A Book Review of Family Coven: Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft by Lydia M N Crabtree.
Family Coven & the 2nd Law of Magick ~ Knowledge
My new blog Family Coven & The 2nd Law of Magick ~ Knowledge is out today at SpiritOne Ezine. Why not surf over there and check it out?
Here is a teaser:
Transferred to a Family Coven setting, The Law of Self-Knowledge says that you must know each member of your Family Coven in a spiritual way to create effective Family Coven magick. You have to know and understand yourself and how you relate to the members of your Family Coven. How you relate to each one will vary drastically. You have to examine your own issues around your family coven members. Are you a step parenting partner? Do you feel like you are not really respected by some family coven members? Do you feel like you and your parenting partner(s) aren’t on the same page when it comes to a) money, b) family coven rules c) how to discipline any children involved d) how to deal with any pet children involved or e) when to discipline children or pet children?
LEADERSHIP QUESTION
Charisma is invariably a part of leadership. Spirituality is filled with charismatic leaders who went off the rails: Jim Jones, L Ron Hubbard, various pagan leaders.
What are the warning signs that a charismatic figure might be going off the rails? What about charisma keeps people following them even when warning signs are present? How can pagan seekers avoid falling in with leaders who are no longer stable?
3/19/2016 – Gort – Ivy ~ Friendship Survival
Yesterday I drew my Ogham but didn’t post any information on it. Today the Ogham is about friendship and survival. It could just have easily been about surviving friendship. Most of us repeat patterns of behavior that we develop w
ith our biological family units. However, many times these units didn’t prepare us for healthy relationships. When forced to deal with someone who is trying to encourage healthy interaction it often feels uncomfortable and wrong. Our brain says that it isn’t. Our logical self understands that relating is happening in some different way. Our emotions are not always so quick to follow suit. I have found in friendship stick-to-it-ness is a very desirable quality. Sometimes in the face of someone dealing with their issues, simply refusing to leave is the best course of action in friendship.
3/17/2016 Onn – Gorse ~Attraction & Energy
Considering how tired I keep hearing those around me say they are and I feel, I was glad to see the boost Onn might give this day. Bringing energy to us to keep the work done that we need to do is important. Knowing what we attract and how we attract it is also important. What energy are you attracting? Is it adding to your energy bank or only taking withdrawals? What can you and those around you do to fill up you energy bank?
3/16/2016 – Ura – Heather ~ Partnership Passion
I didn’t post yesterday the Ogham for the day. I was very very busy with work, my little part time job and ministerial duties. Mostly what this ogham for this day has meant for me is that when partners have a common passion movement can happen. Good solid work can be done. Are you and the partner(s) you work with passionately connected? Do you have similar drive? If now how can you all get on the same page?
3/15/2016 Dair – Oak ~ Strength – Responsibility
This is one of the few Ogham I am more familiar with than others. I have been signing my books with this ogham for years. I adopted it long ago when I read that this symbol was often the symbol of the chieftain of a clan because the qualities of the Oak were desirable in a great leader.
As I have been studying leadership, I could not agree more that strength and responsibility are the two key words of leadership. Without strength, lesser people will quit and without strength you cannot own the responsibility, the mantel of priesthood. All this translates into integrity. My favorite leader, Jerrie Hildebrand, told me not too long ago that integrity was what she lived and died by. Her family, each one, were ruled by integrity and interacted with each other and the greater world with integrity. They asked themselves if what their actions were stayed in integrity or not.
INTEGRITY
As I started writing my next book, I found that the first word I started to work with was integrity. I realize that I judge my own seekers based upon their relationship with integrity. Do they do what they say they are going to do? Do they commit to things they do not follow through on or only give a small percentage of their attention to? Do they offer excuses after excuses for lack of completion? Is there ownership of their actions and the result of their actions? When they speak can I rely upon what they say, or do I automatically make alternate plans to take up slack I know they are going to create?
FEELINGS
My integrity, strength and responsibility as a minister and pagan leader often centers around how people feel. You hurt people’s feelings in leadership and I firmly believe we all have the right to feel – whatever it is we feel. Many leaders treat feelings in a couple of ways.
They dismiss them. The person feeling doesn’t have the right to that feeling for whatever reason.
They analysis them. Sometimes a leader will try to figure out why someone has a feeling, often focusing on their own behavior or worse on what they believe the motivation for the feeling is within the Seeker.
They correct them. They set out to admonish the Seeker for having the feelings in the first place.
In integrity, I have found, good leaders validate all feelings. We all have a right to feel what we feel without judgement or analysis or condemnation. It takes a lot of strength to acknowledge pain someone is sure you have caused them and then own what part you have played in that pain.
I have learned as a leader that “yea but…” is a terrible apology. The strength and discipline it personally takes me to see a Seeker in anger or pain and then simply say, “I am sorry for any part I have in this.”
Defensiveness often demands we add, “yea but..” Yea but, you did xyz. Yea but, if only xyz had or had not happened. Yea but…… Integrity demands we wait it out. Acknowledging, validating and loving our Seekers through pain and anger is part of the job. You can always take up the “yea but(s)” later. And that job certainly takes integrity as well.
Because in integrity and dealing with feelings, you take ownership for what you have done. You judge whether or not the time is right for you to pull apart the issue? Is the person still in the heat of feeling their pain? If so apologize and then sit with them in that feeling, don’t attempt to change it. The heat of anger can be painful to bear and as a leader sometimes we sit and help Seekers bear it.
Part of the responsibility of pagan leadership is that you often can see the actions and feelings and behavior patterns of your Seekers better than they can. Although, I have found in this, all Seekers universally believe that they are inherently right, correct, and omniscient. So pagan leadership is often about leading a Seeker to see patterns of behavior in a way that empowers them to change. Empowers them to see destructive and defensive behaviors and take ownership.
Integrity demands we find ways to empower them, shed light upon behavior patterns and a reluctance to take personal ownership. Sometimes, however, sometimes, the oak wishes it were just a lowly Thistle. Just bloom and die and hibernate and be appreciated for being useful and treated with respect because all that useful beauty comes at the expense of barbs in your hands. Mostly because we never talk about the barbs leadership leaves and the scars on our hearts, souls, minds, and bodies. Leadership may require the qualities of the oak and often inside that same leader lies the heart of a thistle.
LEADERSHIP QUESTIONS
What is more important in leadership: knowledge of yourself or knowledge of how to deal with others?
3/14/2016 -Ruis – Elder – Consequences
Every action you make, every decisions, every sound, every word has consequences for yourself and for those in your sphere of influence. Only persons who have found complete control of their actions, words, decisions are acutely aware of the consequences or the possible consequences they are creating.
What consequences have you created? What consequences are you creating? Do you own your behavior and words BEFORE you commit them or are you constantly apologizing for your fuck ups? Could a change in how you approach your words and behavior be in order?
3/13/2016 – Ngetal – Reed ~ Communication ~ Insultation
Communication and insulation is the theme today and as I look forward to this day I know that this is an appropriate draw.
Today I will have to talk about communication and how communication works. I will have to talk about how sometimes we are insulated and that causes us to not have empathy or understanding when it comes to dealing with others. It causes us to not be fully aware of how stretched we are or whether or not we are over committed. All of these things are certainly going to be part of my day.
Dia Writes 