Wicca is a religion but bigger than that, it is a way of life. The danger with anything that we do on a daily basis is getting so routine about it that we lose the meaning and purpose of it. This pitfall happens when we cling to tradition for the sake of tradition without any sense of deep meaning like when something is passed to you that you weren't in on the beginning. Sometimes *traditions* don't have a deeper meaning for you until you lose someone that you shared them with and then suddenly those traditions have memories caught up in them regarding the person you did them with. This is how I now feel about viewing all the lights during the Christmas/Yule holiday. My parents would take us on a drive to look at the lights around the neighborhoods before we returned home and opened gifts. So now, viewing lights bring back very pleasant memories of a time when me and my brothers were innocent and my family was whole and the holidays were filled with magick and wonder for us. Are they filled with magic and wonder for me now? Sort of but not in the way they were back then so I guess the answer is same but different. The point is, I now have a tradition of going on a car ride to see the holiday lights because it brings family close together to enjoy something together. It brings back previous memories of my childhood while building new memories with my daughter and now with my grandchildren. For my father and mother, it was an inexpensive activity that we could do as a family and have great joy doing it. They began the tradition so, I guess I was in on the beginning of this one. Will my grandchildren carry it forward? Only if they feel moved to do so. Who knows what wonders are in the years ahead that may revert such activities to a long ago tale. But that is ok because they will build *traditions* that speak to them and the ones they love.
For me the meaning of Wicca, or more appropriately the *purpose* of Wicca because I'm not defining the word but rather the point of it as a life path, is to help you live a full and balanced life with deep meaning and purpose and build and maintain a reverence and connection to nature and the Earth. Additionally, its purpose is to help you be the best version of yourself that you can be. And to me, with the exception for the references to nature and Earth, this would be the purpose of any spiritual path. The Dali Lama is attributed with the following saying:
"The best religion is the one that gets you closest to God. It is the one that makes you a better person."
And to the question "What is it that makes me better?" he is reported to have responded:
"Whatever makes you
more compassionate,
more sensible,
more detached,
more loving,
more humanitarian,
more responsible,
more ethical.
The religion that will do that for you is the best religion."
(Click here for the full interview with the Dali Lama.)
As for the meaning of life? Who but you could ever define such a thing? Is the person asking this question wanting to know if they are a Starseed, a Pleiadian, a Gray, an alien, some extraterrestrial being living in a foreign land? To do what? To learn what? IF you were from elsewhere which we all are, the difference is in the beliefs as to from where -- WHAT DIFFERENCE WOULD IT MAKE? If you found out this very minute you were a Starseed or Crystal Warrior or Indigo Child and on and on -- how would it change your life? And WHY would that knowledge change your life? If this knowledge is a deal breaker on how you live this existence, what happens if you can't prove it? Or if you live for a while believing one thing and then figure out the answer was something else instead? Now you have lived for a while on a path that wasn't correct? Or have you? Instead of worrying about what we *WERE*, why not worry about what we *ARE* now? Because obviously if we are on this Earth right now as a Human, we aren't intended to be a Starseed or Pleadian etc. We are intended to have THIS experience RIGHT NOW. What if pursuing what you *were* before now set you back and meant you never got to go home again? -- if that is what is going on. Don't waste this life.
But what is the meaning of life?
To me -- you notice I said *to me* which means this isn't an answer but rather a personal opinion -- the point or meaning of life is to LIVE IT. To make use of it -- to do good works in it. Does that mean run around doing charitable works? If it moves you to do so, then yes, but there are many ways to do good works in the world. Sometimes just quietly living your life with deliberate purpose can set a wide track of admiration by others that causes more good that all the work in a soup kitchen ever could. But the most important point to living life to me is doing so with sincerity -- not making every move you take be contingent on some outcome. So don't go through life as though it were a big math equation where *if I do A plus B and subtract C and divide E* I will get a pass to glory -- or whatever your ultimate reward is. Just LIVE like the Dali Lama described and do so with SINCERITY.
As I stated at the beginning, this ramble is just my thoughts which I offer to be pondered. It was good for me to review these issues as I prepare to face my day. I hope they were useful to you in some way as well.
Bright Blessings and Blessed Be!
Rayven Michaels
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