In day 2 of Timothy Roderick's Wicca: A Year and a Day, Roderick asks to look at a set of words and to explore my comfort and understanding of the word, as well as imagining how each word might impact other people who are not involved in the path of Wicca. I was to commit my feelings to this exercise and write them down for tomorrow's exercise.
Wicca: I first came across this word when I was in grade school. And when I first came upon it, I thought of earth magick, shamanism and gypsy magick. At first I used to interchange the word "paganism" with Wicca. Growing up both of these words were taboo to use in a Catholic household. Wicca was immediately accociated with witchcraft and magic. As I got older and became more educated, I learned the beliefs and traditions within Wicca were one of the oldest earth religions/traditions around, even before Christianity.
Witchcraft: To others, witchcraft is magick, hexes, charms, vodoo... I've never been comfortable using this word. One question that always follows after a non-wiccan finding that you are Wiccan is, "Do you practice witchcraft?" and my answer is often ,"no." But what is the true definition of the word? In the sense that an outsider is asking, the answer would be no. But if another witch were to ask the same question, the answer would not be the same. Or would it? Because of how I was brought up, witchcraft=magic=evil, and I've always had a hard time with the word.
Power: The energy someone can put out or bring in during a prayer, charm, spell, ritual, meditation, or visualization. Or simply the strength of someone's aura or person. There is potential power within everything.
For example: some people have a very strong eye (look or gaze), and can accidentally (or on purpose) put out ill will to someone, making them ill. In Mexican lore this is called giving someone the evil eye. This usually happens when older women never had children and really yearn for them, so they sometimes accidentally give the evil eye to an infant. When someone knows they have this "strong gaze" as they call it, its a good idea to not let the adult yearn to hold the infant, the mother should let the adult hold the baby. Because of things such as the evil eye, there are tiger's eye bracelets for infants sold in high volumes in many latin american botanical stores.
Ritual: There is ritual in everything that we do. Some of us have to have a cup of coffee and read the news paper every morning before we do anything else in our day. Perhaps its more indepth then that... you wake up, turn of the coffee maker, take a shower, get dressed, then read the news paper. And it has to be done the same time every time. It's known as "routine", but in itself, it is a ritual. From a religious standing oint, every time a Catholic or a Christian goes to church... it is ONE BIG GIANT RITUAL. They call it mass or worship... but its a ritual. It happens once a week, its repetitive, you praise the lord, repent, and thank him and you leave. Some pagan religions have esbats (moon ritual) and sabbats (pagan holidays or seasonal equinoxes). Anyway, on these days we also like to "worship" and give thanks to our Gods and what not. We also do this in the form of a ritual.
When other people see people who follow the path of Wicca, they might view the word "ritual" as a "magical" type ritual. In other words, if it's a ritual that is being done, we have to be up to some hocus pocus.
Magic: People often assume, that because you follow a certain path, you automatically know of magic. Or that you do it. But what does that even mean!?! Can I pull a rabbit out of a hat and make people dissappear in boxes? Can I can someone in half and put them back together again? I like to see our magic, as more like spiritual energy. When someone of a non-pagan or non -wiccan path ask me if I do magic, I almost always reply with, "When you pray is it magic?" When I walk around my little patio 3 times clockwise to open my circle and welcome the corners and I sit in front of my table, I don't sit there and make demands! I am asking the Gods for a request and I'm also letting the universe know that my intentions are to harm none.
Magic coincides very much with power. The results of the magic you put out depend on how much power you exert in the magic it self, whether in the form of a spell or charm, or during a ritual of some sort altogether.
Occult: Anything to do with the new age or neo-pagan culture.
Pagan: Any non-christian religion. I learned growing up that I could keep the Jehovah Witnesses of my doorstep by telling them my family was pagan and not interested. The Mormons were a little more stubborn, but it worked the JWs. I also learned that when I was going to bible school, my teachers didn't like it when you tried to tell them paganism was older then the bible. Pentagram necklaces made you pagan. If you were pagan you were automatically a witch. If you were a witch you can do magick and you were evil. When I was in high school the goth clique would claim they would worship satan and wore upside down pentagrams... it would piss me off, having already learned quite a bit about Wicca and paganism, and I myself holding the pentagram in high regards. I think to be pagan is to me a spiritual child. To follow Wicca is to have an affinity towards the earth, but to be pagan is a broader spectrum, a more spiritual spectrum, it has no specificity.
Spell: When I was a teenager I was more into the sense of doing everything "right". I had an altar that changed with the seasons, i did everything according to the moon changes, I even at one time performed spells the correct way. In a ritualistic manner and I even spoke in rhyme. But everytime grandmother from dad's side came to visit... she'd tear down my altar, tell my parents i was performing dark magic and worshiping other gods and it was a sin. So I learned to meditate and visualize. I put away my altar eventually. I didn't use any tools past incense and a single candle... In a sense I reverted to prayer and visualization. And I learned that visualizing only makes you concentrate more on the matters at hand, and it makes you really be conscience of your spiritual surrounding, making whatever it is that you are trying to accomplish more efficient in ones effort.
Earth Religion: Any religion that doesnt necessarily worship idols or gods, but instead has a great respect for nature and all of its metaphysical properties and energies. People from the outside very often say, "They worship the ground they walk on." And they say it as merely a joke. We ask to take before we clip even a single rose from a bush. Im basically killing a bud by cutting it off its branch... its life source... why wouldn't I be thankful for the beauty I have been allowed to take with me? I love meditating on the grass when its a lil hot out cause the grass's energies keep me cool... and you gotta thank them for that when you get up and walk away! I just sat my 200 pound self on all these lil strands of grass that kept me cool for the most part, why not thank them? People from earth religions thank the earth for everything that comes from it, which in essence is pretty much everything.
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