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[Image from http://www.literateape.com/blog/2016/12/19/i-fully-acknowledge-my-white-privilege-now-what]

This is Part 2 of my three-part series on race in Paganism

I could no longer stand the hate I felt for people who hate. 

The night of July 5, 2018, I had the strangest dream. Instead of living in my sweet house, I was living in a large apartment, and Donald Trump was my flatmate. We weren’t lovers, we were buddies. The degree to which I have loathed the 45th and everything he stands for makes the dream quite strange, given that he and I got along quite well in the dream.

In the dream, we were talking, and then I accidentally bumped up against him, and it seemed like his little penis was hard, but he didn’t even blink. Of course, Trump would not blink because he is a sly, awful man. He‘d leave me in that oh-so-awful-and-prevalent feminine quandary of endlessly debating with oneself, wondering things like “Am I just imagining things ...?" But I brushed his behavior off because neither his slyness nor anything else about him was bothering me. Remarkable dream for me!

Click Here to Read Part One 

....In preparation for Part Two of the Inner Temple, spend some time thinking about the types of meditation and/or pathworkings you may have already experienced. Knowing what you know now, how would you classify those experiences? Which category would they fall more naturally in to? And, if they were pathworkings are you aware of the underlying keys and the discipline selected (Astrology, Qabalah, Tarot, etc..). This reflection will open you further to the work of creating your Inner Temple as you become more receptive to the keys you are setting within yourself...."

Goddess bless Ronald Hutton.

We all know the stereotypes: the Catholic Church, with its enforcer the Inquisition, burned witches, right?

Turns out that the Inquisition actually protected many people accused of witchcraft.

For some 300 years, between the 15^th and 17^th centuries, Christian Europe, both North and South, went wild with a massive witch-panic. One puzzling aspect of the Great European Witch-Hunt, however, has always been the huge disproportion between northern and southern Europe when it comes to executions.

The vast majority of people executed as witches in Europe during this period were executed in Northern—Protestant—Europe. Far, far fewer people were put to death as witches in the Catholic South.

In 1588, a teenaged girl brought before the Spanish Inquisition confessed to having had sex with the Devil. The previous year, a Sicilian woman confessed to having flown through the air on a billy-goat to a sabbat at which (interestingly) she worshiped a King and Queen who presided over a feast and an orgy (Hutton 200-1).

In England, such confessions would likely have merited the noose; in Germany, the stake. But the girl from Valencia, after receiving a beating, was sentenced to undergo religious instruction, and the goat-riding Siciliana was acquitted.

Why?

There's been a flare-up of transphobia lately in some Pagan circles, I want to affirm that my own hearth practice of Paganism/polytheism and that of my grove, Northern Roots Grove, is fully accepting of the range of human gender & sexual diversity. The roles people take on in our rituals are not gender specific unless a member wants a gender specific role, and creates a ritual with that in mind. In keeping with modern hospitality we are quite happy to call you by whatever name & pronouns that you introduce yourself with, or let us know if they change at some point. 

What body parts are under your robe, kilt, or earasaid  isn't any of our concern! We have thus far had a croning ritual for a cis woman member who wanted one, and plan on having another, but neither of these are based on when or whether the woman has reached a particular biological marker, such as menopause. It was just when they feel it is the right time for that ritual.  Life passage rites are created by or for the individual who wants them and so whether they are gender specific or related to physical or spiritual states of being is up to the person. We do not have any particular requirements for such rituals, we consider them successful if they help support the person and/or their loved ones in going through a life transition. 

 Ocher and earth: that's what I want.

Like the ancestors, ocher and earth.

When the time comes, dig me a hole

and lay me in it. Lay me on my side,

limbs folded, like a baby in the womb.

By my head, set the little earthenware goddess

that stands in the garden in summer.

(In winter, check the big cupboard in the pantry.)

Sprinkle me with ocher, head to foot.

(Be heavy-handed.)