@MsHearthWitch@KentuckyConjurer Ugh, this, yes! I remember reading the Buckland's Witches Bible and it actually says gay guys cant be witches unless they do the Great Rite with a woman, and I let that fuck me up for a long time.
100% this. It's so crazy how that happened and it was just accepted. We went from midwives and herbal healers and alchemists, to everything having some sort of male/female sex symbolism.
@KentuckyConjurer Oh yes! It was that, combined with old white guys doing what old white guys do, you know?
The sexual freedom did appeal to me, as a newly out of a christian cult pagan. But then the whole thing felt confining. Very much about "breeding" (the whole wiccan cycle you know?) and super cis focused. And what about ace ppl and just all the queer ppl? And eventually it just very fell off for me.
Same. I dated a couple of guys in high school, but mainly girls, and I really didn't want anything to do with guys, especially in a ritual environment. It felt very predatory to me, especially considering the male priest in the local group was like a 40 something year old man and we were all teen gals.
@KentuckyConjurer Yeah. After my friend's husband got another covenmate pregnant and she was like, half his age? I knew I'd made the right call. She was so... heartbroken. And he was like, the darling of the local scene.
It felt like the same story I'd seen a million times over. I wanted to get into witchcraft for empowerment, not to see women cast aside as they aged because fertility was worshipped.
😢 I feel so sorry for her. How traumatizing! We had a guy about my age 10 years or so ago who was leading a coven. I got invited to 2-3 events. He kept trying to talk all of us into going to a nude coven retreat at this campground. None of us were comfortable (especially with him) but he kept bringing it up. Made me very leary. He kept saying it would empower us to be naked together. I was like, yeah, no.
@KentuckyConjurer I will say one thing for the coven I was in (he and his wife were in a branch coven)... they really did make it comfortable to be nude. No nudity was allowed during ritual. But the HP had a hottub at her house, and it was suits optional. I went in both ways and never felt out of place or uncomfy.
In truth my HP ran a tight ship and I liked it there (socially). But the branch groups were... not awesome.
@KentuckyConjurer i still, a decade plus later, really miss the social part. The after the ritual where we'd hang out, have potluck, chill in the hottub or pool, have a bonfire.
We'd do campouts in the summer. It was... great. I just didn't, and still don't, jive with the religious part.
Some day I am going to forge a community that is all the good social stuff without the religious aspect.
Our group is fantastic for events. Not really coven work. I have a smaller group I do social justice work with and we are a lot closer.
But we have events every month (4 of us take turns leading) that are open to the public. They are fun, but not really working circles. More for socializing, potlucks, talking things out, laughing. Then several of us get together on Thursday nights and walk the paved trail in the woods for exercise.
THIS!!!! There's way more magic in your little finger than what's in a crystal which was harvested, tumbled, transported, and sat on a shelf for two years.
@KentuckyConjurer I do have 4 crystals, but they're raw and uncut. And the woman I bought them from (who is going to stop selling them soon) got them from her sister who lives in a part of the country where you can just get them off the ground.
I work with them as more of ideas than actual beings. I really think a big part of that was the trauma from Christian church and the relationship with gods. Like, I wanted no gods after that.
@KentuckyConjurer that spiritual trauma is REAL oof yes. At my very core honest center im an animist so my first read is like "yea ideas are spirits!" rock on no gods no masters ✌️🤘
For me, I do a lot of work in the woods, right near a creek, so I was like, why am I calling in quarters? They are already here as witnesses. And casting the circle felt like something more high magic than what I was doing.
@KentuckyConjurer It felt "empty" at the time. It felt like going through some motions just for the sake of it, but it was pulling me out of the right headspace. Eventually, I gave it up.
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