Awakening the Witch Within
By Terin
I am new to the community of witchcraft. Oh, sure, I was a solitary for several years, practicing magical spells and reading all kinds of books on witchcraft and what it meant to be a witch. But I have only been in the community, celebrating the Wheel of the Year, for one full turning. And one of the things that I have learned is that being a solitary isn’t anything like being in a coven of witches. And waking the witch within doesn’t just involve creating magical spells or participating in rituals. These are very important aspects of being a witch; they are just not everything.
The first thing that I learned when I joined the CUUPS community was that everyone has a different perspective and opinion on how witchcraft works. There are High Magickal people, who view magic as a carefully constructed, historically accurate, full blown ritual with lots of power and energy used and consumed. There are the Earth centered people, who find magic in their environment and the world around them, who create ritual but also find magic in their everyday lives. There are the Fey, who dislike rules as a rule, and follow a very instinctual, and powerful, magic from within. I cannot say that I even know most of the different kinds of magical perspective that I find swirling around me, or that I can fully understand that of which I am aware. What I have come to understand is that, if I may borrow a phrase from Mercedes Lackey, “There is no one, true way.
This moves me in a powerful way; we are lucky to have such a diverse community, one that allows such differences of opinion. Especially in the light of the other religions around today that cannot seem to have one small disagreement, let alone several other belief structures from the same, still joined core. When we are in a community, we need to respect everyone’s faith. But it is hard to remember that, especially if we think we are right. But it is not about right; it is about finding and walking the path that we follow. It is not the same path for everyone, and we may end up in different places, but we share the journey in common. If we wanted “one true way”, we could always join the rest of the world in fighting, killing, and dying for it. Instead, because we do respect others’ beliefs, we have time to reflect and grow on our own paths, however different from everyone else's.