The Rede

Does this sound easy?

We are an Old Religion being reborn. We got a bad rap from the Inquisition, and the prejudice lingers on. Recall that it was our atheists who, two weeks ago, invoked the Christian Devil.

A Little History - Many Gods with Many Names.

First came Female Gods, then Male.

The UU/Public TV Story of Creation:

Religion has come to mean placing our trust outside ourselves, remaining like children, following a long line of father figures. And how do we know, once we have ceased to trust ourselves, whether they are gods are psychopaths.

Pagan: anyone previously subject to the British Empire.
Witch:  a sub-set of Pagan, related to Northern Europe.

Are we Wiccans doing UU, or UUs doing Wicca?

Contrast to Universalism where "Everything is OK."

Can an Atheist be a Witch?

Our Cultural Influences:
There is One Right Way
There is value to Secret Rituals
Big Endians Vs Little Endians, - Jonathan Swift
Dean of Saint's Patrick's in Dublin
The Verb "To Be"
The Spanish Version of this verb.

Male Dominance
Males are less comfortable with Uncertainty
"God Talk" by Males, and other Abstractions
A Universe of Warring Opposites

Remnants of the Inquisition:
The Pentacle
Glamour - a Female enchantment.
Elizabethan Women Banned from the Stage.
Priestess is still a scandalous title.
Cunning - Shrewd, instinctive skill.
Superstitions remain in our culture.

What's in Fashion?
Harry Potter is known by Muggles
TV: Charmed, Sabrina, Buffy.
Channel 39 all Saturday
Movies like Practical Magick and the Craft

Wiccan Evolution:
The French author Rabelais of 1500's
Motto of the Abbey of Thelema Carved over the Door
Alister Crowley Listed This

Early Twentieth Century Public WIcca Reads very Rigid and Male.
Very Old Testament and Cabalistic
Gerald Gardner's "High Magic's Aid" is Sexist
Compare to writings of Silver RavenWolf and StarHawk
There can now be at least five identifiable generations

Starhark's Spiral Dance is a Craft Manual
Minus the Ordains
Laments Peter Pathfinder of ATC, Aquarian Tabernacle Church

Can I really be a late-blooming Buddhist? Or Witch?

The Ordains are applications of the Rede
They are Guides, not Rules.
You get Ordains either from Moses or by Social Contract
Gardner's version: Everyone, Priesthood, Groups
In our Study Group: Internal, Leaders, External

How our Study Group evolves:
We are Tribal, not Creedal

We are not Equals: Members, Experienced, Flakes

Women are into Birth and Harvest
Men are into Ass-Kicking Conan the Barbarian

We do have the Dark Goddesses - Destroyer/Creatrix
A Racist Term?
I like the Concept
Not Fuzzy Bunny Wicca
A Night Club does not introduce you to their Bouncers
The Goddess's Creatures Die while being Eaten Alive
The Dark Side is 1% of Time

A Detailed Ethical System Is Tricky.
It's like writing legislation, or Bylaws.
An opportunity to be less than honest or blind

The UU Class - Building Your Own Theology

Wiccan Values:
Reverence for the Earth
Rule of Three
Responsible for our Actions
Collides with Victim Stance
The Power of Observation
Sacredness of all Life
Deity within Us
Reverence and Mirth
Honor the Sabbats - My Evolving Ritual
Knowledge is Power - Every Time I Reread, I Learn
Energy Follows Thought - An Idea is the Beginning
What You Feed, Grows
Daily Dedications
Private Conversations

Benediction - "Go Your Own Way, with Little Disturbance that You Did Not Plan to Create."

1. The Greenwood: forest
2. Beltaine: a fertility festival in late spring
3. Vervain: sacred herb of the goddess Cerridwen
4. Wort: archaic term for herb
5. Talisman: an item, usually blessed and dedicated to nature, that attracts. Used in sympathetic magick which subscribes to the theory that like attracts like.
6. Tuatha de Danu: people of Danu, the great mother goddess. Legendary invaders who may have been from the Indus Valley
7. Fey: psychic; also a woman of the Tuatha
8. Farie Women: the indigenous folk of Ireland who, upon being conquered by the invading Celts, hid in the mounds; also, short dark women of the Tuatha de Danu; also any woman who is fey.
9. Sacred Duty: one’s first obligation is to the children.

1. Pagan: Anyone not a Christian, Jew or Mohammedan.
2. Witch: Woman or man claiming roots in the pre-Christian Celtic traditions of Northern Europe.
3. Coven: A prayer group.
4. Circle: A space temporarily set aside for worship.
5. Cunning: shrewd, instinctive skill in disguising the real purpose of one's actions.
6. Glamour: originally, an enchantment, related to female and illusion
7. Pentacle: An encircled five-pointed star symbolizing protection.
8. Magick: Creative visualization.
9. Muggle: From the Harry Potter books, a non-witch, sometimes called a cowan.
10. CUUPS: The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, a UUA Affiliate Organization
11. MoonPath: The name of our Fort Lauderdale CUUPS Chapter.

Internet: A place for learning and connecting. (See cuups.org and MoonPathCUUPS.Org)

Our children come to us and through us: they are born, not owned. They are the archer’s arrow through time. And if they in their forgetfulness see us as all-powerful, then we in our remeberance see them as god. That is the mutual respect we have together: divinity looking into the eyes of divinity.

Besides a romp in the Greenwood on Beltaine?

She might eat carrot seeds, or feed them to her lover if he has a problem with impotence. Carrot seeds guarantee fertility.

She might carry any sort of a nut seed around as a talisman except of course, a walnut seed. Walnuts, you see, have the opposite effect. Brides used to wear them in their wedding gowns to keep from having too many babies too soon. One does wonder how that worked: perhaps in an abortive fashion.

Or she might pray to the goddess and ask for the divine child. If she is a farie woman, legend says that she steals it from the Christians.

But whatever she does to conceive this baby, whether charm, prayer, dance or ritual copulation, she does it knowing she is asking for a birth of the divine.

Make the cradle of birch to keep away the farie women.

Place Vervain inside her cradle so that her beautiful baby might grow up happy and with a desire to learn.

Sew a lovely pillow and stuff it with fresh lavender from the gardens to induce restful dreams, and of course, to insure the child’s obedience!

She might place a little bag of caraway seeds in her child’s bed later on to protect from illness, or pass him through the growing flax in the fields to cure rickets, and sing little songs to keep away bad dreams.

Well, what do we mean by that? Well, we mean nowadays that she’s a witch. And we mean that she will probably do all of those little things that all the country women do to conceive and protect their children. But she might teach him a little differently, you see.

She’ll probably gather up special herbs when she goes a-gathering: herbs to help her young child understand the language of the animals, or hear the whisperings of the waters and the winds.

She’ll assess his capabilities in art, music and psychic ability and assist him to make the most of these talents.

If she belongs to a coven, she will enlist the help of everyone as an extended family.

If she is really Fey, she’ll show him the way of the Fey, including telling of fortune.

Above all, she encourages mastery of the gifts he may have. Without a doubt, he will learn all practical things about nature:

The effects of the moon, of the sun, of the winds upon himself, the land, the animals and the people. She will teach him to live in harmony with the inhabitants of earth, for that is her sacred duty.

Possibly with a ceremony. Depending on her coven, her path, her persuasion, she will set him free to take his place in society as a person who :

Can demonstrate an ability to contribute to the betterment of society.

He must earn his own way.

He must give respect to have respect.

He must take all his knowledge and be responsible for it.

It is not so unlike how you raise your children.

Real power is knowledge of the self: to understand exactly why you do everything that you do.

If there is one secret to living a life in the Craft it is this: Pay Attention.

(then follows an excerpt from a farie woman’s lullaby (translated from the Scottish) from the Carmina Gadelica.

Well I love thee,
  Smooth thou, soft thou!
Under the plaid,
  Smooth thou, soft thou!

Well I love thee,
  Smooth thou, soft thou!
In the morning
  Soft-white, red-bright.

Well I love thee,
  Smooth thou, soft thou!
I, to companion thee,
  I to lull thee.

I to fill thee
  With the fondnesses,
I, to fill thee
  From the breast of thy mother.

Books:

Adler, Margot, Drawing Down the Moon, Beacon Press, Boston, 1986.

Beth, Rae, Hedge Witch, A Guide to Solitary Witchcraft, Robert Hale, London, 1996.

Buckland, Raymond, Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft, Llewellyn Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1992.

Caesar, The Conquest of Gaul, Book VI, 13-14,16, Penguin Classics, New York, 1982.

Campbell, Joseph, Myths to Live By, Bantam Books, New York, 1973.

Christian Bible: Ex 22:18; Lev 20:27; Duet 17:2-7; 18:9-14; Judg 2:13, 10:6;

1 Sam 7:3, 31:10; 1 Kin 11:5; Jer 7:16-19, 44:15-19; Acts 19:23-27.

Condren, Mary, The Serpent and the Goddess, Harper & Row Publishing, San Francisco 1989.

Cunningham, Scott, Wicca, a Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, Llewellyn Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1992.

Davis, Rel, The Existential Pagan, Old Time Religion, Inc., Hollywood, FL 1998.

Eisler, Riane, The Chalice & the Blade, Our History, Our Future, Harper, San

Francisco, 1988.

Farrar, Janet and Stewart, A Witches Bible, Phoenix Publishing. Custer Publishing, WA 1984.

Fortune, Dion, The Sea Priestess, Samuel Weisner, Inc., York Beach, Maine, 1978.

Gardner, Gerald, Witchcraft Today, the Citadel Press, New York, 1955.

Matthews, Caitlin, Sophia Goddess of Wisdom, Harper Collins, London, 1992

RavenWolf, Silver, To Stir a Magick Cauldron, Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, MN 1997.

Starhawk, The Spiral Dance, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1979.

Stone, Merlin, When God Was a Woman, Harcourt Brace Jovenovich, New York, 1976.

Valiente, Doreen, Witchcraft for Tomorrow, Phoenix Publishing, Custer, WA, 1978.

Videos:

The Sorceress, Lara Classics, Inc., 9 Merrill Street, Cambridge, Mass 02139.

Witchcraft, Yesterday and Today, by Raymond Buckland, Llewelyn Press, P.O.Box 64383, St. Paul, MN 55164-0383.

The Goddess Remembered, Canadian Public TV, Quinland Road Limited, P.O.Box 933, Stratford, Ontario, Canada N5A 7M3.

No Journey's End, by Loreena McKennitt, Quinland Road Limited, P.O.Box 933, Stratford, Ontario, Canada N5A 7M3.