Inquiring minds wants to know...

A friend from work sent me a few questions about my beliefs. They really made me think, so I wanted to share my answers here.

#1. Are you a vegetarian? Why or why not?

#2. Do you consider mining the ground as an insult against the Earth? Is the "spirituality" of crystals affected when they are intentionally extracted from man made caves? Or, more simply, do rocks have souls?

#3. Do plants have souls?

My answers:

1) I am not a vegetarian. I think if the Goddess didn't want me to eat animals, she wouldn't have made them so tasty. :-) Seriously though, humans are animals, and animals eat other animals, that's all a part of the natural cycle. I do avoid eating animals that are raised in inhumane conditions, like veal. If I could afford it, I would definitely buy more organic/free range groceries and such. But I don't believe my Goddess wants me to be broke, so I do as much as I can.

2) & 3) - The word "soul" isn't one I use a lot. I believe more in the eternal spirit, which is born, lives, dies and is reborn again. "Soul" to me has always been used to say who gets to go the afterlife and who doesn't. A soul is something to be saved or damned, two concepts that don't really fit in my spiritual worldview.

For rocks, I would rather use crystals produced in a man-made cave, than something that's been torn out of the ground without any care for the ecological system around it.

It would be like using an African conflict diamond or a cubic zirconium in your fiancee's engagement ring. Sure, the conflict diamond is of excellent quality, but do you want the negative energy associated with it attached to a symbol of your marriage? The cubic zirconium serves the same purpose, and its production did no harm to the Earth.

I have kind of a black thumb when it comes to plants, so I don't work with them much. I do believe they have spirits that you can communicate and work with, which I probably need to spend more time doing to work with them successfully. A plant spirit is usually called a Deva.

The magic is always in the magician, not in the tools. If you feel a tool was tainted in its creation, or in how it was harvested, then it's not going to work in your magic.

Hope that answers your questions, I have no problems answering questions about my beliefs, so let me know if you have more. Keep in mind I don't consider myself a spokes-witch though. The best part of Wicca for me is that each of us is our own priest or priestess. How I interpret things might be completely different from how another Wiccan does. A lot of my beliefs are influenced by the Reclaiming and Faery Traditions of Wicca, which are both got their start around San Franscisco, completely separate from Gerald Gardner's Wicca.





Merry Part and Blessed Be!