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My friend opens the door.
“Hi,” I say, “I'm from Aradia's Witnesses. I'm here today to discuss the Book of Shadows.”
My friend laughs.
“Did you ever come to the right place,” she says. “Come on in.”
It's an old joke: What's the difference between a JW and a Wiccan?
“...ye who are fain to sorcery...”
There shall ye assemble, ye who are fain to sorcery, yet have not won its deepest secrets: to these shall I teach such things as are yet unknown.
So speaks the Goddess of Witches to her people in Doreen Valiente's foundational masterpiece, The Charge of the Great Mother.
Valiente's evocative phrase is based, nearly word-for-word, on Charles Leland's English rendering of “Madalena”'s Tuscan text: She who fain would learn all sorcery yet has not won its deepest secrets, them [ i.e. the deepest secrets] my mother [i.e. the Goddess of Witches] will teach her, in truth all things as yet unknown.
Fain. Already in 1899, when Leland published his Aradia: the Gospel of the Witches, fain read archaically, mysteriously.
Don't confuse it with fane: that means “temple,” from the Latin fanum. Nor (speaking of homonyms) is it the same as feign, “pretend, fabricate” (< French feindre). (Which is not to say [snarkiness alert] that we all haven't met some who are feign to sorcery.)
No, fain is a good Old English word. In the dialect of the Hwicce, the original Anglo-Saxon Tribe of Witches, faegen (pronounced, more or less, fain) meant “glad, joyful, rejoicing.” (The Old Norse cognate, feginn, means “joy” tout court.)
As a verb, fain means “to rejoice in, enjoy; to take to gladly.” As an adjective, fain is “disposed, inclined or eager toward, willing.”
What is #WeAreAradia?
As I wrote over here, #WeAreAradia says we don’t need a savior, or one voice to save us. We need to save ourselves, we need to be the teachers. We need to be the learners and the guides. We need to be the Witches. It’s a call to stand up for your beliefs. A message, a call to action to build and use your practices to protect and to empower everyone who needs it. I would like to also note that this is a call across traditions, genders, colors, creeds, ages, and abilities. We can revel in and honor diversity – AND bring everyone up together.
And as Storm beautifully says here: #WeAreAradia is a call to action for witches and warlocks everywhere: Stand up. Speak out. Cast proud. We offer whatever magic we can to the cause of freedom and resistance to tyranny. Some of us are healers. Others are artists. Some are diviners. Still others are warriors. Aradia wasn’t teaching us how to enable our oppressors, but how to defeat them. It will take all of our skills together in order to survive what comes next, if we pay attention to what history has taught us. I believe that the time has come for witches to remember our history. Dark times require dark arts.
It's inspired me to create some artwork as well as right a new charge to inspire. Keep an eye out for more artwork soon.
The Charge of the New Aradia
When sense and world has parted ways,
Whenever need is great and dire
In brightest sun or moon’s dark phase
Bring forth will to light the fire.
Send down the roots, raise up your arms,
Call forth spirit, summon its charms
With wand and cauldron, stang and knife,
With cloak and horn and lore of wife
Build your wisdom and bide your time
In eyes of heart, and blood sweet wine.
In city and wood gather still
To protect and guide with our will.
Now is the time to heed the call
Witches together one and all.
In our truth, we know the power,
That our voice brings down the tower.
To banish, cleanse, bless, heal, and guide
With our secrets and sabbat ride.
It’s the hour to change the tides
For now as witches we all rise!
It's a name to conjure with, for sure: Aradia.
It's thoroughly in keeping with the irony-laden history of the modern Craft that one of the most common names for the Goddess of Witches should derive ultimately from the name of a first-century member of the Judaean royal house.
Well, it's a long story. (I'll tell it to you some time. If you don't already know and want to find out, you can do so here. Scroll down for the good stuff.)
No, my purpose today is much simpler: stress. Is it a-RA-di-a or a-ra-DI-a?
Ye shall be free from slavery.
Witchcraft begins with a slave revolt.
C. G. Leland tells the story in his 1899 Aradia: Gospel of the Witches.
In those days there were on earth many poor and many rich.
The rich made slaves of all the poor....many slaves escaped. They fled to the country....[I]nstead of sleeping by night, they plotted escape and robbed their masters, and then slew them. So they dwelt in the mountains and forests as robbers and assassins, all to avoid slavery.
The Moon, as all-seeing Lady of the Night, witnesses her people's troubles and, in her mighty ruth (mercy), she sends her daughter Aradia to teach them magic and herbcraft, so that they can hex and poison their oppressors.
They say that long ago, before things were as they are today, the Moon fell in love with her brother.
She tried everything she could think of to get into his bed, but he was having none of it. Only Cat shared his bed, no one else.
So Moon goes to Cat one day and says: Cat, trade shapes with me.
And Cat, being Cat, says: What's in it for me?
Says Moon: Someday I shall bear a great many children, and my children will always make a place for you at their hearths.
And Cat, being Cat, says: What else?
In Black Rose we celebrate the longest day by honoring Lucifer the Witch King. In our tradition’s mythology Lucifer is the bringer of light and is personified by the brilliant shining sun. This Midsummer we will be invoking the spirit of Lucifer through an adaptation of one of our most treasured practices known as Kala. During Kala we gather energetic blockages and purify them with the power of our own light. We finish this ritual by consuming this energy, now instead of it being a toxic blockage it is nutritious power that can fuel us.
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