An Open Letter to Dianne Sylvan.
Ms. Sylvan has experienced the Dark Night of the Soul, and wonders where the Wiccan Elders are, ones who could offer counsel in this. Let me tell you where: hiding from this sort of thing.
See, Ms. Sylvan, you don't care for it when some of us try to distinguish ourselves from neo-Wicca; "Wicca-er-than-thou types" is the phrase you used. Have you considered why we might want to do this? Have you considered the value of lineaged traditions, where you would know and be known by your initiators and/or covenmates? No, it's not a foolproof system - with just enough info, I could pretend to be someone I'm not - but it's better than what I've seen in the larger pagan community as a system by which Nicky New Witch can begin weeding out the whackjobs.
I used to feel more like you, I think. Where were our elders, our communities, our structure? Well, it finally sunk in - not among people who said Wicca and/or paganism are whatever one wants them to be. Not on internet fora. Not among groups that meet once a month and which fall apart at the drop of a hat. It's all to be found within traditional Wicca, and that's one of the reasons to choose such a path. You can know, with at least slightly more certainty, who you're dealing with. You can find others who work within the same orthopraxy and have at least similar theology - I could have gotten an idea of what other Alexandrians, my elders, might have thought of my own Dark Night a few years back. It's like the old Mark Twain quote about how at eighteen, he thought his dad was an idiot, but by twenty-two, he was amazed at how smart the old man had gotten. A few years away from the structure of traditional Wicca made me realize just how smart it had been all along.
However, I don't think you are or ever were Wiccan. Oh, not because you're not from a tradition I recognize as such. But because the symbolism "squicks" you. Why on earth did you keep forcing your foot into that shoe? Why was the term "Wicca" so special to you that you kept insisting it fit even as it pinched and chafed?
Your statement that "[t]here's only so far you can go in Wiccan teachings without simply running aground and having to look for another vessel" is arrogant, and one of those things that makes us "Wicca-er-than-thou-types" throw up our hands and leave you to your own devices. Yes, I'll say it - from where I sit, you are not Alexandrian, Gardnerian, or any other BTW tradition, and therefore are not Wiccan and do not know what the teachings of Wicca are or are not. Hell, I am an Alexandrian, second-degree initiate, and I wouldn't have the temerity to offer such an opinion, simply because I only know the teachings for the degree I've attained.
I understand the pain of this kind of thing. I truly do. But, please, blame your own tradition, not Wicca as a whole. Your complaints against it strike me very much as those of someone who was warned that a certain ski slope was only for those with prior experience but went down it anyway, and is now lying in the snow griping that that was the worst bunny trail she's ever been seen. And frankly, you're smarter than that.
Once again, I'll open this to comments from all and sundry, but "ZOMG U R THE MEANZOR" crap will get toasted like a marshmallow.
See, Ms. Sylvan, you don't care for it when some of us try to distinguish ourselves from neo-Wicca; "Wicca-er-than-thou types" is the phrase you used. Have you considered why we might want to do this? Have you considered the value of lineaged traditions, where you would know and be known by your initiators and/or covenmates? No, it's not a foolproof system - with just enough info, I could pretend to be someone I'm not - but it's better than what I've seen in the larger pagan community as a system by which Nicky New Witch can begin weeding out the whackjobs.
I used to feel more like you, I think. Where were our elders, our communities, our structure? Well, it finally sunk in - not among people who said Wicca and/or paganism are whatever one wants them to be. Not on internet fora. Not among groups that meet once a month and which fall apart at the drop of a hat. It's all to be found within traditional Wicca, and that's one of the reasons to choose such a path. You can know, with at least slightly more certainty, who you're dealing with. You can find others who work within the same orthopraxy and have at least similar theology - I could have gotten an idea of what other Alexandrians, my elders, might have thought of my own Dark Night a few years back. It's like the old Mark Twain quote about how at eighteen, he thought his dad was an idiot, but by twenty-two, he was amazed at how smart the old man had gotten. A few years away from the structure of traditional Wicca made me realize just how smart it had been all along.
However, I don't think you are or ever were Wiccan. Oh, not because you're not from a tradition I recognize as such. But because the symbolism "squicks" you. Why on earth did you keep forcing your foot into that shoe? Why was the term "Wicca" so special to you that you kept insisting it fit even as it pinched and chafed?
Your statement that "[t]here's only so far you can go in Wiccan teachings without simply running aground and having to look for another vessel" is arrogant, and one of those things that makes us "Wicca-er-than-thou-types" throw up our hands and leave you to your own devices. Yes, I'll say it - from where I sit, you are not Alexandrian, Gardnerian, or any other BTW tradition, and therefore are not Wiccan and do not know what the teachings of Wicca are or are not. Hell, I am an Alexandrian, second-degree initiate, and I wouldn't have the temerity to offer such an opinion, simply because I only know the teachings for the degree I've attained.
I understand the pain of this kind of thing. I truly do. But, please, blame your own tradition, not Wicca as a whole. Your complaints against it strike me very much as those of someone who was warned that a certain ski slope was only for those with prior experience but went down it anyway, and is now lying in the snow griping that that was the worst bunny trail she's ever been seen. And frankly, you're smarter than that.
Once again, I'll open this to comments from all and sundry, but "ZOMG U R THE MEANZOR" crap will get toasted like a marshmallow.