


From:    L.a. Hussey

To:      J_Random Folksinger                      Msg #101, 25-Jun-88 00:13

Subject: The Laws



 I am disturbed and disappointed.  "The Christians are our enemies." "They

will torture you to make you talk about the Craft."  "Lie about the Craft."

"Covens splitting up makes for bad feelings."



 What depressing garbage.  This is the 20th century, and this is America, this

is not Inquisition days.  The more we keep secret, the more the ignorant will

assume that we have horrible secrets to keep.  The true secrets of the Gods

cannot be given away, because they cannot be spoken -- they are beyond all

language.  And as for bad feelings when covens break up, maybe that is how it

is where you are, but around here, there is rejoicing when one coven becomes

two.  Seems to me like my best possible response to your "Laws" is the

following song:



 BURNING TIMES

 The songs are sung to rouse our anger of martyred Witches gone to the fires,

 But what is served by righteous singing, if all we do is stew in our ire?

    Nine million dead in four hundred years;

    More in that time simply died of disease.

    Why do we dwell on long past dead

    When we are alive in times like these?

 (cho)

 Rise up, Witches, throw off your masks

 And cease crying guilt for ancient crimes.

 Earth and all Her children need us

 For ALL face now the Burning Times.



 In the face of that hostile power, how did the old knowledge stay alive?

 How have we still a Craft to practise?  Our ancestors knew how to fight and

survive!

    How do we honour our blessed dead?

    Slavery threatens us all but few.

    We must teach their cunning ways --

    EVERYONE needs the skills they knew!

 (cho2)

 Rise up, Witches, gather your strength,

 And let your power spread and climb;

 Earth and all Her children need us

 For ALL face now the Burning Times.



 I will not cast off Science's works -- Witches all forces to Will can bend;

 I'll not accuse for war and waste some patriarchy of faceless men.

    Men do not cast the only votes;

    Women alone do not demonstrate.

    Rather than shut out half the race,

    Who if not we will change that state?

 (cho2)



 I will not blame a Father's Church -- blame and guilt are their tools, not

mine,

 And even in the shuls and churches, allies there will I seek, and find!

    I will not answer hate with fear,

    Nor with a smug, cheek-turning love.

    I will not answer hate with rage;

    By strength alone will I not be moved!

 (cho2)



 (cont'd next msg)





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 * Origin: ThelemaNet - Hail Eris! * (415) 548-0163 (Opus 1:161/93)



*** Part of a conversation.





From:    L.a. Hussey

To:      J_Random Folksinger                      Msg #102, 25-Jun-88 00:36

Subject: Burning Times, cont'd



 I will not hide in my sacred grove -- the fact'ries and cities yet ring me

 about;

 I will not climb my ivory tower -- the real world exists tho' I shut it out.

    I will not work for Church nor State

    Who serve themselves while they serve us lies,

    Nor only for my Witchen kin,

    But for the family of all alive!

 (cho2)



 So if rebellion means to fight a State lost sight of why it was built,

 If heresy's to reject a Church that rules with force or fear or guilt,

    Then let us all be rebels proud,

    And shameless heretics by creed --

    A tyrant's hand subjects the Earth,

    More heretic rebels are what She needs!

 (cho2)



 (copyright 1988, Leigh Ann Hussey)





 Did it ever occur to the writers of your antique laws that the Craft might

 actually be WELCOMED by a great number of people?  That there might actually

 be more of us than of those who wish us ill?  That the only reason those who

 fear us are so active nowadays is because they see us becoming more and more

 welcomed by more people?  As I say in another song, "When folk in sorrow turn

 away/ From paths that lead to misery/ And seek new ways for wholeness' sake/

 Then waiting, ready shall we be."



 All I can say is, I'm Goddess-glad I'm not in your tradition.



 B*B

 Leigh Ann





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 * Origin: ThelemaNet - Hail Eris! * (415) 548-0163 (Opus 1:161/93)





From:    L.a. Hussey

To:      All                                      Msg #103, 25-Jun-88 00:38

Subject: The Darkness



 As Pat suggested, I'm posting this here from the Magick subsection...



 From:    L.a. Hussey                              Rec'd

 To:      Peri Andren                              Msg #109, 07-Jun-88 14:33

 Subject: Re: How do you KNOW ?



 No, Hugh is right.  Modern Wicca is indeed a life-affirming religion, and

 life-sacrifice of any kind is looked on as repugnant.  But it is

 unquestionable that old paganism did involve sacrifices of both animals and

 humans.



 And completely aside from that, the Goddess is not just the nurturing Mother.

 She is the Black Sow who devours her own young, she is the scouring wind that

 whips away all decay, She is the refiner's fire (to snatch a phrase from the

 Bible).  The Craft ain't all sweetness and light, because life itself is not.

 Life lives off of death, as the ancients knew, and that's why She is Demeter

 Enraged, and Erishkegal, and Kali.  She is the Crone who has heard every plea

 and throws you in the Cauldron anyway.



 We work with symbols and images and archetypes, and these come from the human

 subconscious -- wherein, if we're healthy, dwell all manner of dark and

 uncontrollable forces.  The difference between the yogi and the schizophrenic

 is the difference between a swimmer and a drowning person. We all have our

 dark side; the way to sanity is to accept that power and channel it into

 constructive uses, rather than to deny it and close it off entirely. Shut out

 the dark, and you may find it imploding on you, sucking you, helpless, into

 it.  Indeed, we are not an ascetic religion, and that means that the

 unconscious, the body, the irrational, sensuality, and all the accompanying

 things which Christianity embodied in their Devil, are for us an important

 part of ourselves, to be integrated with and not cut off from the rational

 mind, the intellect, and so forth.  At one time, Apollo and Dionysos (or if

 you prefer the Celtic pantheon, Lugh and Cernunnos) were one God.  The

 darkness is there, and it is welcoming, not forbidding.  We need no longer

 make human sacrifice, but we also need not sacrifice our humanity.



 B*B

 Leigh Ann





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 * Origin: ThelemaNet - Hail Eris! * (415) 548-0163 (Opus 1:161/93)


