Unwicked Wicca

CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/JOHN JAQUES
Lyn Brown: 'I thanked the universe and the Earth Mother for where I live and love.'

Local witch not fearsome at all

By MARVIN READ
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

Some people just don’t act according to stereotype.

Take Lyn Brown, for example: She is, by her own careful and considered evaluation, a witch.

But there’s no pointy hat, no skulking black cat, no bubbling cauldrons and, though she may own a vacuum cleaner, there are no brooms upon which to fly. And spells? The ones she casts are positive.

Nope, it’s just plain ol’ Lyn Brown, telephone receptionist at Colorado State University-Pueblo, once-upon-a-time Presbyterian, a native Puebloan, a woman who believes that any and all church buildings and any and all faiths are sacred and good, even as she asserts her right to disagree with some of them.

On an evening last weekend, while many Christians were preparing for Easter worship, Brown, a few of her Wiccan girlfriends and a few associated onlookers gathered at her acreage east of town to light a full-moon, equinox bonfire, write out their good wishes for the upcoming year and toss them into the bonfire so that they could be carried to, well, wherever such good wishes belong.

Despite what Sunday-school teachers like to tell us, Wicca - the at-once generic and specific name for this belief system - seems, at Brown's level of practice, unthreatening. She explains it as a peaceful and balanced approach to life and spirituality that aims to connect the individual with what is divine and, indeed, with all that exists. It's nature focused, and how bad can that be?

Pretty non-threatening, huh?

To hear Brown talk about Wicca (there is an etymological relationship between that word and "witch”), you’re more likely to find its adherents involved with appreciating sunrises or sunsets, the gentle light of the moon bathing a forest, the warmth of the sun, the songs of birds, the petal-borne morning dew and the delight of a cooling breeze.

In other words, Wicca is rooted essentially in the Earth and its goodness and, while there’s a form or branch of the nature-based Wicca that dates to 1954 and a Briton by the name of Gerald Gardner, the essential roots of Wiccan spirituality pre-date Christianity in what is now Presbyterian Scotland, Catholic Ireland and Anglican Wales.

Brown - whose tone of voice is gentle and reflective of the Wiccan ideal of being a searcher, a healer, a rescuer, a protector - doesn’t belong to any official group or coven of Wiccans, but delights in being one of six women who’ve been friends for years and who have embraced the natural religion since the 1970s.

“Some people equate Wicca with satanism,” Brown said, adding quickly, “Nothing could be further from the truth. We may think freely, we may have gotten away from the strictures of our individual church roots, but we see the possibility of divinity in all things and we accept responsibility for what happens in our lives without blaming anyone or anything else.”

Bad rap for feet

She guessed that the satanic association has more to do with people who want to label Wicca as bad, or perhaps with the mythological Pan, who, because of his horned, cloven-feet visage - one of those things that happens when you're half-goat, half-man - gets confused with Satan.

Pan's role centers about his role as lord of the woods, god of goatherds and huntsmen; ecstatic dancer; god of laughter and good humor; and the masculine polarity of the universe.

Brown said her initial exposure to Wicca came in her 20s, when she discovered Merlin Stone’s 1976 book, “When God Was a Woman.”

In those days of burgeoning feminism, Stone's words had an effect on the young Brown: "It is shocking to realize how little has been written about the female deities who were worshipped in the most ancient periods of human existence and exasperating to then confront the fact that even the material there is has been almost totally ignored in popular literature and general education," writes the author.

She asserted that Christianity basically buried and hid evidence of those female-oriented religions in order to give males power and superiority, even in humanity's image of God "the father."

Brown talks about the seasonal cycle, and how it relates to the four stages of women: child and spring, maiden and summer, woman and fall, crone and winter.

Eventually, she and five other women formed a close relationship and, while not forming a coven or formal group, have clung together “in good times and bad, through highlights and lowlights,” Brown said. They have retained their friendship and practice for more than 30 years.

“Four of them were raised as Catholics,” Brown noted, and one of those women, whom we shall identify as "Marie," said she feels "a strong link to the female energy (Earth Mother, Mother Goddess) and has drifted toward that energy with all my might."

She said that the pagan rituals that she has practiced since her late teens belittle no one for what they believe and "honor both the female and male energy in a respectful and honest way," a consideration, respect and courtesy she doesn't see extended to women by patriarchal religions.

"I could not have faith in an organization that is so patriarchal and keeps women down," said Marie, explaining her reason for giving up her Catholic faith and becoming a Wiccan.

Brown, who worshipped as a youth at Mesa Presbyterian Church, a building now occupied by La Renaissance Restaurant, credits her father, still a devout Presbyterian, for "laying in my life a foundation of unconditional love and intellectual openness."

It's clear that she loves her dad, who now lives in Longmont, "even though he's a conservative, leaning noticeably to the right, and that's frustrating to me, a liberal, as we argue politics."

Like many Wiccans who avoid joining formal groups or covens, Brown, Marie and their four friends essentially practice their religion in solitary fashion, but gathering occasionally for community events, such as last week's bonfire at Brown's place.

As she chats, Brown absent-mindedly toys with the pentagram that dangles on a chain from her neck. Though often given a bad rap, the ancient symbol signifies not much more than the unity of fire, water, air, earth and psyche - the five elements that make up the human person.

At one time, the pentagram symbolized the five wounds of Christ, though that is not the symbol's origin, but points out how it is, Brown said, "that many symbols and rites that once were pagan in origin have been borrowed, maybe stolen, by other churches."

'Cafeteria Wiccan'

Brown describes herself as something of a "cafeteria Wiccan," taking what she finds useful in her own life and spirituality, "but generally illiterate about the old days, the lore and oral traditions."

As to those spells that witches are supposed to cast, Brown said, "Oh, sometimes, when bad memories or bad internals and experiences are in me, I'll utter this little rhyme that expresses that this particular thing should be banished from me. That's about it."

"We try to live by what's called 'The rule of three,' that says, in effect, 'Your acts, good or bad, will return to you three times.’Ê”

Maybe that explains the events that happened Sunday, when Brown drove past a run-down car on the South Side piled high with an in-transit family's belongings, and a sign that read: "Need food and gas to get family home."

"A little voice said to me, 'Shame on you. If that was an animal, you would have stopped without a thought.' So I stopped at King Soopers and bought a bag of rolls, some lunch meat, cheese, a gallon of milk and some doughnuts."

Delivering the food, she found out that the family - a man named John, his wife and daughter - was from Kansas, trying to get home after a failed job opportunity in Colorado. But they'd run out of money and, almost, gasoline. Brown accompanied him to a gas station, filled his tank, gave him a little extra money and "told him to pay it forward when he could."

"I held it together until we were both on our way," Brown said, "and then I burst into tears. I felt bad that there are so many out there like him and I can't help them all."

"I got home and sat outside for awhile, taking in the fresh air, listening to the birds singing, and noticing the buds appearing on the trees. I thanked the universe and the Earth Mother for where I live and love. And I cried."

Lyn Brown, the witch, and her witch friends, don't seem at all to fit the stereotype that has been thrust upon us. Theirs is a live-and-let-live or maybe a love-and-let-love practice of a spirituality that respects people and the Earth around them.

Sounds pretty good, actually.