From: L.a. Hussey To: J_Random Folksinger Msg #101, 25-Jun-88 00:13 Subject: The Laws I am disturbed and disappointed. "The Christians are our enemies." "They will torture you to make you talk about the Craft." "Lie about the Craft." "Covens splitting up makes for bad feelings." What depressing garbage. This is the 20th century, and this is America, this is not Inquisition days. The more we keep secret, the more the ignorant will assume that we have horrible secrets to keep. The true secrets of the Gods cannot be given away, because they cannot be spoken -- they are beyond all language. And as for bad feelings when covens break up, maybe that is how it is where you are, but around here, there is rejoicing when one coven becomes two. Seems to me like my best possible response to your "Laws" is the following song: BURNING TIMES The songs are sung to rouse our anger of martyred Witches gone to the fires, But what is served by righteous singing, if all we do is stew in our ire? Nine million dead in four hundred years; More in that time simply died of disease. Why do we dwell on long past dead When we are alive in times like these? (cho) Rise up, Witches, throw off your masks And cease crying guilt for ancient crimes. Earth and all Her children need us For ALL face now the Burning Times. In the face of that hostile power, how did the old knowledge stay alive? How have we still a Craft to practise? Our ancestors knew how to fight and survive! How do we honour our blessed dead? Slavery threatens us all but few. We must teach their cunning ways -- EVERYONE needs the skills they knew! (cho2) Rise up, Witches, gather your strength, And let your power spread and climb; Earth and all Her children need us For ALL face now the Burning Times. I will not cast off Science's works -- Witches all forces to Will can bend; I'll not accuse for war and waste some patriarchy of faceless men. Men do not cast the only votes; Women alone do not demonstrate. Rather than shut out half the race, Who if not we will change that state? (cho2) I will not blame a Father's Church -- blame and guilt are their tools, not mine, And even in the shuls and churches, allies there will I seek, and find! I will not answer hate with fear, Nor with a smug, cheek-turning love. I will not answer hate with rage; By strength alone will I not be moved! (cho2) (cont'd next msg) --- * Origin: ThelemaNet - Hail Eris! * (415) 548-0163 (Opus 1:161/93) *** Part of a conversation. From: L.a. Hussey To: J_Random Folksinger Msg #102, 25-Jun-88 00:36 Subject: Burning Times, cont'd I will not hide in my sacred grove -- the fact'ries and cities yet ring me about; I will not climb my ivory tower -- the real world exists tho' I shut it out. I will not work for Church nor State Who serve themselves while they serve us lies, Nor only for my Witchen kin, But for the family of all alive! (cho2) So if rebellion means to fight a State lost sight of why it was built, If heresy's to reject a Church that rules with force or fear or guilt, Then let us all be rebels proud, And shameless heretics by creed -- A tyrant's hand subjects the Earth, More heretic rebels are what She needs! (cho2) (copyright 1988, Leigh Ann Hussey) Did it ever occur to the writers of your antique laws that the Craft might actually be WELCOMED by a great number of people? That there might actually be more of us than of those who wish us ill? That the only reason those who fear us are so active nowadays is because they see us becoming more and more welcomed by more people? As I say in another song, "When folk in sorrow turn away/ From paths that lead to misery/ And seek new ways for wholeness' sake/ Then waiting, ready shall we be." All I can say is, I'm Goddess-glad I'm not in your tradition. B*B Leigh Ann --- * Origin: ThelemaNet - Hail Eris! * (415) 548-0163 (Opus 1:161/93) From: L.a. Hussey To: All Msg #103, 25-Jun-88 00:38 Subject: The Darkness As Pat suggested, I'm posting this here from the Magick subsection... From: L.a. Hussey Rec'd To: Peri Andren Msg #109, 07-Jun-88 14:33 Subject: Re: How do you KNOW ? No, Hugh is right. Modern Wicca is indeed a life-affirming religion, and life-sacrifice of any kind is looked on as repugnant. But it is unquestionable that old paganism did involve sacrifices of both animals and humans. And completely aside from that, the Goddess is not just the nurturing Mother. She is the Black Sow who devours her own young, she is the scouring wind that whips away all decay, She is the refiner's fire (to snatch a phrase from the Bible). The Craft ain't all sweetness and light, because life itself is not. Life lives off of death, as the ancients knew, and that's why She is Demeter Enraged, and Erishkegal, and Kali. She is the Crone who has heard every plea and throws you in the Cauldron anyway. We work with symbols and images and archetypes, and these come from the human subconscious -- wherein, if we're healthy, dwell all manner of dark and uncontrollable forces. The difference between the yogi and the schizophrenic is the difference between a swimmer and a drowning person. We all have our dark side; the way to sanity is to accept that power and channel it into constructive uses, rather than to deny it and close it off entirely. Shut out the dark, and you may find it imploding on you, sucking you, helpless, into it. Indeed, we are not an ascetic religion, and that means that the unconscious, the body, the irrational, sensuality, and all the accompanying things which Christianity embodied in their Devil, are for us an important part of ourselves, to be integrated with and not cut off from the rational mind, the intellect, and so forth. At one time, Apollo and Dionysos (or if you prefer the Celtic pantheon, Lugh and Cernunnos) were one God. The darkness is there, and it is welcoming, not forbidding. We need no longer make human sacrifice, but we also need not sacrifice our humanity. B*B Leigh Ann --- * Origin: ThelemaNet - Hail Eris! * (415) 548-0163 (Opus 1:161/93)