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No birth, no death

No birth, no death The Buddha taught that Nirvana comes when we awaken to the Truth that our essential selves have never been born, and so can never die.  But this is not just a spiritual’ belief, it’s literal and physical too. E=MC2 enshrines the Truth that neither matter nor energy can be destroyed, only transformed, each into the other. NOTHING ever ‘dies’, nor is it truly ‘born’ - all things material are simply recycled, reused and repurposed. EVERYTHING that makes up what you think of a ‘me’ is actually ‘borrowed’: the minerals in your bones and cells that used to be part of the Earth, the carbon and oxygen that fuels your body that comes from the plants and animals you consume to live, the DNA that tells your body how and ‘who’ to be that come from your parents and ancestors - even the ideas and beliefs in your head that you learnt from Wise Ones and Teachers of the past - EVERYTHING that makes up ‘you’ has all previously been parts of something else Greater and more continuous t
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Yogi, Buddhist, or Occultist…?

I was asked a really good question at this months Frampton Moot :  “How does your Yoga inform your Witchcraft?” - which threw me because I don't see them as separate things, but tools for living and Enlightenment. Many Westerners think of Yoga as either a form of exercise and stretching, or as some kind of esoteric ‘spiritual gymnastics’ - rarely do they understand that it is an embodiment practice of “coming home” to the miracle of incarnation.  Yoga is only one small part of a bigger philosophy and way of being in the world, rooted in thousands of years of teachings and practices that evolved from the peoples of the Indus Valley: one of the oldest civilisations, with roots and connections right back to the Cradle of Civilisation itself, in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia, Sumer, and Egypt - where humanity first moved from itinerant hunter-gatherers to settled farmers, and birthed a flowering of human arts, culture and religious understanding that still form the roots of most
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Where have the young witches gone…? #paganpride

We celebrated Beltain this weekend at a beautiful Grand Sabbat - a coming together of eight different covens and lines to call up the Oak and the May, and give our love and energy to the land. It was a truly beautiful and heart opening evening - but for the thoughtful comment from one of our young Third Degrees, after being introduced to all the familiar old faces Geoff and I have known for decades :  “Where are the witches of my generation? Where is the New Blood that will keep the Craft alive and thriving…?”  And it’s true: we used to get regular emails and requests from people all over the U.K. in response to  The Wellhead ’s pages - most of them young pagans desperate to find a Traditional Coven to work and learn with, yet unable to find anyone else online or ‘open’; that utter lack of accessible and open signposting to the Initiatory Craft was the reason we first established our online presence - and it’s how many of the Witches we’ve initiated and trained came to find the Craft a
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WE are Risen!

The difference between the Western, #monotheism mindset and that of the East and of #animism, is the difference between ‘creation’ and ‘manifestation’ When you believe God to be an entity ‘out there’, a ‘someone’ who exists separately, and who then CREATES the world and man as ‘objects’, separate from ‘Himself’, you create a #dualism between ‘God’ and ‘the universe’ - ‘god’ and ‘not-god’. And that makes the World and our life in it something ‘second best’. Even worse, it paints Humanity as an object, a possession, or a ‘pet’ - who must be ‘saved’, and who must continually prove their ‘worthiness’ (and fearing His punishment and wrath). The Eastern and #occult mindset is different, because it understands that ‘the Divine’ is not an ‘entity’ separate from a ‘creation’, but that the Universe itself is the physical and temporal expression and manifestation of the Divine itself. There is no ‘God’ or ‘Buddha’ ‘out there’ somewhere: it’s all HERE - ALL god, all GOOD - and it’s all ONE.  We ar
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Ban Conversion Therapy. Now!

Can I ask a political favour? Will you join me and @stonewalluk by emailing your MP to protest the Government’s shameful U-turn on their promise to #banconversiontherapy , and show them that decent people DO care, and will fight for ‘minority’ and #lgbtq🌈 rights? I know you’ll wonder why I’m taking this so personally, but it IS personal. I’ve not said directly, but even my Therapist agrees that my own #Depression and suicidal breakdowns have at their root the buried shame that I learnt from the #homophobia and #bullying I suffered as a gay child at school, and the ‘prayer-cure’ I subjected myself to as a ‘good Catholic’ teenager, and then 10 years of hiding the true reality of myself from family and friends, before finally finding the courage and #pride🌈 to come out in my mid-20’s. I’ve lived with the buried #trauma and self-hate of that  #internalizedhomophobia for 30 years - and it STILL grabs and drags me down when #triggered by events like these.  We can not let this next generat
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#itgetsbetter

Today is a day I never thought I’d reach: I just had my ‘last’ regular weekly #psychotherapy session with my therapist, Jamie Cahlil.  I’ve been seeing him (daily, then weekly) for nearly three years - since my last big suicidal breakdown in 2019, and it’s been quite a journey - but it’s been months since my last #relapse, and I’m feeling a lot more solid and secure in both my coping skills and my self-care, so we’ve agreed that I am recovered enough from both the Depression, and the triggered fear and shame that was behind it, which prevented me from looking after myself or even believing I was ‘worthy’ of recovery or self-love. And I DO feel so much better - so much more ‘me’ again. I still have downs, and ‘habitual bad thoughts’ but I also now have the skills and the self-belief to face them and then let them go.  We’re still going to meet monthly for a catch-up for a little while though, just to make sure I stay well (and he wants me to contact him if/as soon as I feel any ‘bad’ co
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No Hate

#noh8 Rafiq’s testimony about what he and other Asian players have endured as ‘banter’ was harrowing - but it only shows the very tip of what people of colour have to endure, every day: the multiple micro aggressions, the casual use of racist language and slurs, and the underlying assumption that underpins almost all of British and Western Culture that “if your skin isn’t White, you’re ‘foreign’ - and a threat” This is the reality of the racism that sits at the heart of our culture - the racism that is the toxic leftover from our inescapable Imperial Past. This is the reality of over 300 years of British and Western Imperialism that saw the world and its nations as ‘Ours’ - the sea of pink that swept across the globe like a disease that said “We are the culmination of progress and culture: we are God’s own People, Made in His Image - all other peoples and cultures and beliefs are ‘inferior’ to us, and We alone have the Right to Conquer, to enslave, to Rule, to ‘civilise’, and to oppres
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