The Yearly Roundup, Episode III

[icymist]

It looks like 2007 has been a heck of an interesting twelve months. With no pregnant teen starlets anywhere on this blog, and a notable absence of Brangelina and their adorable brood, I'm looking back at the news that affected Pagans and Wiccans over the past year.

Some notable names in modern Wicca and Paganism stopped by the Pagan/Wiccan blog to share their ideas and thoughts with us -- Ray Buckland, Dorothy Morrison, Dana Eilers and Sirona Knight all came to visit, which was really cool.

Also on the positive side, public perception and recognition of Paganism and Wicca seems to have popped up a few times this year -- a Scottish hospital system began to welcome Pagan chaplains, a Wiccan won the lottery and promised to use his windfall for education, and Delaware's Pagan Pride Day got some good press. Not only that, a major university added Pagan holidays to the list of days you can take off. On a less delightful note, in England, a giant Homer Simpson outraged some Dorset Pagans who take themselves very seriously.
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[ninkasi]

1. It's about time

I think that Pagans and Wiccans were driven underground for many years, but since Christianity took over so many of their traditions, they could celebrate on the same days as others, but were celebrating something else.

It's strange, but as a little girl, I got angry when witches were portrayed as evil. I knew they were not, that they were healers, and respected nature. When I was 7, I got a little oven that would bring water to just be warm enough to pretend to cook. I kept my little stove in the garage, and brewed "potions", using clover, rose petals, things like that.

I have no idea why I've always been the way I am. My family was Methodist, but I was a witch...that was before Wicca was used as a description. Weird, isn't it?

[icymist]

2. Awww. I bet you were a precious child!

A natural born healer!

[ninkasi]

3. Don't know about precious

but both of my grandmothers were women who people came to to be healed. My father's mother told me that when she was very, very small, people came to her to be healed. My Granny was only 3 or4 when her mother died, but one moment she never forgot was one which another woman came to my great-grandmother, Sarah, knelt on the ground in front of her home, and held hands with the woman who had come to her.

Any time I spent with my grandmothers was a peaceful, healing time. Later, in the 70's and 80's at work, people wanted to sit next to me, because they felt peaceful. I didn't do anything to make them feel that way.

The only thing I can think is that my two beautiful grandmother spirits were working through me.