"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong"

On the 3rd July 2009 I lost my brother to heart faliure...and general failing of the National Health Service!!!! I was the one to give permission for the life support machine to be turned off, I had my hand on his chest and talked to him until he slipped away. As you can well imagine I am still grieving, the pain doesnt ease and the anger increases but I know that life goes on and he lives on inside my heart. I have taken strength from my beleives but have not as yet given anything back to the craft, I will do so as soon as I am strong enough.

When ye choose the path of the solitaire,
To be one with earth, fire, sea, and air,
An oath ye take to initiate,
Thyself into thy truest state.

No longer be as flesh and bone,
See thyself as Spirit's own.
Whatever path of faith ye take,
Learn it well for thine own sake.

In thy craft be diligent,
Lest thy knowledge be quickly spent.
Learn to seek and seek to learn,
An elder's wisdom never spurn.

For though ye choose to walk alone,
Heed the knowledge ye are shown.
The laws ye choose which to abide,
Let them be thy daily guide.

Always heed the law of three,
For what ye send shall return to thee.
What ye conjure here, ye should know,
Manifests above as it does below.

As for the law, 'An it harm none',
Let thy soul decide what must be done.
Protect thyself and thy kin,
Lest any harm should come to them.
Be mindful of what's right and just,
To live in perfect love and trust.

Find balance in thy life and deeds,
Look within to fulfil thy needs.
Tis not a path for the faint of heart,
So heed this wisdom I now impart.

To thine own self be always true,
In all ye say and all ye do.
Still thy tongue from words of wrath
And do not slight another's path.

For when all is said and done,
We each are but a part of One.
Keep this knowledge in thy heart,
From its wisdom never part.
This I say, so mote it be.
Merry part and blessed be.

When she stood up for herself, they called her a WITCH
When she stood up for those she loved, they called her a WITCH
When she stood up for her beliefs, they called her a WITCH

When she spoke her mind, thought her own thoughts or did things her own way, they called her a WITCH.

If being a Witch means that I will not compromise my heart then I do declare myself to be a Witch…!!

Wiccans and many other Pagans honor the spirit of the Wiccan Rede: an it harm none, do what ye will. And few of us would limit “none” to mean “no member of the species Homo sapiens“; most of us are firmly devoted to the idea that all beings, not just humans, are alive with spirit including plants, for me especially trees..!
Thus, for those who follow the Rede, the question is whether killing animals for food can be reconciled with our core ethical principles at all, or under what circumstances.
Personally I believe in a life that seeks to avoid harm to myself and others, and above formentioned are certainly included. I also believe that the fact that the slaughter happens “invisibly”, far from the supermarket shelf, makes it easy for many people to eat meat who could not, with a clear heart, do the necessary killing themselves.
And, if one somehow gets past the gruesomeness of killing animals, there remain serious ecological and economic issues. The reliance on animals for food is extraordinarily wasteful and damaging to the planet. It takes something like 10 times the resources to produce a pound of meat than it does to produce a pound of grain or vegetables. Most of the grain farmed today goes to feed animals for slaughter, not to feed people directly.
Soya farming is chewing up the Amazon rainforest at unprecedentated rates as huge areas are cleared for massive plantations, the UK imports over 2,000,000 tonnes of soya products, mainly from the USA and Brazil, over half for animal feed.
When you start to contemplate the wastefulness of this - not just the trees, but the water, the fossil fuels used to run the operations, and the pollution produced - it becomes hard to see meat eating as a wise and responsible choice.
However one of the lessons of the Pagan faith is that death is a natural part of life, and that we are all connected in an ecological and spiritual web, whose many strands include creatures becoming food for other creatures.
Instead, I find myself more in sympathy with indigenous cultures around the world, whose people subsist mostly on plant foods, but who supplement their diet with meat from hunting. If I lived in the pre-industrial world of the Pagans of long ago, I might be inclined to eat meat from a hunt, on a fest day, with the spirit of both the hunter and the prey animal very much alive in the moment of the act, and honored.
But I don’t. I live in a world where meat doesn’t come from a contest between predator and prey that honors the spirit and prowess of both creatures. I live in a world where meat comes from breeding animals and subjecting them to lives of suffering, for no other reason than to serve the casual gluttony of a civilization that has lost its sense of connection with all other living things, and lost its respect for the Earth that is the source of all life.
So, should Wiccans “Pagans” be vegetarian? I believe it is a personal choice. I believe we can all live better lives than we do whether that be buing free range meat from a reputable source, keeping our own choocks, buying game or indeed becoming a veggie. I will say, however, that if being Pagan has anything at all to do with honoring the spirit in other living things and honoring the sacredness of the Earth, then eating meat is not something Pagans can simply take for granted and it should be a serious point of concern and reflection for each of us.

If there’s to be a place for me, a place I’m to dwell for all eternity,
Then let it be under my Magic tree that stands proud in amongst the stones at Avebury.