Silver Chalice Wicca E-Zine #11

The Great Rite
and
Squashing Bugs & the Wiccan Rede

April/May 2009

Editor's Note

What a wonderful season! Beltane is a time of sacred sexuality. As the Goddess and God meet in ecstatic union, we too can join in this transcendent act.

And the Gates of the Worlds slide open.

Sex and death. The Gates swing both ways. And at Beltane, the power is flowing into physical life, rather than out from it.

So the Silver Chalice focuses for this issue on sacred sexuality.

The feature article of course is on the Wiccan Sabbat of Beltane, the ritual when we can best perform the Great Rite.

Appropriately, What's New introduces a how-to on love spells, as well as other written spiritual practices.

The book review on Jeremy Narby's The Cosmic Serpent is related through its main theme: awe-some, startling new insights into our reproductive programming: DNA, and what it really does.

And the Fave Quotes offers pithy aphorisms on sexuality as a sacred passion.

Speaking of Gates opening, the Energy Field Barometer notices that the door to realising your life dreams seems to have popped open!

Dipping into the other side of the Gate (because so far no one has asked the Priestess about sacred sexuality), Squashing Bugs And the Wiccan Rede explores the tricky terrain where non-harm meets self-preservation.

Beltane! Passion, unity, opening to the Divine....

I hope you enjoy this issue almost as much as the real thing!

With Blessings,

Contact Us

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Table of Contents

What's New on the Site	-- Writing Can Be Magick
Events & Announcement	-- Become a Fan!
Book Review	-- The Cosmic Serpent, by Jeremy Narby
Sabbats & Esbats & Other Wiccan Rituals	-- Beltane: The Great Rite
Ask The Priestess	-- Squashing Bugs And the Wiccan Rede
Fave Quotes	-- Sacred Sexuality
Energy Field Barometer	-- Physical Pains & Doorways to Dreams
Word on the Street	-- Excellent
Next Issue	-- Faeries and Angels at the Summer Solstice
Silver Chalice Details

Events & Announcements

Now you can become a fan of Wicca Spirituality!

Go to the Facebook group, Wicca Spirituality, to become a fan and receive updates and invitations to events.

See you on the web!!

What's New On The Site

An interesting new development on the website since last issue is the start of a collection of articles on ... wait for it ... Wicca Magick Spells

Yes, after much deliberation, I decided to offer a series of how-to's for people who want to know how to go about casting magick spells.

To start the series off, we have:

Casting Magick Spells With Your Pen - how to do written magick spells ... the easiest spell for beginners, and very effective too!

And 2 articles on casting love spells: Wiccan Love Spells That Really Work, and Increase Love Spell To Find True Love.

Continuing on this theme of writing being a magickal practice, two new articles on written Spiritual Practices:

Likhita Japa - Writing Mantra carries on the idea of writing your magick spells, in the context of Mantra Meditation. Likhita is a fun and easy way to begin meditating, or develop your meditation practice. It's like a magnet that brings spiritual forces to you.

How to Dialogue with the Divine and Interpret Divine Guidance shows you how to access the ongoing guidance of the Divine and the Teacher Within you.

And a 4-part article on Reflections: Journalling Your Life As Spiritual Practice addresses the powerful process of self-reflection as a means of personal and spiritual development. In the Personal Mandalas article, you learned how to create mandalas as a form of visual journalling. Now, for those who love the verbal arts, Reflections explores just what it means and how to do it.

Have fun!!

Book Review

The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge

The book The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge is a fascinating journey through the shamanic realms, into scientific facts.

Jeremy Narby is a trained anthropologist, accustomed to the study of "primitive" societies. Yet one day he made an unprecedented and daring leap...

He imagined believing what other cultures told him.

What he found shakes the very core principles of Western science . . .

. . .   Read the Article

Sabbats & Esbats & Other Wiccan Rituals

Beltane: The Great Rite

Beltane is the Wiccan ritual of the Great Rite. At this Wiccan festival, we join with the Goddess and the God in Their generative Dance of Life.

This is the point on the Wiccan Wheel of the Year when sexual energy is at its peak ... the moment when the union of God and Goddess erupts and opens the Veil Between The Worlds.

It is in celebration of this that Wiccans celebrate Beltane with the Great Rite -- the intimate union of the Divine Within you with the Divine Within another...

. . .   Read the Whole Article

Ask The Priestess

Squashing Bugs And the Wiccan Rede

Dear Priestess,

I have a biology project where I have to kill insects; do you know a way to do it that would not go against the Wiccan rede?

B.R. in USA

Dear BR,

I would like to give you an easy answer, but there isn't one. Remember that the Rede is basically advice from the Wise. It's not a human law, where you can slip through a loophole and get away with it. It's a guideline to right living, and a warning that there are consequences.

You can follow the wisdom or flout it. You then live with the repercussions of your choice.

...As do the other beings you come into contact with.

And do insects count? Absolutely!

Perhaps there's a scale of the worth of a being's life, and perhaps that scale uses consciousness as the yardstick. In that case, killing an insect would be a lesser offense than killing a cat, or a human. But I doubt we can know that for sure.

Some Pagans can find a way to kill insects and animals, or even people (for instance advocating the death penalty for murderers), that they feel right about.

For example, some look to the old Native American cultures, who took life with such respect and in such need that the karmic debt and spiritual repercussions were minimal, if any.

I admit that I kill some of the pests that get in my house. I feel it's unsanitary to let them roam here, and I haven't found an effective way to keep them out. Sometimes warning them or asking them to leave helps. Where I can put them outside, I do.

I also kill pests in my garden. I'd rather offer them to my chickens, but I don’t have any chickens.

I struggle with this question myself, you see. I'm sure we all do.

How I deal with it is ...

• by harming only as a last resort and when really necessary,

• by being as quick and painless about it as possible,

• and by offering a prayer and an apology to each creature.

I don't claim that this keeps me in full compliance with the Wiccan Rede, but it helps minimize the damages.

Of course, your situation is somewhat different.

Since you haven't asked whether you should proceed, I'm assuming you've decide to go through with it. The issue then must be:

How do you minimize the harm?

For this, your attitude is most important:

• Approach with the respect due another living creature who is an embodiment of the Divine. One who has given its life for your benefit.

• Offer sincere thanks, and a prayer for its spirit.

• Take care that it does not suffer.

• Make good use of its sacrifice. Value what you're given!

• Take care of your own feelings, so that you don't create suffering in yourself, either.

The fact that you're asking the question and seeking a way to do no harm is very important.

Facing these questions and finding your own way through is how you determine your values, and how much they mean to you. What are you willing to do? What will you refuse to do?

In other words, the only one who can really answer your question is you. Is there a way to do this, where you would feel at peace with your actions? This is something you must work out for yourself.

As a last note, I suspect that the only way to feel at peace with killing anything at all is to have only superficial awareness of what is going on in your body and mind. It seems universal that the more advanced a person becomes, spiritually, the less willing they are to cause any harm whatsoever.

As Wiccans, we generally don't ascribe completely to ahimsa (the principle of non-harm).

But I wonder if there's a real difference between ahimsa and the Wiccan Rede, other than degree of spiritual awareness?

Good luck with your exploration of your path.

With Blessings,

erin

< "

Thanks for asking. Bright Blessings to you!

Do you have a question you'd like answered? Email the Priestess and your question could be answered in a future issue.

(Note: questions may be edited for brevity or clarity. No real names will be disclosed. For reasons of legality, all questions become the property of Wicca-Spirituality.com.)

The ground of possibility for any transformation of sexuality is the recognition of it as an impersonal power. ... It is not my sex and my pleasure and my orgasm; it is a force that flows through me, a force of play, joy, and creation.

~ Gopi Krishna

Through sacred sexuality, the spirit is worshipped and celebrated through the body, and the body is illuminated through the spirit.

~ erin Dragonsong

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

~ Mary Oliver

There are two different kinds of fields to report this month …

One caught a different crowd than my usual reports -- so if you usually miss the fields, you may have caught these ones.

But first...

Living in an Ashram-Home

Have you noticed a certain quality in the air, these days?

I've been noticing, off and on, a feeling I identify with being in sacred space. I call it "The Ashram Zone."

I feel like I'm living in spiritual space, even though I'm still at home and nothing has really changed... on a physical level at least. It's a continuation of the "opening" feeling I reported in the Blog last month.

It's a wonderful feeling!

I sense, and pray, that it is a sign of the new level of existence coming to the Earth.

If we do our best to be aware of this energy, to revel in it, and to keep it alive, we'll be aiding the ease and beauty of this Transformation.

Physical Pains

The first group are physically-oriented.

In mid-March, headaches were very common. Some for unknown reasons, while others were linked to injuries of the head or neck. My guess is that blocks to Transformation were being brought to the fore.

Picture a seedling trying to break through hard, crusted earth. How do you imagine the earth feels, as the seedling pushes against its constriction?

My sense is that it's the same kind of situation, on an energetic level.

Another physical energy field, or one that perhaps encompasses the headaches, is an upsurge of physical discomforts and problems.

My sense here is that the physical-field is calling for more care and attention. We're needing to take especially good care of ourselves on a physical level, as we cope with more and more changes around (and within) us... and as the process of Transformation picks up speed.

You're more likely to have felt this one if you're not taking care of your body or physical needs very well.

Doorways to Dreams

The second kind of energy field has to do with living your dreams, or fulfilling your Life Mission.

Beginning early in March, opportunities revealed themselves for a leap forward in fulfilling your dreams.

Specifically, it seems for many people that the timetable suddenly moved up: where it seemed like our dreams were still a long way away, suddenly options opened for near-immediate resolution.

And the interesting thing is, the solution was there all along.

We just weren't seeing it.

It seemed to begin mildly, in February or even before, as an inexplicable sadness. Many people felt this, including those who are normally in different kinds of fields than I am.

You may have started here. Or you may have come suddenly to a crisis-point -- a very intense and painful desire to be free from the limitations that hold you back from your dream. The pain of it may have been quite overwhelming, and may even have triggered deep despair.

This discomfort may have forced you to examine what you really want, and how badly you want it.

And facing those obstacles to your dream -- which you yourself constructed -- you realised you could break through them!

At the least, the opening that was available became visible to you. The awareness finally dawned…

You CAN have what you desire and need! And you can have it (virtually) now!

You may choose to grasp that gift and walk through the doorway to a new level of your life, leaving behind certain other, lesser desires. Or you may choose to hold to the fears and limitations that have bound you thus far. (They only look like judicious decisions... it's really fear hiding behind your brain's rationalisations.)

Courage is your companion here. Take the risk. Reach for your dreams with both hands.

What, really, have you to lose?

And so much to gain!

Freedom.

Self-respect.

Purpose.

Joy.

Fulfillment.

It's normal to feel fear when going for your dreams or doing something different. Don't let it hinder you!

Grab them!

Make way in your life for your dreams to come true!

I think our dreams are needing to be realised soon, and they're fueling the planetary healing as well. In other words, it's not only for you that you pursue your dreams. It's important to the whole world.

Just remember to honour your physical body as you do.

I wish you blessings on your magickal journey to the fulfillment of all your dreams!

Notice or suspect an energy field going around? Can you confirm this reading, or shed more light on it?

I'd love to hear what's happening for you! Please let me know.

What to do about being caught in an unpleasant energy field? Click here for tips.

Word on the Street

What People Are Saying About Wicca-Spirituality.com:

After several thousand websites I had read, this one of yours can only be qualified as EXCELLENT!!! -- H.G. in Mexico

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© erin dragonsong 2009. All rights reserved worldwide. Reprinting any of this is forbidden unless you obtain my written permission: karma and the law agree on this one. And Copyscape is keeping an eye on these things.