In Need of Some Guidance.

[Katsumi Aki]

For a few years now I have considered myself as a solitary Wiccan. However, reading all that I have about initiations has me lost. What do I do now? What am I? I live in the middle of nowhere, even the nearest somewhere isn't all that great. I barely can gain access to information, let alone find specific people. Even if I found a way to contact a coven, it'd be a decent drive, and I don't have my license. Even more of a problem, I have pretty bad social anxiety disorder. I have panic attacks when I'm around groups of people I don't know and haven't had much time to get comfortable with.

Is there anyway to keep my beliefs, and continue with the craft? My entire heart and soul goes into every spell, and every ritual I do. Ever since I began looking into this path, I always had this feeling that this was right. Even today, I have this feeling in my chest that tells me that I'm a follower of the craft, I know it's where I belong.

Please help me, I'm so confused.

 

[Morgandria]

Katsumi Aki

For a few years now I have considered myself as a solitary Wiccan. However, reading all that I have about initiations has me lost. What do I do now? What am I? I live in the middle of nowhere, even the nearest somewhere isn't all that great. I barely can gain access to information, let alone find specific people. Even if I found a way to contact a coven, it'd be a decent drive, and I don't have my license. Even more of a problem, I have pretty bad social anxiety disorder. I have panic attacks when I'm around groups of people I don't know and haven't had much time to get comfortable with.

Is there anyway to keep my beliefs, and continue with the craft? My entire heart and soul goes into every spell, and every ritual I do. Ever since I began looking into this path, I always had this feeling that this was right. Even today, I have this feeling in my chest that tells me that I'm a follower of the craft, I know it's where I belong.

Please help me, I'm so confused.

Whatever your beliefs are, that's fine. Keep them. Wicca isn't based on belief - rather on practice. And because Wiccan practice is oathbound, you've not seen any of it in any book you've read. Most books out there teach eclectic neo-pagan witchcraft. The knowledge is still useful, but it's not Wicca by a long shot. Unfortunely publishers are more interested in money, than truth, so many things get called Wicca that just aren't.

What you have been believing and practicing isn't Wicca, but that doesn't make them at all invalid. Just understand that if you ever do start to study with a coven, you may have to relearn a few things. But for right now, you may continue practicing what you do freely - as long as you understand it isn't Wicca and it's intellectually dishonest to call it so.

As for the rest?

Firstly - if you're a minor, you have time to wait. No legitimate coven initiates minors. It's part of the Ardanes, as well as just being common sense. In some places this means 18, in others it means 21.

Secondly, Wicca looks for what we call 'proper people' - people who are established in life, who are stable mentally, emotionally and physically, who accept responsibility for themselves. Starting on the path towards initiation can make some major changes in your life, and if you're not already in a centered place they can very much upset the balance.

Thirdly, because Wicca isn't a faith for everyone, there aren't a huge amount of groups around. For most of us that means that yes, our coven is not located where we live. Some of us may have to sacrifice time and energy and money to learn, and honour our Gods. I drive an hour and a half one way. One of my coven brothers drives 10 hours from way up north! Sometimes we have our sister coven visit, and they'll drive 6-7 hours. Sacrifice of that nature is something you should expect - no-one said the road of a Seeker would be easy.

You also have to understand that Wicca is entirely a clergy. All initiated Wiccans are priesthood of two very specific deities, the names of which are known only to initiates. If the Lord and Lady call you, you will eventually find your way to initiation. But it is a lifelong committment, one you can't take back, and it takes years
of hard work. This is not something you should rush into.

Years. Not a year and a day, which is fanciful and a cute notion. Reality is that it takes a year just to put someone through, for example, my coven's basic beginner's material. And there's more material beyond that that takes at least another year. Most people don't reach initiation for at least 2 years, and usually closer to 3.

Finding a coven sometimes takes longer than we'd like. I didn't find one I really fit with, for many years, and I guested with several until I did. Another part of finding a coven books seldom mention is that not all of them are going to be a good fit - either they don't meet your needs, or you don't fit well into the group personality. Because a coven has to work harmoniously on all levels, if someone throws the group off-kilter in any way (socially, mentally, magically), then it's not going to work. But - BUT! - just because you're not a proper person for one coven doesn't mean you won't be for another. It's a matter of perseverance.

As for finding a lineaged coven in your area, you can always try the Amber and Jet mailing list - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amberandjet/ . This is a well-populated list of Craft Elders and others who can direct you to groups in your area as well as answer questions.

Covens usually have a sort of interview process towards new folks; mine does phone interviews, then face-to-face with a couple people, then if you get past that you may be invited to guest at a circle with them. Usually if you get invited to anything beyond that first ritual it's so the coven can get to know you better and consider you for proper personhood. If you end up being asked to leave, try not to take it personally. A lot of people feel like covens are being elitist or snobby when they don't ask everyone to join them, but it's not meant as that. All it means is you don't fit their particular group personality. Keep looking!

I hear you on the social anxiety. Because of mine it took me well over a year of being a guest with my coven, to finally be able to relax and let them know me, as well as knowing them. It was hard. I stuck at it, even though it meant spending a couple of Sabbats hiding in the library eating Xanax and trying not to be sick.
Key point: TELL someone you have social anxiety. Otherwise, they're not going to understand.

I've rambled quite a bit here. There's a lot there, so I'll wrap up. The very last thing I want to say right now is: you've got time.
I know what it feels like to be full of desire and want and longing, until you feel like you could burst, and you just can't wait until you're "real" - a real priestess, witch, Wiccan. You feel like it's perfect, but the wait is excruciating.

Well...get used to waiting. It takes TIME. Time is the most mportant factor in Seeking. For me, I was a Seeker for 10 years before I found a coven....and it took me 5 years from dedicant to initiate. I went through a whole lot of angst because I felt so alone. I went through some periods of trying out a couple different pagan paths, because I wanted to be sure I wasn't missing something. In the end, my calling to Wicca was true - but I was glad of the time I took to be sure.

People need time to learn, and mature, and become. You'll go through a lot of changes between where you are now, and later in life. It's impossible to know what form those changes will take, and where they will take you. And it may turn out, after you've been Seeking a while, that the path you are absolutely burning to be on right now...turns out to be the wrong one. So don't rush it. It's the journey that matters, more than the destination.  

[Katsumi Aki]

I see, thank you very much. I don't know if I'll be able to fully commit to Wicca though. I read up on initiations. Moving? Changing jobs? Hopefully I'll be able to get on medication for my anxiety soon, but changing all that's familiar won't help. Other reasons apply too of course, but I'll keep it short. What's the right path for someone like me? I love practicing my beliefs as I do now, I find great Serenity in nature, I prefer to do magickal workings by myself, I'm rather drawn to the Norse and Greek deities, I believe in the God and Goddess, and feel their presence in my life. Despite everything, I can't seem to figure out my place. If I sound ignorant and ridiculous, it's ok to let me know.

 

[Violet Song jat Shariff]

Katsumi Aki

What's the right path for someone like me? I love practicing my beliefs as I do now, I find great Serenity in nature, I prefer to do magickal workings by myself, I'm rather drawn to the Norse and Greek deities, I believe in the God and Goddess, and feel their presence in my life. Despite everything, I can't seem to figure out my place. If I sound ignorant and ridiculous, it's ok to let me know.

Why not just stick with Eclectic Neo-pagan Witchcraft?
I mean that's what you're doing now and it seems to be what you've described.  

[Morgandria]

Katsumi Aki

I see, thank you very much. I don't know if I'll be able to fully commit to Wicca though. I read up on initiations. Moving? Changing jobs? Hopefully I'll be able to get on medication for my anxiety soon, but changing all that's familiar won't help. Other reasons apply too of course, but I'll keep it short. What's the right path for someone like me? I love practicing my beliefs as I do now, I find great Serenity in nature, I prefer to do magickal workings by myself, I'm rather drawn to the Norse and Greek deities, I believe in the God and Goddess, and feel their presence in my life. Despite everything, I can't seem to figure out my place. If I sound ignorant and ridiculous, it's ok to let me know.

If you enjoy what you do now, and you want to keep doing it - go ahead! There's nothing wrong with the path you've created yourself. You can't call it Wicca, but it doesn't mean that it's bad or wrong. Just different.

If you do keep your own path, never be afraid to learn more, to challenge your practices and your beliefs, and to correct yourself if you need to. Do your homework, don't be afraid to look at historical and anthropological sources, and never stop evolving your practice.

If you do decide, after all, that you want to pursue Wicca:

Understand that not every coven out there that says they're Wiccan, is actually Wiccan. Like the books, there's lots of groups out there who haven't even come close to learning the core of Wicca, and so they guess and fill in the gaps and call it Wicca. It's not. When you're looking for a coven, you're looking for "British Traditional Wicca", which are Wiccan traditions that have initiatory lineage to Gerald Gardner: Gardnerian, Alexandrian, Silver Crescent, Mohesian, Kingstone, Daoine Coire, and Majestic.

If you meet a group, and the high priesthood can't (or won't) give you their lineage freely when you ask, then it's a good sign they aren't the real deal. If they give you a lineage that isn't male-female (ie. Priestess X, initiated by Priest Y, initiated by Priestess Z, initiated by Gerald Gardner), they're not the real deal.

I mention the above only because sometimes it's temping to take the easy road: the group that's closest to home, that takes in everyone without standard, who makes everyone an initiate in the magical "year and a day" whether they're ready or not.

Not all Wiccans are created equal.

Being willing to travel is one thing: I'd be very wary of a group that required you to change jobs or move to them in order to be an initiate. As long as you are willing to make the effort to be present at the coven when you need to be, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to work towards initiation without totally uprooting your life for it. Asking someone to change jobs or move, especially with the current economy, would be something I consider unreasonable.

Understand that Wicca isn't about nature. Rather, it's about one particular aspect of nature: fertility. So while we see the Lord and Lady's nature reflected in parts of the natural world, and enjoy having that connection with Them through it, we're not really about honouring nature. It's about honouring and encouraging fertility. There are sexual aspects to the rites, and there is guaranteed nudity: some covens practice skyclad all the time, others only sometimes, but there is nudity involved, to some degree.

You say you believe in the God and Goddess. Who are they? What are their names? Where do they come from?

I ask only because The Lord and Lady of Wicca aren't a 'generic' God and Goddess. Our God and Goddess are individuals, who have names, known to their priesthood. Lord and Lady are honourifics, used around non-initiates. Whereas when some people say "The Goddess" and mean some great, over-arching Goddess that is All Goddesses, when Wiccans say "The Goddess", we really mean "OUR Goddess" - we're just upholding our oaths not to reveal Her to non-initiates. And I know how confusing that must be.

While we may have relationships with other deities and pantheons outside Wicca, anything we do to honour those others isn't Wicca, strictly speaking.

If you're interested in Greek or Norse things, explore the forums a little. If you're interested in the Greek gods, there are many Hellenic reconstructionists on Gaia willing to chat with a person about their path. Likewise, we have many Asatruar folks about who are more than happy to talk about their faith and the Norse pantheon.  

[Katsumi Aki]

Morgandria

Being willing to travel is one thing: I'd be very wary of a group that required you to change jobs or move to them in order to be an initiate. As long as you are willing to make the effort to be present at the coven when you need to be, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to work towards initiation without totally uprooting your life for it. Asking someone to change jobs or move, especially with the current economy, would be something I consider unreasonable.

Well, that came from something I read about initiations. It said to reach, I believe, the second initiation you must do those things. Lets see if I can't find that again...
http://www.wicca.org/initiation.html

Morgandria

You say you believe in the God and Goddess. Who are they? What are their names? Where do they come from?

I ask only because The Lord and Lady of Wicca aren't a 'generic' God and Goddess. Our God and Goddess are individuals, who have names, known to their priesthood. Lord and Lady are honourifics, used around non-initiates. Whereas when some people say "The Goddess" and mean some great, over-arching Goddess that is All Goddesses, when Wiccans say "The Goddess", we really mean "OUR Goddess" - we're just upholding our oaths not to reveal Her to non-initiates. And I know how confusing that must be.

Well, I believed them to be a female, and a male (the male having animal-like features) who represented the balances in the world. Night and day, good and bad, etc. Obviously, nothing like the actual Wiccan Lord, and Lady. Sorry if I offended you, but a lot of what I'm hearing is quite new to me.


Thank you both for helping me out by the way. This has been very informational, and helpful.

 

[Morgandria]

Katsumi Aki

Well, that came from something I read about initiations. It said to reach, I believe, the second initiation you must do those things. Lets see if I can't find that again...
http://www.wicca.org/initiation.html

Stay the hell away from the people who operate that website!!

Neither Gavin or Yvonne Frost have a legitimate initiation into Wicca, and are not Wiccan - despite having made claims to being the FOUNDERS of Wicca in the past, which is flat-out untrue. The Frosts are not initiates of any lineaged tradition, nor do they have the authority to speak for Wicca proper.

The Frosts are liars, but worse than that, they're molesters of children. There are also more than a few people out there, who were amongs the young men and women abused at the hands of this man and woman in the name of "Frostian Wicca".

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/morality-and-religion/open-minded-wiccans-raping-children/t.36783017/ This existing thread will give you more information.

This is one of the reasons, by the by, that actual Wiccans get very angry at people feeling entitled to use the words Wicca and Wiccan to describe themselves and their practices, when they aren't. Peopl do all sorts of things in the name of Wicca, and it's the actual Wiccans who suffer for it. sad It's also why you have to be careful with what you read: books and the internet are sometimes a poor source for Wiccan information, and the people who publish information about it are seldom held to any kind of standard.

Katsumi Aki

Well, I believed them to be a female, and a male (the male having animal-like features) who represented the balances in the world. Night and day, good and bad, etc. Obviously, nothing like the actual Wiccan Lord, and Lady. Sorry if I offended you, but a lot of what I'm hearing is quite new to me.

Thank you both for helping me out by the way. This has been very informational, and helpful.

I'm not offended, at all. It's just always good to know where someone stands, when you're discussing the subject.

Wicca isn't so much about balance as it is about polarity. Good and bad isn't a concept we really have. We have dark and light, male and female, day and night, life and death, rot and renewal...not so much good and bad.

Feel free to ask any more questions if you have them. smile  

[Katsumi Aki]

Thank you very much for the warning. I was already misguided once from reading a couple Ravenwolf books when I was studying, I'd rather just get the right knowledge into my head. Not to mention what I read in that thread is quite appalling.

I understand why actual initiated Wiccans would be upset by someone who didn't go through initiation calling them self a Wiccan, but I understand where many people like that are coming from. I, as said before, considered myself a Wicaan for quite awhile, not because I was being rude and stubborn, but because I though self-initiation was ok. I simply never read otherwise. Even a book I had that spoke about coven initiation, spoke of solitary initiation as well. I'm sure a lot of self-proclaimed Wiccans get a lot of attitude for it, but in most cases, it's just that the knowledge was not presented to them. I'm glad I was corrected, and lucky didn't find myself talking to someone who would be mad for ever calling myself a Wiccan when I wasn't initiated.

I truly do apologize for calling myself a Wiccan in the past. I had no right. I didn't go through what real Wiccans have to become one, I wish I had known better sooner.


All that said, thanks for explaining the polarity bit there. Is there a good, legit, website that anyone knows about where I can read more on Wicca? Even if it's not 100% accurate, whatever is closest to correct is good.

 

[Morgandria]

Katsumi Aki

All that said, thanks for explaining the polarity bit there. Is there a good, legit, website that anyone knows about where I can read more on Wicca? Even if it's not 100% accurate, whatever is closest to correct is good.

Unfortunetely, Your best source of information is always going to be a lineaged coven, in person. But since that's not an option...

That Amber and Jet list is busy, but the folks there will really be best able to answer your questions or direct you to a place where there's answers.

http://wicca.timerift.net/ - Wicca: For the Rest Of Us isn't perfect, but it's functional. I disagree with some of the things they say on the site, but it's pretty solid and not a bad place to start.

There is also the (rather dense) read of the Wicca FAQ thread in the M&R forums here:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/morality-and-religion/wiccan-faq-profit/t.22819829/

There's some good info in there, if you can persevere through it.

And there's always the reading list:
http://www.witchscauldron.net/cauldron/booklist.htm

Those are all titles suggested by another member of Gaia, who is an Alexandrian 3rd degree from Ireland. Some of the books are out of print, but many are not, and are going to give you the best idea of what Wicca is like - the 'flavour', as it were - without crossing over into oathbound materials.

At the very least, reading some of Gerald Gardner's writings will give you a good sense of the man who founded Wicca, and reading Doreen Valiente's works will reveal more about the early personality of Wicca - she wrote many of the things still in use as the core of Wicca today.

http://www.geraldgardner.com/ - and you can always read more about the man here.  

[Katsumi Aki]

Thank you very, very much. I'll check into those links and do some more studying in general. Like you said, there's plenty of time to wait. =]