|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Enjoying the darkness
Part of dark paganism is enjoying the darkness. A walk at midnight in the cool air, with a star-filled night up above and lots of darkness where you are can be extremely refreshing. Part of the refreshment is that no one else is around and it's quiet. Even if other people are around most of them are likely drunk and will usually leave you alone.
I use the above example because darkness is natural and reveling and enjoying the darkness is also natural. Whether you take a walk at night or discuss your favorite horror stories, being a dark pagan is enjoying the darkness without and within you. Learning to indulge in our darker appetites is learning to appreciate aspects of ourselves that are natural, but sometimes ignored. And our appetites need not be as tame as taking a walk in the dark or talking about horror stories. Our appetites can be explored in magick and sexuality as well, through such mediums as bondage
and S & M or doing a ritual to a dark god form such as Hecate.
While the latter two choices may seem perverse and negative to many pagans, what should be realized is that testing the boundaries, exploring yourself and your desires are natural and important. Nor do all dark pagans necessarily indulge in the same appetites, but experimentation in sex and in magick is quite healthy and combining the two practices is also very healthy. A lot of what is considered dark, negative, and perverse are the limitations that society and the mainstream culture has embedded within our consciousness. Challenging those paradigms, thinking for ourselves and experimenting with our darkness are ways of breaking out of the societal-cultural mold placed upon us. For a dark pagan doing so is in and of itself a celebration and a revelation because what is quickly realized is that darkness allows us to be ourselves instead of holding ourselves to a particular image.
Another part of reveling in the darkness is exploring the imagination. It should be no surprise that many dark pagans are artistic or writers or creative magickians. For us the imagination is a rich place that allows us to explore, create, and destroy as needed to shape the reality we seek to manifest.
For even as a dark pagan revels in the darkness he/she also revels in shaping reality to his/her need. The dark pagan is not above being practical when practicing magick, wisely believing that doing magick cannot be limited to high holidays. Instead the dark pagan revels in the magick and in the darkness of magick.
The darkness of magick is not the negativity of magick (which in truth only comes from the intention of the person using magick), but is rather the enjoyment of magick, the rapture of magick, the willingness to do magick, to experiment with it. Whether the dark pagan is coming up with a new way of making him/herself invisible or working weather magick, or doing a ritual
to a god-form the dark pagan is alive. The energies that are worked with comfort the dark pagan for they validate the dark pagan's beliefs and choices to be his/her own person above any standard held to him/her by society, family, or friend.
Being a dark pagan is enjoying yourself, exploring your limits and surpassing them. Part of that is achieved through magick, but as darkness can be found in the night and in magick, darkness is also found elsewhere. It is found in the competitive spirit the dark pagan has in everything he/she does. It is found in the physical exercises the dark pagan does to better him/herself as a physical example of the human race, but also as a human being. The dark pagan lives to move past the limits that others and he/she impose upon him/her. It is not enough to be a dark pagan, but rather a dark pagan is doing, all the time, constantly motivating the self to do more and achieve goals so that he/she can evolve as a human and spiritual being. You will never find a stagnant dark pagan, because the dark pagan knows that to stagnate is to lose and losing is not an option to the dark pagan.
Enjoying the darkness, reveling in it, is done because the dark pagan can do it. He/she does not let anything stand in his/her way. Some people might feel then that the dark pagan has no regard for the law. However what the dark pagan has is a sense of responsibility and honesty. He/she is radically responsible and honest with him/her self, never hiding behind words and actions, but claiming words and actions as his/her way of shaping reality. He/she knows that to be responsible is to be prepared to deal with the consequences of choosing to do whatever he/she feels fit to do, but he/she revels in this, not feeling dread, but rather joy at being true to the self above all else.
Being true to the self requires facing and embracing the darkness of the self, in all of its truth, good and bad revealed. When a person faces the self he/she sees both the worst and best aspects of the self, but the dark pagan claims all of that revels in it, realizing that only until you've
gone to your lowest depth can you know how high you can truly rise. Consequentially the dark pagan delights in this knowledge and awareness because he/she knows just what he/she can do and challenges that by pushing the self to go farther, to test and redefine the limits around and within him/her.
Enjoying the darkness then is not just enjoying the physical phenomenon of darkness, but also enjoying the spiritual darkness. Darkness takes many forms and the dark pagan realizing this faces all those forms and takes them onto him/herself. He/she moves beyond the darkness evolving as a person, able to do more because he/she has incorporated the darkness into him/herself. At night when he/she is walking by the self, he/she knows that he/she isn't really alone. The darkness is around and within that darkness is all the secrets of the world, the delight of desires, the joy of challenge, and the fire of magick.
So go out and revel in the darkness, inner or outer. Take a walk at midnight or experiment with your sexuality. Enjoy the darkness because it is part of you.
- Taylor Ellwood
*****
Taylor Ellwood is currently getting his doctorate in Literacy, Rhetoric, and Social Practice at Kent State. He has written and published several articles on the occult and has more that will be published soon. He has co-written Creating Magickal Entities which will be available in September 2003 at www.egregorepublishing.com His second book, Pop Culture Magick has been accepted by Egregore publishing will be released late 2003/early 2004. He is working on a super hero novel and his third occult book on space/time magick. You can reach Taylor via e-mail.
Home Page Current Issue Past Issues The Frater's Domain Quill's Corner