doesn't have time to reflect, to hear, to deal with the personality. Literally the personality of the body is separate, unique, alone, and limited. This body (mine) will only have the amount of time that I have to live in it. This body will alone will be the last time my personality interacts with the world. This will be the last time I exist on this, or any emotional plane. This will be literally the last time that I exist separate, unattached to a collective.

Life begins at first heart beat, the soul consumes the personality at last heart beat and death, and the body is nothing more than a tool by which the soul gains that personality. It's not a literal consumption, it's not like the soul will poop you out one day like you poop out breakfast. It's the consumption that makes this personality integrated with a whole.

TL;DR:

The Soul eats the personality.

I don't know why the soul does this.

I don't know why the soul is made as a collective.

I don't know why the soul is.

I just know what I experienced as knowledge of these truths. It's also why I know that no person can ever know what his or her soul is like or the personalities that that person had before, because they aren't integrated. It's purposeful and necessary.

cry

Eleven

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