Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The "W" word


Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I! (Do you know your Broadway musicals?)

Today I got a poorly grammarized email from some dude. He purported to be a talk radio host in Las Vegas and wanted to "interview a witch" for a taped spot to be aired on Halloween. He asked me to call him and left a phone number with no area code.

Click. Deleted.

If you are that dude, and you're reading this post right now, I will only agree to interview with people if they're smart enough to word an email properly and leave an area code. However, I could be persuaded to do a face-to-face interview if you're really in Vegas, and you pay for my trip.

But, alas, I am not a witch.

Now my regular choir is confused. But Anne, you worship all those Celtic deities and all the Pagan holidays! Doesn't that make you a witch?

Nope.

Wicca and Druidism are not the same. They may be as alike as Methodism and Lutheranism, but I'll leave you to tell a Methodist he's just like a Lutheran.

This is just me personally speaking, and I have no wish to offend my legions and legions of Wiccan readers. But I just object to the word "witch." I think it's freighted with too much negative baggage. Just remember how confused Dorothy was in Oz when she met a good witch. And straight on that good witch's heels came the prevailing vision of a witch. And what a nasty one too!




So, just as I think the word "masturbation" should be changed to "turtle dove love" (the "m" word being so absolutely repellent that it could lead to blindness), I think perhaps the word "witch" should be retired in favor of something more user-friendly.

I propose "sweetie pie."

What a nice word! It can be applied alike to men and women. It suggests the true nature of Wicca, which always has been and always will be a nurturing, healing faith, rather than a practice that butchers kittens and tries to turn that nosy neighbor into a newt.

Now that we're closing in on Samhain, we at "The Gods Are Bored" will be examining our favorite holy day and how to use it as a recruitment tool amongst the Left Behind crowd. Seems to me they're the ones who've corrupted "witch" beyond all possible use as a word, so let's offer up some sweetie pie to their frothing mouths.

Cheerio, my sweetie pies!

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

8 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

My dogma's nose feels warm and dry, it used to be so shiny cold and wet.

kayakdave said...

I don't believe I'd care to have another fella call me "sweetie pie" no matter how nice he means it!

Aquila ka Hecate said...

HooHooHoooo...
Do you have some spare time to talk to a small bunch of my coreligionists, Anne?

The 'sweetie pie' line is exactly the stance they're choosing to take.
This, they say (in all seriousness ) will put a stop to all those witch killings going on.

Thanks for starting my day off with a good belly laugh!

Love,
Terri the non-Wiccan Witch in Joburg

yellowdoggranny said...

The Goddess of West,Texas thinks you rock...and agree's with you 100percent...I think you're one of the funniest people at blogspot..and wish I had discovered you sooner....
what religion are you?..."Oh, I'm a Sweetie Pie, thank you very much."

Hecate said...

Oh, give him my name. I'm a witch. I love the word. I love it for all the reasons that it scares some folks. I once was at a lecture by a Druidess who said that Druids had the Brehorn laws and advised kings and that witches were those wild women at the edge of town who didn't really follow any laws. And I said, "Yep. That's me."

Anonymous said...

My mother actually wants the words, "Are you a good Witch or a bad Witch" inscribed on her tombstone.

Raevyn said...

So I guess I'm in the minority of Druids who don't MIND being called a witch, eh? I guess my thoughts on that are "they're YOUR negative connotations, YOU be ashamed by them"... more or less like "It's YOUR Hell, YOU burn in it!"

But that's just me...

onelittlepagan said...

So true! But can you corrupt a word that never referred to us in the first place? My understanding is that the idea of wise woman as witch is a fairly recent development, and that we are actually the ones misappropriating the term.