Timothy Roderick - Wicca: A Year and a Day: 366 Days of Spiritual Practice in the Craft of the Wise

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

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Wicca: A Year and a Day Copyright, 2005 by Timothy Roderick.

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First e-book edition 2013

E-book ISBN: 9780738716459

Cover design by Kevin Brown

Interior illustrations by Kevin Brown

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Contents

: An Introduction to A Year and A Day

: Esbat Ritual Format

: Magical Resources Guide

Acknowledgments

A work of this scope and breadth requires a contribution from many minds, hearts, and spirits. It has taken over twenty-three years to compile and distill the information you read in these pages, and during that time I have absorbed techniques and disciplines that have influenced my own spiritual practice and hence my writing. So whether their participation in the book was direct or indirect, I am grateful to an array of individuals for their various contributions.

Many thanks to Mead Hunter, the editor of this and each of my previous works. His sharp eye and even sharper red pencil have kept me making sense on paper for the past ten years. It is his advice, wisdom, and insight that you will find pervading this book. My gratitude goes to my long time friend and High Priestess, Varda Ninna, who has supported my path with humor, kindness, compassion, political awareness, and a keen shamanic sense of the Craft. Varda also reviewed portions of the manuscript before publication, and I relied upon her input while making critical adjustments to the text. May the Goddess bless members of Moontydes, a womens Wicca community in Riverside, California. These women have read my works and have unselfishly given me time to expand my practice and to explore new techniques in their community, which includes Saga Gefjon, Kestrel Morgan, Brigit Silverbranch, Athena, and Suleima. Saga was also instrumental in shaping the runes section of this book.

I have lit a candle and a stick of incense to the members of The Rainbow Warriors, who have contributed to my knowledge and understanding of many occult matters: Jayson, Druimaelduin, and Collie Valadez. Thank you, magical men. Love and blessings go to Christopher Penczak who has listened to me kvetch and who has guided me in many mattersboth magical and mundane. I would also like to thank Matthew Ellenwood, Barbara Ardinger, and Karen Cummings for their time and insights over the years. P. McGill unquestioningly offered a collection of internet links that you will find in this work and on my website.

A big, appreciative gassho and bow go to Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao, who has facilitated my ever-gradual awakening and who has inspired the wisdom of Wisdom Moon.

Finally, un beso grande to my partner Edu, for opening many doors, for expanding my horizons, and for offering patience, support, and love during my latter adventures in the Craft.

Cerridwens Cauldron

An Introduction to A Year and A Day

Her cauldron was great, for it held the wisdom of all time. Cerridwen called her potion a greal, and fashioned it of cowslips and fluxwort, hedgeberry and vervain. Though she knew each ingredient by its rightful nameLlews pipes, Gwions silver, Taliesins cressesshe dared not speak them aloud lest she conjure a fateful sign. She added the holy mistletoe for good measure, if the Old Ones were ever to bless the thing. Then she infused the pounded muck into a vast salty sea that gurgled within her vessel, darker than a thousand midnights. Fairies, dragons, or perhaps glowing embers danced round the vat as the universe bubbled and churned.

Stir this, but do not taste, she warned Gwion, eyeing her apprentice with her one good, bleared eye. And then she was gone. To where, the sacred texts are unclear. Perhaps they never knew, or could not say. But this much they reveal: that she was gone for a year and a day while her wisdom, her magic, sputtered, and Gwion churned and toiled day and night with a long wooden spoon.

Where his mistress had gone, he did not ask. His business was made clear. To one task he must attend: stir. To drag the spoon through the forbidden drink in spirals, widdershins then deosil, was his labor. That was all. That was enough, for his Lady was a mistress of the old ways; she did not lack cunning or art, and these were things that one with a whit of sense should fear. Might he ever come to learn, to know her ways deeply? He did not speculate, nor was conjecture expected from one of his station. Silence was his sole enterprise.

But temptation was greatas would have known the great Goddess Cerridwen. And taking a chance, the poor lad dipped a finger and sucked it. Life, death, and the great round of existence were known to him then. The knowledge, secrets, mysteries, the arts of magic and of love filled him. But above all, he became wise.

Cerridwens cauldron awaits you as well.

Wicca is a shamanic, magical, and spiritual tradition that can guide you to the wisdom and the promise of Cerridwens cauldron. The word Wicca is of Middle-English origin and it means craft of the wise. This wisdom to which Wicca refers is innate. It is the wisdom of nature that dwells within each of usyou and mefrom birth. Or more pre cisely, it is each of us from birth. But most of us live our lives disconnected from nature and her precious gift of wisdom. There is no one to blame for this condition. Culture, history, gender, family, politics, and all of the limits of conventional knowledge shape our psyches, our lives, from childhood. These are the veils that conceal our wisdom and magical human potential.

Through the path of Wicca, we learn to penetrate these veils, tap into our potential, and discover innate knowledge, insight, judgment, and sense. It takes time to trust the process and to become wise like thisjust as it takes time for the sap of a barren snow-covered tree to wake into motion, revitalize the trees limbs, and produce blossom and sprout. This is the way of nature.