When I have these conversations with people who on that love and light side of things and who are hardcore about never casting magick that could be manipulative in any way, I give them the respect for them to practice the way they wish.  I may not agree with them, but I respect their right to practice magick how they wish.  I believe that all magick is manipulative in some way.  That’s the nature of magick, it’s the practice of bending energy to our will to get what we want.  It doesn’t matter if that’s something perceived as “light”, such as a healing spell, or something perceived more as a “darker” spell that involved trying to control another person for your gain.  All magick manipulates someone or something.  I’m also one of those people who is not of the mind that “all healing magick is positive magick”.  Healing isn’t always what people need even if it’s what you want for them.  Some people need to experience pain, illness, and strife because that’s part of their journey.  But that’s another discussion…

So these words were the way I expressed this frustration on my personal page on Facebook the other day.  If you feel the same way, feel free to download either of these graphic and use them or display them as you’d like (click on the larger picture to get the full size image). I’ll have some more regular postings coming in the next few weeks after the 2012 One Witch’s Way Datebook (which is horrible past deadline) goes to proof and I’m done with that. 

Here is the review, in its entirety, from Amazon.
(NOTE:  Since this has now come up multiple times, both here and on Facebook, let it be clear that the review listed below is a copy and paste from Amazon exactly as the reviewer wrote it, including the horrid spelling and syntax errors.  Yes, it should be “altar” not “alter”, however I felt that it was not my place to clean up the individual’s post since it just adds to the ridiculousness of the situation…and it’s how they decided to let their thoughts be known publicly.)

Skulls are not needed to be a Witch!
by S. Day “Night time Maven”

I will say that there are moments in this book where I understand his direction. The chapter on “The Alter of the DEAD” I feel sets the wrong tone for Wicca. I went from loving the chapter on “Opening the Doorway” to deciding not to finish the book after “The Alter of the Dead”.

This new wave of Witchcraft and Skull really bothers me. I threw Jade Sol Luna’s book on Hecate in the trash after I saw his picture sitting in a yoga posture with a skull and now this book. You do NOT NEED A SKULL TO BE A WITCH! I feel this type of behavior expresses the wrong idea of the modern Witch. Being a Witch does not mean that you have to scare people. I have children for goddess sake.

Stick with the greats like Cunningham, Buckland and Farrar’s of the wiccan world and throw the Christian Daye’s, Jade Sol Luna’s and the Digitalis’s out. Wicca was meant to be a safe not a scary religion.

I’m going to start out with full disclosure by saying that I started reading Christian’s book back in October while traveling during my move back to the east coast but I hit a chapter that was a bit challenging for me (I have to be in the mood for history that part of chapter 7 just hung me up at the time).  I ended up setting it aside but I’m planning to make it as one of my titles for this year’s Pagan Reading Challenge.  However I will say that I did spend a little time flipping through the rest of the book and reading over the rituals and got the gist of the rest of the book.  I have read the specific chapters that the reviewer mentioned here since they are the second and third chapters.

First of all, there’s the huge misunderstanding that in my experience seems to run rampant among some parts of the Wiccan community.  Wicca and Witchcraft are not the same thing.  It just isn’t.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a Wiccan who likes to cast spells for <insert twinkling chime music> love and healing; you being Wiccan and practicing Witchcraft doesn’t make all Witchcraft Wiccan.  So, just remember, not all Witches are Wiccan.  But at the same time not all Wiccans are Witches since there are those in the Wiccan community that do not work magick and just work with the religious and spiritual side of Wicca.  Wicca is first and foremost a religion where as Witchcraft is a magickal art, a craft, a practice.

Jade Sol Luna with a skull...OH NOES!!

This idea that all books on Witchcraft must somehow be written by an author with a Wiccan viewpoint is incredibly ignorant and shortsighted.  I think one of the last things that anyone could ever mistake Christian with is a Wiccan.  That just goes to show that the reviewer obviously knows nothing about the author of the book. And that’s OK, not everyone starts out knowing the personal views of an author before reading their book, but to assume that he is Wicca because he wrote a book on Witchcraft is, again, ignorant.

This new wave of Witchcraft and Skull really bothers me.

Again, this is something that I’ve heard before; well, not in these exact words, but with this sentiment toward Paganism that addresses the darker aspect of life.  Once again the only word that I can think of that addresses this is ignorance.  This is not a “new wave”.  The use of the skull, whether an actual human (or animal) skull as like what Christian uses, or in a symbolic sense through skull candles, crystal skulls, or skull sculptures is nothing new in Witchcraft or even in some traditions of Wicca.

The skull is not something that should be feared as this reviewer seems to see it.  In generations past the skull was seen as a symbol of wisdom, a door to someone’s spirit of the spirit world in general, and, as many modern day Pagans (and, yes) Wiccans have come to use it, a symbol of mortality, the fragility of life, and the cycles of death and rebirth.  The skull is only as scary as we make it and to demonize it as something that somehow has to be feared is terrible.

It’s funny to me knowing that there are people in other cultures all over the world, like those in Mexico, that take the skull and skeleton and make them funny, lighthearted, and at times somewhat frivolous, in order to remove the fear and add reality to it.  Let’s just face the hard and cold facts of life; one day this reviewer will be dead.  One day, in a physical sense, they will be nothing more than the skull and bones that makes up their physical structure.  Why is this something to be feared?  The reviewer talks about having children and not wanting to scare them. If you don’t want your children to be afraid of a skull then work to make it not scary!  Your children are going to take their cues on these kinds of things from you.  Make it scary and they’ll be afraid; make it magickal and a symbol of power, and they’ll see it in this way.

Honestly, I think that if the reviewer couldn’t handle Jade Sol Luna or Raven Digitalis I don’t know why they would have thought they could handle Christian Day.

Then comes my favorite part of the review, the part that I admit made me giggle.

Wicca was meant to be a safe not a scary religion.

Here I just can’t say anything but BULLSHIT.  The watered down and homogenized version of New Age Wicca that has emerged over the course of the last 20 years certainly is “safe”, but that is not the only kind of Wicca there is.  In fact much of the Wicca that is out there today would be unrecognizable to many of the early creators of the Wiccan tradition.  Wicca is meant to be a path of balance.  Balancing light and dark, life and death,God and Goddess.  Exploring the Underworld as well as the Upper World. Sometimes those things are not safe.  You have to get our of your comfort zone to explore the Underworld and commune with the Crone Goddess and the Ancestors.  It saddens me to see things like the Hag and Crone watered down to simply be seen as Grandmother figures rather than the sometimes fearsome death figures that they actually are just because some Wiccan’s find them scary and they make them uncomfortable.

I don't think Gerald Gardner would condsider a lot of what is called Wiccan today Wiccan in the sense of the tradtiion he helped create.

In a conversation I once had with a fairly new Wiccan who asked me about my patron Goddess, The Morrighan, I was asked what kind of “mother” she was.  When I explained the darker death aspect of her and her associations as a Goddess of war this person actually said to me that I was wrong and that she was taught that The Morrighan was a “dark moon mother” who was peaceful and introspective I almost snapped.  Where are these things coming from?  Why do so many Wiccans (and other Pagans, too…I’m not trying to be down on the Wiccans, really) feel the need to take anything dark and twist it into something completely different and make it lighter?

The world of the Witch, including the Wiccan Witch, is not a world of implicit safety.  Working under the notion that Wicca is somehow supposed to be “safe” and that work like what Christian and other Witches who dare delve into the deeper and darker realms makes Wiccan “unsafe” is ridiculous.

Hecate: Goddess, yes. Loving, nurturing mother? Not necessarily.

Let me say something about this idea that the reviewer has about these things giving the wrong impression of the modern Witch.  The modern Witch is not afraid to explore all facets of the Craft.  The modern Witch is not afraid to step into uncomfortable territories to learn more about the world, their spirituality, and themselves.  The modern Witch is willing to take the stigma of something like a skull, a stigma that the reviewer seems content to perpetuate, and defy people to rethink their ideas and change their view.  The modern Witch isn’t afraid to step into the shadows for a time and then return into the light.

My impression is that this individual is not “modern Witch” and instead seems more like someone with a New Age mentality that has moved to Wicca because of a desire to have a Goddess rather than a God to honor.  Obviously this person is welcome to their opinion and their beliefs; I’m not knocking them for their views.  What I’m trying to get at is that these ideas of Wicca and Witchcraft being one and that work that focuses on the death part of the life cycle somehow makes Wicca scary and unsafe is a ridiculous trend that needs to be rethought and addressed.  By closing ourselves off to this idea of working with the dead, by demonizing the symbol and power of the skull, by seeing things that are dark as scary and thus trying to suppress them, we run the risk of falling out of balance and losing a big part of our magickal and spiritual world.

Fear is truly in the eye of the beholder.

Christian Day is not everyone’s cup of tea and Christian’s book is certainly not going to appeal to everyone, but it certainly can open doors for considering why you might have these kinds of reactions (like the overreaction of wanting to throw the book in the trash).  Strong reactions are places for healing.  Find how the power of wisdom and rebirth of the skull can help heal you.  You might be surprised at what you find in those dark places that you’ve been avoiding.

Last night while Devin was heading home from the shop he called me and we were talking about a bunch of different things and one of the things that he brought up was that he wanted me to consider writing a book for an actual publisher.  UGH…not again.  But, as my best friend he is allowed to tell me something I have heard before, at at length, so I let him explain his position before I did my usual “Yeah, that’s never going to happen” retort (or as Devin would probably say, in typical Aries fashion I used my ram horns to attempt to knock down that idea).  This is something I’ve struggled with for a while.  Should I or shouldn’t I?  For three years I sat with a set of Llewellyn submission guidelines on my desk thinking about what I wanted to do with them.  Do I want to write a query letter, submit a proposal, or just start writing something? And what do I have to write about?  I mean, I have a list of things I could write about, but where would I even start with it?

Yeah, it's pretty. But I'm not much of a fan of what's inside it.

This is where I also started to struggle a bit.  As someone who has been reading, studying, and practicing Pagansim and Witchcraft for 25+ years now I have read books from all sorts of publishers that work with these new age and occult areas.  Llewellyn tends to get the worst rap.  And really I think there are some merits to some of the comments people make about some of the books that they release; pretty covers but lacking in content.  And then you have some authors, like my friend and teacher Christopher Penczak, who writes stuff that, in my opinion, sets the bar much higher for what you might expect from there.  So I’m torn.  There’s sort of an automatic response of “Oh, it’s a Llewellyn book” by many people which is less than desirable.

On the flip side I don’t intent to write something that is really Red Wheel/Weiser material (at least not any time soon) and some of the other new age and occult publishers I just don’t want to deal with.  Publishing a book through someone like Llewellyn would only do one real thing and that’s help me with getting my name out there to a larger audience.  Traditional publishing doesn’t net a lot of money, despite what a lot of people seem to think.  I have, so far, made decent money with my self-published work.  But, as I am well aware, and have always been aware, publishing a book is never about money.  It’s about sharing stories, knowledge, and perspectives.  And that’s truly what I desire to do; teaching and helping others is what I love most even though I definitely consider writing as my art and my way of best doing that.

And so therein lies the rub, as they say.  Do I decide to finally write something with the intention of doing it for a “real” publisher or do I stick to my convictions of “I want to do it my way” and keep plugging away at trying to get the Pagan community’s attention on my own?

This isn't doing too bad...

The other issue is the true conundrum; what am I going to write about?  What can I write about that hasn’t already be written?  What do I have to add to something that’s new and unique?  This is one of the biggest issues with rejection in the non-fiction world; if you don’t have something unique and new to add to a subject then a publisher isn’t going to be interested in taking the time, effort, and money in order to publish something that regurgitates another author’s work.  That is my biggest worry.  I don’t want to write spell books, though I could certainly do that.  I don’t want to write about Wicca specifically because I’m not Wiccan.  I would be able to write a more general book on Witchcraft and personal practice but my biggest concern there is that anything I write would sound so my like something Christopher would say that it wouldn’t have a real uniqueness to it.  And this isn’t just because I’ve been studying with him for 3 years but because I have always found, even before then, that when I would read his books or take his classes and workshops that he was saying things that mirrored my own thoughts, ideas, and teachings so closely.  In fact, funny as it was, a few weeks ago on the radio show after something I said Devin’s response was “Wow, that was so Temple of Witchcraft.”  The truth is my personal views were that way before I even got involved with ToW.

So I don’t know what to do.  I know that Devin probably is right.  And I should make this a big part of my work for the year.  But I am having those feelings of not knowing where to start or what to do.  I can tell there’s some magick to be done here too.  I just have to figure out which of the many hurdles I need to get over with this is the one I need to deal with first.

If anyone wants to toss some suggestions my way, I’d be more than happy to hear them! 

We all have a path to walk and most of the year we talk about wanting to that through understanding and learning to coexist.  This can be a tough thing to achieve but if it is your goal and thing that is most in your heart, you’re at least striving for the highest and best.  You can only do what you can to make it happen; remember you’re not the only one involved so you don’t have to be the only one to make an effort toward change.

It saddened me to see a few times on Facebook this year that some Pagans got upset at the thought of other Pagans celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah with their families.  I heard things like “Yule is your holiday, do not bow to Christians.”  I have seen Pagans get upset at the thought that another Pagan would wish someone a “Merry Christmas” rather than a “Merry Yule” or simply “Happy Holidays”.  Oh, to long for the days when your holiday greetings weren’t being picked apart and analyzed for possible derision.

Personally I think it’s a matter of kindness to wish someone a “Merry Christmas” if it is Christmas that they celebrate.  You know how (some of) you get upset that people wish you “Merry Christmas” in a presumptive way?  Consider that when you’re wishing everyone a “Merry Yule”.  Don’t create a double standard.

The holidays always remind us that the Pagan community is so full of opinions, varied views, and its own level of dogma.  If you really feel that by celebrating Christmas with your families that you’re somehow offending the Gods then you may need to rethink your Gods.  You may need to rethink this path your on.  And you may need to rethink why you are on the oath you’re on.

Being on a spiritual journey should be about making you a better person, an enlightened person, a more fulfilled person.  Using it to create dividing lines among friends and family is exactly the opposite of what it should do.  And for many of us we say that this is the very reason we came to this path and chose to be Witches and Pagans; there was this idea that Pagans were more open minded and that this was a path that was more willing to embrace differences and that made us happy after maybe growing up in more exclusive spiritual paths.  Yet we often find that we fall into similar traps but because it’s in the name of the Goddess or the Ancient Ones it’s somehow more justifiable.

The truth is, it isn’t.

The fact is that the holidays are a confusing time for many Pagans.  There is that question of “Do I still honor the holidays I was raised with,” for those of us that weren’t raised Wiccan, Pagan, etc.  Personally I think the answer is both simple and complicated, depending on your personal situation, but not nearly as complicated as we make it.

Remember, first and foremost, this is a time for family!
Before the Christian co-opting of Pagan winter traditions, the main focus of the winter solstice season was about gathering with friends and family as well as to honor the awesomeness of the Gods.  This honoring of the Gods was because there was this belief that if they didn’t honor the Gods with their rituals of lighting fires and whatnot that the Sun wouldn’t return and they would be shroud in cold and darkness forever.   Because of this families and whole villages gathered together to spend time with each since, in all honesty, there was a level of boredom to deal with.  These were people that spent a lot of time working outdoors all year and when winter came for many people that meant sitting inside with little to do.

But think back to Samhain.  One of the things that were honored at Samhain was the process of divining who would live and who would die during the winter.  Winter was a time of small means for many and when your Samhain harvests of roots and meats came in that’s all you had for the winter season and, quite often, there was the risk of there not being enough to make it through those months.  At Yuletime people would come together to celebrate and honor one another since there was a chance that in a month or two they might not all be together since some may have passed away from cold, hunger, disease, etc.

So this was a time for family and friends to gather and celebrate having made it this far.  With that they would do their acts of offering and sympathetic magick to hope for a safe rest of the season and a quick return of the Sun.  Obviously today we don’t have those same worries, at least for the majority of us.  But keep in mind that these were the reasons that people got together like they do and clearly we enjoy it and need it to some extent because in our modern world of abundance and convenience, we still do this!

Be a shining example of Paganism during the holiday.
And by that I mean show love, honor, and respect, “perfect love and perfect trust” if you will, to those around you of other faiths and persuasions.  You don’t have to use the holidays as a time to do spiritual battle with those that don’t agree or don’t understand your faith.  This is a special and sacred time for you as well as them.  Give them the space that you wish them to give you to honor spiritually as you wish while still being able to enjoy each other’s company for the holiday.  In other words, as Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Enjoy!
It’s really that simple. Just enjoy yourself.  Enjoy your friends and family.  Be thankful for what you have, even if it’s less than you’ve had in the past.  Know that you will have more again in the future.  Remember that it’s not just about what you call the holiday or what God you’re honoring but about who you have to spend it with.

So to answer that question, “Do I still celebrate the holidays I grew up with even though I’m now a Pagan”…
The answer, for me, is yes.  The answer for you may be no, but when you make that decision be sure you know really why you’re making that choice and be sure that you know what that might do to those around you.  Is it just that you’re going to forgo midnight mass or are you going to pass on all Christmas activities with your family?  Why?  Are you doing this just because you feel you need to take a stand or make a point or are there other reasons?  Be sure you know why you have chosen to say no to those things.

But for, it’s a yes.  I still see my family, attend dinners and parties with them, and give a few gifts.  My family knows of my chosen path and they don’t make me go to church or lay guilt on me for that.  And for that I am grateful since I know not everyone has that experience.  But if I were to say “I can’t attend Christmas dinner because I’m Pagan” would be more painful and cause more problems than for me to go, sit at the table, eat dinner and share in conversation with my family.  It’s about honor and respect and that goes both ways.

And with that I leave you with this classic by Dar Williams and I wish you a wonderful holiday season, whatever it is you’re going to celebrate and however you decide to do it.

December 5, 2011

Re: Oberon Zell and Kenny Klein, and the US American Council of Witches

In the past few months, there has been a good deal of concern over the organization and web presence of the “US American Council of Witches.” The original idea—as proposed by Kaye Berry of Illinois—was a resurrection of the old American Council of Witches that was convened in Minneapolis in 1973- 1974, and which drafted and ratified the legendary “13 Principles of Wiccan Belief.” Kaye proposed reforming the ACW to re-examine the “13 Principles” for possible updating; and also to update the information on Witchcraft and Paganism for the US military and prison chaplains’ resources. To distinguish the current Council from the original one, it was retitled “US American Council of Witches.”

While some saw the reviving of this Council as a good idea, or perhaps as an interesting venture, in the weeks after its presence was announced on social networking sites those researching the project brought to light serious issues concerning the organizers and apparent misrepresentation of nonprofit status.

In various postings by representatives of the Council, and in various missives by those concerned about the Council, mention of Oberon Zell and Kenny Klein have come up several times. There seems to be an assumption that either or both Oberon and Kenny have some affiliation with the Council, or according to some posts, that either or both lead the Council. Oberon and Kenny would like to take this opportunity to voice their own positions on this matter.

Oberon was contacted by Kaye Berry simply to provide the “reformed” Council with documents and information from the original 1973-‘74 Council records, which he happily agreed to do. He also offered to try and reconstruct the roster of the 73 people who had met in 1974, and contact those who are still alive regarding their possible participation in a new Council. In the ensuing months, suggestions were made that Oberon was an actual member of the new Council, or that he was taking an active role in reforming the Council. Neither of these were true.

Kenny saw mention of the Council being “reformed” on a social networking site, and offered to help in what was being represented as the primary goal of the Council, an updating of the Army Chaplain’s Manual entry on Wicca. Within a day or two of this offer, Kenny was asked to draft a press release, which he did, using the information given him at the time (this press release was to be represented as a document released by the Council, and was not to have his name personally attached to it).

In the next week or two, Kenny found that much of the information that had been given to him was erroneous, and when Kenny asked for clarification or simple answers, he received answers that he felt made no sense, or met with avoidance of resolution to important questions. The press release was also posted as being written by him. Kenny also found that various Council web sites named him as a member of the Council, a position to which he had never consented. And then Kenny began hearing from other Pagan figures that they too were “placed” on the Council without giving their consent. On October 18, Kenny informed the Council by e-mail that he was very upset with these actions, and was no longer to be considered as a member or a resource.

Unfortunately, two months have gone by, and both Oberon and Kenny still seem to be answering questions and clarifying rumors about their Council involvement. Therefore, please let it be known that while both Oberon Zell and Kenny Klein believe strongly in Pagan networking and organization, both of us also feel that there are already strong organizations serving the needs of our community. Further, neither of us have ever been official Council members; each of us have served in limited capacities (Oberon as adviser, Kenny briefly as editor), but neither of us has ever taken an active role or a leadership role in creating any official “US American Council of Witches” policy or program.

Kenny spoke out quite actively last month against certain Council activities on the Modern Witch Podcast, denouncing many of the posts and e-mails created by the Council, and he encourages any interested persons to listen to that episode of the Podcast to be aware of his views on the matter.

Oberon was in Australia for the entire month of November, and had no involvement with the Council during his absence from the U.S. Meanwhile, as he has learned, all manner of rumors had been wildly circulating regarding his alleged involvement with the Council, and his name had even been invoked in threatening admonitions to people raising awkward questions. Now that Oberon has returned, he and Kenny have consulted with each other and decided to draft this joint statement.

Considering the controversies and ill-will that this project has engendered within the Pagan community, it is our joint opinion that the US American Council of Witches can no longer be regarded as a viable enterprise, and we strongly recommend that the entire project be abandoned at this time and the USACW be dissolved.

Thank you for your interest, and please feel free to repost this letter in its entirety only.

Oberon Zell
Oberon@mcn.org
Kenny Klein
www.kennyklein.net

P.S: Several other people who have been pulled into the “gravity well” of the US American Council of Witches have also asked that they be allowed to add their signatures to this letter to indicate their agreement with what Kenny and Oberon have written. We have agreed to this, and here they are:

Christina Nyx (Caffy, The Caffeinated Witch)
Sylveey Selu (Webmistress for the Green Egg)
Ariel Monserrat (Editor/Publisher of Green Egg; co-host of “Over to Oberon & Ariel” on blogtalk radio)
Steve Provost (publisher of The Provocation; co-founder of Pagans of California networking group)
Rowan Pendragon (co-host of The Modern Witch Podcast; author of One Witch’s Way blog)

 

Some of my afterthoughts…
I have to say that I’m glad to see this is coming to an end, for now.  But I need to make a few things very, very clear.  I have had the opportunity in the last handful of weeks to see some material from within the Council (emails and Facebook messages) that have painted a somewhat inaccurate picture of my reasons for resistance (and Devin’s as well).  I wanted to make my reasons and thoughts on this clear for the last time.  I am only speaking for myself and not for Devin on this matter.

I do not know Kaye Berry, I have never spoken to Kaye Berry directly.  The only time I had any contact with her was late in the game on the USACW Facebook page the day after our episode of The Modern Witch aired that addressed this issue in depth.  In the few days that followed she allowed questions to remain on the page, something that was a large part of the problem at that point (though they were eventually deleted as well).  Other than that time I have never spoken to her before or since.  While it might sound somewhat callous, I don’t care about Kaye Berry on any personal level.  As that is the case I never felt the need to make any sort of attacks on her, never once threatened her, and never once made any “character assassinations” against her.  Why?  Simply because I don’t know her character and I don’t know her.  However her own words and actions did more harm than anyone else did, I think.

It has appeared from the beginning, and continues to appear as though Kaye Berry just lacks the ability to take responsibility for her actions.  When I and others in the community wanted to know more about this woman who was spearheading this endeavor, we asked.  I asked.  Publicly.  I wasn’t going to confine my questions and comments to private emails that would likely never get answered.  That’s not what I do as a blogger and as a teacher and public figure in the Pagan community.  When there’s something that I feel strongly about and that I feel needs to be brought out in the open I do it on my blog.  I don’t write a blog about my cats, or needle point, or about sharing recipes from dinner of the night before.  I write about magick and the Pagan community.  And this was a huge community issue that needed to be addressed and fully examined before deciding whether to support it or not.  However my asking to know more about Kaye Berry and her various claims about her background were seen as attacks by her and attempts to make her look bad.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I, and others in the community, wanted to know, quite simply, WHO is Kaye Berry?  Who is this person that is looking to head such a large and lofty project that would impact the whole of the Pagan community?  How would that be a question that would be dubious?  When Kaye’s response was that she didn’t need to justify herself, her background, or divulge anything personal about herself to anyone she lost a lot of potential credit in the eyes of many.    When you’re a virtual unknown in the community and you want to come out and work for the community in a public way you have to expect people are going to want to know about your qualifications to do so.  She didn’t feel this was important, and certainly that’s her prerogative.  But then it’s the prerogative of people in the community to hold her and her work as being questionable at best.

And as the apparent mudslinging ensued Kaye appeared to hide behind her computer screen, using Oberon Zell’s name as a shield, and using her admin power on Facebook to “delete the stupid people”, as she so eloquently put it, who didn’t agree with her, who questioned her, and who opposed what she was doing.  If this is how she was acting within the Pagan community, how are we supposed to assume she would act in a leadership role in an interfaith capacity?  If people in other faiths and other faith groups began to question her or oppose her materials she claimed to be putting together, would she consider them part of the “stupid people”?  Would she dodge their questions and claim harassment?  Would she start files on them for the FBI like she claimed she was for all of us that were questioning her?  How do you think this woman’s actions would have translated when it got to the point where it was time to put things into action?

There was also the big issue with that overall mishandling of the entire project from the start.  Money was a big issue because almost immediately there was a PayPal donation button and links on solicitous messages on Facebook telling people where they could go donate money to help this cause.  She was also looking to start applying for grants for the organization because, as she put it, “who’s going to pay for all these manuals” (in reference to the new military and prison manuals she wanted to create).  She also claimed that they needed to pay for websites and other associated costs and needed people to pitch in here and there.  It wouldn’t be until almost at the end of this that finally someone, possibly Kaye or her mysterious “secretary” that she’s pinned some of these missteps on, got the hint and just started a website on a free service.  There was no reason why, until the group had a way to afford something else, that they couldn’t have done this from the beginning.

In the end it comes down to this.  I personally don’t care about the issues with Kaye Berry on any level other than how they could potentially cause harm to the Pagan community and its already often strained image with the greater world community.  The fact that it would later come out as well that Kaye Berry is not herself a Witch or Wiccan but yet was going to lead up a group that was suggested to her by Oberon (in one of his few acts as an adviser to the project) be focused on initiated Wiccans and Witches only, just as the original group in 1973 was, also made things seem sort of odd.

Also, understand this, because this is something that I have been slammed for in all of this.  I am not at all against the vision of an interfaith Pagan organization to help foster positive and productive interactions between Pagans and the greater community.  In fact I have always embraced such endeavors and have been involved in a few myself.  The problem with USACW was how it was handled, how it attempted to get off the ground, and how its leader chose to interact with the very community she was claiming to help.

There is no ego or power trip here on my part, as has been suggested.  I don’t want to head anything like this myself (been there, done that, and I know how hard it is).  And again, I have no personal vendetta against anyone involved in the Council or the Council itself.  I am all for furthering our community with positive and sincere organizations and actions.  This, unfortunately, was not that.  I do think it’s unfortunate to see the whole thing become lost, but that’s just how this has panned out for now.  The project and its vision are certainly worth saving and considering under the right type of leadership.  One day that may happen, but that day is certainly not today and that lead is certainly not Kaye Berry.

For those who expressed a great deal of disappointment and anger over the decision for the Council to end this incarnation, please know there are already a number of organizations in place that attempt to address many of the same things that Kaye claimed this group would handle.  Consider visiting some of these resources and putting your support in whatever way you can behind them and their efforts.

Lady Liberty League
Covenant of the Goddess
The Witches’ Voice (aka WitchVox)
The Earth Religions Legal Assistance Network

Also a look around Facebook will help you find many small grassroots Pagan groups that work to do petitions, advocacy, and letter writing campaigns when needed to address various social and political issues that impact the Pagan community.  If you want to get involved in helping bring change to the community, both Pagan and non-Pagan, and to help with finding avenues toward interfaith dialogue, all you need is yourself, your voice, and the passion you have in your heart and spirit to see it happen.

US American Council of Witches is no longer listed on WitchVox as a 501(c)3 organization.
This has been one of the biggest issues that we have wanted to get some answers to.  Being a Pagan 501(c)3 organization is a bit of a big deal with regard to credibility and legitimacy.  It also says a lot about what happens to money that is donated to the group, whether it’s given freely by individuals, groups, covens, etc, or whether it’s solicited through websites and other promotional means.  Below you’ll see a screen shot of their WitchVox listing from Saturday, November 12, 2011.  (click to see full size)

And here is their listing as of today, November 15, 2011. (click to see full size)

Things to notice…

1. Kaye Berry is no longer the Key Contact listed
2. No longer listed as a 501(c)3 or an incorporated organization
3. The Facebook page is no longer in the listing
4. There is no description for the group and what they’re doing
5. The date of formation has changed from 1974, the year the original Council gathered, to 2011 when this new and separate group came together

Also note in these images that the URL is visible and it is the same URL, so the post was just updated and it’s not a new or different post.

These, to me, are all positive changes!  This shows that someone, whether it’s Kaye Berry or someone else within the organization, is stepping up and getting things in line with the truth and not leading the Pagan community on with false claims!  Bravo, really!

This is the only big visible change so far.  The Temple of the Phoenix page, one of Berry’s URLs, still has the US American Witches Council page up, still with no info and only a Paypal donation button that when clicked still points to another of her businesses, Mother Nature’s Emporium.

They have hidden their notes section with all the Council Member info on their Facebook page.
One step forward two steps back, in my opinion.  This is interesting because previously this was quite the “meat and potatoes” of the page, giving the only insight into who was behind this.  Now all the names have been stricken from the (public) record, so to speak, and there’s no telling who’s involved.  To be fair, I think this is wise.  Clearly they weren’t in a position to share this with the public yet since members are added and removed so quickly and truly it never should have been shared at this point (but then I don’t feel the group should have gone public yet in the first place since it clearly wasn’t ready for prime time, but that’s just me).

They have also changed their Facebook page info multiple times in the last few days.  The latest and most notable change was the removal of the list of supposed sponsors of the organization.    We know of at least one church sponsor, Church of the Living Earth out of Columbus, Ohio who has pulled their support because of the questions and lack of answers surrounding the organization.  I commend Michelle Griffin and her organization for handling their decision with such grace.

But they are still deleting comments.
Yesterday Storm Faerywolf commented on one of their posts, but after about 45 minutes it was deleted with the usual lack of response and attempt to emulate the disaster clean up crew SERVPRO and make it like it never happened.  (click for full size)

Storm is our featured guest tonight on The Modern Witch and we’ll be discussing this with him along with our originally planned topics of discussion, which will include the Feri Tradition and Storm’s work with Blue Lotus Reiki.

When I posted my original post I did receive a response from someone named Sara Evens who was responding for the Council.  I chose not to approve the comment for one simple reason; the comment was the same form cut and paste response that the Council has been posting to blogs and Facebook pages where questions have been raised.

We realize there has been many questions about the Council and different names
appearing. Please realize that we are in a stage of reformation, and are following
an outline that every council member has agreed upon. We ask for your patience and understanding while we work to bring you a complete illustration of what is going on, and what will go on in the future. We are aware of your questions and concerns, and we will address these in due time.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Please send all questions to: usamericancouncilofwitches@yahoo.com

I seriously think these people are missing the boat big time.  There is a desperate need for answers and instead of giving any publicly they are just saying “send us an email”, and from our own experience with the show attempting to ask questions and get one-on-one contact, it’s pretty much a waste of time.  While we understand that they are probably being inundated with questions and emails right now, they also claim to have a team of volunteers helping reply to messages.  It took several weeks for us to get our email answered and it was answered in a very unprofessional manner (using the words “email addy” rather than “email address”, along with other “net lingo” just screams to a lack of professionalism).  They claimed that Kaye Berry, who we were trying to reach, never got our email and that we can just email the Council directly with our questions.  Well, how about you, the Council, who are responding to this email, answer our questions!  No, instead we’re just asked to send another email.  Runaround 101!

So, I never let that blog comment go through because it wasn’t a response and it wasn’t adding to the conversation.  It is a passive aggressive attempt to brush off the questions being posed.  We get it, you’re really good at that.

**FYI…all screen shots below can be clicked to view full size.**

What’s going on now…
Christopher Penczak came and went as a member.
In the last few weeks we’ve had some other contacts and seen some other really interesting things transpire.  The night that I posted my original blog I went back to their Facebook page only to find that Christopher Penczak had suddenly been named as a member of the Council.  As a student of Christopher’s I was really surprised about that knowing how busy he is these days, especially since he had taken a lot of personal time during this year while dealing with the illness and death of his Mother.  But within a week he had withdrawn from the Council.  Devin was able to get in touch with Christopher prior to his stepping down to talk to him and it was clear that Christopher wasn’t prepared to deal with all that was going on and all that they were apparently expecting from him, and so he departed.  The thing that I found interesting, and again extremely unprofessional, was that rather than create a short announcement about his decision to leave, they just cut and pasted his private email to their Facebook page to share with the world (which a few days later they removed).

This was kind of a big deal.  In the Pagan community we tend to look toward the associations that our teachers, leaders, and elders keep and we often feel that if they are supporting someone or something then it’s worth our support and attention as well.  When Christopher was added to their Facebook page it gained some attention because he is considered a well respected leader within the community.  So when he decided that this was something that was just more than he was comfortable taking on, it again left the group with a big hole since now they were down another well known person from the community.

People are asking questions and getting censored.  Especially if you asked about an article they shared from WitchVox about Witch Wars.
This is probably one of the biggest concerns here.  I had first noticed a few weeks ago that one of the other pages, on the American Council of Pagans page, that some comments were being deleted.  Then it started to happen on the US Council page.  Sometimes questions, sometimes comments that seemed to show a lack of certainty about what the group was doing.  And then there would be what would seem like routine cleaning out of the page.  Posts and whole conversations deleted.  At the time I had commented on how that seemed really kind of…inappropriate (read “shady”).  But, in response to the questions, they had said they were in need of a break and that they were asking people to email them and just be patient (and thus began the seemingly never-ending “email us your questions” response).

Then just two days ago, on November 11th, someone from the Council posted a link to an article on WitchVox from 1998 about Witch Wars with the comment “nuff said” (see image below, click to see it full size).

The comment that you see here seems to refers to the fact that there is a comment in the article with the words “nuff said” that refers to self appointed and community appointed leaders who use their self-appointed importance, ego, and power to control elements of the community.  So it was sort of a weird thing to post on a page like that with no explanation.  Devin saw it and commented asking why they posted this (click to see larger).

Then shortly there after both the comments were removed and instead we’re again greeted with the “email your questions to us” comment.  Within a few minutes we realized that Devin was banned from the page.  He saw his comment was deleted and tried to comment again but he wasn’t able to post at all.  I knew he was banned from the page at that point because I still had the ability to comment and I’m not even a “fan” of the page.  Important to note too is that for a while now they have revoked the ability for anyone to post to the group’s wall with new content.

A little while after that Chas Bogan came on and posted as well, asking what the purpose of this post was.

And once again his post was deleted and he was also banned from the page and was no longer able to post.  Then someone else came along and posted a very appropriate comment, again trying to understand why this link was posted.

And not too long after this comment was also removed and at some point within the next handful of hours the whole article was deleted.  As of Sunday evening at 8:11pm EST this was the latest post on the page.

And if you look at the comments with this Phase I/Phase II stuff..again, no answering questions publicly, just send an email.  But at least the comments are still there (for now).

Again, why can’t we just all hear the answers to the questions?  It would certainly help cut back on what seems to be a huge amount of email that they get if everyone that has the same question could just get their answers right there on the page.

But honestly, this is a little more progress that we’ve seen so far!  Now we know a little bit about what supposedly is going to be going on but why not answer that question?  It’s perfectly legit, especially if people are going to email about getting involved. But oh, what do you know!  A little under an hour later, that question is, as all question are, removed.

So I guess we shouldn’t start singing “Kumbaya” just yet.

So, what’s going on that I need to care about then?
The issue of people asking questions and not getting answers and instead being censored is a big deal.  The fact that questions can’t be asked with answers given, in public for all the see, is truly a problem for any community organization.  When an organization decides to go public it needs to be ready to answer the questions of the public.  And when you’re an organization that is trying to represent a segment of the public, you need to address that part of the public first and foremost! Especially when you have a public forum like Facebook as your only web presence! Just deleting people’s questions and saying “send us an email” doesn’t cut it.  It makes it seem like you have something to hide!

And just a note about donations…
One of the things that has been a real sticking point in this whole thing has been the question of funds.  Originally they said that the donation button had been removed until after their break and their “reforming” period.  However there is still a donation button, alive and active, on Kaye Berry’s website (at least as of 1pm EST on November 14th).  When you click on that link and go to the Paypal donation page you can see plain as day you will see that the donation is labeled as for the US American Council of Witches but the name at the top of the page which denotes who the money goes to is Mother Nature’s Emporium, one of Kaye Berry’s many businesses.

Why is that a big deal?  Because if you’re a 501(c)3 organization, or an organization trying to get 501(c)3 status, funds raised and donated to your group must be kept in separate accounts with their own tracking and records.  To do anything else could constitute fraud.  So it has to make you wonder why the organization doesn’t have its own PayPal account with the funds going to its own bank account (which is also must have as a 501(c)3).

This is soooo super important to understand…
Neither Devin nor I are trying to bully anyone.  Someone on my Facebook page essentially equated our inquiries to bullying and and “lynch mob mentality”, basically saying we’re trying to force someone to answer questions before they were ready to.   That is not at all what we are trying to do!!  We are not trying to bully anyone, we are only trying to get some answers while helping to paint a full picture for the community.  So far there are many things about the Council that should be leading folks to ask some questions before throwing full support behind them.  But sometimes we Pagans can be a little too trusting of other Pagans.  When we see an individual or a group working under the banner of Paganism, especially when they are talking about doing work for the betterment of the Pagan community, we often throw out support behind it blindly because naturally we all want to see our community grow and thrive!  However, speaking from personal experience, I can say that sometimes there are things going on behind the scenes, ego’s being stroked and people being scammed, that you don’t see unless you look really closely.  And it behooves us, especially as a minority spiritual community, to do our research before attaching ourselves to groups and causes.

So again, please understand that we are in no way trying to bully anyone, we are in no way launching personal attacks against anyone involved in the Council, and we are in no way trying to prevent people from supporting them or becoming involved.  We believe in the great potential of the things this group could do and the things that they say they would like to achieve.  We would love nothing more to be proven wrong about the things that we have started to think about this group.  Personally I would like to be proven wrong and instead be given solid, valid reasons to support the Council!

We have now said all we’re going to say about this…for now.
Last night Devin and I crafted together an email to Kaye Berry and the Council with a series of the important questions, about both the Council’s formation and it’s handling of funds and donations, as well as who exactly Ms. Berry is since she is relatively unknown to the greater Pagan community.  You can find the email on The Modern Witch blog since we have shared it with the world in order to maintain our own integrity and transparency.   

The email went to Ms. Berry, the Council email address, and all exiting and known Council members.  Ms. Berry replied in minutes with an unprofessional knee-jerk reaction and the followed that up with a reply saying that she would provide an official response once her lawyers took a look at it.  We look forward to hearing from Ms. Berry, her attorneys, and the Council.  Once we have her answers we will be sharing them, unedited, on The Modern Witch blog.  Tomorrow night on The Modern Witch show we have a former state rep for the Council joining us to share her experience, and our regularly scheduled guest, Storm Faerywolf, will also be weighing in on the subject.

After that we leave it in the hands for Kaye Berry and the Council to step up and address the questions and concerns of the Pagan community.  If they don’t respond you really have to wonder why.  We’ll also leave it up to all of you to do your own looking at that point unless something else really big happens or we’re contacted again by anyone with major information.  Like I said we’re not trying to convince people not to get involved or not to support them but rather to be fully aware of what it is that you’re getting behind.  It’s your choice to see or turn a blind eye.

First, a little history…
If you’re unfamiliar with the American Council of Witches from the 1970′s, don’t beat yourself up about it.  A lot of people have no clue who or what they were but many people are familiar with “The 13 Principles of Wiccan Belief” that this group put together in 1974.  It’s been published in various books over the years, spread around the internet, and even used as educational material both in and outside of the Pagan community.  I first discovered it sometime in the mid-1990′s when I first read Silver Ravenwolf’s “To Ride A Silver Broomstick”.  On page 5, in a section titled “What Witches Are Made Of” she presents the brief history of the group and then reprints the Principles stressing “Take time to read it, word for word.  Don’t scan it.  Each year you should reaffirm these beliefs in some way…”  The Principles are helpful, and the original intentions behind their creation was to help educate and inform the public.  Later on, because of the efforts of Council head Carl Llewellyn Weschcke, president of Llewellyn Publishing, the Principles were incorporated into the Army Chaplin Handbook.  The group ultimately disbanded in the same year for many of the reasons that you would image a group of 73 Pagans might have trouble with in a group like this; it was hard to reconcile the ideas and beliefs of so many different traditions into a single, cohesive group.

Enter the US American Council of Witches
Then earlier this month the word started to spread around the internet that the group was reforming, so to speak.  Jason Pitzl-Waters posted a brief interview on his blog, The Wild Hunt, on October 12th with Pagan author and musician Kenny Klein who was, according to the now changed Facebook page that the group has, was supposedly acting in the role of PR Rep.  In the article Klein talks about how some of the goals of the group included revising the Army Chaplin’s Handbook and redrafting the original set of Principles.

The big sticking point here was how and why the group was apparently coming back together.  Klein, and the groups (again, now changed) Facebook page stated that the group was forming at the request of the US Army in order to do this re-write of the Pagan elements of the Chaplin’s Hanbook.  Klein stated that the group was coming together at the Army’s request, possibly from a request made directly to Pagan elder Oberon Zell, who are part of the original Council.  Somehow this then went to a woman by the name of Kaye Berry, a psychic from Illinois (who seems to like going by the name Mz. Kaye or Rev. Kaye, depending on the circumstances you’re talking to her in), who was acting as the spearhead of this new group which was going by the name of US American Council of Witches.  Their Facebook page prominently featured a PayPal donation button, asking the community for financial help in order to get things off the ground, and sending out requests to various people in the Pagan community asking for people to become part of the Council.  A list of names, bios, and faces began to accumulate on their page, featuring everyone from “Mz” Berry herself, Oberon Zell, and Kenny Klein to lesser known individuals who were joining up…to the Witch from “Wife Swap”.

The Council was also starting to sound like a general interfaith council at one point from some of the descriptions.  It would be open to Pagans, Wiccans, Witches, non-Witches, polytheists, and the like.  The “more the merrier” mentality was starting to signal some possible concerns among some people in the community.  Their Facebook page also featured laundry list of spiritual and religious traditions that it wanted to help represent.  Thelemites, Cabot Witches, Nocturnal Witches, Eclectics, Druids, Neo-Pagans, Neo-Wiccans, and just about everything in between.  This is then followed by a list of all US states with a set of two numbers next to them saying that they have “sent notices to these groups in these states.”

But what is really going on?
Everyone was so excited about the thought of a big, happy group of Pagans getting along that people began donating money and spreading their press release to promote the group, all the while not realizing that there were a lot of big questions that needed to be answered.

1. Who is Kaye Berry and why is this woman the person who is heading this group and its efforts?
2. How are the other “Council members” being chosen?  Who’s picking them?
3. Why is there a need for donations at the onset?  What is the money needed for?
4. If people are going to be giving donations, is this group a 501(c)3?  Or is this “for profit”?
5. What groups and individuals are being contacted in the different states and what is this that they are being contacted with?
6. Exactly WHO is this group claiming to represent and in what capacity?

Part of the mission statement for the groups states, on their Facebook page:

“The goals set forth will include: a set of common Traditional Principles, a revision of the Army’s Manual, a document for law enforcement, the various Government Bodies and a possible revision of The Thirteen Principles of Belief.”

But it was now coming out that the military never made a request for a revision (Berry would admit this herself after the other version of the story was spreading around) and the idea of a “set of common Traditional Principles” was making people of various traditions express some concern and worry.  Things that may be high on the list of “Traditional Principles” for a group of Santeria practitioners may not be the same as those of a group of Cabot Witches, or Eclectics, or Neo-Wiccans, etc.  So how would this happen in a way that wouldn’t result in an epic collapse of the group?

So we wanted to get some more info from the source…
Devin and I were both finding out some really interesting things about what was happening behind the scenes and we wanted to try and get some answers.   So Devin sent Kaye Berry and email asking her if she would come on to the show on Tuesday to just answer some of these basic questions.  We never heard back from her.

But in between sending that email and the show there were more interesting developments.  Now the US American Council of Witches was dividing up into three separate groups, but all seemingly with the same mission statements and intentions of being resources for information and education to the communities, states, and government with regard to Paganism.  Now there was the US American Council of Witches, the American Council of Pagans, and the American Council of Natural Earth Religions. Both the American Council of Pagans and American Council of Natural Earth Religions have the following as their (I’m guessing temporary) mission statement:

“We shall gather together in interfaith dialog, to draft a set of Common Principles, Mission Statement, Purpose, Compiling an interfaith manual to be used by government officials, state officials, county officials, including the police and chaplain’s involved with prisons and jail systems.”

The Wild Hunt would run a news brief follow up to the original interview with Kenny Klein that was simply a statement from the US American Council of Witches that read:

“I wish to clarify one point. We were never notified by the US Army to revise their manual. We have been contacted from several Federal and State’s to create a manual/guide for them to utilize when dealing with a person who falls under the: Pagan/Wicca ~ Natural Earth Religions. We shall use the Army’s Manual as a guide only. A copy of which will be distributed to ALL Services(Navy, Marines etc…, ALL Federal Government offices, Every State Government office, ALL Federal prison’s, ALL State’s prisons, ALL County’s Jails(in each state), ALL Chaplains in ALL the Hospitals in all states…….. So we are looking at around probably 10,000 books/manuals/guides. We are probably underestimating ourselves. A complete listing will be on our web page when it is operational.”

But again, exactly WHO is contacting WHO and asking for this information; and exactly WHAT information needs to be addressed?

Shortly after this the Facebook page changed.  All names and bios were removed, the three groups were now out there for people to check out, and the group was suddenly “taking a break” in order to answer all the emails it was apparently buried under.  They even put out the request for volunteers to help answer their email (!!!) and, naturally, they got some help and as of October 25th they claim to be “all caught up”.

And then, in what seemed like damage control, things changed…
I did a little reading around the original group’s Facebook page (since this is all they have, there is no website as of yet), looking for some more info.  The PayPal button doesn’t seem to be anywhere anymore, however on October 18th a comment to the status update stating there was a donation button said:

“This money that you donate will be for expenses, web site, stamps, envelopes, printing material. You have the right to know where your money goes. Right now we have a sponsor that will match donations dollar for dollar. This offer will expire Nov 1st.” October 18 at 2:33pm

All the bios and info about the members were removed from the main page but you can still find them in the Notes section for the group.  The only person that seems to have been given an “official title” is Kenny Klein who is listed as Public Relations.

Also on October 18th was a status update stating that a “new press release” was in the works.

So what was, or more to the point, is, my beef…
Again, it’s wanting more transparency, more answers, more clarity, especially from a group that from what seemed like inception was shamelessly asking the community for cash donations to help its cause.

In a lot of ways this is already appearing to be a PR nightmare from the start.  There was a rush to get support before having things organized, it’s barely even walking and it’s already divided into three different groups (with one person commenting on the American Council of Pagans page that being “more pagan than wiccan, I like this council” which, to me, only illustrates more of a point of how nuts this might get).

I’m also wicked curious to know about their 501(c)3 status that they claim to have on their WitchVox listing.  As someone who was involved with a Wiccan church that went through the process of getting that status, I can tell you it is NOT easy and takes MONTHS, at best, in order to satisfy the requirements and to get this status.  So I find it hard to believe that this group formed and got their non-profit religious status in a matter of weeks.  The splitting up of the group alone would be enough to put that status (legally) into question.

Don’t wait for some big “Council of 13″, be an advocate yourself!
Like I said last night, and I say it again here, I think that people coming together to create small, local groups in their own states that can help be contacts to local and state police and governments are FAR more necessary and needed than large posturing groups of people who have a very nameless, faceless appearance and who’s inability to get on the same page is just illustrating the point that getting a bunch of Pagans together really IS like herding cats.  Many states already have advocacy organizations in place.  Do a search online or on WitchVox, contact any groups in your local area, and see if there is something in place that you might not be aware of and see how you can help and get involved!  I honestly believe that these kinds of organizations are going to be far more viable in the end.  A small group of people trying to help out their local communities or states will stand much more of a fighting chance of making strides toward understanding.

I watched the video as much as I could; it kept cutting out toward the end and frankly I got the point…blah blah blah…you’re being a new age twit…blah blah blah…you don’t know what you’re talking about…blah.  This is one of the things that makes Twitter so fun sometimes.  This person admits to knowing nothing about me and if he did we probably wouldn’t be here.  I don’t have the time to make a video reply, I barely have time to be writing this, but nether Twitter or a comment on YouTube will get my thoughts across (you know how wordy I can get) so here we are.

Ok, so my post:

If you want love & acceptance from the people around you, you must have love & acceptance for them. Real love and compassion goes both ways.

Alright, now, I think we can all agree that the example that even our video poster admits is extreme is really kind of ridiculous.  If you’ve read my views on hexing and cursing or my thoughts on black magick, you know I’m 150% in favor of defending yourself at all costs and with whatever tools you have at your disposal.  You have to take care of you first and foremost in any situation.

But the issue of love and compassion, having love for those who you want to love you back, is a very complicated thing and it’s not something that ever could be fully expressed in 140 characters on Twitter, and I think most people with their heads on straight get that.  So let’s talk about this.

What about people who are miserable pricks?  Well, as I always say, some people just can’t be changed.  In fact last night on Facebook one of the evening posts that I put up said…

When someone hurts you remember that you can’t force other people to change. The only person that has true control about how the events make you feel is you. Choose how you need to deal with the situation. You may need to change your boundaries and how the relationship functions or it could be that you need to end it altogether. In the end you have to consciously decide how you’ll respond. Their change is on them.

And 122 people seemed to “like” that idea.  And it’s true.  You can’t change everyone, no matter how much you love them, how much you forgive them, and how much you do to get them to like you.  Some people are just miserable, unhappy, negative people that the more you try and show them love the most miserable they become and eventually the more that makes you bitter and angry.  The worst part is that in the process of trying so hard to get these people to love us, as we get upset about their rejection, we end up not expressing how unhappy we are because we’re trying to hard to be positive that we essentially poison ourselves.

Here’s the point of what today’s Twitter post was trying to say…

Love and accept people for who they are and they will love and accept you back. When you come from a place of love and compassion with other people generally this is how they treat you back.  Part of the issue for some people is they don’t really know what it means to be truly loving and accepting so they don’t see this sort of return from others.  And yes, there are going to be miserable assholes in your life that you’re going to be far better off just walking away from than trying to break your back bending over backwards for to try and make them happy.

It’s all about balance and remembering what you send out is what you get back…send out love, get love.  Yup, I can hear some people saying “That’s not true!!!”  Yeah, not all the time because you can’t force people to accept YOUR love for them because some people just don’t want it!  The point is to try…it’s better to live in a positive way, giving love to those around you, then to sit around being miserable wanting everyone that doesn’t like or doesn’t agree with you to die in a hole or wishing for them to have a shitty life.  That energy invades you too!

Am I being all “new agey fluffy bunny” with my tweet.  NO!  Just sharing a positive thought that, for many people, can be a point of inspiring change in their lives.  It’s not an “affirmation of nonsense” if you know how to really work with it and what you’re doing.  Shit, it’s not actually an affirmation…lol.  It’s just a statement and reminder that you get what you give.

So take it or leave it, your mileage will naturally vary because everyone’s life experience is different.  Yes, I have had my share of negative people to deal with in my 36 years and I have found that either most times you need to just expunge them from your live and move on unless you want their crappy live to invade yours.  But better to send them off wishing for them to get better and get over themselves than to hope they get hit by a truck crossing the street to get coffee.

Seriously.

**Update**
I had a really interesting day, some amazing public and private feedback from all this, all reaffirming my thoughts and feelings about how silly that video and it’s presenter are.  Then today I was watching a movie with my husband, one I’m sure some people will be surprised I’ve never seen before, “As Good As It Gets”.  And this quote just again reminded me of this whole thing and felt like an affirmation…

Some have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that’s their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you’re that pissed that so many others had it good.

And there you go…you learn to move past the “toxic” people, bless them, and be on your way…otherwise you’re giving them the opportunity to live rent free inside your head forever.

Here’s the deal.  I live in an apartment in a part of town that is known as being a laid back party town.  It’s a surf town on the beach but it’s also a place that is known for it’s droves of homeless people, drug addicts, and stoned randoms.  I’ve walked to get coffee in the mornings a few blocks away and had to dodge piles of puke, someone took a shit in our walkway to the parking lot last summer, and at night if you go walking anywhere you tend to run into tweakers looking for money.  It’s ridiculous.  I will say that I didn’t ever have this impression of this place before I actually lived here.  I had been on the hunt for a place specifically in this town for a few years and was so excited to move here; no I am literally counting down the days until I leave (88 as of today).

In the apartment building where I live there are 8 apartments.  My husband and I live in the downstairs apartment that is part of the common area, for lack of a better term.  There is a patio area right where our living room window is.  It’s a really small area so when you have people out there it’s almost like they’re in my living room.  I hear your conversations, I smell your dinner you’re eating.  It’s that close.

A few weeks ago one of the guys upstairs, we’ll call him Old Curly (I could think of a number of less favorable names for him but we’ll go with the fact that he’s 46 and has really curly blond hair), brought over a new set of patio furniture to the apartment.  He just got divorced from his wife and apparently needed to take some of the stuff out of the house and for a few weeks before this random piles of crap that you would find in someone’s garage or basement were piling up in our small patio area and laundry room.  Then this table arrives and he takes the 1984 pastel pink and sea foam green set that was there, takes it out to the dumpster, and puts his out there instead.  Then a patio fire pit shows up.  And that’s when all hell broke loose.

Old Curly has a new roommate, Scumbag.  Scumbag, or SB for short, is apparently an out of work investment banker who had to borrow money from his mother to stay out here this month because he spent all his money and couldn’t afford his rent. I overheard him saying someone to someone outside my window one night about how he spent his last money on weed and a hooker.  Classy.  I’ve never seen this guy with a shirt on and all I ever see him doing is sitting up on the steps to his apartment smoking cigarettes and hocking loogies.  He’s gross.

They play music at ridiculous volumes until all hours of the night too.  One of the people in the building,  we’ll call him Sad Sack because that’s just the only way to describe him, will start blasting music when he sees people starting to gather outside as a way to sort of invite himself into their little shindig.  The thing that sucks is he has the most horrific taste in music and plays the same damn thing over and over…Alice In Chains Greatest Hits.  I would have sworn it was the only album he owned until he actually played something different the other night…Dookie by Green Day.  *faceplam*

Old Curly apparently works from home but I never see this guy working because he’s either outside at the table smoking weed with random people that come to see him, or he’s at the beach down the street.  Now SB sits out there too during the day because he’s certainly got nothing to do. Then suddenly these girls started showing up from who knows where and they started having these all day parties outside that would start just before noon and go well into the night.  And they have this fire pit that just isn’t designed for such small spaces so everyone’s apartments end up smelling like smoke because of it.

They also all like bringing their bongs out to the table and getting high outside there which in turn makes my apartment smell like weed.  Now, I’m not opposed to marijuana, but I don’t partake of it.  But in this town that’s a big thing when you don’t.  In fact Old Curly actually once asked me if we were narcs because he never saw us partying or getting high.  For fuck sake, really!?!

The patio has been constantly covered in garbage, beer bottles, boxes from beer, and cigarette butts for the last couple of weeks.  Then I notice something last weekend that had me enraged.

I have a large planter outside my apartment, below my window, pushed over against the stairs so it’s out of everyone’s way.  I used to have a small pine tree planted in it but the tree died so I just pushed the planter aside rather than take it in the house since it had nowhere to go.  I figured since it wasn’t in the way and it was actually next to the “plants” that we have planted here already it was almost fitting.  And it’s been there for easily six months.  Well, since SB moved in it’s become an ashtray and rubbish bin.

SB sits at the top of the stairs, smokes his cigarettes, and then tries to toss the butts into the planter form the top of the stairs.  I heard him say to someone out there “Usually I’m pretty good….I get them in like 90% of the time.”  And sure enough, the whole thing is full, at least an inch thick, with cigarette butts and random crap.  WTF!?!?!  Did you really think this was your personal bin!!

So today I had to run out to the post office and I decided I’d had enough of all these douchebags in this building who are just rude and inconsiderate and I dumped all the stuff out of the planter right where it was and took it inside.

Old Curly is coming down his stairs and says to Aging Skater Punk that lives upstairs “Dude, did you see where that pot went?  It was here earlier…”  He then starts saying something about how he’s going to ask his roommate (SB) about it and see if he knows anything and I yell out of my window “IT WAS MINE!”  Old Curly says “Oh…that was yours? Thanks for getting it out of here, but you could have emptied it in the dumpster.”  Then he got on his bike (which is parked right in front of my window) and he says something about “an attractive nuisance” and he peddles off.  I wanted to say “HEY!  Who told your scummy friends to use it as an ashtray?  Does it look like an ashtray?  No!  You’re shit’s been all over this place for weeks and as soon as someone asked you to move it you flipped out, so just clean up the mess you, your dirt bag roommate, and your loser friends keep making and shut the hell up!”

Instead I said nothing and just ignored him.

Could I do something to make these people shut up?  Sure.  Could I do something to maybe try and get them all to move away?  Yeah…I could.  But what’s the use?!  I’m moving in three months (88 days…did I mention that?) and I’d rather just focus on my own state of calm and my needs to get out of here.  There are so many people involved in the situation and most who I couldn’t identify in a line up if my life depended on it, so I don’t even know who to focus on!  Although it is crossing my mind to do something…like go out there when everyone is asleep (you know, 9am on a weekday) and wash everything down with Chinese Wash and then sprinkle Hot Foot powder around their front doors.

I mean, use the common area, go for it!  But be considerate and then clean up after yourselves when you’re done!  I don’t do that sort of stuff anymore because I burned myself out on all that partying when I was in my 20s…because that’s when you’re supposed to do things like sit outside drinking all day and being a bum…IN YOUR 20s!!  Not in your 40s and 50s!!!  Grow up people!

Well, this pretty much sums it up…(crappy quality but it’s what I had to work with at the time)

But if nothing else it feels good to vent about it.