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  • Age in Wicca

    This is something that I've come across far to often and it bothers me to no end.

    Being an Eclectic Wiccan, I find the religion to be very open and flexible. Something that every Wiccan has heard is the term 'Fluffbunny'. This is a derogatory term used to describe new and specifically YOUNG practitioners. While I have never been called this directly, the over all idea, has been used to describe me in the past. I've been Wiccan for two years now and I by no means think I'm an expert. I began at 16, and I'm now 18. I think that an issue that needs to be addressed is the judgment in our path due to it's diversity. Now normally I hate bringing up all these negative topics but I do think it needs to be addressed. I just want to make it clear that in terms of this actual forum, I haven't really come across this, but I have in other places. Most of this is due to my age and shorter experience in the path.

    Phrases:

    "I've been practicing longer than you've been alive" This was actually said to me, and it's probably my favorite on the list.

    "You don't even know the basics. You're so close minded." Ironically, this girl was only 2 years older than me. The reason for this was because I didn't feel the need to say 'Merry Meet' to everyone I see. I don't know either, but this is a true story.

    There are more instances, that I can't quote off of the top of my head.

    I know I'm not the only person with these encounters and I think that it needs to be addressed. It's not okay for Wiccans to tear each other down in this way and I will say I'm not totally innocent. I have thought this about new practitioners, and it's still wrong.

    Again sorry for the negative content.

    Blessed Be )O(

    -Serria
    A Happy Little Wiccan

    Army of Darkness: Guardians of the Chat

    Because who needs a life when you have a chatroom.

  • #2
    Re: Age in Wicca

    Let me preface this with I am not now nor have I ever been Wiccan, but especially a self-dedicated / initiated Neo-Wiccan.

    In most instances Fluffbunny is applied to anyone regardless of age or pathway. In many instances it's actually more applied to New Age practitioners who see everything as white light, happy happy and joyful joyful. Ones who are shown, taught or otherwise instructed the proper method based upon a given lineage or practice the right way to do things but refuse to grow.

    In truth in my experience most of your references are what we used to call playgans. Teens or early twenty somethings that discover one book, suddenly think they are a high priest or priestess and have the total knowledge of nothing. Most often Neo-Wiccan and self dedicated / initiated into some high uber powerful person who suddenly feels qualified to form and run a coven and believe they can guide and instruct a novice in the pathway.

    You say your 18 by most coven standards I've been exposed to you'd just now be given your observation period and maybe, I say maybe, accepted as an acolyte within an established coven. That would be a limited period of observation before you'd start your year of study and guidance for acceptance and initiation into the coven. A trad situation probably even longer for acceptance as you'd have to prove yourself and your dedication to the training. That and especially so to the willingness of following the guidelines and specifications of the person, coven, group that is over seeing your training and then pass through the first initiation and mystical aspect of the process.

    It's sort of funny Merry Meet really jumped off with Silver's book along with Blessed Be, or Merry Meet, Merry Part till we meet again. Though I seem to recall DJ Conley and Edain McCoy doing some of the same stuff in the late 90's early 2000's.

    But like I said they never tried to get me into their group and I never tried to get them into mine. But we sure talked and compared / contrasted things.
    I'm Only Responsible For What I Say Not For What Or How You Understand!

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    • #3
      Re: Age in Wicca

      Some people tend to be competitive.

      If they can't snuff you for anything you do, they'll try to snuff you for what you have no control over.

      Age works, for anybody older than you who has this tendency.

      Try sticking out you tongue and making fart sounds - that's the response such things deserve.

      Besides, it's fun.
      Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

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      • #4
        Re: Age in Wicca

        Age does not determine a fluffybunny practice to me nor do i make practice of passing judgement on anothers knowledge/dedication of their craft. A good friend younger then me by a couple of years will take my know and wisdomledge and accuse it of fluffybunniness. Her spirituality is her birthright her knowledge and wisdom is amazing. Your youth is a blessing many wont realize despite your best efforts thats just the hinderence of growing older we underestimate the intelligence and insight younger generations have to offer

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        • #5
          Re: Age in Wicca

          I've never really seen Fluffybunny applied to specifically young practitioners either - but as has been said, mostly to New Age types who are a bit stereotypically "white light and love for all".

          But age discrimination can come into play regardless of your path. It happens in the workforce, too. It's not something you should worry too much with IMHO. You can't stop it from happening, but I'm sure it's frustrating.

          I never think of age in regards to inexperience or lack of ability. In fact, there are many young practitioners far more versed in energy manipulation than so-called "elders". Unfortunately, many assume that "young" means "inexperienced".

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          • #6
            Re: Age in Wicca

            Try it from my end..> I'm usually called a cussed old bat
            www.thewolfenhowlepress.com


            Phantom Turnips never die.... they just get stewed occasionally....

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Tylluan Penry View Post
              Try it from my end..> I'm usually called a cussed old bat
              Oh come on Mrs P. You're batty for sure, but you're an elder in my books!
              ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

              RIP

              I have never been across the way
              Seen the desert and the birds
              You cut your hair short
              Like a shush to an insult
              The world had been yelling
              Since the day you were born
              Revolting with anger
              While it smiled like it was cute
              That everything was shit.

              - J. Wylder

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              • #8
                Re: Age in Wicca

                I'll agree with what a few others have said, the vast majority of the time I see someone calling another fluffy it's not really because of age (although I don't doubt that happens on occasion), but because they're either one of those only love and light all the time people (and more specifically, usually one who is insulting to anyone who is not), or, perhaps more often in my experience, to describe someone who is willfully ignorant. It's not just that they don't know something, or have limited experience, it's also that they refuse to learn. That's not something limited to age, or even to experience. Thankfully in most of the communities I've been in there's not a real tolerance for people who attack or mock someone just because they're new to their path.

                All that said, I'm not a fan of the term fluffy, fluffbunny, or whatever, and I don't use it myself. If there's an issue with something someone said or did, then I'd rather be specific about it instead of just saying they're fluffy or whatever, since not everyone does agree on what that means.
                Hearth and Hedge

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                • #9
                  Re: Age in Wicca

                  I've never really been called that . I don't see why people think age and inexperience go hand in hand, I'm sixteen now and I started playing with witchcraft and energy manipulation at six years old it was something that came naturally to me that time was also when I summoned my first entity didn't know anything about what I was doing and it was all by chance . Now this said entity helped me learn my craft how to sense and see energy how to do some things I still can't explain and by ten years old it left and the last thing it said was gain more knowledge which lead me to the paths I walk now . So now I'm sixteen I've practiced witchcraft going on ten years and people still think I'm inexperienced but I've just learned to ignore them cause in the end I'm stronger then they will ever be .
                  Knowledge is the key to eternity. Not bowing before a deity not grovling at the feet of a messiah. Knowledge is power beyond mesure - satanic witch

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                  • #10
                    Re: Age in Wicca

                    Originally posted by Torey View Post
                    But age discrimination can come into play regardless of your path. It happens in the workforce, too. It's not something you should worry too much with IMHO. You can't stop it from happening, but I'm sure it's frustrating.
                    This. It's not specifically a spirituality thing. But more of an age-discrimination in general thing. It wouldn't matter what you did, what you believed, how you dressed, etc... when it comes to certain people and their cognitive workings, it's just going to happen and they're going to find an outlet for it. It's an issue with them, not with you. All you can control is yourself.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Age in Wicca

                      I don't think I've ever been accused of being fluffy. A couple other things certainly but never fluffy.

                      Shrug, anyway, fluffy is not meant to be a reference to age by most people who use it but idiots will always exist and one of the examples in the OP is throwing stones from the battlements of a very fragile looking glass house.
                      "It is not simply enough to know the light…a Jedi must feel the tension between the two sides of the Force…in himself and in the universe."
                      ―Thon

                      "When to the Force you truly give yourself, all you do expresses the truth of who you are,"

                      Yoda

                      Yoda told stories, and ate, and cried, and laughed: and the Padawans saw that life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

                      Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

                      "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

                      John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

                      "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

                      Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


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                      • #12
                        Re: Age in Wicca

                        I'm going to play a bit of devil's advocate here...

                        Stereotypes exist for a reason. I've been Pagan of one kind or another for over 20 years now, since I was a preteen. I can't even begin to tell you how many teen and pretteen newbies come and go (IRL) as pagans. It doesnt surprise me that people often don't take them seriously or respect them when jjust as often many of them aren't doing anything to be taken seriously or to earn any respect either.
                        “You have never answered but you did not need to. If I stand at the ocean I can hear you with your thousand voices. Sometimes you shout, hilarious laughter that taunts all questions. Other nights you are silent as death, a mirror in which the stars show themselves. Then I think you want to tell me something, but you never do. Of course I know I have written letters to no-one. But what if I find a trident tomorrow?" ~~Letters to Poseidon, Cees Nooteboom

                        “We still carry this primal relationship to the Earth within our consciousness, even if we have long forgotten it. It is a primal recognition of the wonder, beauty, and divine nature of the Earth. It is a felt reverence for all that exists. Once we bring this foundational quality into our consciousness, we will be able to respond to our present man-made crisis from a place of balance, in which our actions will be grounded in an attitude of respect for all of life. This is the nature of real sustainability.”
                        ~~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

                        "We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes--one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximal freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way."
                        ~~Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

                        "Humans are not rational creatures. Now, logic and rationality are very helpful tools, but there’s also a place for embracing our subjectivity and thinking symbolically. Sometimes what our so-called higher thinking can’t or won’t see, our older, more primitive intuition will." John Beckett

                        Pagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
                        sigpic

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                        • #13
                          Re: Age in Wicca

                          Originally posted by thalassa View Post
                          I'm going to play a bit of devil's advocate here...

                          Stereotypes exist for a reason. I've been Pagan of one kind or another for over 20 years now, since I was a preteen. I can't even begin to tell you how many teen and pretteen newbies come and go (IRL) as pagans. It doesnt surprise me that people often don't take them seriously or respect them when jjust as often many of them aren't doing anything to be taken seriously or to earn any respect either.
                          ^ this is a valid* point from people who've demonstrated the dedication and intellect to be taken seriously (Thal, of course, has). One of the examples given though was still throwing hefty rocks from a house with rather fragile (and transparent) looking walls.

                          *Note that while I consider the point valid, I don't consider it a get out of manners free card. I may expect lots of things for lots of reasons. It is still incumbent upon me to base my behaviour on specific facts not on general assumptions.
                          "It is not simply enough to know the light…a Jedi must feel the tension between the two sides of the Force…in himself and in the universe."
                          ―Thon

                          "When to the Force you truly give yourself, all you do expresses the truth of who you are,"

                          Yoda

                          Yoda told stories, and ate, and cried, and laughed: and the Padawans saw that life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

                          Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

                          "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

                          John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

                          "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

                          Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


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                          • #14
                            Re: Age in Wicca

                            Personally I've never really considered the fluffy pagans as necessarily the whole "love light and all" stuff, but more the "zomg I'm a witch, I can turn into a werewolf" or cast actual fireballs, or all of the generally ~fluff~ magic that most of us chuckle at then shake our heads and a few of us in the back of our minds go "I almost wish that was real" but we know its not.

                            For me, I've rooted myself along an eclectic pagan path for about 6-7 years now honestly, and I more got the fear from the adults around me of what was going to happen to me if I stayed on it, rather than a "oh you're just a kid, I've been practicing longer than you've been alive" mentality. But then again, I lived in a heavy monotheistic town with 10 churches for maybe 5000 people
                            Always taking art commissions, especially for fantasy and pagan related artwork
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                            • #15
                              Re: Age in Wicca

                              Originally posted by MaskedOne View Post
                              *Note that while I consider the point valid, I don't consider it a get out of manners free card. I may expect lots of things for lots of reasons. It is still incumbent upon me to base my behaviour on specific facts not on general assumptions.
                              I completely agree that its no reason to a) be rude or b) be condescending---its not an excuse for bad behavior. I think though, its understandable of a reason (in general, not necessairly in this instance) for some of the criticism towards this demographic--mayhap something like what is discussed here. Adolesence is a period of great change. Its not that they are flakey, they are just changing and growing at a really rapid pace--socially, psychologically, neurologically, ect. They might not see it that way, but those of us that have gone through it already can...and sometimes (more often than not) some of us (most of us) forget what it is like.

                              I have called many things (ideas, concepts, even practices) fluffy in my time, but I don't think I've called a person fluffy in quite some time (sadly, I've thought it for an uncharitable moment or three a time or ten). And, when I have, its usually been something along these lines-- http://wicca.cnbeyer.com/fluffy.shtml Those things which are often deemed "fluffy" have nothing to do with age as a number, and more to do with immaturity (and the problem of young=immature, as previously mentioned, isn't just a Pagan thing).
                              “You have never answered but you did not need to. If I stand at the ocean I can hear you with your thousand voices. Sometimes you shout, hilarious laughter that taunts all questions. Other nights you are silent as death, a mirror in which the stars show themselves. Then I think you want to tell me something, but you never do. Of course I know I have written letters to no-one. But what if I find a trident tomorrow?" ~~Letters to Poseidon, Cees Nooteboom

                              “We still carry this primal relationship to the Earth within our consciousness, even if we have long forgotten it. It is a primal recognition of the wonder, beauty, and divine nature of the Earth. It is a felt reverence for all that exists. Once we bring this foundational quality into our consciousness, we will be able to respond to our present man-made crisis from a place of balance, in which our actions will be grounded in an attitude of respect for all of life. This is the nature of real sustainability.”
                              ~~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

                              "We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes--one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximal freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way."
                              ~~Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

                              "Humans are not rational creatures. Now, logic and rationality are very helpful tools, but there’s also a place for embracing our subjectivity and thinking symbolically. Sometimes what our so-called higher thinking can’t or won’t see, our older, more primitive intuition will." John Beckett

                              Pagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
                              sigpic

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