Dear editors,
I am reading the latest copy of Widdershins online. Not my usual fare, but hey, it works. I wanted to reply just a quick note in reply to the "Where are the Elders" article. I applaud Sylvana for her comments, and agree with them. But one thing I think she left out is that, for some of the people who do step up and try and help, rather than just criticizing, they are accused of "trying to take over." I have been accused of this myself, because I have always believed it was better to offer a positive suggestion rather than simply spew my opinion of what other could do to make things better for me.
I have been in the Craft for over 17 years, and I suppose some people could claim I am an elder, but I don't claim it, nor do I feel it. I know how much more I have to learn. But I do think that if I walk up to someone and say "Hey, I noticed you were having some problems, would you like some suggestions to maybe work the bugs out?" I shouldn't get branded a troublemaker. This attitude being prevalent among many of the "established" or "claimed" elders in the community is part of the reason the newer generations are getting such a bad attitude. Bad behavior is a learned mechanism or else a reaction to negative stimuli, and while you may not be causing this with your behavior, there are those out there putting themselves out as "elders" who do, and unfortunately, the rest of you catch the backlash.
I agree with you wholeheartedly about one thing, though. It not just the newbies that need to grow up. If we are to coalesce into a healthy community, it'll take everything, all generations, and I don't mean calendar ages, to mature.
Iris Crain
Dear editors,
I do remember the article (about community elders) many years ago and remember responding to that one, also. And after all these years, my opinion still stands.
I would like to share with you a more eloquent description than I shared back then.
An elder is someone whose energetic field opens doors for me just by being in the same room. It is someone who always approaches me with love. Who makes me feel at ease with being the specialness that I am in their presence.
An elder is not someone who would be too excited about calling oneself an elder for a few reasons. The whole term brings up ego, power-over associations, and this energy would be counter-productive to the goal of being a provider of love and light. It creates a separation between the person and everyone else when the tricky energy of loving is about connection. It can bring up ego issues for the person being called an elder, and that, too, can interfere with the practice of being of service in a good and heartfelt way.
An elder is a channel, a "hollow bone," as they say in the shamanic circles. It is a person who knows that without a strong and healthy connection to spirit, their ability to be a healing force is greatly diminished.
An elder is a wisdom-keeper, not an organizer. An organizer is a very important, crucial element to any community, but what they do is very different. Organizers organize. Good organizers empower people to be leaders and share power in every way possible. They know how to put an event together, how to facilitate a meeting so everyone gets heard and how to make people feel vital to the community. They recognized and bring out the creative cauldron of a community process to birth new aspects into the culture.
An organizer may not have time (or the personality) to go deep, an eldertype person may not have the outward spark to deal with tons of people all the time. But this sounds like too much like pigeonholing. Could a longtime organizer be an elder? Perhaps. The old political organizing adage is that the definition of a leader is someone that has followers. So, if they were a good organizer and earned the respect of people around them, perhaps. Is a long-time, experienced mystic/healer-type an elder? Perhaps. If they developed a respect and admiration from their community and were considered needed and crucial to the communities' vitality. I guess it all comes down to respect earned by respect given.
Maybe my definition will mix into other definitions of this concept of elder. Maybe the ideas of why it is important and to who will be developed and grow... and be useful in the Wiccan community. That would be neat. Is the concept of "elder" too hierarchical for those of us who don't work in hierarchical systems? It is possible. I have found that as I get older, those younger than me have much to teach me.
Before I go, there is one person I very much want to bring out into the open as an elder to me. Steven Wells. I worked part-time at the Crossroads Learning Center, and Steven was my boss. At the time, I was a young radical, protesting the first Gulf War, going off getting myself arrested in political actions for housing for the homeless, taking other unmentioned risks; I was new in town and lonely for Wiccan companionship. The conflict in the Wiccan community was high so, like many, I ran for cover when public events came around.
As busy as he was, Steven Wells always had time for me. As crazy as my life was at times (especially when I was making really big mistakes), he always deeply understood. Deeply. I felt understood. I would have conversations with him that just transported me into other dimensions, and I would feel things click, click, click. I felt held by him in love, seen by him as a powerful and skilled priestess when I really felt like an important nobody and most of all, I felt respected by him as an equal.
Steven paid attention. He earned my trust. He was a grounding force for me in a very unpredictable life. He may have been an organizer too, but to me he was an elder.
I learned from Steven by watching the quiet and then babbly, passionate care he gave to the Crossroads Learning Center. He diligently cleared the space, amped the vortex fields, fueled the plants with love, prepared for the new day, the new event, the new group. He cared so much, and that caring just poured out of him.
I haven't seen Steven in many years. I don't know where he is, but I still hold a very special place in my heart for him. If you read this, Steve, I hope you are well. Blessings upon you.
Tasara
aka Jen Domeier
P.S.: Who are your elders?
Dear editors,
I just discovered the Samhain 2002 issue of Widdershins and would like to respond to some of the erroneous statements made about me by L. Lisa Harris in her "Look Back in Controversy: A Samhain Interview with Aidan Kelly" in that issue (http://www.widdershins.org/vol8iss5/01.htm).
My own disagreements with the work of Aidan Kelly were adequately covered in my "Crafting the Art of Magic: A Critical Review" (1991) and in an article in the 1998 "Wicca" issue of the Canadian journal Ethnologies, and I have no desire to pursue these disagreements beyond the already published material. However, I feel it important to address the errors of fact in the Widdershins article that impugn my own veracity or sully my reputation and so will confine myself to her statements only
Ms. Harris wrote:
"After NROOGD, Kelly's history becomes more clouded. Kelly claims to have later studied with and been initiated in the Feri tradition by the late Victor Anderson 'in his informal way' from 1971 to 1975. Some of his detractors, particularly the Gardnerian high priest Donald Frew, claim that Kelly never received a full initiation into the tradition and that the Book of Shadows Kelly later passed as Feri is actually an amalgamation of Ed Fitch's Mohsian book and some Feri elements. Frew charges that Anderson has stated that everything reported by Kelly about the Feri tradition is inaccurate.
"Sadly, Victor Anderson has passed over and is unable to clear up this particular controversy himself. I have been unable to contact his wife and Feri co-founder Cora Anderson nor any of the first-level initiates to confirm or deny this claim."
If Ms. Harris had contacted me, I could have shown her the Spring 1992 issue of Llewellyn New Times, in which Anderson published the statements I quoted. However, as this reference was given in my own published review, she could have followed up this reference herself and ascertained the veracity of my remarks. If she had contacted me, Ms. Harris could also have spoken to my wife, one of the early Feri initiates and the custodian of many early Feri documents. She could have examined the correspondence between Gwydion Pendderwen and Ed Fitch (dated 10/26/71, 12/19/71, and 2/5/72 and cited in the bibliography of my Review) giving the information I related in the Review about Kelly's "Feri" background and Book of Shadows.
Ms. Harris wrote:
"Donald Frew, who claims to have been Kelly's initiator, remains one of his biggest detractors, often posting material opposing Kelly on newsgroups. Frew also authored a rather elaborate Web page reviewing and discrediting the scholarship used in Crafting the Art of Magic."
I have indeed (on one occasion that I can think of) said that I was "Kelly's initiator." This is a common way of stating things and no specific theological or liturgical role was being claimed other than, as I stated in my review of Crafting the Art of Magic, that I was "the officiating Priest at Kelly's Gardnerian initiation" -- a fact Kelly does not dispute.
A quick Google search for "+Frew +Kelly" and sorted by date confirms that I last posted anything about Kelly to a public newsgroup in January 1996 -- almost 8 years ago. I find it difficult to understand how Ms. Harris could describe this in 2002 as "[Frew] remains one of his biggest detractors, often posting material opposing Kelly." As much as I have no desire to keep pursuing Kelly, others, like Ms. Harris, won't let it drop.
Contrary to Ms. Harris' statements, I have never authored a Web page of any kind and, in fact, do not have a web page. If there is a Web page out there claiming to be mine, I would like to know about it. If others have posted any of my material on their own Web sites, they have done so out of their own interest, without any suggestion or prompting from me. (I know about http://www.wildideas.net/temple/library/frew.html -- there may well be others.)
Ms. Harris wrote:
"Gardnerians I have spoken with feel that Frew argues against Kelly because Frew feels guilty for having anything to do with the training and initiation of Kelly, who he charges is an oath-breaker."
Un-named sources? Please. Far from feeling guilty, I sometimes feel that I am one of Kelly's few defenders in the wider Craft community. Far too many Witches have let their ire at Kelly's behavior, book, and disk set blind them to the fact that in the 1970s Kelly played an absolutely seminal role in the creation and success of both the NROOGD tradition of Wicca and the Covenant of the Goddess. I have always said that we should give credit where it is due, and Kelly definitely deserves a lot of it here.
Ms. Harris wrote:
"Furthering the controversy and high emotions surrounding Kelly's associations with the Feri and Gardnerian traditions was the publishing of a list of contact names and addresses on a set of disks that Kelly sold through mail order. People that I have spoken with from both traditions feel that publishing this list was oath-breaking of the worst kind, pure and simple."
In dealing with the statement that I have charged Kelly with being an oathbreaker, Ms. Harris falls into the trap of focusing on the directory in the diskset that Kelly published. This was but one small and rather belated aspect of this issue. The real problem with revealing the names of closeted Witches, in violation of oaths, started much earlier and the complaints were made by individuals other than me. If Ms. Harris had inquired about it, she could easily have learned that the acts of disclosure that upset the Feri and Gardnerian traditions were acts that Kelly freely admitted committing:
"Judy [Harrow] has told me that she intended these identifications to be for my information only, not for publication. I feel, however, that Witches who engage in political power plays do not then get to insist that their identities be kept secret from other Witches, who have a right to know about such behavior." (Aidan Kelly, Notes on Gardnerian History 1963- 1990, page 12, footnote 5)
"When Derek and Mr. Charles Bristol, Ripley's Treasurer, arrived on the island to discuss the possibility of a transaction, they found that the Wilsons, although desperate, had not yet hit bottom: there was still one pub on the island that would serve them. (1)
The publication of the directory, and the many names and addresses it included, was just the last straw as far as the Feri and Gardnerian communities were concerned.
Aidan Kelly and I continue to have strong disagreements about the history and origins of modern Wicca. That's fine; we can address them, if we need to, in the appropriate forums. By and large, I have not felt the need to do so for many years. If Ms. Harris felt the need to spend over a half of her interview with Kelly dredging up old history between us, the least she could have done was follow the most basic of journalistic principles and get the other side of the story. The information was freely available in published sources and I would have been happy to answer any of her questions. As always, I continue to stand by my published comments and statements about Aidan Kelly.
Don Frew
L. Lisa Harris (now L. Lisa Lawrence) was not able to reach Donald Frew during the time she had available to write her story. The story was mainly an interview with Aidan Kelly himself, but as background we felt it important to inform the current generation of Seattle-Tacoma pagans in as balanced a fashion as possible about Kelly's past, as he is presenting seminars and workshops in Tacoma.
If we had not mentioned the controversy between Kelly and Frew, we would have done a bad job. In that context, a little "dredging up" was inevitable.
As noted in the correction in the Raven's Call in the printed version of the Imbolc 2004 issue, the article was in error in stating that Donald Frew "authored a rather elaborate Web page reviewing and discrediting the scholarship used in Crafting the Art of Magic." In fact, the Web site in question, http://www.wildideas.net/temple/library/frew.html, was created by a person other than Frew, although the text on the site is from Frew's writing and the site states that Frew gave permission that the text be posted there. The error was not Lawrence's but a product of overzealous editing, and Widdershins regrets the error.
Although it is unfortunate that Lisa did not obtain the information that Frew had in hand, other than the Web site reference, nothing quoted from the article is inaccurate.
Our intention was to inform. Kelly's interaction with the Gardnerian Tradition remains a controversial subject.
Melanie Fire Salamander
aka Melanie Henry
Widdershins editor-in-chief