Wolf Moon 2017

[Shaker]

The traditional name for January's full moon, now shining in gloriously through my window. (Thank you, Met Office forecast, for being wrong about the cloud cover tonight).

[Owlswing]

The traditional name for January's full moon, now shining in gloriously through my window. (Thank you, Met Office forecast, for being wrong about the cloud cover tonight).

Traditional . . . hmmm!

That, I think, depends rather upon which tradition that you are looking at.

Patti Wigington (a Paganism/Wicca expert - her words not mine) lists it as the "Cold Moon", others list it as the Black Moon, the Death Moon and the Crone Moon!

You pays your money and you takes your choice!

I call it the Full Moon and let it go at that! Giving it a name does not make it any warmer when doing the Esbat Ritual skyclad!

[Shaker]

No, it's a bloody freezing night whatever you call it!

[Rhiannon]

This chap says it's the Moon after Yule.

http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucapsj0/moon/index.html#tth_13

[Owlswing]

This chap says it's the Moon after Yule.

http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucapsj0/moon/index.html#tth_13

This is one of the problems with neo-paganism or Reconstructionist paganism.

So much of the history, often passed down from parents to children by word of mouth, writing was only, in the early days, available to the children of the devout (not putting too fine a point on it!) was lost when families lost parents or communities lost their shaman or leader to disease or war and then even more was lost to the arsonist tendencies of the Roman Catholic Church.

These days just about anyone with the ability to read even one of the many "experts" on the subject immediately becomes an expert themselves.

I have spent years on research and there is no way that I would class myself as whatever the lowest classification of expert might be.

There are those who genuinely believe that they are helping others onto or along their chosen path for purely altruistic reasons and there are others, like a certain Christian poster's friend Kevin Carlyon - the King of the British White Witches (the very inclusion of the word "White" in his title tells anyone who knows anything about witches that he is a fraud) who are in it for the money and the adoration of the gullible!

As the advice I got from my first High Priestess put it - if you want to know about Paganism and the Craft read everything that you can get your hands on, take on board those things that feel right to you, then read some more and adjust your path as you learn more, but Rule ONE is that whatever you take on board MUST be what feels right for you and not what feels right for anyone else no matter what title they call themselves by! 

[Shaker]

This chap says it's the Moon after Yule.

http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucapsj0/moon/index.html#tth_13

Quite. I've seen Cold Moon said to refer to the full moon in February.

[Rhiannon]

I like the idea of giving the full moons names that have personal meaning according to where we live and the nature around us.

Other than that I'm with Sir Owl - just 'the full moon' is fine by me.

[Shaker]

As the advice I got from my first High Priestess put it - if you want to know about Paganism and the Craft read everything that you can get your hands on, take on board those things that feel right to you, then read some more and adjust your path as you learn more, but Rule ONE is that whatever you take on board MUST be what feels right for you and not what feels right for anyone else no matter what title they call themselves by!

Wise words, Owly.

[Rhiannon]

As soon as I read a pagan book that says 'we must do', 'we don't' or 'we believe' it goes to the charity shop. If it tells me what to do that also goes as well.

[Shaker]

Because of the 'we' part you mean? Exclusivism? "This is what we do" (sometimes with the implied rider: " ... and if you don't do it, or do it differently, you're wrong and not a proper pagan").

[Rhiannon]

Yes, partly. But also I'm suspicious of the motivation of anyone who thinks they know what I 'must'. Been there as a Christian; it has no place in my spirituality.

[Shaker]

It's ironic that it should occur in paganism, a group of traditions with no central authority and which prides itself (as Owl pointed out earlier) on the principle of "Take what resonates with you and speaks to you personally, leave the rest." Still: factionalism is a perennial human failing, alas.

[Rhiannon]

It's ironic that it should occur in paganism, a group of traditions with no central authority and which prides itself (as Owl pointed out earlier) on the principle of "Take what resonates with you and speaks to you personally, leave the rest." Still: factionalism is a perennial human failing, alas.

I think it's a lot to do with ego. And a complete incomprehension that one person's way isn't going to be another's. But then pagans are absurd creatures, same as everyone else.

It's not really factionalism, usually it's just someone who is so sure of their rightness. For example one author says pagans shouldn't dye their hair because wild creatures don't. Yet she's well known as a tattoo artist.

[Owlswing]

I may have mentioned this before, memory not being what it once was, but a pagan, female, of my acquaintance who was the daughter of a very senior member of the coven run by Alex and Maxine Sanders (who were, in the early days of the fifties, second only to Gerald Gardner himself in the Pagan/Witchcraft hierarchy of the time) and herself a senior member of thre Alexandrian Tradition of Wicca, was told by the leader of a Pagan/Witchcraft organisation that was usually referred to as the C of A - the Children of Artemis but more usually as "Cash or Account" - that she was not and would never be a "proper witch" because she did not dress permanently in black!

Is it any wonder that some view modern paganism/witchcraft with disdain!       

[Rhiannon]

Yeah, we all know witches wear purple tie dye. 

[Owlswing]

Yeah, we all know witches wear purple tie dye. 

. . . and that is just their hair!