Disclaimer: I, by no means, can rightfully represent the whole of the Pagan community in this article, only myself. This is written based on my experiences and opinions, and speaks only for me. However, if you agree or disagree with anything, I am happy to address and clarify.
There is no denying that a good deal of our laws come from the collective idea of The Golden Rule, The Silver Rule (yeah, I didn’t know about this one, either), the Wiccan Rede, or whatever you want to call it. ”Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or “harm none and do what ye will” come in about seventy different flavors, but the idea is just the same. Such a philosophy has created what we know today as basic human morals — i.e., don’t kill people, don’t steal, respect others, and the like.
However, obviously people don’t always follow these elementary interaction skills, regardless of their religion. People deal daily with their frustrations, and however hard they may try, are just as subject to curse their inconveniences and flavor-of-the-day enemies. I mean, even the best of us can get aggravated and say some pretty unsavory things to people we barely know, or know very well. But typically (or at least, I like to imagine) we apologise or cool down, and try to change how we react to negative things.
So this brings me to a personal “battle,” I guess you could call it.
I started out practicing Wicca at the tender age of 14, though as I stepped into the adult world later in 2007, I began to look at things in a different light. At first, I was conflicted because I began studying and practicing Wicca because, not only was it something that made sense to me, but the threat of being punished for wrongdoing in the eyes of a higher power was a lot less scary — in fact, the idea of something coming back at me at three times the potency seemed fair. However I began realising that a lot of my practice was strained within the limitations that were spelled out by the Rede. It seemed that if I were angry about something, instead of being angry about it, I was forced, out of fear of punishment from a higher power, to take a different approach. Meaning, frankly, if someone did me wrong, I felt I was not allowed to act on my anger.
Anger is a very important emotion, as it lets you know that you have been wronged, and obviously you would want to undo the wrong and enforce the right. Too many times did I let something go that I felt was unjust and looked for an alternative outlet. I guess it’s just perspective or how I approached it, but my experiences have taught me that the alternative, peaceful approach is not always the best way to resolve or close a case.
While I was trying my best to stick to a Wiccan belief system, I found myself unable to accept that I felt like I was forced to always be the good guy when I was only human, and to ignore my emotions was something I was unwilling to do. I admit it is admirable to always try to be peaceful and do the right thing, but realistically, everyone gets mad, and sometimes the only way to get change is to be aggressive, and when I realised this, it was then that I realised that I could not call myself a Wiccan.
But it’s so much more hassle to call yourself a Pagan and not Wiccan — because while you can define Wicca at least a little bit, and reassure the masses with the “harm none” business, a strand of neo-paganism that is NOT Wicca cannot be as easily defined, and cannot reassure the masses that you aren’t going to put a little jinx on them if you cross them. And you know the masses — hysteria would quickly ensue. While there are many people and groups out there to educate the populus about Paganism (not just Wicca), it’s difficult to get past the word Pagan in the first place.
Even though the dictionary expressly clarifies it as “someone who does not believe in your god/someone who follows a polytheistic or pre-Christian religion,” the bible takes precedent and refers to us as Heathens, which does not have a very positive connotation at all. However I do know some folk refer to themselves as Heathens and this is not an issue for me, but you have to admit — if you ask 100 strangers how they feel about the word Heathen, or ask what they know about it, 99 of them may only have that singular source to pull from.
For years I would not say that I was Pagan to avoid the trouble of having to reassure people that I was not evil, I was not a devil worshiping, virgin sacrificing, live-animal-eating deviant. I would say I was Wiccan, which was justifiable to me because I had not stepped out of the bounds of the Rede and had an entirely Wiccan practice, but it was all I knew, and most importantly, I had an issue with its policy.
Though, events that have unfolded in the world today made me realise that I can’t keep covering up who I really am just to avoid conflict. Seems silly now, almost, at 21 and after all of high school fighting for gay kids’ rights to be out and proud, never hiding who they are, here I am making the same realisation about myself and my spirituality.
Just because my particular line of practice does not expressly say that as a follower of my faith, I will not do anything bad to anyone, does not mean that I WILL do something bad to anyone. But it also does not mean that I won’t do something that could be construed as naughty. I stated previously, everyone is human and regardless of who they pray to every night before they go to sleep, we all do something to walk the fine line between bad, mean, angry, or selfish at one point or another. Even just something mischievous. And it always comes back to us, regardless of who we think is running the show. This isn’t just in a magical regard either; mundane, secular things also apply here.
Once, I did a spell to remove a negative influence from a girlfriend’s life when I was 16. It resulted the aforementioned negative influence being relocated to Virginia. I performed the spell again not too long ago, but I feel wholly responsible for a friendship ending that could have easily been saved. Both of these things are pretty touchy according to Wiccan rules, as it’s generally accepted that you don’t perform magic on or around someone without their permission first.
Another time, I wished very intently that a friend of mine’s car would fall apart on the way to college (he had crossed me terribly). Later, though I had forgiven him and didn’t think much of the wish after that, he informed me that the exhaust system in his car was annihilated while driving on the roads of Ohio. That wasn’t even something that had a circle cast or a candle lit — my anger was so concentrated that the intent was released and well, I’m just happy that it was only his exhaust. And that he’s going to school for classic car restoration.
The point is, folks, that at the end of the day, we are all people. We make decisions every minute of our lives that have an impact in the biggest and smallest ways. We are taught to do the right thing, the reasonable thing, and yet we still do the things that people do not see as most reasonable. However, the chances of our “bad” decisions occuring habitually decrease if we take the time to analyse the execution of our actions and learn from them, and how we can do it better or differently next time.
With this knowledge I have gained and the experiences I have accumulated, I know who I am. I will defend my rights as a human being, I will protect my friends and family, and honor the gods to the best of my ability. I’m going to slip up every now and again, say some bad shit, do some bad shit, but it comes with the territory of being a human being.
To wrap this up, I’ll leave you with a quote from a man I can align with pretty well.
“…besides, the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”
