Thursday, August 7, 2008

bad magic?

It’s been over two years since I fell in love with a pagan, and I am beginning to get the gist of it. I have been through two full cycles of the wheel, and understand all the pagan holidays.

I think Brigid is my favorite, as the plum tree right outside the living room window is in full bloom, and I feel elated and inspired by all the poetry books on the altar. As I mentioned in my first post, I am not crazy about Samhain, when the house fills up with spirits, and inanimate objects start moving from place to place around the house.

As a Jew, I am struck by the similarities between Judaism and Paganism. Many of the Jewish holidays have evident Pagan roots, and there is even a religious movement called Jewitchery or Jewish Neo-paganism that seeks to create an earth-based religion for the Jewish people.

I have come to respect how much work it is to celebrate the seasons. The altar is transformed each season, as my partner pulls these incredible objects from goddess knows where and performs her artistic magic. Being with a pagan has also improved my social standing, as suddenly I started being invited to the parties of an acquaintance who told me, “I hear you live with a very powerful witch.”

So when my partner occasionally told me, “that’s bad magic”, I had no recourse but to believe her. She obviously is a very experienced witch, and knows what she is talking about. So I would alter my course to try to eliminate whatever it was that was bad magic.

After a while, however, I started to realize that when she said “That’s bad magic”, what she really meant was “I don’t like that”, especially when she started to say “That’s bad Feng Shui”, which I am quite certain she knows close to nothing about.

So now I am left with the task of trying to figure out on my own what really is bad magic and what is simply unsatisfactory to that powerful witch I live with. It could be worse.

1 comment:

Reya Mellicker said...

Here's my two cents:

Magic binds energy, shapes energy, so it should be used sparingly. The more magic, the more bound up things get. Sometimes that's helpful but usually it's best to unbind and let the energy flow.

Conjuring always tends to tie the hands of the conjurer. Neither bad nor good, but I think less is more in magic.