How to Become a Witch by Amber K. (large ebook reader txt) 📗

who would otherwise be alone. (For more information on CUUPS, check their website at www.cuups.org or e-mail info@cuups.org.)

Even if you don’t choose to join any group, you may feel the need to join Craft sisters and brothers around a fire and lift a glass of mead, feel the bone-deep pulsation of a really hot drumming circle, pick up some tips on spellcasting at a festival workshop, or howl at a huge orange harvest moon with a few hundred other Witches on a crisp fall evening to remind yourself that you are not alone.

If you do decide to join or create a coven, remember that no choice is final. You may make different choices in one year or ten years down the road. If you join a coven, you can take a sabbatical or resign or hive if the coven no longer meets your needs. You can just leave.

If you practice as a solitary for now, either by choice or because you can’t find a compatible coven, that can change at any time. It may take a year or more to find the right coven—or create it—but if that’s what you need, you will do it.

If your family practices together, that’s wonderful—and at some point you may all choose to affiliate with a coven, or attend festivals and open sabbats together, or even join an open-minded church or temple of some kind to enrich your spiritual community. (We know a Wiccan high priest and an Asatru elder who enjoy Buddhist meditation each morning, many Witches who also attend Unitarian churches, and a Wiccan/Christian mystic who sees Jesus as another avatar of the dying and resurrected grain god. Amber is very drawn to Taoism, and Azrael studies early Christianity. It’s called “freedom of religion,” or freedom to create your own unique spiritual path.)

Coven member or solitary, family Witch or religious blend; make a choice and give it your energy, your curiosity, and your commitment. Then review your spiritual health frequently, and adjust your practice as you need to.

[1] http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html

Chapter 12

Sacred Priestess, Sacred Priest

Serving the Lady and the Lord

I am Goddess, neverborn,

Touching magick, wielding power,

I wear the crescent, wear the horn,

I am a Witch at every hour.

Long ago, before Azrael had ever heard of Wicca, she attended a seminar on expanding one’s consciousness and role in the world. One of the first exercises was to write one’s ideal vocation on a nametag. Although she had no trouble coming up with her preferred vocation, Azrael had a great deal of trouble with the idea of being called “Sacred Priestess” during the workshop—because she didn’t feel she deserved it. In her mind, priestesses required years of training and initiation, and all she had was the desire. Well, she was eventually persuaded to write “Sacred Priestess” on the badge, and afterwards it stayed stuck to the dashboard of her car as a reminder of her goal until she was initiated as a first-degree Witch, a priestess to herself; then it became an affirmation of her accomplishment and path in life.

Almost every Witch is a priestess or priest of the Old Religion. We serve the Lady and the Lord and those in our communities who come to us for help. Some of us call ourselves “Wiccan clergy” to emphasize to the outside world that we share the legal rights and responsibilities held by clergy of other faiths. (The legal responsibilities are different in each state and nation. Some governments maintain a list of registered clergy and expect you to prove that you are qualified before you officiate at a wedding, for example. Most require you to notify authorities if you learn of child abuse or another crime while acting in your ministerial role. You will need to research local laws if you intend to act as clergy in a public role.)

Card-carrying witches

Some Witches would like to function as clergy in the wider society and know that they will sometimes need credentials to be recognized—say, if they want to perform a marriage, act as a hospital chaplain, or attend an interfaith conference. Organizations such as the Covenant of the Goddess and Aquarian Tabernacle Church are registered as churches and tax-exempt organizations with the U.S. federal government and do issue clergy credentials to members. Efforts are under way in Canada and some European countries to get similar recognition for Pagan clergy.

This doesn’t mean that a priestess of the Craft has the same religious role as a Lutheran pastor or Roman Catholic priest or Jewish rabbi or Muslim imam. We might teach—as a rabbi does. We may offer comfort and spiritual support to a covener—as a pastor does with his or her “flock.” We often officiate at rites of passage, though we call them handfastings and child blessings rather than weddings and baptisms. But we don’t hear confessions, offer absolution for sins, interpret holy scripture, or stand as official channels between humanity and the gods.

Craft clergy are different in another way: we openly use magick in different forms for many positive purposes. Now, Christians and others perform magick in very restricted ways, but usually only an ordained clergyperson is allowed to. They call it transubstantiation (turning wine into the blood of Jesus), or faith healing, or other things. But the list of approved magickal practices, and the occasions where they can be performed, is very short—and they won’t call it magick. And almost none of them will do divination.

Another difference is that the ministerial roles of the mainstream faiths are few in number and carefully limited. When Amber long ago considered studying toward ordination in the Unitarian Church, she had the choice of two seminary programs: congregational leadership or religious education. Today, specialties like youth ministry or military chaplaincy are better supported, but the roles are still pretty limited.

Contrast the many possible roles of a Witch—from bard to deathwalker to sacred clown—and it becomes clear that we have many different ways of