On The Blessedness Of Community

Community is a double-edged sword. Always has been. Trying to live with others is difficult, trying to live alone is almost impossible, and because of these facts most of us have to find some balance between loneliness and wanting to be left alone. Here is where I want to take a breath and acknowledge how hard that can be. I want to witness my own efforts and the efforts of all of you to show up again and again for these communities even when we all know how difficult that can be. It’s hard to live together well and I want to say that I see and I honor those of you doing the work.

I have always had very mixed experiences with community. I grew up in Southern Texas and suffered that culture’s typical ways of treating young queer people interested in magick and mysticism. In addition to this, a large number of my peers had heard stories about my parents (who were witches) from their own parents, which led to a lot of bullying and persecution. The worst part was that the occult scene in my home town was quite small, incredibly toxic, and I was young and stupid and didn’t yet know how to be ethical or set healthy boundaries. This was not a recipe for good experiences.

But then I moved to Santa Cruz, California, a place as different from Southern Texas as I could want. I found my honored and beloved late teacher, did my year and a day, and set down roots in both the local witchcraft and ceremonial magick communities. Soon I found myself working at an occult shop (13: Real Magick, if anyone remembers it) and I was thrilled to meet all sorts of new and interesting people every day.

And therein, as the saying goes, lies the rub.

Some witches didn’t like that I did ceremonial magick and spread rumors about my ethics, calling me a “black magician” and claiming that I went around cursing people and sending demons to hurt them (I didn’t). Some ceremonial magicians were condescending and dismissive about me doing witchcraft, calling me a “dabbler” and comparing me with Silver Ravenwolf (just plain rude, to both me and Silver Ravenwolf). Neither group wanted to spend time with the other and neither accepted the fact that I wanted to spend time with both. I felt a lot of pressure to “pick a lane”, which I was mostly able to resist, but it was hard to live with that sort of complexity without the support of community, so I also sometimes behaved poorly in response. Overall, community for me in those days was a pretty awful experience.

One of the other employees of 13 and I left and we founded our own shop, The Sacred Grove, with the rest of our polycule. We started teaching classes and holding public rituals. “At last”, I thought, “I will find community”. As I’m sure you will guess, it didn’t really work out like that. Nothing really changed.

I did my Abramelin Operation in 2002-2003 and, fortified with some knowledge of what the hell I was supposed to do with myself, I left the Grove to go to college. My HGA was very clear: I needed to learn how to think, then what to think about, and then finally what to do about it. I set out to do so, and excelled in an academic setting as I never had before in any other part of my life. It was during this time that my HGA led me towards Christianity (quite to my surprise). I ended up converting to Orthodoxy and serving as a chanter at a Greek Orthodox Church (pre-transition, obviously). Again, I thought I would find community, and again I was wrong. My spiritual father, Fr. Timothy, was driven from the parish in a scandal (he was blameless, the scandal was the behavior of the church council) and as his spiritual child, it was made clear I was no longer welcome in a million ways. I started going to a different Church for a while and they were nice enough and happy for a new chanter to join the liturgy team, but I was emotionally devastated by the loss of my mentor and it was very hard for me to trust the people at the new church (through no fault of their own). I soon left, never to return.

Fast forward a lot of years. I have found a way in my own Great Work to straddle ceremonial magick (Thelema), witchcraft (Reclaiming), and Christian mysticism (hesychasm). I still get dirty looks, condescending remarks, and sometimes outright hostility from members of all three communities about my involvement with each of the others. I still haven’t had a community that did not make me sad more than it made me happy. I still haven’t had a relationship with community that I could call “good”.

I am still caught between loneliness and wanting to be left alone.

And yet I could not live without you all, dear ones. I think about my duty to you constantly. I pray for you every day. I sacrifice at my altars in your names. I write homilies hoping that I can brighten your hard days and offer some comfort during your sleepless nights. I want nothing but the best for each and every one of you.

I love you, and I would be devastated to lose you. Even when you frustrate me or scare me or make me mad or upset. Even when you treat each other so badly it makes me weep and shudder in fear for the future. Even when it is so clear and obvious to me that I will never truly find a home among you.

You break my heart over and over, and I love you.

I love you all.

So let us reach out to either side and hold hands with whomever we find there, even if that person is a stranger. Even if they are an outsider, an alien. Even if they don’t ever quite fit in. Let us hold each other up and celebrate each other’s accomplishments. Let us share in each other’s pains. Let us recognize that we are together, even when we are apart. Even when we feel so, so alone.

Let us be in community.

Blessed Beltane and Samhain, beloved ones. Be well.

In love,

Soror Alice