Administrator August, 2006

Growing Where They are Planted

An important part of connecting with our kids when it comes to spiritual matters is to find things that interest them. This is a topic we will explore for a couple of issues but first we all need to do some extra footwork.

It is amazing how many parents assume they know what their kids are thinking but yet they never ask. We would be surprised at some of the answers we get when we ask our kids their thoughts, not only on spiritual matters but also on life issues themselves. Usually kids have very spiritual insight into life without relating to it as such.

I remember a specific time when my house was in turmoil with one of my other children and the family was suffering behind his choices. What was profound was my (at the time) 12 year old son and his take on the current situation.

When I asked him what he thought about what was going on he said to me, “In the end, everything will work out exactly how it was suppose to.”

I remember being amazed at his incredible sense of grounding while the adults were running around incredibly emotional.

We could rationalize this by remembering that kids are much closer to remembering or recently coming from the process of rebirth and spiritual connectedness that comes from being born. Adults move further away from the sense of connection with the universe and spiritual process of birth and rebirth as we grow older and life’s problems take its toll.

We also assume that we have to teach our kids spiritual foundation and what if that is the wrong approach? What if it is that we are suppose to just capitalize on what our kids already know spiritually and intuitively. The famous saying says that we grow where we are planted. It changes our perspective if we consider that our kids are already spiritually planted and we are just suppose to provide water, not uproot the plant.

Isn’t that what we want when we are learning from a spiritual mentor or a High Priest or Priestess? I can clearly remember feeling belittled by my ex-mentor and thinking in my head, “I know so much more than she thinks I do!”

And what if we are suppose to be learning as much from our children about spirituality as we are suppose to be teaching them.

Hmmmm…………. Well that is a lot of food for thought.

As we explore this topic a little further, we need to dig a little deeper to know exactly where are children are rooted.

Here is a couple of suggestions of questions or things we can do on our quest this month.

And depending on the age of your child you will be able to ask the questions differently.

• Do you pray at night? And if yes, to who?
  
• What does god/goddess/spirit look like to you? Can you draw it?
  
• What do you feel about religion?
  
• Do you have friends that are religious or go to church? How does that make you feel?
  
• Do you know what the elements are?
  
• What things do you like to do that make you feel special?
  
• Can you close your eyes and imagine special places or different things?
  
• Do you ever remember your dreams and if so, what are some of them about?
  

This list could go on but this is just some ideas, don’t attempt them in a drill sergeant kind of way. Some of these questions should be worked into a conversation or else it might be strange to just ask the question right after your kid comes inside from skateboarding.

If anyone attempts this during the month and finds out something great or interesting, please email me and lets share with each other.

Let’s begin to explore and learn from our kids!! Ready, set…………….go!!

***

author bio:

Rev. Cyrstal

amethystsage@sbcglobal.net

I am a 29-year-old Pagan mother, been married for seven years. I am very close to my family and my parents. I work full-time in the drug and alcohol treatment field. I have been a practicing Pagan for about four years. I consider myself to be an eclectic Wiccan/Pagan. I try not to limit or label myself. My passions in life are my family, enjoying a good book, learning what life has to offer, connecting with my spiritual self, giving back to my community and spending time with good friends.

Tags: kids, parents, provoking, Rev Crystal, thoughts

• Articles

Administrator August, 2006

So You Call Yourself an Elder?

For any of us who have found this path on our own, we know how hard it can be to find someone to work with us in learning our craft. In some ways it can feel like the impossible task to find a qualified person in the community that teaches or mentors.

I was recently speaking with a fellow Wiccan, with whom I am currently mentoring, and she told me a story that really bothered me. We have spent many nights talking about how hard it is to find someone to work with who is trustworthy and not psychotic. She was talking about a time when she was actively searching for someone in the community to learn from and she spoke with an elder in the Pagan community who was doing readings at a local shop. When asking about locating elders in our community she was told that many of the elders are “going or have gone into hiding” because of the influx of “newbies” joining the path with misguided information.

Upon hearing this story I was immediately shocked and then it made me angry to hear that someone said this to my friend as if it was ok. I mean, isn’t that what is wrong with the movement as it is right now?

Needless to say, it was a discouraging experience for her and I can only imagine the others who have asked the same question and gotten the same result.

It is right that the Wiccan community is growing by leaps and bounds right now and, as a result, there are many out there who cannot find an appropriate teacher to study with. This is one of the many things that can lead a person to be “misguided”, so to speak, because they are going to books that may or may not be accurate and some are settling for teachers who are not equipped to teach.

I am one of many who have found themselves in a situation with a “teacher” who was deceitful and misleading. After over a year of study with this person I got the information I needed. After investigating a little and mustering the courage to move on, I rescued myself from an unhealthy situation. It was not at that moment but years later that I came to the realization that I had something very valuable to pass on to others.

It was through that experience that I learned the value of healthy mentors and elders in the Pagan community. There is a need and the need continues to grow.

You can find information about invocations, goddesses, quarter calls, circle casts and whatever in books and on the internet but what about the ethics? Where do you find that in a way that it is completely and thoroughly explained? That is one of the major roles of the teachers and elders in our communities.

Elders have a duty to the community at large. So, in my humble opinion, if someone is quick to call him or herself an elder but not willing to teach in the community something doesn’t add up. There are many ways to contribute to the community and they can’t find any?

Let us follow this thought through for a moment here. If more people continue to come to this path then we have the reality of a steady growth in our “religion”. We currently have a large population of our community that is untrained and have not had the opportunity to be taught by real life elders.

If this cycle continues we can fast forward to a time very shortly in the future where it is that same group of people teaching the newer groups coming in. And before long we have total chaos and a large division between the foundation of Wicca and what is being taught and practiced. If the mysteries of the craft are not passed along, they will be lost.

In twenty years our path as we know it could be long gone.

So, with that in mind, we have more at stake than a little bit of our time. So let’s look at what is needed to act as an elder or mentor in our community.

A genuine sense of self and your own spiritual
Appropriate knowledge and training
A small commitment of time
A willingness to give back to the community
A commitment to the divine to pass on trustworthy and honorable information
Humility

If you are one of those elders who are in hiding, I am calling you out. We need you here. Your people need your knowledge and wisdom. As they say in AA, “you give it away to keep it”.
Maybe those who are unwilling to support others in our community shouldn’t complain about who is misguiding who. Why don’t we ponder that for a while…

***

author bio:

Rev. Cyrstal

amethystsage@sbcglobal.net

I am a 29-year-old Pagan mother, been married for seven years. I am very close to my family and my parents. I work full-time in the drug and alcohol treatment field. I have been a practicing Pagan for about four years. I consider myself to be an eclectic Wiccan/Pagan. I try not to limit or label myself. My passions in life are my family, enjoying a good book, learning what life has to offer, connecting with my spiritual self, giving back to my community and spending time with good friends.

Tags: elder, provoking, Rev Crystal, thoughts

• Articles

Administrator July, 2006

Removing our Kids from a Violent World

There are violence, crime, pain, drugs and death all around us. It has become a part of society and we have begun the process of normalizing it into our everyday world.

The video games, music videos and songs that depict violence are just unbelievable. So, if you are anything like me, as a parent there is a certain amount of anxiety you carry when thinking of your kids in the “real” world.

You may be thinking, “What does this have to do with Paganism?” Well, it has everything to do with paganism and living a spiritual path. We, as adults, know we make a different and make better decisions when we are rooted in a spiritual path. Why do we automatically assume that kids are so different from us?

Granted, children don’t have the life skills and experiences we do. Children do not have the critical thinking skills some adults have, and notice I did say some.

Children are learning how to operate in the world with every passing moment. Sometimes, in the world of an adult where things seem to move so fast, we forget the true path of a kid and that path is all about learning the life skills to live and make decisions. More often than not, it is about learning to recognize choices and make better choices.

With all of that in mind, let’s go back to the original thought. As humans, children and adults alike, we make different and better decisions when we are rooted in a spiritual path.

So by putting that into its proper perspective, the time is now.

The time is now to teach our children responsibility and accountability, not by preaching but by example. Remember, attraction rather than promotion.

The time is now for spiritual knowledge. Broaden their minds; kids can never have too much knowledge.

The time is now to teach our kids structure. We cannot pretend that our kids will automatically understand that the world is based on rules; some real and some invisible. If we don’t provide our kids structure, how will they learn how to exist in the world?

The time is now to teach our kids to respect life and everything in it. They must begin the long process of understanding that we are connected to everything and everything is connected to us.

The time is now to teach our kids how to think. Children are accustomed to reacting to life instead of thinking things through and evaluating consequences. This is a skill many adults didn’t learn and they are still suffering the effects of bad choices made in the past and in the present.

The time is now to have open and honest communication with our children about life. We think we can save our kids from the reality of the world but, when our kids don’t get the answers from us, they are looking from the answers from others. And sometimes the places our kids look for answers is the last place we would wish.

The time is now to teach our kids that they create their own reality. Kids often immediately think life is horrible or unfair when things don’t go their way. We all need to understand life is hard but I chose how I am going to deal with it or what feelings I am going to accept or adopt. How I chose to look at life will dictate how I feel about my life. There are people who have much less in life than I do and they wake up happy in the morning because they actually opened their eyes to another day. Wow, what a harsh realization at how many of us are self-centered and don’t appreciate our blessings. Guess what? We pass that along to our kids.

The time is now to teach our kids that we cannot control other people’s thought or actions. We just have to learn to live in spite of the outside world.

With all of that in mind, again let’s look at the mission of this article. We cannot actually remove our children from the violence in the world today because, no matter how far away we move, violence is a part of our everyday life. But we can give our kids the tools to understand life in a way that doesn’t promote violence and destruction.

Let’s stop acting like it is ok that our kids are exposed to senseless violence in movies and TV. I am not promoting censorship but our attitudes will help dictate how our children see these things. If we are acting like it is ok or “cool” then why wouldn’t we think our kids would think the same thing?

Sit with yourself and a piece of paper and think of some of the discussion topics that you feel you need to start opening the lines of communication around, and then just start. Sometimes it isn’t about the how but just to do. And don’t forget to incorporate spirituality into almost everything.

Just imagine if all parents started doing the same.

Blessed Be!!

***

author bio:

Rev. Crystal

amethystsage@sbcglobal.net

I am a 29-year-old Pagan mother, been married for seven years. I am very close to my family and my parents. I work full-time in the drug and alcohol treatment field. I have been a practicing Pagan for about four years. I consider myself to be an eclectic Wiccan/Pagan. I try not to limit or label myself. My passions in life are my family, enjoying a good book, learning what life has to offer, connecting with my spiritual self, giving back to my community and spending time with good friends.

Tags: children, Rev Crystal, violence

• Children and Parenting

Administrator July, 2006

Provoking Thoughts

Over the past several weeks there has been information and news floating around regarding the fallen soldier who died in the war and his family fighting diligently to get a pentacle on his headstone.

For those who are not aware, the United States military has about 38 approved religious symbols that can be put on the headstones of soldiers. Amazingly there is no religious symbol that represents the Wiccan faith that is approved for the headstones of soldiers.

There are cries all across the American states that are pleading with fellow pagans to step up and be heard on this issue. Men and Women are dying fighting for this county and they cannot be granted the respect to have the symbol representing their personal religious beliefs to be on their graves.

What must we do to have equal religious rights in America??? How many of you are willing to not only stand up but to also to speak loud enough?

I see so many bumper stickers that say “Support our soldiers”. Is this a conditional statement? What constitutes support? Only while they are alive and fighting? Does it still count once their gone?

So what are we left with? A grieving woman is fighting for the rights of her deceased husband who died a noble death. How many of our fellow Wiccan American soldiers have had to have a blank headstone?

These incidents are actually a blessing in disguise if we are open
enough to recognize them as such. If these things didn’t happen, would we really know where we stand and how much discrimination continues in our society? We continue with the illusions that we are free and, depending on where you live, it can feel like we are totally accepted into society. But in many ways this is just the illusion that has been created for us. And the reality really shines thru when these events unfold.

So, this is a call to Americans to recognize this for what it is. This is an opportunity to educate ourselves, to fight for our rights, to represent the faith that means so much to us. This is an opportunity to show ourselves, children and America that we care just as much for our people as other religions do.

How willing are you to get involved?

Read the news and see.

This is one of many articles out there now about this.

***

author bio:

Rev. Crystal

amethystsage@sbcglobal.net

I am a 29-year-old Pagan mother, been married for seven years. I am very close to my family and my parents. I work full-time in the drug and alcohol treatment field. I have been a practicing Pagan for about four years. I consider myself to be an eclectic Wiccan/Pagan. I try not to limit or label myself. My passions in life are my family, enjoying a good book, learning what life has to offer, connecting with my spiritual self, giving back to my community and spending time with good friends.

Tags: Rev Crystal, soldier

• Articles