I'm occasionally asked, "What does it mean to you, when you say you're Wiccan?"
That's an excellent question. I certainly don't mean that I've read a book or two and decided to summon Azatoth. I also don't mean that I spend my free time running through the woods naked but for enough crystals and pendants to sink a ship. In fact, I don't even mean that I found a confusing enough label to seem to justify an assortment of deviant habits.
If I had to pick a single key word to summarize "Wicca" for me, it would be "responsibility." Being Wiccan means I see myself as an intimately-linked part of a living world, a world which my every action helps to shape. I see every plant, animal, stone, ecosystem, child, and other being as living, spiritual creatures, and I consider the consequences of my choices with us all in mind. One of those choices could be not to act to change those things that disturb me, to sit back and wish that some anonymous "They" would do something-but to me, this is a non-option, totally incompatible with my beliefs. Obviously I can't tackle everything myself, but I can either hold my tongue or get off my ass, one or the other. If I sometimes can't do very much, at least I can live my life in such a way that my actions are compatible with my beliefs.
One of those beliefs is that ideally, I will do no harm save to prevent a greater harm. Of course I make mistakes-we all do-but this is the ideal toward which I strive. Importantly, I consider that attempt to be equally valid for all living creatures, including myself. (It wasn't easy for me to learn that not harming myself is as important as not harming someone else; sometimes people learn that lesson in reverse, but the issue of balance is still there.) Because I cherish this ideal, I feel I have a responsibility to consider the possible and probable results of my actions and inactions, and to behave accordingly. Sometimes I fail in this responsibility, but that doesn't make it go away. It just makes messes I have to clean up, myself.
To explain that, I'll digress just a bit and use an anecdotal example, not because of antagonism toward any other path but because something more familiar to many people might help me to clarify. Imagine, for a moment, that a Catholic man confesses to his priest that, years ago, he stole $100 from a woman who left her purse in the laundromat. He saw her with several children and could tell she didn't have much money, but for whatever reason, he took the cash she did have, and was never caught. Today he has no clue where she is. A Catholic priest might (I haven't consulted one for specifics, btw) suggest that the young man do some standard penance for his "sin" of stealing, perhaps reciting a given number of "Hail Mary's" and "Our Fathers" or something similar. Whatever the specific penance prescribed, the priest would assure the young man that, once completed, Jesus would take on the burden of the young man's sins and leave him clean again-the act of repenting is sufficient. In fact, if the young man had gone instead to a Baptist minister, he would even get out of the penance. That act was years ago, after all, and if the sinful man honestly repents, gives his heart to The Lord, and asks for salvation, he will receive it-even on his deathbed. A Jewish rabbi might suggest to the young man that only the woman herself can tell him he is forgiven for what he did for her, which comes closer to what I myself believe.
What if this same man had sought the advice of a Wiccan priest or priestess? He would very likely be advised-not ordered!--to find that woman, if at all possible, and return her money directly. Beyond that, he ought also to mend any damage that resulted from his theft-did her children suffer? If so, in what way? What can be done now, even at this late date, to remedy that? And if he can't find her, what can he do to try to help her without knowing? Is there a charity of some kind she might be likely to have called on in need, that he could support with a donation? (If so, that donation will probably need to be substantially more than $100 to even things out now.) Are there other people in similar positions that he can somehow help? Is there some ritual way he could increase the likelihood that his donations to existing groups benefit the woman he harmed years ago, without interfering in anyone's free will or causing harm?
Does this all sound pretty complicated? Of course it does. It's definitely not as easy as saying "Hail Mary" a few hundred times or repenting in front of the church. But it does make more of an effort to "balance the scales," to remedy directly the harm that resulted from one's poor choices.
And by the way, I do happen to think "poor choices" is a better phrasing than "sins." I don't see the world in good-and-bad, black-and-white images. I live in a vibrant live-action Technicolor world of birdsong and rainbows, with a lot more beautiful complexity than The Good Guys v. The Bad Guys. I have seen firsthand that people (and even other beings) can be malicious and hurtful-but I see this more as a kind of spiritual ill health or immaturity, than as an innate "badness." I do not believe that anyone or anything is wholly "good" or wholly "bad," but that we are all a rainbow blend of emotions and motives and actions that make up a universe, not just a straight line. The closest I'll come to labeling that kind of continuum is to say that some actions seem healthier than others, and that those are the ones I prefer to make.
There's a short statement of Wiccan philosophy that most of us recognize, called the "Wiccan Rede" which I dearly love. It advises, "An ye harm none, do as you will." That first part, the "harm none," is what I've been talking about so far. It's also worth noting that "harm none" can be read to imply, "by action or inaction." Sometimes not doing something causes harm. And that leads into the next part of the Wiccan Rede.
So much for the "Harm none" part of the Wiccan Rede I love so much. The next bit in line is that enormous word, "do." Do. Do as you will. Neither it nor I say, "Do anything that strikes your fancy on the spur of the moment without considering the consequences," of course. Rather, that line and I agree, "Do as you will." If you have a will-not a whim, but a will-there's a responsibility to act on it. As Ellen said to me once, "If you really wanted to, you would be"-and she was right! Do I will a world without racism? Then I should evaluate my own actions and beliefs for unexamined vestiges of racism I may have picked up from my culture, and work to purge them. I should also actively seek to reduce the racism I see around me, to whatever degree I am able. At the very least I must voice my objections when I encounter racism in my environment, and try to change it. Or, I must admit that racism really doesn't bother me-if it did, I'd be doing something about it. (By the way, it does bother me, and I do fight it.) If I'm not doing anything, I have no right to complain.
Remember what I said about being an intimately networked part of a living world? That perspective leads to another message inside the Rede. I believe that you and I and all living beings are part of a single ecosystem, that what affects one of us affects the totality, and therefore each individual. There are no one-way walls; if obstacles prevent one person from exercising her free will, they also prevent me from doing so, and each of the rest of us, too. Everyone else's free will is as important as my own, and I feel ethically compelled to recognize the value of that. Therefore, I try not to act to restrict anyone else's free will, even while recognizing that everything I do impacts my world, and therefore does in some way affect what options are available to myself and to everyone else.
So, that brief summary, "An you harm none, do as you will," is really an outline for a multi-page essay or a lifetime of guidance, whichever you prefer. I try my best to harm none other than to prevent greater harm, to do when I have a will, and to respect the free wills of those around me-but that's only a tiny beginning of what Wicca means to me.
OK, that was one answer, but only one, and I have others. In fact, that one is only a hint of more. So why not click here, and read while I try again?