by Ed Hubbard
I love Life. In all the glory of the living, I love life. I cherish all the parts of living, the joy of being part of all creation. There is no separate part of me away from nature, as there is no part of us that is separate of nature in any way. Nature is all the living, and all the living on our planet is Gaia, the living mother of us all. It is by Her will, Her gift of life that we continue, as my body is part of all the living.
I am a witch. I am a Wiccan. I believe in the power of a natural world, a spiritual world, and a supernatural world. I believe in what my mind can understand, and that my mind seeks to answer the unknown. It is the glory of knowledge the unending part of my inner nature, the curiosity that is divine in its search, to seek the laws that God has written into the cosmic tapestry. For my mind reflects the unending curiosity of God seeking to understand my point of view. So it is, all I do is a reflection of God, and God is all that there is.
Thou Art God, Thou Are Goddess.
The say Witches have magic and I testify that is true. We have the way to move our will and the cosmic reality shifts along with us. All that seek the unknown is the witch, for it takes the power to face your fears reflected against the infinite darkness of our own ignorance. It is this fearsome curiosity and courage born of the soul, that makes a Witch that to be feared but much to be loved.
As a Wiccan, I ask what senses I have for what I cannot see hear, see, or feel. I feel the sense that want to be more, the ability to see more, listen intensely, speak truer, touch fully, taste distinctly, and smell deeply of all the world offers. My empathy allows me to feel more and to share the feeling with those around me. My inner vision allows me to sense a reality that is more connected then my eyes allow me to see, and enhances that which my physical self knows. The psychic sense is the power of humanity emerging, and the Wiccan in me rejoices in the practice. I have seen ghosts. I have seen Fairies. I have seen demons and I have seen a devil. I have seen the shadow people. I have met people who were spirits hidden among us. I finger touched a Sasquatch child, who laughed at me. I have seen angels in the skies. I have bargained with a demigod upon a hill. I have played with dragons that dwell near us. I have met the dead and I have met the living. I have met an extraterrestrial and had a conversation with them. I have met those who reincarnate and remember their lives, and I will join them in my next life.
I have met wizards, witches, shamans, high priests, high priestesses, and all manner of folk. I have shaken the hands of presidents of the nations, of senators, and mayors. I have been blessed by the Dalai Lama, twice. I have been in the presence of the assembly of the world’s religions and it profoundly moved me. I know entrepreneurs, business folk, and even the idle rich. I know poor people, people who live off the grid and people who live the happy minimalist life. I know those who struggle with money, with mind, and with life itself. I have met those who love, who kill, and people of every walk of life. In each is the reflection of the God and their bodies are of the Goddess. We are complex and beautiful. For the Goddess said all acts of love and pleasure are Hers, and I have indulged in all acts that I have found along my way. It is said that a Pagan worships in their lovemaking, and I have truly loved, having the lovers, the living goddesses and gods that Gaia has matched me with. I have had the softest loveliest lovemaking a man can have ever desired. I have had frantic sex, I have hard quickie thrills. I have had intercourse until we dripped with sweat and our backs and legs ached from undying exertion. I have tasted every part of the human body with my tongue, and I enjoy the feel of skin between my lips. There is no act that can shame me nor create guilt with me, for all acts of love in pleasure in consent of all the willing is the act of worship that Gaia creates in all the living. There is only freedom in the acceptance of love in all its forms.
My God is an infinite God, who knows no bounds, and is within me as without of me. My God is a God of all the universe, of all the cosmos, within all creation, and has given us all the universes as ours. My God cares not to judge us, as we would judge ourselves. God allows us all to reflect what we desire in the divine, and in that moment god can miraculously become finite enough for us to comprehend a portion of the whole. My God is so powerful that nothing I say or do can be truly forbidden, nor is what you say or do forbidden, nor does the divine force stop us from expressing ourselves in any way. There are only consequences. This is a sign of a God that understands all things, and allows all things, as we are able to understand that we are the choices God has made, and through us God continues to make choices.
As a Pagan it is said we worship many Gods, and that is true. For us the Gods above are real, tangible, and make themselves known to us. It is said that they are part of one god, and that is true. The breath of gods and humanity blend together without boundaries, so even the Gods are part of infinity, and are living expressions thereof. Yet, I tell you that the Gods and Goddesses are their own beings as well, serving in the complexity of the cosmos. In ways we yet do not fully understand, they manifest as spirits, as powers, as thoughts and as miracles among us. They too have a life with us, and while we may argue their nature, as a Pagan man, I accept they exist and they have a relationship with me. So it is that Gods and Goddesses exist among us, and dwell in equal measure with the infinity that is god as well.
My life has been about the search for God, the search for meaning, and I discovered one truth above all others, The Universe Endures. My understanding is limited in thought and senses, unable to see even 2% of all that surrounds me, unable to hear but the tiniest spectrum of noise, and to house within my brain only the smallest fraction of knowledge I have gained, I have learned that the universe endures, it continues, and it is a wonder to behold. It is at that moment I feel the tug of a soul, of a spirit, who has been born in this flesh, and yet has been born in other flesh, and will yet again be born into flesh again, and know that I too shall endure, that I am the universe in action. Nothing is as simple and as profound as to understand, “I live because I am.”
So do I think thoughts I thought yesterday, or will I think thoughts I will think tomorrow. Where do we exist but in a place, in a time, and in a pattern, created by forces beyond all our understanding, and yet our bodies embody all that the universe has created, and we are the timely creation of billions of years of cosmic evolution. From the birth of stars, which devoured gases and energy, and in their cycle secreted elements needed for their next generation of stars, life itself played out. So it is the whole of the universe, that is to say God evolves, and we can see it as a living being which we are just a small mote of. Not to say we are insignificant because of our size but our significance is in the idea we can explore that which is around us. We are small but we are large; after all, Thou Art God, Thou Are Goddess.
In the time that I live, the moments I am aware of, is the time of the greatest lies ever being told, or the greatest truths being played out. The powers of humanity say the world is changing, and that I tell you is true. The world is always changing, and because we have come to dislike change, they say Nature is striking back, attacking humanity and seeking to destroy us. This is petty nonsense used for personal power, and all that say these things, want to in some way change the behavior of all those around them. It is a necessary interplay as Gaia seeks to grow, but She does not hate us, for She does not hate herself. We are as much Gaia, as we are ourselves. Our flesh, our Code of Life, our DNA, is the same as it has been since the beginning of life. Every one of us is Gaia, a cell and a component, and we are behaving according to Her will. So while we may not understand Her evolution, Her billions-of-years life, Her continual recreation, we are a manifestation of it, and our will and behavior has been developed by Gaia Herself. So this self-loathing of humanity towards nature is a contamination of spirit against the flesh, and those who promise to destroy Gaia, do so because they believe in Gods that want to separate humanity’s spirit from our enduring flesh. Gaia does not hate us, for if She did, we would all die. Gaia is expressing Herself through us, and our instincts and drives are an answer to Her desires. We are Gaia, and we are never separate of nature. It is impossible for us to be separated in any way and live.
I have said God is in everything, and I believe this is true. The universe is sentient, and that our will is expressed within the will of the universe. Yet we are not alone. We are with each person, each plant, each animal, and every living thing in these choices. This is expression of choices being played out. So it is true of gods, whom humanity, has come to know. For the Gods may be born of flesh or they are born of the interactions of the cosmos we do not yet understand. Yet these Gods do exist, and they, as much as humanity, make claims, and seek power. Our stories of them say so and whether you believe they are a manifestation of the human mind or something more, understand they have will and ego, the same as us. If it were not true, the Gods could not war, would not war amongst themselves. So Gods are living entities which at the very least dwell within the minds of their worshippers, and can act through them. Many can have even greater manifestations. So in this way humanity and the Gods are the same, and they all seek to glorify and manifest themselves, according to their divine will. So it is they drive us towards their ends and society, just as nature creates a forest or a jungle. They manifest their will, and we choose to join them, for whatever promises or protections as they offer. So it is some Gods seek to divide humanity and control them, to form them in their own image, and to claim their spirits as their own. So it has been among humanity, this play of Gods and Gaia, whom provides the body for our spirits.
My life was lived in a miraculous time, a time of amazing wonder. I am a planetary cave dweller, looking out of the mouth of my gravity well, into the ocean of stars beyond. I stand in awe and wonder, as humanity begins Gaia’s sacred task of evolving out of the womb and onto unliving matter. For humanity is the expressive force that is so tasked, and so driven, that we must follow this path, or destroy ourselves in trying. Gaia has made way before, creating infinite diversity, to meet the needs of all the living. So we are the next great species and we are the carriers of Her seeds, Her everliving flesh to the heavens and to worlds beyond. If we as humanity cannot evolve to carry out this task, Gaia will simply evolve another way; for what is the main drive of life but to procreate and carry on? So it is not a wonder that such a desire and hunger to space has always been with us, and I am in the fortunate time to see the first true cosmic steps. This alone is enough to love Gaia and to seek life in God’s Universe.
I am a Spirit, which has dwelled upon the earth, since the beginning. I was a witness to creation, and that which cloaks me, is simply God. To understand, God is infinite, omnipresent, and creative beyond all. We are simply God expressing infinite knowledge and everlasting diversity. All things we imagine of God is God, simply because we say it is so. In this God is a verb, since we already acknowledge that if we can imagine God as a verb, then “to god” is a true act in our universe. To god means you express yourself as God would, which means you live as you desire, for if you are God all things are possible. Once people understand God is not an entity but the force of all creation, then to god makes sense that the universe understands and fulfills God’s will. I am the current spirit which expresses God, godding into my body and flesh from Gaia, and in union act as the force of will and action for Lord and Lady. If you believe this is true for me, then it is true for you. For we are part of the same manifestation, regardless of when you read or hear these words, and it will always be true, regardless of what flesh we wear or lives we live. As Gaia lives and grows into the cosmos, we too join her, as we choose. After all, to god the universe is so utterly human.
So this is the testimonial of Ed the Pagan, who is God, shares God, and gods the world around him. Within him is a spirit which has returned and will return again to join all those who seek to seed Gaia among the stars. For in the end, the flesh made spirit, and the spirit made flesh, is the sacred union of creation, and we are able to create god within ourselves, and manifest the lives of the truly living, those who endure and in evolve. It is the Now we live.