Respecting the Spirits.
It has come to my attention that the so called “earth based religions” are growing by leaps and bounds of late. On one hand I feel good about that. It brings new attention to something deeper than shopping malls and fast food. On the other hand, my personal dealings with such “earth based” devotees have been less than hopeful. Now before you start ranting, I’ll explain. I am sure that many neo pagans, wiccans etc. are wonderful earth loving people who are doing an excellent job of upholding the claims of their faith. The type of person I am referring to can be found in every faith or social group, committee etc. This is what we call a flake, phony, or poseur. The thing is I believe that most of these people really don’t intend to be that way. It’s just old fashioned ignorance.
Let me give an example of what I mean. I have met so many of these people, who worship the earth mother during their rituals and can spend hours going on and on about the beauty and bounty all around us. Yet these same people will ruthlessly strip rare plants from the wild to be used in their spells. Some of them don’t even recycle. I have seen folks memorize the magical attributes of herbs they have never even seen except in a dried and packaged in little baggies conveniently available at the local occult shop.
My problem with this is the incredible greed and irresponsibility being taught to neophytes by focusing on personal gain. Open up any “beginners manual” and you will find simple spells one can do. A list of herbs and stones are provided for the beginner to obtain. They only have work the spell correctly and in no time they will be rolling in the dough, or are more attractive to the opposite sex etc. That’s right friends anyone can do it from day one. This is absolute garbage. The writers of these books claim that their methods are passed down from ancient shamans, healers and witches of old. I’m going to be honest those claims make me want to stab myself in the eye. I am speaking from experience. As a teenager I became heavily involved in wicca and other neo pagan systems. I spent years of study within these systems and consider most of it wasted time. It did however lead me to search for more. I craved some solid answers.
I began to study these ancient cultures that had spawned these modern day magics. What I found was that I had been learning backwards. Most ancient medicine people began their studies by learning about and communing with the spirit world. Respect was of the utmost importance and if the spirits were treated as personal servants they would at best abandon you, leaving you with nothing to offer your people, or at worst they would simply kill you. Animals, plants and other non human persons were treated with the utmost respect. I would not be able to perform a “spell” or healing using a plant that I did not “know”. If someone walked up to you on the street and said “hey you, your awesome, now go rob that bank for me!” would you do it? This is exactly the approach often taken with plant and stone persons. The practitioner does not have the patience or understanding to build a lasting relationship with these entities. The ancient animist would begin collecting “friends” of the non human variety, what we call “spirits” right away, with the pure intention of risking themselves to help those around him or her who had little natural ability to commune with the spirits themselves.
It would certainly be unheard of to go to the local person of wisdom and ask for a new car. The spirits had to be asked, they had to be compensated for their troubles and the practitioner had to risk much to perform the asking on your behalf. More likely a request would be a healing, a dream interpretation, or advice on how to improve a streak of bad luck. Perhaps even an exorcism.
If some guy just walked into the forest or jungle, plucked some leaves, threw them in a colored sac and mumbled some words over them and expected some result, they would be laughed out of the village. The spirit of the plant they took does not know them, and instead of an introduction they get a wham bam thank you ma’am. If I were a plant spirit I would be downright pissed.
The entire point of “earth based religion” is to stop treating the beings around you as disposable worthless junk to be used to your advantage alone. What’s in it for the spirits? If you’re getting into something like this because you want to be “special” and have “power” just turn back know and get into politics. If you really want to learn and experience things beyond most people’s understanding, start by making friends with the spirits. It’s not easy and it takes a lot of time, but the rewards are much more fulfilling than anything material.
Source:
Melissa Thompson. (Saturday, July 11th, 2009). Respecting the Spirits. Evolving Eden: The art and science of living green. http://evolvingeden.com/archives/176