12/13/97
Welcome to the Witchcraft Dawning Newsletter,
Unfortunately, being so pressed for time studying for exams I may not be able to get the Yule newsletter out in time before the holiday, and for that I apologize. It will be done, however, and though it's never been my motto "better late than never" (I HATE being Late!), for the sake of good grades and a clean frame of mind, it will have to be for this particular occasion. I don't plan on making a habit of it.
Until then, here is another great article by Newt, a young seeker who has contributed some of his work to our newsletter. We encourage you to do the same if you have ANY thoughts to share. I'm proud to say that after only a few months of doing this, we have over 350 readers! So if you'd like to be heard, a simple email to us is a good place to start.
Again, apologies for the delay on the Yule lore and history, but it
will be in your lap, or mailbox as is the case, ASAP. Additional
available information can be found at Ashlynn's Grove:
http://www.paganism.com/ag/
Until then,
Sing the Yuletide Carols,
~Markus
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*Perfect Love, Trust and the Wiccan Rede; an exploration of some core values
By MaKwa and Newt
"A man approached me, and said ‘I’ve been married for ten years, and no longer love my wife’. He seemed in a quandary, and asked what he should do. I told him to love her. He said ‘but I don’t feel love for her’ and I said ‘So… love her.’" -paraphrased from Joseph Campbell
The first question we thought to address was the idea of Perfect Love being unconditional. Does "perfect" equate to "unconditional"? It describes something as being free from flaw, faultless or close enough to that state to make a comparison viable. Perfect describes a quality, but says nothing about limits, conditions or context. Perfect doesn’t seem to equate to unconditional. Does love?
To love is to care for the welfare of someone, to have warm affection and attachment. This is love as a noun. This is similar to the theologian’s use of the term "love of benevolence", a love that has nothing to do with the character (and therefore actions) of the recipient. Another meaning of love is to praise and extol. In this case, love is a verb. Love without flaw could mean to do either of these things completely. The problem we often see, is the tendency to equate love as a noun (the feeling) with love as a verb (the actions that express the feeling).
The feeling of love, if it is to be flawless, may well need to be
unconditional, but the action of love, or for that matter any action, must take place within a context. Because of this, it cannot be unconditional. For instance, love expressed as the babysitter of an autistic five year old child may mean keeping a continuous eye on her. The same feeling might be expressed when dealing with a teenager by giving him space. In some cases the action of love may go against the stated wishes of the recipient, because what a person wants is sometimes in conflict with what is best (a persons Will). A drug abuser’s "want" drives him to drug use, while his "Will" is to recover. Love in this case would act to support the Will, in defiance of the drug users desire and goal (his want).
Wonderfully, these two aspects of love support one another. The
actions of love communicate the feelings. The feelings of love
motivate the actions. A very non-dualistic, cyclical process here; the unconditional feeling, being meaningless (or at the least unexpressed) without the conditional act.
So one loves, and one acts. However as was seen in the drug abuser
example, love may lead to unwelcome actions. Therein lies a danger.
Every act of love involves making judgements which may harm the
recipient. Do we really know a persons Will? Could supporting them in this or that particular action cause harm? This naturally connects Perfect Love with "An Ye Harm None, Do As Ye Will"; as we will touch on later.
Trust also has two meanings that apply here. When one enters the
circle, it is with trust. This is a confidence in the integrity and
sound character of those within it. A reliance on their friendship.
When one enters the circle it is with this trust given.
Is this trust unconditional? Perfect Trust could well mean a flawless confidence in the integrity of those we circle with, but the details of one’s integrity are an internal affair. We trust that our coven mates will act according to their own paradigms, and realize that this may not be how we would act. Trust is as much an understanding of a coven mates core beliefs as it is a reliance on them. There are some principles and actions that are required by the Craft path. Outside of this limited focus there can be a huge variance. Can one trust a coven mate with one’s life? Well yes, but if the life of his child were also in danger, then, knowing his values it might not do to trust him to rescue the fellow covener first. Is his trustworthiness conditional? Of course. It should be.
There is also the trust laid on the individual. By virtue of one’s
fidelity to the circle, one is given an obligation, a duty, even a
charge. This aspect of Perfect Trust is intimately tied to the Charge Of The Goddess, which instructs us in our obligations. Acceptance of this duty is acceptance of a trust. These instructions in ritual context might be expressed as a promise or oath, but this oath is meaningless without the follow through of action; the demonstration of trustworthiness.
This links trust with one of the definitions of Love (the verb); ‘to extol. To give praise to’ because one of the primary purposes of Circle is to worship those whom we adore. So one expression of Perfect Love and Trust is to carry out our religious commitments; to Circle. To extend affection toward one another, and the Divine, both as celebration of those relationships, and a fulfillment of the promises we have made.
Next we considered the Rede "And Ye Harm None, Do As Ye Will". If this means to cause no harm, ever, period, then it places its adherents into a paradox and falls into the category of ideals that appear impossible to be achieved in the field of time. From our limited perspective harm none is absolute. If we believe that all things have spirit, and are therefore sacred, then eating harms what you eat. It doesn’t matter whether or not this is animal or vegetable, life is life and must not be harmed. Breathing becomes a bit of a problem, as this act kills many, many microbes. On the other hand, not doing these things causes harm to ourselves, and again we are in conflict with the Rede. So, if taken in its strictest literal sense, we see some problems.
Part of the problem may be a confusion between the concepts of harm
and pain. Pain is sometimes good. The growth process is laced with it (Just ask any teenager). To feel pain can teach. Lack of pain can have devastating consequences. The ravages of leprosy (loss of extremities, gangrene) are the indirect results. The actual effect of the disease is a loss of sensation, and thus a loss of the ability to feel pain. So to cause pain is not necessarily to harm.
Another aspect to consider is our relationship to the universe. If the universe is the divine immanent, and we are part of that divine, then we cannot view the Rede only from our limited perspective any more than it would make sense for a single platelet to decide what is harm to the whole body. How many platelets die to form the scabs that protect that whole body from infection? If viewed from this perspective, then harm done to any part of the whole may not be harm to whole. It might actually be help.
One of the greater mysteries in our world is that life lives off of
life. We must kill to survive. If this is so, then simply killing
cannot be wrong. The reasons for killing become paramount. Is this
killing needed? How can I act, so as to help the most and harm the
least? And of course, what are the consequences of my actions likely to be? This view transforms the interpretation of the Rede from "I can do what I want as long as it doesn’t cause damage" to "how can I best serve the whole".
Will then stands revealed as a divine drive toward correct action. Not simply a preference, but a necessity. Not a choice, but a demand that we act. But what kind of action? Here, as with ‘Harm’ there is often a confusion between two words; in this case ‘Will’ and ‘want’. Want relates to what Freud would call the ego; the child’s desire with no thought of consequences. Will is a manifestation of the Witches understanding of how the world works. We do magick to answer a need; we dance Sabbats to turn the wheel of the year. It is both the call of the divine within us, and our actions that make manifest the answer to that call. They may end up in direct conflict; "I want to have enough sleep to function tomorrow at work" may directly oppose "I want to finish this spell". With no more information than this, it is not possible for an observer to tell which one is the want, and which is the Will. The Witch must know; and must act on that knowledge.
The Witch is one who works with magick, calls the quarters, sees the connections in all things, and acts. To do this successfully is to participate in that "whole" that is both eternity and existence. It is to dance the Wheel. Joseph Campbell calls it "to follow your bliss".
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Editors,
Ralph
ralphmj@hotmail.com
&
Markus
Witchcraft Dawning Webmaster
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