Feminist Elders
Taking a stand and speaking truth to gender equality was the type of feminist I knew when I was coming of age during the Woman’s Movement in the 1970s. I have always identified with this version of the feminine, adding my own fighting spirit and listening to Free to Be You and Me, an album dedicated to gender equality. Still, I saw the injustice and carried a chip on my shoulder, especially while playing on the boys’ football team as tight end with my friend Mindy, who was quarterback. Our coach, Mr. Vranich, treated us as equals. I was queen of the hill at eleven.
Then I got my period and life didn’t feel as equal anymore.
We breeding women carry the responsibility of life in our bodies. We feel the cycle of the moon as it plucks an egg from our bodies every month. We share chemicals of emotions with the human beings we grow inside of our wombs. Women are in ceremony just by living.
As I entered my twenties, my favorite healers were those who had a women’s touch—a very specific feeling of gentle power. With the help of my sisterhood, I shed the anger and stepped into the potential power. I discovered my inner Witch. The term feminist began to take on a divine quality in my heart and mind. I began to know myself as a feminist who fights, stands, and speaks for all gender equality, and one who reveres the Divine Feminine principles: Goddess energy, yin, rest, anima, introspection, mystery, night, sisterhood, circle magick, winter, darkness. Gender equality includes the spiritual realm as we harmonize God and Goddess energy in our lives and with the other members in our shared community of alive beings.
Vicki Noble carved out a sacred place in our collective conscious for the modern woman to be as fierce as Sinead O’Connor or gentle as Goddess Kuan Yin, depending on what is needed. She is a feminist whose teachings, books, and Motherpeace tarot deck remind us of the power of women standing strong together. Vicki is a feminist who advocates for sisterhood, cycles, menses, autonomy, a lineage of nurturing female leadership, inclusivity, and wisdom passed down through oral storytelling for 35,000 years. She’s my respected elder, a hera (some people use the word shero), a trailblazer, the Gloria Steinem of Witches and Goddess-loving, dirt-worshipping tree huggers.
I turned to Vicki when I noticed that witches who learned Magick through memes or books versus a living person often dissed the value of crones or mentorships. I imagined she would be as furious as I was at the trending downturn of Witchcraft to disregard the women who wedged open the door that modern Witches are now busting down. After all, Witchcraft is an earth practice and worldview that reveres the Goddess and the Divine Feminine. I told Vicki about a meme I would draw in which a coven of old women worked on the blazing sun to cultivate a beautiful garden. The worn out hags and crones enjoy their lemonade in the shade of the porch, as a young maiden comes along, plucks a flower from the garden and says, “Oh, look what the Goddess left for me!” The maiden takes without the slightest acknowledgement for her elders.
Vicki surprised me when she said all youth forget the wisdom of their elders for a time. This has always been part of life. Why should Witchcraft be any different than any other tradition or teaching throughout time? This wise perspective shifted my pain and took the sting out of my righteous indignation at being forgotten. I began to relax instead of feeling defeated for paving a path into the mainstream with published Wicca books since 2000 that new Witches enjoy today without the traumatic scarring caused by being ahead of the curve in marginalized and ostracized as a Witch. It’s not personal, it never was.
Since Vicki had soothed my frayed edges once before, I turned to her when we discovered a serious mistake in The Book of Spells a week before it was to be released. The information for the south and the west had been inadvertently flipped. There were 15,000 copies printed with the wrong information about the seasons, four elements, and magickal correspondences of the Mandala of Nature that are the cornerstone of my Wiccan teachings.
Vicki suggested that I look at this situation, not as a mistake, but as the Spirit Hole that indigenous women leave in their weavings. Among many cultural interpretations, Spirit Holes remind us that we are humanly flawed, but our imperfections are always a perfect reflection of the Great Spirit, the source of all things. A Spirit Hole is the place where the Divine Source reaches through to teach you that there are no mistakes that can take you off your path on ysour life’s journey. Every twist or turn on your path is a possible lesson to learn more about yourself and your unique perfection. Spirit Holes are the channel by which you learn to see yourself as the Divine sees you.
Respecting our elders is a cyclical experience as they shed light on our path. Mentors help us see the reflection of our Divine Essence. I am so honored that Vicki Noble wrote a beautiful endorsement for A Box of Magick, calling me call me a true feminist. I want to honor her by sharing this except from A Box of Magick.
Five Reasons to Work with a Mentor from A Box of Magick
1. Mentors reflect your true merit. They meet your success with praise and your failures with hope—in whatever form suits their personality, of course. This builds your self-confidence to take risks and explore the next levels.
2. Mentors hold you accountable. The very best mentors will ascertain your abilities and help you integrate the lessons in a way that’s designed for you to best absorb the information of their skill, craft, or art.
3. Mentors know the value of passing it on. To keep the circle of energy flowing, we must each find someone with whom we can share our gifts, talents, and knowledge. Magick and abundance are always found in the act of reciprocity.
4. Mentors teach spiritual flexibility and test the range of your humanity by teaching through parables, through their unique wit and wisdom, or through personal example, which deeply imprint us with a diverse perspective.
5. Mentors help their students find and establish boundaries. With a truly heartfelt connection with your mentor, you can break old relationships and forge new ones with authority and inner wisdom.
