Friday, October 27, 2006
The Witching Hour
These are curious times for witches. When, since the days of Salem, have we found them as fascinating ... or frightening? With Halloween in the air, I’d like to toss a few choice ingredients into a cauldron for us to stir and study. So, let’s fire up the pot ... [Sound: bubbling pot]
And ... in goes our first ingredient [splash!]: The latest parental freak-out about magic and Harry Potter – this time, from a Georgia mother who tried to persuade her school board that the Potter series is indoctrinating children in the Wicca religion. Happily, her attempt was blocked – either by a magic spell ... or by the pure reason of folks who have actually read the books and know they’re sewn through with moral lessons that are consistent with both Wiccan and Judeo-Christian values.
So: our second item for our cauldron? [splash] How about the recent scientific breakthrough on developing real invisibility cloaks, involving “metamaterials” patterned to bend light and make objects seem to vanish. While these muggle scientists struggle to imitate magic for military purposes, interestingly, a study has just confirmed that 1,800 self-described Wiccans are currently serving in the U.S. military! And while Wiccans are invited to fight and die for the U.S. and can list their faith on their dogtags, they have not yet been allowed to have the Wiccan pentacle sandblasted into their military headstones. Ponder that in your crystal ball.
Our next ingredients? [splash!] Two recent big-budget films featuring magic: The Illusionist and The Prestige. But .. why is it that in these post-Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer days, screen audiences seem more comfortable with magical men than bewitching women? At least powerful women have taken the stage by storm, with the wild popularity of the musical Wicked – a revisionary story of Oz, sympathetic to Elphaba, the so-called Wicked Witch of the West – revealed here as an animal lover who just wants to be judged by her internal power rather than her external verdigris. Her battles with the wizard who is just an empty fraud may ring truer than we’d like for people who suspect we really may be living in a fear-mongering and superstitious Land of Oz.
And ... here’s the final ingredient for our brew – in honor of Halloween, of course. [splash] Witch costumes are more popular than ever ... and they’ve never been skimpier. What does it mean that we’ve taken the idea of a supernaturally powerful woman and torn off most of her clothing? This year’s witchy getups are stripped down and tricked up to look like Endora the Hooker took a wrong turn through Frederick’s of Hollywood. A nearly naked witch teetering on high heels is less scary, apparently, than an actual powerful woman like Hillary Rodham Clinton – remember when she was called Wicked Witch of the West Wing?
Staring into this brew of contradictions, I’m struck by how very far these absurd versions of witchy women are from the pagan practices real witches emerged from – practices that celebrate solar and lunar cycles, that see divinity in every aspect of our living, breathing earth, and that embrace the power of the feminine as well as the masculine. And if you have ever delighted in a blazing Yule log, enjoyed an Easter egg, or, heck, tromped around in pursuit of Halloween candy, you have participated in pagan rituals any witch would smile upon. What exactly are we afraid of? Our own powers? Well – let’s remember that on November 7th , folks, WE get to be the powerful entity behind the curtain, operating the levers that will shape our future. Just think of those spellbinding possibilities…
For Michiana Chronicles, this is April Lidinsky. Take it away, Elphaba! [music: “Defying Gravity ” from Wicked]