....So much Cargo?....

[wolf560]

Wow...

... why not have dress up festival days?

... prepares one for working with the otherworld.

... you can imbue meaning into anything, and have it take on symbolic importance

Thank you..!!!

I didn't know what to expect to the idea that these pieces of metal, bone, and/or wood might store or resonate with energies. I have brought this topic up among other Pagans in coffee shops and had mixed results. Many just nodded and went back to other discussions as if it were somehow uncomfortable to talk about for some reason.

I feel more coming from things with some weight to it; my staff and my longsword as opposed to my wand and my dagger. Someone asked me why I wanted the weight of my heavy necklace and Torc around my neck. I told them that I felt the 'weight of responsibility' whenever I wore them.

The two items remind me of my promise to myself to keep an open mind and always strive to continue learning things. The necklace is only taken off around water and the Torc only put on during Ritual and gatherings.

[Heddwen]

Well, I would suggest that unless we all go skyclad with no jewellry or we all wear exactly the same clothing, then we have no way around the issue. Even then, someone will turn up with a bigger and better tattoo!

The wearing of jewellry is of course, a handy way to recognise each other, well outside of Glastonbury where we can safely assume that by default most of the people around there at festival times are Pagan.Folks there tend to look very intently at the jewellry dress code.

On the imbueing point, I agree with the accumulating and energising of objects and jewellry. There is another train of thought that claims that the advanced practitioner in witchcraft requires less 'props'. For example, the energy direction comes from the individual not from the wand itself, which becomes a symbolic tool. I go through phases of using a minimalistic approach and then have a sudden splurge of a blingfest grandioseness. At the moment I'm using less tools and more handwork during ritual.

And that's my entry to the great coffee debate

[Crimson Stormfire]

I only have my hand made winter cloak, with hood, a pendant, and my staff{Shiver}. I grew up in some very very old mountains where the magic was thick. so thick that you could feel it even if you arent sensitive at all. so that said being the "flow" as it were, some tools became more of a hindrance, so i naturally came to it without the benefit of learning tools and such. Now i find that i look around the circles and gatherings and wonder how some of these people even move with so much weight about themselves.And what purpose it serves. I always feel like the poor kid on the block when i look around and see gold athamay {sp?}, trinkets of silver and brass, special golden necklaces and other accoutrement. $2000 usd leather embroidered boots, $1500 deerskin cloaks, Special ordered tailored cloaks and robes, and then me in my simple black and purple cloak, black ash staff, and my weathered tri spiral pendant. I wonder sometimes if all that stuff doesnt limit the wearer to a single vision, like "well i must use a wand for this to direct or magnify the flow of energy, wouldnt a pointed finger or arm work the same? and i can only work this type of magic if i am skyclad because thats how i was trained. or this cloak can only be worn for this ceremony with these particular lines spoken with this particular image at the east with this type of wand. etc etc...
I think those of us here and there are many i have found over the years are here for the toys and the ,ystique without realizing the deeper mysteries. they put on the glamours without realizing why or how just that "hey if i have a shinier knife and a bigger more jewel encrusted wand that means i am important to those around me, where it isnt being important to those around you that matters but, being important to yourself and feeling your own personal connection with the divine {as you define it}.

[DJ Droood]

There is another train of thought that claims that the advanced practitioner in witchcraft requires less 'props'.

Perhaps that is the case, and the successful witches for whom magic works don't draw attention to themselves...because many (falling just short of all) "witches" I've encountered (an unscientific sample of a couple of dozen) have not been great advertisements for the efficacy of "magic"...when your life is a mess and you are grumbling that your government check is late, it doesn't speak well for you ability to command the winds.

[Heddwen]

Yes and there are those who seem to be 'playing at it'. They've got the gear but mention the word 'circle' and they go running off into the horizon at 90mph. This is what I suspect happened to Wolf560 in the coffee shop. Who knows Invitations to actively participate in ritual seem to be the litmus test for those with larger than life claims.

On another note I wonder what jewellry we all wear in our day to day lives? I don't think anyone could tell my spirituality as I wear a celtic Rhiannon necklace, celtic ring and celtic shield earrings all of the time although i have been known to bling up on occasion.

[wolf560]

Yes indeed...

I wear my heavy chain and shark's tooth pendant almost all the time.

The Sharks tooth is a representation of my Totem but was actually a retirement present from my Army team to me. They had called me 'The Shark' long before they realized I was Pagan because I was 'always doing things and never seemed to stop' (LOL).

Most people see the necklace and only notice the Shark's Tooth, but I can always spot a Pagan because they notice the rest of it; the silver Greek coin and the Wolf's head.

It is like wearing a placard that some see as 'bling' while others use it as Pagan recognition.

[Serpentia]

*smirk*

This girl wears one ring on her finger 24/7, on the right index finger where many people expect to see a wedding ring - and so that is what they see, and don't notice it's covered with runes. Those who can tell usually wind up talking to me for a while..

This Wicca-Druidess also likes to wear an Awen necklace most of the time, which is pretty telling but so far has not drawn any questions -the symbol is not really well known in Germany. Ceremonial jewellry I wear in ritual only. And the tattoos usually don't show...

And I agree with one post here about people that are serious about magic, you can't usually tell. We don't need window dressing and we just as soon not be noticeable. The words of the magus: to will, to dare, to keep silent...

Serpentia
the not-always-silent snake

[Bartholomew]

I couldn't find The Wizard link to give you but I found a little condensed piece from William Butler Yeats. "The Crucifixion of The Outcast " 1898.
The outcast a Bardic Wizard, is being crucified for having dared to complain about the conditions of the guest quarters at the local monastery to the Abbot.

..A half mile on the way he asked them to stop and see him juggle for them, for he knew, he said, all the tricks of Aengus and Subtlehearted. The old monks were for pressing on,but the young monks would see him. So he did many wonders for them, even to drawing of live frogs out of his ears. But after a while they turned on him, and said his tricks were dull and unholy, and set the cross on his shoulders again.
Another half mile on the way, and he asked them to stop and hear him jest for them, for he knew, he said, all the jests of Conan the Bald, upon whose back sheep wool grew. And the young monks, when they had heard his merry tales, again bade him to take up his cross, for it ill became them to listen to such follies. Another half mile on the way, he asked them to stop and hear him sing the story of White Breasted Deirdre, and how she endured many sorrows and how the Sons of Usna died to serve her. And the young monks were mad to hear him, but when he ended they grew angry, and beat him for waking forgotten longings in their hearts. So they set the cross on his back, and hurried him up the hill.
...So then they went away, but the beggars stayed on sitting round the cross. But when the sun was sinking, they got up also, for the air was getting chilly. And as soon as they had gone a little way, the wolves, who had been showing themselves on the edge of a neighbouring coppice came nearer, and the birds wheeled closer and closer.
"Stay outcasts, yet a little while" the crucified one called in a weak voice to the beggars "and keep the birds and the beasts from me". But the beggars were angry that he had called them outcasts, so they threw stones and mud at him, and one that had a child held it up before his eyes and said he was it's father, and cursed him, and there upon they left him. Then the wolves gathered at the foot of the cross, and the birds flew lower and lower. And presently the birds lighted all at once on his head and arms and shoulders and began to peck at him, and the wolves began to eat his feet.
"Outcasts" he moaned, "have you all turned against the outcast?"

[Skogsvandrare]

Oh yes, "Pagan Bling" says it so well in fact....

Some of us actually began wondering if it was an extension of the "Who's Wand is Bigger" phenomenon after awhile

Checking out ancient threads abd resurrecting them...

Once upon a time, a very logn time ago there was a small book with the title "Paganspoof". It included an new sport "Ritual Jewelry Walk", where the participants must wear *all* their ritual jewlery and walk a distance (that I can no longer recall, and my copy is 250 km away).