Wiccan Whirlpool

Check THIS one out! This is what I get for spending several hours interpreting dreams on yahoo answers yesterday, watching Resident Evil, stressing about an exam tomorrow, and taking NyQuil before bed last night.

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I have yet another article available for your perusal at The Witches’ Voice:

Young Masters

Well, here’s your chance. If you’d like to get my advice on Wicca, receive Wiccan pastoral counseling, get an intuitive reading for a situation you’re having, or have me interpret one of your dreams, there’s now a way to do that. I just opened a virtual office with Kasamba. You can find me in the “Dream Interpretation” and “Occult>Wicca” sections, or just click on the link below to get to my profile.  Hey, everybody has to pay the bills somehow…

Holy crap!

Two stories at CNN today make me cringe–one about a US Rep being vocally anti-gay, the other about a KKK shop owner.  WHEN do we live?  Why is hate such a central issue for so many people?  Why do people who claim to be against hate then throw hate back at the haters?  I mean, remember that scary death planet of evil from “The Fifth Element?”  What happened when they shot at it?  It got bigger.  “Evil begets evil,” said Sir Ian Holm’s character.

Kudos to the community of the Representative for countering her vitriol with calm and cool.  Kudos to the black minister who owns the building where the KKK shop is located.

By the way, if you’re a redneck, check out the picture on the KKK shop owner article.  Since when is being a redneck dependent upon being a bigot?  I know good ole boys who don’t hate anybody…y’all should stand up for the redneck name as a badge of honor and let those who would kill the beer buzz with hate speech know that it won’t be tolerated anymore!  Seriously, stop letting your idiots try to define you as a group.  The rest of us have to struggle with our own idiots all the time.

In UEW we talk about Karma as an equal and opposite reaction of the universe to whatever push you give it.  In that sense, it isn’t opposite the way people usually think of opposites.  When you push a little, you get pushed back a little.  If you shove hard, you get shoved hard.  It isn’t push a little then get shoved back hard.  That’s opposite but isn’t equal.

Love and hate aren’t really equal and opposite forces.  Hate is finite, and love isn’t.  When love and hate meet, hate is diminished and love isn’t.  Hate breeds hate, just as love breeds love.  However, if love meets hate in a battle, love can eliminate hate without growing smaller at its core.  Hate cannot meet with love and grow bigger, even if it seems to “win” for a small time.  Love GROWS in a struggle, and hate just gets tired.  Love can be angry; hate only gets mad.
In case you’re curious, it is my nsho that the opposite of love is indifference.  Hate is a passion that, like all passions, will burn itself out with time and/or enough fuel.  Indifference is cold and unfeeling.  It’s apathy that leaves you alone when “they” finally come for you.  Don’t be indifferent.  Just by paying attention, you’re coming down on the “love” side of the equation.

About a year and a half ago a man joined my coven.  He told me he was looking for “family.”  He immediately wanted me to accept him as a member of our First Circle, or first degree, based on work he’d already done elsewhere.  Ok, I thought.  He met with us, he likes, us, he wants to feel like he’s a part of the tradition.  I looked over his stuff, and while not nearly what we’d expect from an online student in the tradition, it was acceptable for what I’d consider to be First Circle work, so I granted him a certificate.  ON HIS OWN, he decided to sign and have notarized our tradition’s Oath of Practice.

A few months later, the requests for granting a second degree started.  I was a little torn.  Yes, there’s precedent for grandfathering someone into 2C, but I was wondering what was up.  So I gave him the password and username for our lessons and told him to go through his work and pull out examples he felt met the assignment criteria of the lessons and get it to me for evaluation.  That was too much work.   How about if he brings me all of his work, and I go through it.  Ok, I thought.  Maybe he doesn’t understand how to use the website, got locked out, and is too embarrassed to tell me.  Maybe he isn’t sure he understands the criteria.  I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, and look all of this stuff over again.

Yep, it’s more advanced work than what I took for 1C, but it isn’t NEARLY what we expect of our 2C people.  Second Circle is clergy training, and we take our clergy training damn seriously.  He didn’t like that.  I told him that if he did all of the reading required AND completed the clergy association examination I’d be willing to look that over instead, but offered no guarantee.  Months after this, no complete examination, he willfully breaks his Oath of Practice, and he leaves my coven and bad-mouths me and my tradition to a large group of people in an essentially public online forum.

Did I let him have it loud and long over breaking his Oath?  Yep.  In private, over the phone.  He had called *me,* as he often did.  Started complaining about Christians again…which is what sparked the conversation.  Suddenly, my tradition has all of these restrictive rules and we’re telling him how to think, and that’s just WRONG.  Then no, I was right, it was just his pain medication talking–at which point I nearly lost my mind.  After growing up with an alcoholic, I have NO patience whatsoever for someone trying to ditch PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY over a substance.  I told him that was BS, and laid out exactly how I felt.  Disappointed, hurt, angry, used, and betrayed.  My faith had been belittled, as had my intelligence.  What exactly, after all this, had he actually wanted from me, my coven, and my tradition?  Some title or degree?  No answer for that one.  He didn’t seem to handle someone telling him something straight out very well.  The next day he left my coven, even though I told him he didn’t have to–he simply had to decide if he was actually a member of the tradition and willing to uphold his Oath, or not.  Rather than face a group of people with whom he had worked to integrate himself for over a year and tell them he took that Oath under false pretenses he FLED.  He called AGAIN the next day to explain that this was probably for the best for everyone, and how much he wanted to keep my friendship, and not let all this business get in the way of that.  He liked having my kids call him “uncle”…Not long after, he attached himself to this self-styled Elder on another list of mine, and ditched that connection, too.  Their bonding moment?  When I called *this* guy on his thick B, and refused to back down when he tried to make me look irrational just for asking questions about his presented-as-fact “opinion.”  Dear gods, ask for PROOF of a statement?  How dare I???  Here was someone else who doesn’t like Christians or Christianity and sees all of monotheism as “The Enemy.”

Now he’s kissing his butt by bad-mouthing me and my tradition.  Yep.  We have “absurd” requirements for advancement for someone who thinks that a ULC ordination is the pinnacle of achievement.  We are PROUD of that fact.  He let *me* save face by leaving instead of me throwing him out?  For shame.  Now he’s an oath-breaker AND a liar.

This is someone who tried very hard to get everywhere in my tradition without any work.  This is someone who came to ME asking to be included.  This is someone who called ME for advice, and for an ear when he needed to talk.  This is someone who gave me and my family GIFTS, to the extent that it made me uncomfortable–and I told him so.  This is someone who pushed to have the coven incorporated, and donated a sizable sum toward that end (which is being returned).

And all of our horrible rules?  Try this out: We insist UP FRONT that if you’re going to join our tradition, you must accept a statement called The Affirmation of Acknowledgment, that says you AGREE that a person cannot hold an entire faith responsible for the actions of one, and a person cannot hold an individual responsible for the act(s) of a religion.  That, and you have to acknowledge that the other faiths on the planet have a right to exist, and that other people have the right to have those faiths, just as you have yours.  And last of all, that YOU MAY NOT BE RIGHT about everything.

Wow, how restrictive is that?  If you agree, you can join.  If you don’t agree you aren’t welcome here.  If you SAY you agree just to get in, but it turns out you didn’t *really* agree, you can’t tell US that we are wrong for telling you to put up or shut up.

This is someone nearly twice my age who has the spiritual maturity of someone less than half of it.  GRRRR.

Shut the hell up, you.  Tuck in that tail, and keep on running.  Your book is in the mail with your money.  Don’t call, and don’t come around.  I don’t have time for back-stabbing, oath-breaking liars.

Yeah yeah, I know.  But gimme a break, alright?  I’m married and have two kids 5 & 3, I run a small business creating artisan jewelry, I’m 1/3 in charge of a Wiccan tradition, the priestess of a coven, a NODA volunteer, AND a part-time college student.  Sometimes I need to put stuff down for a while!

After a Major Depression this fall that knocked me out of half of the semester I had a medication change, withdrew from one class, and still managed to pull two B’s and an A.  I was a little leery of trying to go full time again, so I’m only taking two classes this semester, which seems to be working out ok.

My coven just passed its two-year anniversary–yay for us!  That’s one of those “forever and no time at all” things like my marriage, which means it’s going great.  The second set of students is about ready to graduate, and several new people are interested in the group.  We’re gaining about 4 stable members a year it looks like, which is a growth rate that makes me very happy.

I successfully petitioned to have my works completed accepted as a Third Circle project, and am now a full-fledged member of the Third Circle of UEW.  My goal is to have my original project completed by May so other people can actually start using it.  My SSC co-priestess might be interested in helping me teach, or at least observing me teach, the next batch of students, and I’d like to have the lesson plans and everything available so she can follow along.  One of UEWs Australian practitioners is considering teaching, and she has previous experience teaching Gardnerian Wicca, so I’m also interested in having her critique, comment, etc what I’ve put together.

The last couple of weeks I’ve gone on a couple of NODA calls, and every other night or so I still have a real bonzer of a dream.  Maybe I’ll get to writing about some of that in a bit, and maybe I won’t.

It’s really weird.  Yesterday I kind of had this epiphany, which is only akin to the one I had about why I had so much trouble functioning outside of an abusive situation.  It’s like the second half of the equation of my life, and another huge, obvious insight into my own psyche.  Another reason to have good therapists in the world, and another shame I never found one.

Never in my life have I had a truly long-term goal.  I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.  For most people this isn’t a massively huge issue.  They pick something and just do it, or it’s picked for them and they just do it.  But me?  Nope.  I tried that.  I even tried a second time and found something I really liked and that I was good at.  Of course, I had to quit trying to achieve that goal because of circumstances beyond my complete control.  I could have tried harder, but I don’t think teaching ever called to my soul.  Going to school that time was another escape from an intolerable present in a long series of escapes and rest periods.  First was home.  Moving out of my parents’ house was my first escape.  When I got out I was in turmoil and could barely function.  Along came a first marriage: my second escape.  My job became intolerable, so I went back to school.  The marriage became intolerable, so I got a divorce.  Trail of disaster behind me?  Give up and move away.

I completely lucked into my present marriage.  Happy to be alone and free, I stumbled into a man who makes a wonderful life-partner.  I found a job I could stand.  But when I couldn’t stand it anymore I went and found another job.  Being childless became intolerable, so we remedied that.  Then the job started to get tiresome and I thought about going back to school again…but that didn’t work out.  Hubby went back to school and I felt I was left holding the bag.  Job went from tiresome to intolerable so again, I found another.  Add another baby, husband struggling with school and working nights, leaving me to raise two kids…I managed for three years, then I blew up.  I knew I wanted to go back to school and besides, work was pretty much–you guessed it–intolerable.  Hubby quit school, I found another new job (oh how well *that* worked out!), and started school part-time.

I changed my major AGAIN.  For the record, I started as an anthropology major.  Then I was a biology major, then undecided, then the second trip I was a science ed major with concentrations in life science and earth-space science.  I almost changed to a geology major, but thought I should come out with a degree that would get me a tolerable job.  After several years and my work as a minister and my volunteer service in the hospital I realized that teaching was something I really enjoy, but I didn’t feel like it was my life work.  If I had my “d’ruthers” I’d be a full-time minister.  Wiccan ministers don’t *get* paid, no matter how qualified.  So what, oh what, would be the closest profession to full-time ministry without being a full-time, paid minister?  A counselor.  So now I’m a psychology major.  But I’ve spent the last few weeks completely stressed in spite of this decision.  I have to start applying to graduate school very soon, but where to apply, and what for?  Exactly what specialty to I want to pursue?  Again with the school system, and environment with which I am very familiar.  The university I attend offers a Master of Education in School Counseling that also offers certification and licensure as a therapist.  Cool.

So why don’t I feel like I’ve found the “way?”  It’s acceptable but it isn’t screaming to me.  I started looking into PhD programs, figuring if I had to go three or four years part-time at night to get a masters and I could get a PhD in 5 years during the day , why not do it?  But I wasn’t sure about being a school psychologist because I want to actively help people through therapy, not just test troubled kids and coordinate IEPs.  And can I even get into a selective PhD program at this point?  So back to the idea of a Masters, but to be a glorified class scheduler or a therapist without the option of being a glorified class scheduler?  I mean, the benefits of working in a public school system are obvious.  Summers off, long winter vacation, no or few weekends and nights, and retirement benefits.  But it’s rote.  In a way, you always know what’s coming, and I seem to have about a 3-year threshold for the predictable.  So I’m in search mode.  Internet searching, soul searching…

Yesterday was different.
If you’re reading this you probably already know about my volunteer work with dying people.  Yesterday I read a NYTimes article about morphine use and palliative care in India and other parts of the world.  It got me thinking about applications for psychology in palliative care.  I found that they *are* using psychologists as part of interdisciplinary palliative care teams.  The VA has a post-doc fellowship, the closest of which is in NJ.  UCSF has an online palliative care post-graduate certificate program.  And if using your skills and education to aid the terminally ill and dying and their families at the last stages of life isn’t ministering, then what on earth is???  For the first time ever I have a real life-goal.  I study and go to class not just to succeed for the sake of getting it done and boosting my ego by being academically successful, but because getting my degree *in psychology* is an integral part of who I want to be and the ultimate goal I want to achieve.  The scary thing now is knowing that I may have to find more than one route to get there.  I am reasonably confident that my GRE scores will be very good, but my previous college GPAs are not great.  Better than 2.0, but not above a 3.0.  And I’m not sure that even 30-odd credits at 4.0 will bring up the whole mess if schools take an average, even though those credits are now quite old with even the youngest approaching ten years past.  But I’m willing to get a masters first if that will help, as well as taking time to complete a few credits of CPE and becoming credentialed through them to make myself more attractive to a doctoral program.  Once it comes down to it I’m hoping that my new-found passion and resolve for this goal will shine through and make me stand out as a candidate.

It’s nice, very nice, to have a real direction and a sense of purpose.

I’m shocked, almost.  Our paper *did* publish my letter to the editor.

The called it “Nothing to Laugh About During Bank Robbery” and edited it only to mention the actual article to which I was referring.

I feel a little better now.

I really don’t get why the html won’t work–

But this group is called “Giving Victims a Voice,” and it’s specifically intended for anyone who’s been a victim of a crime in the Lehigh Valley of PA.  Writing about my experience has been liberating, and I think others might benefit from the opportunity to semi-publicly share what they’ve been through.

Giving Victims a Voice