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From: L.a. Hussey
To: J_Random Folksinger Msg #101, 25-Jun-88 00:13
Subject: The Laws
I am disturbed and disappointed. "The Christians are our enemies." "They
will torture you to make you talk about the Craft." "Lie about the Craft."
"Covens splitting up makes for bad feelings."
What depressing garbage. This is the 20th century, and this is America, this
is not Inquisition days. The more we keep secret, the more the ignorant will
assume that we have horrible secrets to keep. The true secrets of the Gods
cannot be given away, because they cannot be spoken -- they are beyond all
language. And as for bad feelings when covens break up, maybe that is how it
is where you are, but around here, there is rejoicing when one coven becomes
two. Seems to me like my best possible response to your "Laws" is the
following song:
BURNING TIMES
The songs are sung to rouse our anger of martyred Witches gone to the fires,
But what is served by righteous singing, if all we do is stew in our ire?
Nine million dead in four hundred years;
More in that time simply died of disease.
Why do we dwell on long past dead
When we are alive in times like these?
(cho)
Rise up, Witches, throw off your masks
And cease crying guilt for ancient crimes.
Earth and all Her children need us
For ALL face now the Burning Times.
In the face of that hostile power, how did the old knowledge stay alive?
How have we still a Craft to practise? Our ancestors knew how to fight and
survive!
How do we honour our blessed dead?
Slavery threatens us all but few.
We must teach their cunning ways --
EVERYONE needs the skills they knew!
(cho2)
Rise up, Witches, gather your strength,
And let your power spread and climb;
Earth and all Her children need us
For ALL face now the Burning Times.
I will not cast off Science's works -- Witches all forces to Will can bend;
I'll not accuse for war and waste some patriarchy of faceless men.
Men do not cast the only votes;
Women alone do not demonstrate.
Rather than shut out half the race,
Who if not we will change that state?
(cho2)
I will not blame a Father's Church -- blame and guilt are their tools, not
mine,
And even in the shuls and churches, allies there will I seek, and find!
I will not answer hate with fear,
Nor with a smug, cheek-turning love.
I will not answer hate with rage;
By strength alone will I not be moved!
(cho2)
(cont'd next msg)
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* Origin: ThelemaNet - Hail Eris! * (415) 548-0163 (Opus 1:161/93)
- ** Part of a conversation.
From: L.a. Hussey
To: J_Random Folksinger Msg #102, 25-Jun-88 00:36
Subject: Burning Times, cont'd
I will not hide in my sacred grove -- the fact'ries and cities yet ring me
about;
I will not climb my ivory tower -- the real world exists tho' I shut it out.
I will not work for Church nor State
Who serve themselves while they serve us lies,
Nor only for my Witchen kin,
But for the family of all alive!
(cho2)
So if rebellion means to fight a State lost sight of why it was built,
If heresy's to reject a Church that rules with force or fear or guilt,
Then let us all be rebels proud,
And shameless heretics by creed --
A tyrant's hand subjects the Earth,
More heretic rebels are what She needs!
(cho2)
(copyright 1988, Leigh Ann Hussey)
Did it ever occur to the writers of your antique laws that the Craft might
actually be WELCOMED by a great number of people? That there might actually
be more of us than of those who wish us ill? That the only reason those who
fear us are so active nowadays is because they see us becoming more and more
welcomed by more people? As I say in another song, "When folk in sorrow turn
away/ From paths that lead to misery/ And seek new ways for wholeness' sake/
Then waiting, ready shall we be."
All I can say is, I'm Goddess-glad I'm not in your tradition.
B*B
Leigh Ann
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* Origin: ThelemaNet - Hail Eris! * (415) 548-0163 (Opus 1:161/93)
From: L.a. Hussey
To: All Msg #103, 25-Jun-88 00:38
Subject: The Darkness
As Pat suggested, I'm posting this here from the Magick subsection...
From: L.a. Hussey Rec'd
To: Peri Andren Msg #109, 07-Jun-88 14:33
Subject: Re: How do you KNOW ?
No, Hugh is right. Modern Wicca is indeed a life-affirming religion, and
life-sacrifice of any kind is looked on as repugnant. But it is
unquestionable that old paganism did involve sacrifices of both animals and
humans.
And completely aside from that, the Goddess is not just the nurturing Mother.
She is the Black Sow who devours her own young, she is the scouring wind that
whips away all decay, She is the refiner's fire (to snatch a phrase from the
Bible). The Craft ain't all sweetness and light, because life itself is not.
Life lives off of death, as the ancients knew, and that's why She is Demeter
Enraged, and Erishkegal, and Kali. She is the Crone who has heard every plea
and throws you in the Cauldron anyway.
We work with symbols and images and archetypes, and these come from the human
subconscious -- wherein, if we're healthy, dwell all manner of dark and
uncontrollable forces. The difference between the yogi and the schizophrenic
is the difference between a swimmer and a drowning person. We all have our
dark side; the way to sanity is to accept that power and channel it into
constructive uses, rather than to deny it and close it off entirely. Shut out
the dark, and you may find it imploding on you, sucking you, helpless, into
it. Indeed, we are not an ascetic religion, and that means that the
unconscious, the body, the irrational, sensuality, and all the accompanying
things which Christianity embodied in their Devil, are for us an important
part of ourselves, to be integrated with and not cut off from the rational
mind, the intellect, and so forth. At one time, Apollo and Dionysos (or if
you prefer the Celtic pantheon, Lugh and Cernunnos) were one God. The
darkness is there, and it is welcoming, not forbidding. We need no longer
make human sacrifice, but we also need not sacrifice our humanity.
B*B
Leigh Ann
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* Origin: ThelemaNet - Hail Eris! * (415) 548-0163 (Opus 1:161/93)