THE FIRST REDE - DIVINITY IN NATURE I, who am the Beauty of the Green Earth, and the White Moon among the stars, and the Mystery of the Waters, and the Desire of the Heart of Man, call unto thy soul. Arise, and come unto me, for I am the Soul of Nature, who gives life to the universe. Moondaughter taught us that all of nature reflects the Lord and Lady. The God and the Goddess, she said, can be seen in the natural world just as the Inner Self of an artist can be seen in the lines and colors of her paintings. Thus, she taught, it is the divine character of the Lord and Lady Themselves which gives rise to the great polarities of nature. The Great Polarities and The Four Elements Moondaughter saw all the Yins and Yangs of nature -- from the positive and negative charges within the atom to the male and female characteristics within each individual -- as reflections of that sexual polarity between Lord and Lady which is the origin of all nature's creatures. In addition, however, Moondaughter taught us that a second set of polarities of Inner Self and Outer Self existed throughout nature. This polarity she called vertical in contrast to horizontal polarity of male and female. From a superficial view, the polarity of Inner Self and Outer Self might appear to be a form of dualism, but this was not the case. Moondaughter did not view Inner and Outer as utterly different in their natures. Rather, she viewed the Outer Self as a second version of the Inner, the same pattern manifested in a denser material. It was in terms of the two great polarities that Moondaughter taught the meaning of the four elements. Fire corresponds to the masculine Yang, which is balanced by Water as the feminine Yin. Air corresponds to the invisible Inner Self, and Earth to the visible Outer Self. First Lessons in Magic The simplest and most obvious manifestation of the Earth/Air polarity in human beings is the relationship between mind and body. The nature of the body is reflected in the mind, and the nature of the mind is reflected in the body. Those divinatory sciences which, like palmistry, interpret the form of the body make use of this correspondence -- but the fact that the correspondence exists does not guarantee the accuracy of any particular school of interpretation. The Earth/Air polarity is also seen in the instinctual mind of animals and in the response of plants to human feelings. Even atoms and molecules have an Inner Self that can respond to emotion and will. When we do magic, we touch the Inner Self of that which we would influence, and the effects of that touch are reflected in that being's Outer Self. The Universe as a whole also has its Inner Self and Outer Self, which are the two worlds between which we step in ritual. Thus the rationale for astrology is not (as the skeptics claim) that the physical planets themselves somehow influence us, but rather that patterns of the visible heavens are a reflection of invisible patterns in the Inner World. The Soul of Nature Moondaughter taught that Earth and Air appear throughout nature because the Lord and the Lady are Themselves beings of Earth and Air. Their Outer Selves are the energy and matter which make up the material world, while Their Inner Selves are Their ability to Know, to Will and to Love. In another sense, nature as a whole -- Earth and Air, Fire and Water -- is the Outer Self to the Lord and Lady, who are the Soul of Nature. Every one of Their many children is a visible expression of the Their character. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SECOND REDE - THE WEB OF LIFE There shall ye assemble, ye who are fain to learn all sorcery, yet have not won its deepest secrets; to these shall I teach things that are as yet unknown. Moondaughter taught us that the act of creation did not end when the Lady gave birth to the universe. Energy continuously generated by the loving union of the Lord and Lady still radiates to every being, linking all things together in a vast web. According to Moondaughter, however, individual beings do not receive this energy in isolation; it is through the web of relationships between beings that all share in the energy of life. These relationships determine the character of every being, and so by changing these relationships, we can change reality. Magical Relationships Changing relationships was the kind of magic Moondaughter most often recommended to her students, especially in the early months of training when the focus was upon changing the self. She urged her students to take conscious control of their relationships with thoughtforms, and to make a magical act of their interaction with others. Thus she might advise a student troubled by self-doubt to cut off interaction with doubts and thus deprive such thoughts of their energy. Or she might advise a student to overcome dislike of a fellow student by making a magical ritual of treating the other as a friend. The psychological effects of such techniques are obvious -- and not without their dangers. But the effects of Moondaughter's techniques were magical as well as psychological, and under Moondaughter's gentle guidance, students kept both their magic and their psychology in balance. For Moondaughter, the magic of psychological and interpersonal relationships was just one example of a set of principles which equally applied to the interdependence of the ecosystem and the invisible energies that we call magic. In every case influencing the relevant relationships can cause change. The Dangers of Magic Moondaughter taught, however, that to exercise such influence one must oneself enter into relationship with that which one would change. Since every relationship alters for good or ill each being who is a party to it, every spell, for better or worse, is a spell of self-transformation. We were taught that in order to enter into a relationship with an other, we must have certain elements in common with the other, and those common elements become the initial basis of the relationship. I know of no magical system which does not include operations which have the purpose of creating within the operator herself those elements possessed by that force which she wishes to call upon, in order that the resulting relationship will be strong enough to produce a manifestation on the physical plane. Since all beings are children of the same Parents, there is no other with whom one has absolutely nothing in common, but the character of the relationship will be influenced by the particular commonalties which exist. During the relationship the two beings share elements, and so that commonalty which is the basis of the relationship tends to expand. Obviously this makes intercourse with demonic entities prohibitively costly, but Moondaughter taught that the same principle is at work in physical world relationships as well. Relationships, esoteric or mundane, change us. Magical Correspondences Moondaughter's tradition, rooted as it was in rural life, made little use of the more complex props and associations of ceremonial magic. Nevertheless, it seems to me that her teachings on relationships explain well why ceremonialists should make use of such associations. Enhancing a working with the proper color, the proper incense, the proper day and time, and a hundred other such correspondences increases the common elements which form the basis of the worker's link to the object of the ritual, and greatly increases the worker's link to the egregore of whichever tradition which has handed down those particular associations. Likewise, Moondaughter's understanding of relationships would explain why clippings of hair or fingernails, photographs, or objects closely associated with a person or place could add power to a working. Moondaughter's tradition, however, made almost no use of such things. I believe that, if I had been wise enough to question her about this, she would have said that the Web of Life already connects us to every other being, and that the most important common elements in any magical working are wholly within oneself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE THIRD REDE - LOVER AND BELOVED For mine is the ecstasy of the spirit, and mine also is joy on earth; for my law is love unto all beings. I am the gracious Goddess, who gives the gift of joy unto the heart of man. Moondaughter taught us that the ideal relationship is when two beings interact as lover and beloved. By this she did not necessarily imply a sexual relationship; in many cases -- such as between adults and children or teacher and student -- she considered that any sexual relationship would be a violation of that concern for the welfare of the other which was the essence of the lover/beloved relationship. Nevertheless, the love between the Lord and the Lady was for her the ideal toward which all relationships should evolve. According to Moondaughter, joy is not created by an individual alone. Joy is created when a lover has a relationship with a beloved. The beloved need not be another person -- an artist feels joy both when she has a stimulating vision or idea as her beloved, and again when her vision or idea stands before her as a realized work of art. In this, men and women are the children of the Lord and the Lady, who also feel joy from such relationships. Whether or not the relationship is sexual, the interaction of lover and beloved unites them into one being. The True Will Moondaughter believed that at some deep level, every being intuitively knows that joy is produced by relationships between lover and beloved. She taught that it was from this inner knowledge that the Will of the individual arises. While an individual may sometimes feel desires to act in ways which are destructive to others, Moondaughter taught that the Will seeks that joy which is produced only by harmonious relationships with others. Since any relationship requires the participation of both self and other, Will has both the aspect of seeking the welfare of the self and also the aspect of seeking the welfare of the beloved. According to Moondaughter, these two aspects of the Will are related and interdependent, not opposed. Since joy comes from relationships, harming the other in any relationship lessens one's own joy. The Ecstasy of the Spirit According to Moondaughter, it is the nature of Love to seek a beloved to love. The joy that is produced by the Lord's love for the Lady and the Lady's love for the Lord is beyond human experience, but Love is never satisfied, and so the Lord and the Lady gave birth children who could respond to Their Love, and give Them joy, and receive joy from taking Them as beloveds. My own understanding of this teaching is that as an individual grows in love, she expands her circle of beloveds until, like the Lord and the Lady, she Wills the welfare of all that exists. It seems to me that when they first appear tribalism and nationalism can be healthy stages in this growth, but they can also become diseases which hold men and women back from a larger, and more joyful, circle of beloveds. I know from my own experience that each man and woman can be both lover and beloved to both the Lord and the Lady, and that the intensity of this relationship deepens as one brings one's character into harmony with one's own Will. The joy produced by this relationship is beyond words. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE FOURTH REDE - THE GREAT WORK Keep pure your highest ideal; strive ever towards it; let naught stop you or turn you aside. To Moondaughter, men and women were children of the Lord and Lady in more senses than one. Not only are we the offspring of Their sacred joining, but we are also children in the sense that we are immature. We have not yet grown into the spiritual and ethical maturity of which we are capable. Moondaughter taught that the human children of the Lord and the Lady are in the process of growth, a time during which they must build for themselves that nobility of character that is their natural inheritance. Moondaughter's students learned that we cannot look elsewhere for salvation, but must build our characters by our own actions. This is the Great Work. Nobility of character, however, was only the outer aspect of the Great Work, according to Moondaughter. The inner aspect was mystical union with the Lord and Lady. Mysticism and ethics were for Moondaughter converging lines, each of which must be energetically pursued. To neglect one would obstruct progress in the other. The Threefold Law It is to Moondaughter that I owe my understanding of the Threefold Law, the Wiccan precept that whatever a person does, good or evil, returns to her threefold. Every action, Moondaughter taught, first affects the self directly by leaving its imprint on the character of the actor. Second, it affects the target of the action, with whom the actor is in relationship, and the effects feedback upon the actor through that relationship. Finally, every action affects the environment in which the actor must live -- ultimately, the entire universe -- and thus feeds back again upon the actor. Thus the Great Work is a transformation of self which we pursue through our actions and our relationships. It is the realization of our nature as children of the Lord and Lady; and -- since each of us is part of the web of relationships which connect all that exists -- it is at the same time a transformation of the universe as a whole. Mind and Body as Lover and Beloved Moondaughter taught that the Great Work could be divided into three interrelated aspects, each of which establishes a relationship of lover and beloved. The first aspect of the Great Work consists of bringing one's own mind and body into the relationship of lover and beloved. Externally, this relationship results in the opening of the inner senses, and therefore much of magical development is concerned with this small part of the Great Work. The union of mind and body, however, has an ethical dimension as well as a magical one. Moondaughter taught that perfect unity of mind and body could only be achieved when the actions that result from the mind/body interaction are consistently based on Will rather than desire -- a transition that requires more than a little self-discipline. It is possible (and unfortunately not uncommon) for mind and body to form a relationship in actions that contradict the Will. Rape, for example, is a perversion of sexuality which develops a dysfunctional relationship between the mind and body of the rapist and corrupts the Work within him. Thus, living by the Wiccan Rede -- an' it harm none, do what ye will -- is a first step toward accomplishing this first aspect of the Great Work. The Sacred Marriage The second aspect of the Great Work is the Sacred Marriage. Moondaughter taught that for most of us this means that a man and a women come together as lover and beloved, not merely physically and for a time, but on all levels and forever, in a relationship that is in harmony with their individual Wills. While each of us already has both Yin Self and Yang Self, union with the sacred spouse brings Yin and Yang together in ways which transform each partner. Lover and beloved act as priest and priestess for each other, and together they become an embodiment of the Lord and the Lady. The Unity of all Life The third aspect of the Great Work is unity with all beings. This, Moondaughter taught, is accomplished when an individual takes the entire universe as her beloved, in a relationship in harmony with her Will. In the lesser sense, this aspect is achieved when the individual comes to spontaneously regard all beings with the love and compassion that the Lord and the Lady feel for their children. In the greater sense, however, this aspect is not achieved until humanity as a whole regards all beings with that love. The culmination of this Work on the individual level, according to Moondaughter, is a state in which the individual inherits the character of the Lord and the Lady, and lives constantly in the presence of Lord and Lady. This is not a state which I believe has been achieved by very many incarnate human beings, but I have found it a most worthwhile goal toward which to strive. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE FIFTH REDE - THE SUMMERLAND Upon Earth, I give the knowledge of the spirit eternal; and beyond death, I give peace and freedom, and reunion with those who have gone before. Moondaughter taught that the polarity of Inner Self and Outer Self was also manifest in the universe as a whole. The Outer Self of the universe is the world known to materialistic science; its Inner Self is the world we touch through meditation and ritual. For Moondaughter, however, the Inner World was not just "in our heads"; it was an objective reality. Incarnate human beings, she taught, exist simultaneously in both worlds. Microcosm and Macrocosm According to Moondaughter, each incarnate human being is a microcosm of the universe. That part of us which exists in the Outer World dances the cycle of birth and death, and ultimately returns to the earth -- and in this it shares the basic nature of the Outer World. The spirit, however, shares the nature of the Inner World, and does not die, but continues to exist in that world. Moondaughter taught that each of these Inner (spiritual) and Outer (materical) parts of us itself consists of both an invisible Inner Self and a visible Outer Self, and in later years I have come to associate what she called the Inner Self of the material world with the what occultists call the etheric shell, and the Outer Self of the spirit with the "astral body." Thus, the mind/body polarity exists in both worlds, and just as our physical bodies have senses which perceive the Outer World, so also do our spiritual bodies have senses which perceive the Inner World. The Spirit Eternal Because incarnate humans have these inner senses, we are capable of forming relationships with disincarnate spirits. Indeed, Moondaughter taught that each man and woman is constantly in relationship with many such spirits, but that most human beings are so distracted by the material world that they never notice the other half of their existence. Even when unnoticed, however, these relationships affect us. My own experience of meditation and ritual has confirmed for me that incarnate humans do indeed interact with disincarnate spirits, and that we can become aware of these relationships if we make the effort. The Threefold Law Moondaughter taught us that during physical life, the Inner Self and Outer Self exchange elements. The character of our Inner Selves sets its mark upon our bodies, and the flow of energy from the Inner Self can heal and energize the physical body. At the same time, the character of our actions sets its mark upon our Inner Selves, and the flow of energy from our Outer Selves shapes and nourishes the growth of the spirit. This I understand to be one of the ways in which the Threefold Law operates: the character of our actions -- helpful or harmful -- sends a flow of energy to our spirits which changes us. Thus any harmful act directly harms the self, in addition to harming the victim and the universe as a whole. The Flowering of the Spirit It is this growth of the spirit, Moondaughter taught us, that determines our experience of the Summerland. Human beings know joy when they relate to each other, and to the Lord and Lady, as lover and beloved. Such relationships, however, are not automatic; we, like the other fruits of the earth, grow to ripeness. A human spirit which has grown to be capable of mature love relationships experiences the universe as a place of joy, but a human spirit which has cultivated selfishness and exploitation of others lives a joyless, barren existence. During physical life, one can hide from this joylessness by glutting oneself with bodily sensations, but not so in the Summerland. According to Moondaughter, the malleable nature of the Inner World is such that one's environment changes in response to one's thoughts and emotions, so one cannot hide from the barrenness of one's own character. For those who have cultivated in themselves the loving nature of the Lord and Lady, life in the Summerland is filled with joy. There we are reunited with those we have loved on earth; there we can live constantly in the presence of the Lord and Lady; there we can embrace those disincarnate friends who supported us during our physical lives, and give our support in turn to those who follow us in the dance of birth and death. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SIXTH REDE - THE GREAT RITE Let my worship be within the heart that rejoiceth; for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. Initiation into the high priesthood in Moondaughter's tradition always involved performing the Great Rite in true. The necessity for this sexual act arose naturally out of Moondaughter's understanding of the power of love. The Power of Love Love, Moondaughter taught, is the power through which the Lord and Lady gave birth to all things. Love is the source of human life and happiness. The power of love is greater than that of the natural laws which govern the universe. Sexual love, for Moondaughter, was the most potent and volatile form of love. She believed that in sexual love a man and a woman unite not only physically, but also spiritually and magically. By that magical act the lovers are transformed, for better, or for worse. The Misuse of Love It is not difficult to observe in the physical world that the power to do good is also the power to do harm; Moondaughter taught that the same was true of the sacred power of sexual love. While she prized the sexual act as the holiest and most powerful of rituals, she understood the misuse of that power to be responsible for many of the dysfunctionalities of human society. Today, even more than in Moondaughter's time, we have become aware of the severe psychological damage which can result from sexual abuse of children and from rape. Moondaughter believed these were only the most visible ways that human beings could take harm when the magical and spiritual energies exchanged during sex were misused for purposes of exploitation and domination. The Sacred Marriage Moondaughter considered her coveners to be undertaking a course of both magical and priestly training, and in that role she made demands of them which many modern Pagans might find unacceptable. Married coveners were expected to be strictly monogamous, and single coveners to be chaste. This requirement was not merely an ethic, but a magical act, part of a spell of self-transformation to prepare them to receive the third degree initiation. In Moondaughter's tradition, the initiation to third degree was identical with the Sacred Marriage, a vital aspect of the Great Work. When a couple was ready to receive the third degree, the Great Rite was first administered in token to the woman by a male elder, and the woman then immediately administered it -- also in token -- to her partner. At some later time, the couple would perform the Rite in true to sexually complete the initiation begun by the symbolic ritual. There were rumors that in earlier times the true Rite had followed the pattern of the token Rite, but this was never the practice in the United States. Following the third degree initiation, the man and the women were considered to be magical partners, a priest and priestess whose sexual union was an embodiment of the Lord and the Lady. All Acts Are Her Rituals For Moondaughter, both the sexual ecstasy of the Great Rite and the sexual abstinence that preceded it were magical acts for the transformation of the self and the world. More than that, they were acts of worship, rituals of the Lord and Lady. Today it is common for the statement that "all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals" to be regarded as an endorsement of casual sex. Moondaughter would have seen such an attitude as the equivalent of a devout Catholic offering consecrated hosts with salsa and dip as a party snack. Moondaughter taught that every act of love and pleasure was indeed a ritual, and cautioned her students to approach every such act with the reverence (as well as the mirth) that such an incredibly sacred ritual deserves. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SEVENTH REDE - HEALING THE EARTH And therefore let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you. The wheel of the year turns round and round, but not each turning is the same. The acts of men and women return threefold multiplying both goodness and harm. Moondaughter taught her students that we have a responsibility for adding to the goodness in the world by the way we live our lives. Human Freedom and Human Evil The natural cycle is a balance of cold and warm, darkness and light. But Moondaughter did not consider those evil times that come in the history of human society -- the Burning Times, the Holocaust, etc. -- to be part of the natural cycle. Those times she saw a the product of human actions and human choices. Human freedom is a great gift from the Lord and Lady; it is our inheritance as Their children. But that freedom allows us to choose to act without honor or compassion, without beauty, reverence or humility, and when we do we bring the evil times closer. Human freedom also allows us to choose to act with honor and compassion. it offers us the chance to not only banish the evil times, but to invoke a world of peace and harmony -- a world in which the beauty of nature is reflected in human society. Achieving such a world may take many lifetimes, but we do not face this task alone. Every man and woman who acts with honor and compassion adds to the goodness in the world. The Wounded World The world we live in today is a wounded world, a world in need of healing. Out task, as children of the Lord and Lady, is to bring healing to that world by our actions, by our relationships, by our love for all of Their children. Because each of us is a part of the web of life, the wounds of the world are also our own wounds, and we cannot heal the one without also healing the other. Moondaughter dedicated her life to healing this world. Her every act was a gesture in a great spell to invoke beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence into the lives of her students, and ultimately of all men and women. Today Moondaughter's name is not remembered, except among those few whose lives she touched. No doubt Moondaughter is pleased by this, as she never sought recognition for herself. But if ever a child brought joy to the hearts of the Lord and Lady, it was Moondaughter.