Wicca and Commercialism

So this has been kicking around in my head for a few days.  We’re all aware, especially with the Holiday season rapidly—and perhaps prematurely—approaching, that religion is highly commercialized.  I’m not even talking about the mad Black Friday shoppers, or the murderous crowds that just have to get their hands on a Tickle-Me-Elmo or Furby or what have you.  Every Christmas season it seems as though there’s more and more to buy just for the sake of celebration itself: Christmas Tree ornaments, Nativity sets, Santa hats, bows, ribbons, wrapping paper—It’s endless!  And let’s not forget Easter… Or Valentine’s Day… Or Halloween.

As a pagan and witch, for a long time I thought myself above the need for chintzy little decorations like “Jesus Playing Basketball in Ceramic,” but during coffee with a friend I found myself saying, “You know, I really hate how commercialized Wicca has become.”  I said it without even really thinking about it, but it’s true.  Every new Wiccan is immediately told by many, many sources (both online and in books) that they need an athame, a wand, a chalice, a bell, a pentacle, dried herbs, a tarot deck, and on and on—always with the addendum that it’s really better to make your own tools, but if that’s not possible, go to www.wiccawhatever.com…

It’s probably good business, to be honest.  I remember when I first started out—for real this time.  I was out of my parents’ house and in my own apartment.  I could do as I damn well pleased.  If I wanted to set up an altar in the middle of the living room, by the Goddess I was going to do so.  I tried to start simple.  To signify the Goddess I had a postcard from my mother picturing an Iris.  For the God, a pinecone I managed to find under the coniferous trees a few blocks from where I parked my car.  I cast my first circle… and it sucked.  It turns out that my little renovated studio wasn’t the best place to raise a cone of power.

I convinced myself (after conveniently finding a well-known metaphysical shop a few blocks away), that it was my tools.  The reason I couldn’t cultivate the atmosphere I wanted was because I was using cereal bowls to hold my salt and water!  Ridiculous, right?  The very first athame I bought featured a dragon’s head hilt with red crystal eyes, grasping a white crystal in its mouth.  “You’re a dragon girl, eh?” the shopkeeper had asked me and I replied, “Sure!” even though I bought it because it was the nicest looking one that I could afford at the time.  I don’t even like dragons.

This started a habit that lasted years.  I used to cruise antique malls looking for just the right item to sit on my altar at home.  Mostly anything that was actually nice was out of my price range—I had a perfume bottle shaped like Athena even though I didn’t even relate to the Goddess in her aspect.  A pewter sculpture of Bast (even though this is a face I do relate to), and who knows what else.  Still, though, my spellcasting was shit and my altar felt about as sacred as my bathroom vanity.

Over the years, I lost all that stuff, even the postcard from my mom, which I wish I could have kept a hold of.  It was only through losing everything that I realized that I never needed it in the first place.  I don’t like to cast spells.  I couldn’t Draw Down the Moon if you asked me to.  My altar is my garden.  Having living, growing lives that depend on me (somewhat—my venus fly trap seems pretty independent) puts me more in a sacred frame of mind than any of the knick knacks I so desired when I was seventeen ever could.  I love reading the Farrars’ elaborate rituals, but it’s more like reading a screenplay for me.  I still love going to etsy and browsing the Wiccan and pagan stuff, but so far the only thing I’ve bought is a moonstone bracelet.  Sorry, ladies, your jewelry is beautiful, but no.  Not today, anyway.