The Goddess Path Many consider Witchcraft a Goddess religion but in fact Witchcraft is not a reli gion but

merely the practicing on one's art. In the Goddess Religion, we beli eve that the divinity of the male came from the Great Goddess. She wanted a comp anion, a son and, sometimes, a lover. He is differentiated from Her own divinity . He then spends the rest of his life cycle trying to become one with Her again, in a repetitive cycle of life, death and rebirth. His life is finite, but repet itive. Hers is eternal. As Her child, He is divine, but He does not approximate Her on the scale of divinity. His purposes are limited while Hers are all-encomp assing. The Goddess in most traditions is conceived primarily as a Moon Goddess having t hree aspects that correspond to the phases of the Moon. They are the Maiden (wax ing crescent), the Mother (full Moon) and the Crone (waning crescent). Each cont ains aspects of the other. To others She is the sexual partner to Her Consort... .....a duality. We honor Her as the Great Cosmic Mother of us all. It is She who birthed the wor ld and lovingly tends it (and our) growth. Hers is the ability to create, whethe r it be children, great works of art and science or universes unending. Her hand guides the mysteries of the life cycle. Her heart beats at the center of all th at is, was and will be. From Her comes our freedom to act as we will. She is exp ansive and fertile, moist, expectant and full. By the light of Her full face do we work our Magick and in Her honor do we gather. Part of Her dwells in all. We honor Her as the Crone, the Wise One, the Dark Shining One, the Ancient One o f Days. As guide of the inner self and director of souls. She forces us to face ourselves, our fears and our secret yearnings. She measures the thread of our li ves and cuts it off only to begin spinning it again. Hers is the wisdom of exper ience, the insight of age----the lesson and its learnings. She is wizened and dr y, sterile and contracting. Her all-seeing eye peers at us in partiality from be hind Her veil of mystery. We know that the Goddess is much, much more than a Moon Goddess. She is also Mot her Nature, Mother Earth, Gaia of the green and growing, Mountain Mother of crag gy peaks. Running water is Her life s blood and the oceans are the waters of Her w omb which is the cauldron of rebirth. Her spark of life and fiery passions bu rn within Her living core. The air is Her breath of inspiration, the storms its blowing out. We honor Her as the creatress of the universe. It is She who sets the stars in t heir courses and spins the galaxies in space. As Queen of Heaven, She sits at th e hub of the universe, whirling around without motion. In Her hands are the risi ng and setting of Sun and Moon, the birth and death of planets. She created the sun, the moon and the stars and we, her children, from her own womb, the sea whi ch is the cauldron of life. There are many imbalances in our society today, bu t the Goddess has re-emerged to help us find ways of restoring creation and of h ealing divisions, not of making them. The way of the Goddess is one of natural l aw and natural wisdom. Every one of us needs to drink of Her wisdom and realign ourselves with Her natural law. Many traditions honor the Goddess and her Consort. However, the Goddess is consi dered to be more important in a practical sense, because Her power is manifest o n the Earth in the growth of crops, the health of beasts, and the well-being of women and men. Many celebrate the Sabbats more on a spiritual celebration than o n a sexual celebration. Moon rituals, whether they be Full or Dark, are sacred, spiritual and holy and in honor of the Goddess and Her mysteries only. The Sabba ts are a time to celebrate with less formality, as it represents the turn of the wheel in our yearly life.

We feel everything comes from Her. The true, Old Religion was that of the worshi p of the Goddess. The religion known as Paganism/the Goddess Religion/Wicca is a way of life and you need to connect with Her everyday whether it be by lighting a grateful candle, talking with Her, having a sanctuary in Her honor and visiti ng it, taking care of Her as earth, showing love and compassion for your fellow person, or taking care of Her many animals for She is in every living thing. She is the crops in the field, the earth that we walk on, the water that we drink, the food that we eat, every blade of grass that blows gently in the breeze; she is everything wild and free; She is the dormant tree waiting to be reborn again in the spring. She is the light drizzle of rain or the fearsome Hurricane. She i s the great womb of the ocean nurturing its inhabitants. In the Goddess Path, we do not believe in the Goddess - we connect with Her; through the moon, the star s, the ocean, the earth, through trees, animals, through other human beings, thr ough ourselves. She is here. She is within us all. She is the full circle: earth , air, fire and water and essence - body, mind, spirit, emotions, change. To con nect with life, you connect with Her. The Pagan of yesteryear followed the Goddess and the Moon Cycles. Not only was s he a Pagan, but she was wise in ways of the healing arts, of midwiving, of divin ation, of working with herbs and, of course, spells. When she planted her herbs and crops, she did not plant by the sun, but by the moon. She was later called a "Witch" during the Inquisition by Christians and tortured and burned not for he r practicing a religion but practicing her magickal arts to which the mundane pe ople called Witch (or Warlock if one were a male). In embracing the Goddess, we are bringing back the balance into this imbalance, material, masculine world we live in. We need more of the Goddess in order to do that. Each one of us, whether it be male or female, must reach into ourselves a nd find the feminine that is being smothered in this masculine, material world. What I mean by this is that physical energy is masculine energy. Non-physical, w hich is the feminine energy, is just that, non-physical. The terms relate to bot h sexes, as we each have male and female energies. We already have the duality i n us. There is too much male energy (and I do not mean male gender) in this phys ical world we live in. We are busy in our daily lives working, raising a family, cooking, cleaning, running to softball, watching TV, just getting out of bed is masculine action because it takes energy and it is physical. Then we have road rage, violence, abuse, anger, fights, killings, etc., and all this is aggressive ness which is the masculine in us whether we are male or female. Yes, there is a n imbalance but it is not enough of the Goddess. She is the non-physical....thin gs unseen and unable to touch......things that come from within....from the hear t. Her teachings are love, compassion and kindness, which is what we need to pra ctice more. When women and men s actions come from the heart showing love, compass ion and kindness, they are carrying the Goddess energy. The scale is still tippe d very heavily on the masculine in each of us, and we need to balance it with mo re feminine energy, which is very hard to do. It is easier to be masculine than feminine. It is easier to vent anger than to control it. In coming into the Craf t, we are asked "how do you come in" and the response is "In perfect love and pe rfect trust". In other words, we are coming into the Craft through the Goddess. Worshiping the Goddess and Her Consort does not necessarily keep the scales bala nced. In today s lifestyle the scale is already tipped too far on the masculine si de, the God side, to be able to right itself simply by honoring them both. In th e "Crone Mysteries", I go into great depth in the understanding of the Goddess p rinciple and the need for bringing forth the feminine. For those who cast circle whether it be for Sabbats or Moon Rituals, in casting a circle, the feminine energy is needed, because the feminine energy is consider ed to be the impregnator on the magical and spiritual planes; just as male is on the material plane. While both male and female are necessary for any act of pro creation, whether physical or magical, in the magickal realm the flow of energy

is not from the male to the female, but from the female to the male. Women tend to generate the etheric energy which is necessary to produce acts of sympathetic magic. Women tend to be more instinctively in touch with this etheric energy, t he power of which will wax and wane. Men need to learn to make use of this pow er by gaining access to their own inner feminine, which is very hard to do. Whil e it is the feminine energy which takes the active role in magic, it is the femi nine energy in us all and it is just that women naturally carry more of the femi nine energy. Women are not better than men, we just have what is needed to cast a circle and to do magick simply because of the feminine within us. That is why it is always important that a woman cast the circle. Not only for the reasons ab ove, but the circle also represents the womb of life and protection, which unfor tunately, men do not have. The need of the planet now is for us to become aware of the ethics, values and k nowledge that are contained within the feminine system. We will destroy ourselve s if we do not. It is the divine feminine energy that will heal and bring back t he divine sacredness of compassion, love and kindness unto us all.