I was asked last night where the line between Renewal or Eco-Jew and Jewitch is. My immediate answer was, “Magick.”
Of course, during this whole conversation about my life as a Jewitch, I avoided the subject until that moment. I find it unbelievably difficult to talk about magick or magickal experiences with people, even Pagan friends. It seems like talking about it puts human limitations on experiences that are beyond human. Aspecting, spiritual/fey/elemental beings, energy work, pathworking, spellwork — all of these things are part and parcel of my life, but I can’t talk about them.
Perfect example is an experience I had last year after a ritual. I wandered off into the nearby woods because I kept seeing what appeared to be verdant, golden clearing about 50′ back. I didn’t really say anything to the other people, I just walked back there. Here’s where things get hard to explain. The simplest way to describe it, is that I was kidnapped by fairies. That however, does not begin to describe or explain what happened.
When I finally heard people calling my name about 15 minutes later, and apparently they had been calling me for several minutes before I heard them, I had to actually ask permission to leave. I seriously couldn’t find my way the 50′ feet back until I did, and then the way was clear.
I tried to explain it to people and they just kind of looked at me. Who knows, maybe I just had a mini-stroke.
What I do know is that talking about what makes me a witch, instead of just a earth-concious Jew, is next to impossible. There’s no one thing. It’s who I am, and how I interact with the world around me. I have a simple definition of magick, but not of living a magickal life. I just don’t know how to put these things into words that have meaning.
Maybe that’s the difference. Living a magickal life instead of just practicing magick.
Popularity: 5% [?]
I understand where you’re coming from. Believe me, I really do.
I do tend to tell people about a lot of those experiences, though. Usually about those involving multiple people.
3 rational people witnessed something none of them likely believed (even though they were looking right at it), and suddenly I couldn’t be so sure of anything anymore. I don’t really know how the experience affected the other two. Neither of them really ever wanted to talk much about it (nobody seemed traumatized though). It was what someone would call a UFO, I guess, although I (and others who were there) thought it was sentient. It looked like an intelligent light which was shaped roughly like a bright yellow / white diamond (when it wasn’t little, round, and red, that is, which most of the time, it wasn’t).
This was the second time I was personally involved in one of these experiences within (probably) one year. The first time I had seen one of them, I was about an hour’s driving distance from this place, and I don’t remember who else saw them with me that first time.
Years later, however, I overheard one of the people I’ve met up with over the years (from high school) talking about seeing them one day (describing them essentially the same way I did), and when I approached him, he specifically told me he can’t remember who one of the people was who he saw it with, and that he remembered that there were two people (and he thinks one was a girl).
I had always thought that there were 3 of us the first time I saw it, but I could never remember who the other two were. I still don’t know, but it could be that it was him, the girl, and myself.
Well, now I was seeing the exact same beings/UFOs at a different friend’s house an hour south/southwest of the original location.
For most of what I remember, there was only one of them hovering there, near the horizon, but I believe that at one point, there were two.
There’s a lot more to tell about that experience we (3 of us, again, and who all remember it) shared on this second occasion, but that’s only one story; there are at least a dozen others.
I think I find myself wanting a more fundamentally describable explanation for how these things can happen. That’s why I always want to talk about it. I’m looking for better answers.
Rarely does a day pass when I don’t at least think about these things and wonder what they are.
It will be very easy for my friends to figure out who I am from this post. That’s how much I have talked about these things with them.
I suppose we’re encouraged to keep these matters to ourselves, but when others were directly involved in a paranormal experience — especially when some of them are *ahem* um, Muggles? — I find the topic a lot harder to avoid discussing.