Eugene The Eclectic Wiccan's blog: "Musings and Favs"

MM all, I posted this because in many ways it represents the reasons why I work to help with Pagan Pride Day. Many of you who have been to a PPD before have seen a memorial (and our PPD is dedicated) to Tempest Smith(tempestsmithfoundation.org/). For those of you who do not know Tempest's tragic story, it is one where WE as a community failed. And it cost Tempest her life. You have seen the bumper sticker's slogan before: NEVER AGAIN. That is what PPD is about. I am not one who believes that the darkness of the corners can provide safety. Itis time that we proclaim ourselves as Pagans Proud, who are firmly dedicated tothe proclamation: NEVER AGAIN!!! As a last parting thought that is in no way meant to denigrade the fate of so many women, it needs to be said that it was not only women who were jailed, tortured, and murdered -- so were many men. BB, Eugene Each year they parade her about... the traditional Halloween Witch. Misshapen green face, stringy scraps of hair, a toothless mouth beneath her deformed nose. Gnarled knobby fingers twisted into a claw protracting from a bent and twisted torso that lurches about on wobbly legs. Most think this abject image to be the creation of a prejudiced mind or merely a Halloween caricature. I disagree, I believe this to be how Witches were really seen. Consider that most Witches: were women, were abducted in the night, and smuggled into dungeons or prisons under the secrecy of darkness to be presented by light of day as a confessed Witch. Few, if any, saw a frightened normal looking Woman being dragged into a secret room filled with instruments of torture, to be questioned and tortured until she confessed to anything suggested to her and to give names or whatever would stop the questions/torture. Crowds saw the aberration denounced to the world as a self-proclaimed Witch. As the Witch was paraded through town en-route to be burned, hanged, drowned, stoned or disposed of in various other forms of Christian love, all created to free and save her soul from her depraved body, the jeering crowds viewed the results of hours of torture. The face bruised and broken by countless blows bore a hue of sickly green. The once warm and loving smile gone, replaced by a grimace of broken teeth and torn gums that leers beneath a battered disfigured nose. The disheveled hair conceals bleeding gaps of torn scalp from whence cruel hands had torn away the lovely tresses. Broken twisted hands clutched the wagon for support, fractured fingers with nails torn away locked like groping claws to steady her broken body. All semblance of humanity gone, this was truly a demon, a bride of Satan, a Witch. I revere this Halloween Crone and hold her sacred above all. I honor her courage and listen to her warnings of the dark side of man. ~ Anon ~ Do NOT Let This Happen!!! - Speak out Proud and Loud!