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which kind of witch are you?

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    #16
    Re: which kind of witch are you?

    I draw a lot from the traditional Wiccan stuff, the esoteric revivalist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, Appalachian folklore, hoodoo, Haitian Vodou and Louisiana Voodoo. When it comes to descriptors though I just describe myself as a witch and my religion as witchcraft. If people have other questions I answer them but I'm comfortable with the plain old title of witch.

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      #17
      Re: which kind of witch are you?

      I would say I am a celtic solitary kitchen witch.
      "If you want to know what a man is like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." -- Sirius Black

      "Time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so."-- Ford Prefect

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        #18
        Re: which kind of witch are you?

        Originally posted by thalassa View Post
        Basically, bioregional witchcraft starts where you live--rooting yourself in your locus, loving it as an act of devotion, grounding yourself in the energies of your landbase, making peace with its history, reconciling and walking the line between human culture and the ecosystem that it inhabits, and making magic with the energies of the immediate world around you.
        Thank you for your response. Your words really resonate with me. It's was the natural world around me that made me a pantheist and I'm also very interested in my local history & folklore. I was a bit wary of it at the beggining - I guess it was the former universal monotheist in me that wanted to find more cosmopolitan path.
        If you don't mind I 've got one more question. I've met people that told me that it would be disrespectful to the local spirits if I decided to include in my practice gods/beings that weren't historically connected with my region. What it your opinion? As I'm mainly a pantheist it's never been much of an issue, but I've gradually become attracted to soft-polytheism and it started nagging me again.
        Last edited by Inka; 17 Mar 2015, 07:38. Reason: misspelling

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          #19
          Re: which kind of witch are you?

          Originally posted by Inka View Post
          Thank you for your response. Your words really resonate with me. It's was the natural world around me that made me a pantheist and I'm also very interested in my local history & folklore. I was a bit wary of it at the beggining - I guess it was the former universal monotheist in me that wanted to find more cosmopolitan path.
          If you don't mind I 've got one more question. I've met people that told me that it would be disrespectful to the local spirits if I decided to include in my practice gods/beings that weren't historically connected with my region. What it your opinion? As I'm mainly a pantheist it's never been much of an issue, but I've gradually become attracted to soft-polytheism and it started nagging me again.
          You are welcome!

          I think whether or not it is disrespectful depends on a number of things...and I go back and forth on these a little bit, I don't think there is a good answer. First, I'd ask myself if "adopting" the indigenous names and personalities of local spirits as my own would be akin to cultural appropriation...where I live (and I'd guess a big chunk of the US), I think the answer would be "yes". Second, I'd have to look at the land itself--how contiguous was the relationship between the land and the people? Where I live, its been mostly broken for about 350-400 years. Thirdly, based on my personal experience, I don't think the land cares what its called, it cares that it is called...it cares that it is recognized. I think the land is the land*--the name humans give it isn't its true name, the persona humans give it isn't its true persona. Humans have always come and gone, migrating, or being taken over by another culture...the land though, it changes much more slowly. The land, I think, it content (or perhaps resigned) to have us name it in whatever way lets us recognize it. And if that name and personality wasn't acceptable, you would be made aware of that.

          *Think about it this way--all humans have a veritable garden of bacteria in their gut...do you think about the successive generations of bacteria that reside in your digestive tract (and digest your food for you)? Do you care what they "think" about you, what bacteria A "says" about you to bacteria B? Do you notice when one generation makes way for the next? When the balance of which bacteria is the most numerous changes? Or do you just notice if you've gotten sick because they've gotten out of control (maybe a nasty invader from the outside has gotten in)?
          Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
          sigpic

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            #20
            Re: which kind of witch are you?

            Originally posted by thalassa View Post
            Sure! And welcome!

            Bioregionalism considers humanity and its local cultures (current and historical) as a part of nature. So, in a bioregional witchcraft, the bioregion is (for lack of a better explanation) the basic "unit" that I work with. The "goal" is to build a healthier co-existence between myself (and my family) as part of human culture as part of the natural environment. Additionally, in a bioregionally based witchcraft practice that is also religious, the bioregion is the originating inspiration for religious and spiritual beliefs. It is centered in the idea that the bioregion itself is a deity (or deities) or can take the role of a deity and be interacted with and celebrated using traditional human ideas of godhood.

            Witchcraft as a practice works with (and within) the bioregion to build positive, sustainable relationships with the different aspects of the bioregion, from the more amorphous “spirit of place” to the actual flora and fauna (in both an animistic and a literal sense). Bioregional witchcraft celebrates the local cycles of nature in combination with those personally relevant holidays in an individual’s culture to make up a place-specific yearly ritual cycle (Wheel of the Year). It primarily uses locally sourced materials in rituals and magic, but takes into context the overall health of the ecosystem (as an example, invasive species are great spell components, but the goal should be to remove it as completely as possible when you harvest it vs sustainable harvesting practices for native species).

            Basically, bioregional witchcraft starts where you live--rooting yourself in your locus, loving it as an act of devotion, grounding yourself in the energies of your landbase, making peace with its history, reconciling and walking the line between human culture and the ecosystem that it inhabits, and making magic with the energies of the immediate world around you.

            As an example, I live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed where the bay meets the ocean. In a practical sense, I make my own ritual salt from the high tide at full moon, I cull English Ivy (its an invasive species) for protection charms, I work with the energies of things like the horseshoe crab and Southern live oak, I use a local statue of Neptune for offerings to Neptune, and Memorial Day is as much a religious observance as Winter Solstice. I worship (including prayer and offerings) the various aspects of the local bioregions under the guise of a number of deities (mostly Greek/Roman) Psamathe-as-Beach, etc. I pick up trash from the beach as a form of mindfulness meditation...
            This isn't a concept I've come by before, but describes very well what I am. I have a Celtic flavour to my practices, but only because the local deities here are only known by Roman inscriptions describing Celtic deities. I don't consider myself a reconstructionist so much as someone who has created her own unique way of living through these deities. The connection with my local area was the strongest pull, my practices have then been shaped by a combination of what I found in that locale, my own individual personality and what happens when those two factors meet!
            夕方に急なにわか雨は「夕立」と呼ばれるなら、なぜ朝ににわか雨は「朝立ち」と呼ばれないの? ^^If a sudden rain shower in the evening is referred to as an 'evening stand', then why isn't a shower in the morning called 'morning stand'?

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              #21
              Re: which kind of witch are you?

              What kind of witch am I?
              A knackered old witch. Occasionally bad tempered.
              www.thewolfenhowlepress.com


              Phantom Turnips never die.... they just get stewed occasionally....

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                #22
                Re: which kind of witch are you?

                Eclectic Wiccan Witch
                A Happy Little Wiccan:^^:

                Army of Darkness: Guardians of the Chat

                Because who needs a life when you have a chatroom.

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                  #23
                  Re: which kind of witch are you?

                  I like to say that I'm an eclectic kitchen witch, I think. Life is all about discovery though so who knows where the path might lead me?
                  (user formerly known as beckly_freckly)

                  You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.

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                    #24
                    Re: which kind of witch are you?

                    I can give you a list of things a mile long that other people tell me I am, but I'm still trying to figure it out myself

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                      #25
                      Re: which kind of witch are you?

                      Technically I'm a Chaote not a witch. But ignoring that so as to not split hairs my main Magicks are Energy work (Focusing around aura and the elements) Sigilcraft and general Chaos Magick.

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                        #26
                        Re: which kind of witch are you?

                        Weird, I never answered this.

                        I am a witch of the worst kind. I don't follow the rules, I don't pay attention to the guidelines, and I find magic (with a c, not a ck) in the smallest things: in the pussy willows blooming in May (it's May here, sorry folks), in the bearberry turning red in the autumn, in the first snowflake that will probably fall next month, but thankfully not stick until October, in the midnight sun in the summer, and the aurora borealis in winter. I find magic in the bitter chill of December, and in the ever present play of forces that has shaped the Earth we live on. I rarely cast spells, I rarely clean my altar (although I really should), and everything I do has magic in it.

                        And I make a mean mulled wine in the winter. But I don't pay attention to the tools, I don't notice the dust collecting on my crystals, I don't have everything arranged just so, I don't have rituals, or rules to follow. I don't believe in the supernatural. I am one with the wind. I go where I please.


                        Mostly art.

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                          #27
                          Re: which kind of witch are you?

                          I'm not.

                          I'm an Eldritch Horror, an Inquisitor, a quasi-Jedi, an IT major, a tyrant and an admin, an adherent of a Principle that I feel no need to name and sometimes when it suits me a wielder of magic but I will no more take up the descriptor of witch than I will Pagan.
                          life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

                          Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

                          "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

                          John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

                          "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

                          Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


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                            #28
                            Re: which kind of witch are you?

                            I'm a Sand Witch. A bit of a ham and lots of cheesiness.

                            Seriously, I'm so eclectic in my beliefs/pursuits I really can't pigeonhole anything anymore. I believe the Creator speaks every language, and our perceptions allow us to see whichever parts are within our spectrum.
                            sigpic
                            Can you hear me, Major Tom? I think I love you.

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                              #29
                              Re: which kind of witch are you?

                              Since my beliefs are constantly evolving, I can't really pin any one thing down except for the fact that I Believe in a flow of energy. I also believe that spirits are all around us. One example is the spirit of a city.
                              "All right, new rule: no evil laughter before breakfast." -my mother

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                                #30
                                Re: which kind of witch are you?

                                Originally posted by Hawkfeathers View Post
                                I'm a Sand Witch. A bit of a ham and lots of cheesiness.
                                This is the best thing I've ever seen on this forum.
                                Love me for who I am, not for who you want me to be.

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