The Disney Princess Example

by Lepidlizard

I've watched many Disney movies in my youth, and adulthood, and looking back I see the same themes presenting themselves, mainly, for little girls.  One of these themes was the dependence of a male hero to "rescue" the female protagonist.

Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella were all tired examples of this theme.  Some movies, like Mulan, edge away from this damsel in distress and actually have the male protagonist follow the lead of the female protagonist, however, even in the more modern princess films the female was still put down by a male hero.

The Princess and the Frog was a story with a strong female character, Tiana,  who worked hard for her life and everything in it and it was snatched away from her just before she was turned into a frog.  Only after she collects a man does Tiana realize her restaurant business, even when the bankers said before they found another offer.

What did this story teach young girls?  You can work hard, but it doesn't mean you will achieve your dreams without a man to support you.

Many of the earlier Disney princess movies were subject to a nuclear family setting, but even the modern ones fall short to have a strong female character.

Another similarity throughout the films were the age of the girls:
Snow White-14
Sleeping Beauty-16
Cinderella-18
Ariel-16
Belle-16
Jasmine-16
Tiana-19
Rapunzel -18
Giselle-20

All of these girls were very young to even think about getting married.  Disney raised the age of marriage infatuation over the years, but the place for fairy tale romance pushes girls as well as the pressures of college and becoming a super woman to manage it all.

Even in the animated and live action movie Enchanted princess Giselle never has to fend for herself.  She tries to facedown the dragon, however, this was taken away from her by an overweight chipmunk. Giselle does make the decision to have a "real" relationship and she does sacrifice her child-like perception of love, but she keeps her 

by Raul654

princess magic to create  children's clothing.

Some of these reasons maybe why Disney decided not to do any more princess themed movies, at least for now.  However, the constant promotion of this image of what a girl should want from a young age cannot be healthy. 

There was room for the Disney girl in the past, however, as times have changed so must the franchise, especially if it wants to empower girls.

Spontaneous or Structured Rituals

by Fer Doirich

I really do try to plan for a ritual, but life doesn't always give me enough time to go through the entire process I like.  My process may differer from others, but if I really have the time this is my process:

1. I prepare all of my tools, herbs, oils and whatever else I need.

2. Take a shower and visualize the water cleansing me.  You can rub with salt, but I use a nice organic soap and it doesn't irritate my skin.

3. I put on some loose fitting clothes.  I live in an urban area so I can't exactly go skyclad.

4. I try to go outside and do my ritual, but sometimes the weather doesn't permit.

5. I then ground myself, Ariel has a great meditation for this, #26 Lesson 2 (A)

6. Lastly, cast circle and I preform my ritual.

by Nyo

Sometimes I skip one or two steps, but I always try to ground myself so I'm not up for the next week bubbling with energy.  I remember my first Esbat and I did not ground myself, I was up for a week beeming with energy, but I was so tired.

I really do try to plan out most of my rituals, mainly because I like to make an effort.  There are only 21 rituals a year, unless I decide to do a spell.  I haven't really done any spells lately, I haven't the need, really I just need to work on my mundane life mundanely.

Going through the effort is a sign of respect to the dieties, directions and any other enities called upon.  I'm inviting them to my ritual, being prepared is just curtious.  It would be just rude to throw it together last minitue and hope for even an average expierence.

How do you prepare for your ritiuals?

Dream: Surrogate Mother

Robertsan1 painter Schrotzberg died in 1926

I don't often have dreams, but when I do I try to write them down.  The phase of the moon was waxing gibbous, June 30, 2012.

This wasn't one of my strangest dreams, but it was strange for me to be expecting a baby.  I like nannying for children, but as for having one, I like to sleep in on weekends.

My boyfriend Mike and I were using a surrogate to have a child,  I saw the image of the child to be in my dream while Mike and I were at some sort of healthclub.  Apparently it was with the surrogates egg and his sperm she was pregnant, probably because my genetics were horrible.

I have diabetes, epilepcy, heart disease, cancer, altimerz all on my side of the family.  Mike's is realtivly healthy, so I imagine we decided to use the surrogates egg.

Tripton's Hand by
Portraitlady4306

I remember asking why Mike suddenly wanted a baby after we discussed not having children.  That's about the time I woke up.

I like to use dream moods for interpreting my dreams and went there and searched: surrogate, health club, baby, swiming pool and sperm.  he dream could be a literal interpretation, however I do not think so.  Considering my rededication to Wicca, I think it symbolizes more of a new beginning for me.  Even the health club has meaning, it could mean to apply what I have already learnd.  Even the surrogate was a symbol showing how I was missing my path in my life.

I rearely remember my dreams and think everyone I do remember as important.  Of course my boyfriend thinks a dream is just a dream.

Any strange dreams you would like to share?

Location, location, location

Yesterday morning I woke up about an hour before my alarm went off so I decided to have a mini yoga session and meditate. It felt so good to do yoga again and I decided to search for my wolf-spirit totem during my meditation.

I was in my field of red flowers and began to visualize dancing and picked flowers into a bundle. The air was cool, crisp and soft as I entered the dark woods. Trees stood silent and I called to my wolf, who came. It was male with a salt n’ peppered coat and white underside he lead me to his family who were deep in the wood. All those furry bodies pressed up against me and I smiled at peace.

It was a nice start to a long working day and I’m so thankful to have Thursday off because I have to perform my Esbat very late in order to prevent any witch burning. It’s my time to give thanks to the goddess and god, especially because I have more working hours now, which I needed.

My fiancé called and I was just so irritated and I feel really bad for it because how is he supposed to feel comfortable asking me questions about Wicca if I’m so mad? I need to just count to ten and focus on balancing my elements before I speak, also taking some Ibuprofen wouldn’t hurt either.

So I explained to him about the full moon and why I was performing the ritual. He was very receptive and I appreciate that because the last thing I need is to feel closed off from my lover.

I tried to do my ritual at the local park, but the energy was all wrong. Also the moon was being covered by clouds most of the time, but I preformed the ritual anyway and gave thanks to Luna for all her gifts and left some wine and bread for the earth.

I’m wondering if I’m doing these rituals right. I set up the representations of the god and goddess, invoke the four directions, cast circle, give thanks, but I think it has a lot to do with the energy already there also. My yard has a small oasis where I planted wildflowers and the energy just feels right for ritual. At the park though I felt frightened and aware of every chirp in the night.

I think it’s good to find new locations for ritual so you can know for yourself what energy works for you personally. I would love to find another location that is isolated from everyone, but since I live in the city it’s pretty hard to locate. I’m also scared of going too far off because I don’t want to fall into a big mess of trouble.

I’m so glad I’m on this path of discovery and would love to hear your comments.

Blessed Be.

Working with the Elements

Elements are everywhere, fire, air, water, earth, and they all nourish each other, fire needs air to burn, earth needs water to feed the plants. They are also associated with directions:
Fire-South
Air-East
Water-West
Earth-North

They are also in our birth sings. For example, my sun-sign is Libra and my moon-sign is Taurus, Libra-Taurus, Air-Earth, polar opposites. I usually accept my sun-sign more because I was born at 3 pm. Air, I'm blond, but that is beside the point because I think I was only an air as a child.

I was free-spirited, happy, floating about but it was squashed quickly because I had to fight for mental survival in my own home. I could not be a free-spirited, intellectual child anymore, I had to become a fighter or die. So my personality developed in fire aspects.

I still hold some air qualities, good student, artistic, loves to write, aspires to learn and teach, also I retain my earth qualities, stubborn, loves food, likes to work with hands, but I am imbalanced so often I retain the negative qualities of the elements, like not thinking before speaking, burning bridged, over indulging, overly emotional, the list goes on. I need balance in my life and I would love to reconnect fully with my sign qualities, because I really don't need to fight with fire too much anymore, so I have a chance to rediscover my born elements.

I'm going to the beach on Monday on a waning crescent moon, a good time for new beginnings and healing, and I've wrote a chant. I'll tell you how it goes after the ritual.

Who am I?

My magickal name is Shadow Moon and I'm going to tell you about my new found practice of Wicca. If you don't know what Wicca is there are plenty of websites you can go to, one of them is Wicca:For the Rest of Us at http://wicca.timerift.net/ . It has some down to earth articles about what Wicca is and isn't.

Some of you may have been taught that Wicca is a byproduct of Satanism, this is simply not true. It is a religion created about fifty years ago by a man named Gerald Gardner when he published a book titled Witchcraft Today in 1954. He supposedly met some witches in Dorset, England, and they called themselves the New Forest Coven. He wanted to preserve their tradition and wrote the book based on their practice.

Wicca maybe an ancient idea, but it isn't an unbroken chain, mainly because information was destroyed during the Burning Times. During this time witches, mostly women, and other outcasts like the Jews, were tortured in the name of the Christian God. This happened all over Europe and even in America at the famous Salem Witch Trials.

Christianity was used to gain money, power and control over the many Pagan cultures still practicing in 18th century Europe. They often used Pagan gods and goddesses in efforts to convert also. For example the Celtic poetry muse goddess, Brigid, is also the Saint Brigid in Catholicism. Also Saint Patrick did not cast out snakes in Ireland, in fact there never were any, it was a direct symbol of the Druids, another nature based Pagan practice, being chased out of their native home. So you can see Christians had to make Pagans Satan worshipers because they were a threat to the Catholic Church.

In Wicca there is no Satan, instead there is a god and goddess, Lord and Lady, who are symbolized through nature and ritual, giving life and birth to the universe. Everything contains these sacred energies, including you and me, and with these energies we can preform magick and ritual with the god and goddess.

The god and goddess themselves have many faces: Luna, Isis, Selene, Freya, Brigid, Athena, Diana, Zeus, Hades, Saturn, Horas...and thousands more, but they are all of the god and goddess. Some just follow a a general form of the god or goddess and others take god and goddess' who reflect on them, empower them and inspire them. I keep it simple and follow a very organic form of the god or goddess, using their basic energies to aid me.

Wiccans do have a moral code, the simplest form is "Do what ye will, but harm ye none." The actual Rede is longer, but this is the gist. It's important that you understand Wicca is not a free for all practice full of angry teenagers hexing each other during study hall. This is a Hollywood version of the Craft, not the real version, which it true for almost any television show. So instead of looking to television you should read up on the Craft and go to places like panganspace.net to communicate with Wiccans and other Pagans.

Some Wiccans are solitary and others join a coven. There is some controversy about this, but I honestly beleive the god and goddess don't care as long as your intentions are pure. Covens are groups of people, usually men and women, who practice rituals and some spells together, which is awesome because when so many are focused on a goal it's truly a spiritual power trip. When in a Coven a newly dedicated will go through a year and a day of study, as reference to the time it took Cerridwen, a Welsh legendary witch, to make her potion, after which they will be officially apart of the Coven and can continue through two more years of study to eventually become a Priest/Priestess of the god and goddess.

In the solitary, you are the motivation for the study, you are the Priest/Priestess for the rituals, it still takes alot of work and even if you do work hard you are often not recognized by an official Coven, despite your knowledge of the Craft.

There are also many tools and practices attributed to Wicca, but I'm going to let you look those up for yourself, because I'm in no way qualified and you should never trust what anyone tells you. Do your own research, teach yourself, and follow your own path.

As to why I became a Wiccan, or at least studying to be, I played in nature as a child and felt content with my Christian faith, but this was before I completely understood how twisted people can make a religion. I saw Christianity as a suppressing religion to women of intelligence and my personal views just twisted the arms of Christians at times. I tried to conform, but despite my research into the Bible through Valley Christian High School, I discovered the Christian God was not my god.

So I spent my teenage years searching for something unobtainable and began to progress into role-playing-games like Werewolf: the Apocalypse which focused on a goddess named Luna. It may sound a little weird, but I beleive the goddess reached out to me thought a RPG. After a while I met some Wiccans and realized how similar our thoughts were: we wanted equality of the sexes, were liberal, environmentally conscious, every idea just clicked together.

I read their books, like Solitary Witch, and discovered what Wicca offered to me was everything I was searching for. I gladly took up every book on Wicca I could find and began to study. The library is a great resource for books on the cheap. I'll give you a list of Wicca 101 suggestion at th end.

It wasn't until about my fifth month of study where I decided to do my first esbat , a ritual you preform for each full moon, sabbats are rituals concerning the equinox and such, more on that later, or just look it up. Anyway, I snuck out of my room around midnight with my candles and other tools in hand and began my ritual to honor the god and goddess under the moonlight. I cast a circle of protection and asked the four directions, South-fire, East-air, West-water and North-earth to assist and witness my rite.

Luckily it wasn't too cold as I sat awkwardly in my flower garden I chanted for the goddess to endow me with wisdom, peace, harmony... as the fire burned atop candles, and the ensence billowed out of the small cauldron. I was scared my parents were going to find out and throw me to the Christian wolves, but finally I relaxed and I left my body in a trance.

I floated about my large backyard and saw a silver and black Asian dragon circle around the full moon in a misty dance and then Luna came down to see me. She was beautiful, white silvery hair waving weightlessly as her pregnant form glided to me. Her silver robes sparkled and her eyes were a bright as diamonds. She asked me to come with her and she told me everything on this planet consisted of both male and female energies, and I mustn't forget that. She treated me like her long lost child, calling me little one and I asked her to bestow a magickal name.

A magickal name, or Craft name, is a name you can choose to personify your self in rituals or spells. It can be public or private and should be chosen carefully. There is nothing wrong with changing your magickal name, because everyone grows, but switching from this to that is silly and disrespectful. My name is Shadow Moon and it was given to me by the goddess in the form of Luna and she said herself it would change and grow, but for now, because I have to hide, Shadow Moon is my name.

Books I recommend:

The Spiral Dance by Starhawk

Wicca: A Guide For the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham

Animal Magick by D.J. Conway

Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler

The Complete Book of Incense, Oils and Brews Scott Cunningham

Book of Shadows by Phyllis Curott

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain

The Everything Paganism Book

Pagans & Christians : the personal spiritual experience by Gus diZerega.

The complete idiot's guide to Wicca and Witchcraft

Wicca for beginners : fundamentals of philosophy & practice by Thea Sabin

21st century Wicca : a young witch's guide to living the magical life by Jennifer Hunter

If you have any questions please e-mail me at shadowmoonofluna@gmail.com

Blessed be.

New Path: Wicca

Merry Meet,

I would like to introduce myself as Shadow Moon and I'm a newly practicing Wiccan. I'm not here to teach but I would love for you to join me on my journey through my progress in the practice of Wicca.

I'm keeping this short because it's late, 5 am, and I'm very tired. I promise I'll write a longer post later explaining what lead me to this path.

Blessed be,
Shadow Moon