We gather under the moon, our rituals and magick drawing upon the power of the lunar phases.
Our faces are shadowed under the hoods of our cloaks, our features obscured in honor of those
who came before, those who survived the persecution of the Burning Times and those who did not.
We call the names of gods and goddesses almost forgotten. Ancient texts and arcane oral
traditions fill our bookshelves and notebooks. We are pagans, witches, druids, and shamans, the
paths we call home steeped in the unknown and hidden behind myth and folklore.
While our ways are often concealed behind layers of silence and secrecy, the traits that define us as pagan are not the biggest secret in the Craft. It isn't the names we adopt, the Book of Shadows we cherish, or the rites that are handed down to us through the generations by a trusted crone or elder. Our greatest secret isn't Drawing Down the Moon, a rite where a deity manifests and speaks through a chosen member of our circle. It's not the hidden grove where faeries still dance in the moonlight or the stretch of coastline where the spirits of the sea rise from the waves to meet us.
The biggest secret is the "why" in the question, "Why are we able to wield power at all?"
Magickal energy must come from a mystical source. Spirit, in whatever form you choose to define
that sacred manifestation, is the only place where such energy could arise. There are a number of
complex, interlocking magickal laws that define the structure of the mystical universe. At the most
basic level, such energy would have to be timeless and able to transcend mundane reality. By that
standard alone, such energy would have to come from a source not limited by the framework of our
world.
When we draw energy from the earth or sky, we're not pulling in the physical energy they're
composed of. If we did so, the tree or stone we drew the energy from would be consumed, much as
if we released that energy by the use of a flame. What we're doing when we pull energy from a
physical focus object, even the earth and sky, is pulling from the source that the earth or sky is
connected to and using the physical manifestation as a focus to filter that energy into a particular
flavor so that it's easier for us to work with.
The source that we're drawing from through the earth of sky is Spirit.
For Spirit to work in this manner, it has to be omnipresent, existing everywhere simultaneously,
connected to everything, uniting everything. The deeper we step into magick and mysticism, the
more that we realize that this energy, the very essence of Spirit, is everywhere and everything.
Literally.
If something we're to exist outside of Spirit, then by that very concept, it would be elevated to a level
equal to Spirit. And if everything is unified, separation indicates that we have yet to reach the source. Think about it this way. Let's say that in the vast expanse of everything, everything is
Spirit. There is nothing else because, Spirit is all encompassing; it is, literally, everything. Now
imagine that next to Spirit, separate from it, is a bowl of oatmeal. On one hand, we have Spirit. On
the other, we have oatmeal. In all of reality, they are the only two things in existence. Because
these are the only two things that have definition in all of reality - and because they are separate
from each other - then they are only reflections of a bigger, all-encompassing concept. If we
struggle to understand the infinite connectedness of Spirit, it's simply because we haven't stretched
our minds far enough to truly grasp the idea. Spirit is everything.
And that's where the biggest secret in the Craft can be found. It's not that we draw the energy for
our rites and our magick directly from "God" - it's that, because Spirit is absolutely everything, we
are "God."
When we are incarnated into this reality, we accept certain limitations to our ability to perceive. It's
the only way that this level of reality can work. By limiting our perception of reality, by giving up our
understanding that everything, including us, is "God," our focus narrows down to our own wants and
needs. This allows us to experience all of the things we incarnated into this lifetime to learn. If we
retained the perspective that we're Spirit and that all things are part of the divine whole, we would
not only fail to experience fear, anger, and the other negative emotions that spur us toward growth,
but we wouldn't be so creative in manifesting this reality.
With each step forward we take in our spiritual growth, we also take another step toward
understanding the sacred nature of all reality. With an increased understanding, our limitations fall
away a little more. As our limitations fall away, we access more power. With more power, we wield more magick. And this continues in an endless cycle.
That is why I stress personal and spiritual growth so much on the path I teach. You can conduct all
of your rites in ancients languages, memorize arcane texts, and do fundamentally perfect rituals and still not achieve the level of power you can by simply learning and growing. The thing about the
Craft is that we understand the relationship between the two and engage in an active role in
creating our own reality. Our biggest secret, however, is that there are no limits to what we can
achieve - and, ironically, that's one of the hardest lessons for us to learn.