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Show ing witchcraft would be anywhere else. witchcraft is,” says Aaryn. portation that I love. The way. someone Wrinkling else is responsible. The way they have to deal with traffic while | read the paper, sip my coffee, or watch the crazy lady feel her face. They have to worry about gas. prices and pollution. I just have to worry : about exact change. | ft the nose just doesn’t work. When learned that people had different skin colors, different mental capacities, different economic abilities, different ways of — speech, different. religions, different beliefs, different morals. I have society i: allotment another | don't know if people in. Pittsburgh are. less diverse than people in other big | with Grandma. | part of the rituals associated with witchcraft. | | to struggle the Bible or Jesus. Wiccans believe that individuals have access to the divine, without the assistance of the intermedi- ary, or a belief authority or hierarchy. While the common image of the witch adult. I was waiting i Salem, Utah, indicates that is far from Wiccans come in all forms; their age, joke about being “29” no mat- table in my section. Needless to say, I was ter how old they are! | used to think this. was such a silly thing. What was so spe- quite pleased to have them all to myself. _ fora couple of hours! I went over to the. cial about being 29 that made people get table, introduced myself and asked to get Halloween, or Samhain, is the witches’ new year, a time of celebration marking words...don’t worry, aids are other things that ne umn is an opportunity for you all to write. in share what you’ve been through, or are al and moon phases, indicative of their nature-based worship. But, according to Morrow, celebrations are, too, self- going through, even as we speak. It is for - They are things like being able to browse those who have been there and can help in a Home Depot (and enjoy it!); actually feelinga need to collect recipes; hearing a clock strike the ten o’clock hour understanding and words how talk Spirituality: entitled Neo-pagan leap Nature-based Wicca, through it, there. is because you re oe Those some v BR ES ee. ig late. If any of this ie. a caged with you, please send a note telling about it! I want this column to be where we can work together really ae announcements to: — any cot me all a place to get — _ The Wasatch County Courier | 525 S. Main Street through all of the mighty changes in life need: ‘em. later. i tas Try| ) 4” and suddenly believe it’s getting really and say, Heber City, UT 84032 that can throw us fora loop! For most of us, there is nothing. more helpful than’ l-can récall:the very moment I eau to realize that I had reached the beginning - : feeling that-we’re not alone. If nothing =~ of the end of amy = = See yas an Rist it oul sure be interesting! ZB modern-day witches. Zs Sig hie Be hearts 1» on + experiences. our groovy stuff on the other side!” It is also for those of you who don’t get it, but who should pay heed to these words anyway, — Thursday, October 28 at UVSC's Wasatch Campus at 7:00 pm. The public is invited to attend, ask questions and learn more about the beliefs of 2 aN SI WR DE ARS Ta and touch “Hey! This might seem like a fiery hoop of doggy-doo right now, but once you Morrow will be giving a free, communi- ty will og school band on Homecoming. weekend. the rest of us muddle through by offering individual = Send yh aise the end of the Wiccan calendar year. Wiccans’ Sabbats coincide with season- = e free. ed my passage out of one part of life and into another. They scream out like a high you will! This -col- _ offers to print | hurt! ‘more. For those of you who are still | unable to grasp the meaning of my The announcements muttered that one stinging phrase | will never forget as long as | live...if not longer. “Yes, Ma’am.” Ouch! Now that what I’m talking about and can relate at a level so deep you can’t even find it any- | Wiccan to determine what each sabbat will be honored. Ba Wasatch County Courier ing college boys had been seated at a I’m sure that many of you know exactly their beliefs in the earth, the sun, the moon and nature are what form their the | at a dinner theatre in the mountains of North Carolina. A group of young, good look- their drink orders. One of them ordered a beer, and following company policy, I ter how hard I tried I couldn’t seem to understand. That is, of course, until ] — asked to see his I.D. As he reached for his wallet to retrieve his driver’s license, he started to approach that “magical” year. is that of a green-skinned, evil monger, to is, ane don’t mind me. to remain neutral, there and never want to leave? No mat- Morrow, a native, befittingly enough, of » it is up confused and_ the _tmorally_ _ abject and I don’t mind, but the best part MT MITT TTI Christianity, there is no equivalent of directed; weekend, I’m happy. I’m riding with the — Courier Staff My birthday is coming up in just a few days and | will be 29 years old...for the FIRST time. All my life I have heard people, especially women, when asked — unlike | common ground. crazies, the , I've - Opinion by Shannon Taylor, is no holy book or prophet, although | the reality. not hurting anyone, particularly me. That I should love the diversity that their ! | tures and-things in the Wiccan belief; —all.is done with the intent of no harm to others, lest the doer beware. There but tinue on with my neutrality. For a short Twenty- -nine...and Hol ding like spiritual development and healing, the divine spirit is present in all crea- » is a list of tenants, ing in this face-search for me, and J con- , in what’s in their hedtt, especially if it’s’ differences offer me. And while, at times jt sekved riding the bus when weLiibeeds Magic is practiced for positive purposes there “I just had to see,” | say, putting my hands down, knowing that there’s noth- j all dering what I’m doing. THT are My boyfriend gives me an odd look, won- "T Seenks icin my face like the woman in the back} to see if I’m missing something or find out what she might be looking for. 6 tn Be Ba ae SS, gs seed 2° ela oT bie te cas 2 a fax (435).654-2531 Sie Sa ee ee 3 me and Ttry should allow them to think and believe notice the crazies when | was on the bus aroma about how ugly the Mariner's new stadi- ‘um is and: whether Charles Barkley is a cry-baby. I wonder why the woman in the back of the pus keeps touching her face. whomever they’ve chosen to be. That I cities; I’d guess not. Or if bus riders were _ more mentally stable in the. mid-1970s,. but for some reason I never seemed to . I watch the kid with the his homework. I listen to the debate What I didn’t learn until I was much older was that I should appreciate these differences; that I should accept everyone | for who they are and allow them to be whomever they were born to be or Occasionally I'd ride with her. Herbs: and smooch. purple hair talk to the college kid: doing that, too. of free cheese or to catch Atlantic City. bus to one I watch the high school girl and her sexually-confused companion hold hands either try to change or | should make fun of, or shun. I have society to thank’ for house in the burbs, to the market, to the the malcy seems odd to me. I learned that ne dificretices hae dauld | bus all over town. Grandma wasn’t the not be changed, the physical differences, : best driver, having wrecked her new like color, economic standing, and dialect : Gremlin a day after she got it. A shame, _ _.were something I ‘should fear. I learned. since it was one of the Gremlins with the _ that those differences which were a matdenim interior. She never drove again. ter of choice, like: beliefs, morals, and— religions | were something that I should trode the bus. 7 Instead, Grandma Senior Center to pick up her monthly different, strange city, and suddenly I am overwhelmed with the neutrality I used to feel. I am thankful that people are different. I am thankful that they’re not bothering me. I am thankful that my normalcy seems odd to them, just like their nor- grandma in Pittsburgh and we’d take the Everywhere. She rode downtown, to our who's So I’m sitting on the bus, a stranger in a Sometime in junior high or high school, . -] learned that. bus riders were different. I thank for that.. I was a kid, I used to visit my one | 1 There’s something about public trans- the - witchcraft, “That’s society’s idea of what Pm whose values don’t always conform. _ just bus riders._ TTT of Lately, though, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to continue playing Switzerland. Not because of a change in me, but | because for whatever reason, suddenly rr and not try to change everyone into me, for the most part I’ve been able to keep my Switzerland-like status and allow the diversities to co-exist with me. _ in keeps | just | me kiss perception from OT she, around here just practice solitaire.” media’s across I’m on a bus in Seattle, where I’m spendMaybe it was just that as a kid, I didn’t ing a few precious days off. Being too cheap, or underpaid by my plethora of - realize people were different than me. | benevolent professions, | choose not to — knew they were older and taller or they were businessmen or hippies. But I never invest in a rental car nor cab rides. | thought anything about it.- We were all choose the buck-a-ride bus. too, keeps her beliefs private because, — far as the to Birmingham. They didn’ t serve our part of town. Driving was encouraged. That was the early 1980s. I’m guessing the crazies moved into my seat then. lady touching her face, a as if to see if it is still there. “people don’t understand. Most people — As The mh However, Courier Staff fy" > yet practicing Wiccan, has held her beliefs strong since she was a teen. “I feel like I was born that way. For a long time, | practiced without knowing that I was Opinion by Jean Croasmun, <a 328° (48; cag jin| i Summit County resident and employee of Expanding Heart, Aaryn, who is a_ TT Tit Searching for Anonymity on the Back of a Bus “T don’t know if my neighbors know,” he says. | says. yy any more difficult for him than practic- she 15| October i. 1999 COURIER Riding to Oblivion in Seattle WITCHES continued from page 14 practicing,” COUNTY TTT WASATCH 2 |
