Love and light vs hate and dark

I decided to start the journey to reconnect with my pagan spirit a while back ago. Over 6 months, really, when I decided to get back into tarot, intention and general creative visualization. Since these all go hand in hand for me, it made sense.

I started by joining some pagan groups of Facebook. Even though I have a more “classical” teaching, for lack of a better term, I thought it would be a good idea to become acquainted with the practice, learn more how others celebrate the holidays and rituals, etc., and just for general knowledge on where the mindset is these days. As a solitary pagan, before the days of the internet, connecting with other like minded souls was not as easy.

Of course, even with the internet, it’s still not easy, as paganism and witchcraft are some of the most disjointed religions due to the fact they are more often than not, Frankensteined together with little rhyme or reason, other than what that practitioner likes or feels is good or best. There are overall themes that are consistent, but that is mostly for the sacred days. Everything else is just rather haphazard. Except the rhyming. Oh my god! Why does every spell, every invocation, every statement have to fucking rhyme?! It’s a ritual, not a Hallmark card! Ugh! (Needless to say, I do not fucking rhyme anything. I actually dislike poetry as a whole.)

One of the major arguments I see, that I just don’t understand, is the absolute hate directed at those who choose to follow practices that don’t change free will, that don’t potentially cause a karmic backlash, and those who choose to put good out into the world over casting hexes and curses and such. There is so much hate towards the “love and light” crowd, and honestly, I don’t understand it.

I can understand if the love and light crowd constantly condemned those that have chosen to follow a darker path. I dislike the Wiccans who refuse to acknowledge that the 3 fold law only applies to their (excessively Christian, might I add) religious perspective. Not everyone follows that law, and for good reason. Even the main creed is “If it harm ye none, do as ye will”. To follow the three fold law *and* the creed, means, you can’t cast any spells at all because if you inadvertently harm someone, you get it back threefold. And honestly, fuck that. If I’m mad enough to put someone in my little black box, there’s a damn good reason and I don’t deserve the backlash for that, nor do I expect any.

But to hate people just because they choose to practice positive craft work is just…weird. Their path doesn’t affect you. It doesn’t make you any less, any better, any worse. It just means you choose to let your spell work focus more on negative feelings over working with the positives.

Who cares?

In the end, spell work is just taking action to move you from one place to another. For some, that is sifting through to find the positive and for others, it’s to focus on the negative to burn it all out and cauterize the wound. Spellwork is the work of taking what you have and bundling it in a way you can create activity. For some people, venting, raging, getting angry is a way to do that. For others, it’s to find the lessons and move from a place of potential knowledge.

The only people I ever see complaining about one group of people are, in fact, the dark and hate, talking shit about the love and light people. I have to wonder how unhappy those people are that someone else’s spellwork and coping mechanisms piss them off so much they have to make snarky posts about it.

A friend of mine once told me about karma, “it just is. It is either negative or positive. It just is.” I think about that a lot as I make this spiritual journey. Things that happen just are. What we choose to do with them is what makes the difference in how they affect us. I find peace and personal accountability in this way of thinking. Perhaps this is why I find this weird battle so…weird. In the end, it is a useless argument, a defenseless battle, an excercise in futility. It seems so much easier and more peaceful to let people do as they will. Do you and be comforted by the joy of that. That’s really all life asks of you.