Sometimes, Wiccabes really piss me off. Not Wiccans, not Wica... but rather people who half-heartedly dabble, and construct around themselves an elaborate roleplaying world, which they are the shining center of.
I have seen what appeared to be full-body materializations of werewolves. I have spoken to a material being from an immaterial world. I have looked into the maggot-woven face of a death god. I have been torn apart, infected, infested, dissolved, re-assembled and been called "Brother" by Thor himself. Instead of insisting that this means I am some grand-high-poobah, I give myself some fresh perspective.
We are all precious and unique snowflakes who accumulate into a homogeneous white drift.
Of the roughly SIX BILLION (that's 6,000,000,000, or actually 6,697,254,041) people on the earth about 99% of them believe in the supernatural in some form or another (5,940,000,000). Of that number, do you really think you're that interesting?
In my home nation there are about 307,006,550 people. Of that number, less than 1% are Pagan, Wiccan, New Age, or Witches (about 340,000). The number rises sharply each year. Of that number, do you really think you're that interesting?
Oh, how I wish we could all get together. All 340,000 of us, here in the US. And then you could say "WITCHES, ALL! I have come to tell you that I am god-sent! Today, on my way home from the graveyard shift at the Shell station on 72, I was attacked by emissaries from the Vampire Cooveen of Hatchet. They have informed me that the Veil is falling, and it is time for us to take arms against the Demons who dwell Beyond. I will be your leader, for I have been chosen by god as his angel messenger! KNEEL to my superior knowledge, for I own all of Silver Ravenwolf's books, and I've been a Pagan for two years!"
Do you think they'd care? Do you think that they would lockstep behind you, daggers gleaming in the moonlight as they went to war under your glorious banner? No. They'd laugh. A lot.
If you think 340,000 is a small number, count out that many pennies, or pixels, or seashells... or grains of sand. Put them in a jar, and any time you think that you have been singled out for greatness, look at the jar. Give yourself some fresh perspective.
We're all blind men in a cave groping for a light that was blown out, smashed, ground into the dirt, drawn and quartered, forbidden to ever be re-ignited, and covered in a mile-thick layer of cement as though it were the core of Chernobyl. The phantom-illumination we receive is our own. The more outlandish the light, the more festooned with tensil and flashing LED's, the better chance that it is an allegory for a very simple, personal, flame.
Well said! They are young, and even if they aren't young they are young in the tradition, and all of this actually interacting with deity business is most likely new to them, so they get very, very excited like a small, yappy dog.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I too, occasionally wish to flick them in the forehead and tell them to sit quietly while adults are talking. Luckily, I've found that most of them reach critical mass relatively quickly before they can do any substantial damage, and either drop out or finally cough the last of Special Snowflake Syndrome out of their system.
One thing every magical teacher should pass on to their students is a set of critical thinking skills.
::applaud:: Well said both of yous. I have nothing more to add.
ReplyDeleteFor years I have thought of us and snowflakes in much the same way. No two snowflakes are identical (at least that's the thing they say..), thus the beauty... But they are the at the same time, the same because they are all snowflakes: frozen water crystals, etc. In a snowstorm, each snowflake together with millions of others makes up that storm...yet if a particular snowflake was missing, there would still be a snowstorm.
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