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juushikaTitle: The Circle Within: Creating a Wiccan Spiritual Tradition
Author: Dianne Sylvan
Published: Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 2003
Page Count: 189
Total Page Count: 25,709
Text Number: 75
Read For: religion research, from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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Short review: Sylvan aims to help her readers take their Wiccan religion to the "next step" by integrating religion into every aspect of their lives. Going beyond basic book reading and the holy days of the year, Sylvan urges Wiccans to incorporate daily prayer, sacred space, and conscious, intentional living, thinking, and faith into their daily lives. Writing with welcome honesty and (a bit too much) sarcasm and humor, she discusses what it means to have a personal spiritual practice, how to form a relationship with the Deity, defining and walking an ethical path, creating sacred space, building a daily practice, defining the wheel of the year, and creating personal rituals. In the second half of the book she provides a number of rituals, prayers, and invocations related to the aforementioned themes. Theoretical, challenging, and highly personalized, this is not an introductory text but rather pushes the reader to take risks, make commitments, and dedicate their life, not just their holidays, to the Wiccan faith.
As a non-Wiccan but rather an aspiring pagan, this book still appealed to me and I found it easy to read, useful, and inspiring. Sylvan's attitude to her religion is so joyful that it's impossible to read this book without feeling uplifted and inspired to find the same dedication and joy on your own path. Her writing style is approachable, she avoids overtly fluffy Wicca while still embracing humor and joy. At times, her sarcasm and humor get a little repetitive and annoying, but on the whole this is an engaging and quick read. The greater part of the book useful not just to Wiccans but anyone starting down an alternative religious path—it encourages introspection, dedication, and observance, all of which will help anyone discovering religion through self-direction and study. The Wiccan elements, including invocation of the elements and conceptualizing the God and Goddess, are broad enough, not restricted by a specific practice or pantheon. Sylvan also recommends personalization of all of the invocations and rituals that she includes. As a result, the ideas in this text are highly applicable to Wiccans and Pagans alike, and if you follow Sylvans advice and personalize and adapt as necessary, this has the potential to be a very useful text.
The approach to religion and religious practice that Sylvan offers is not an easy one, but it should be able to function within, and even be a boon to, daily life. Sylvan advocates a conscious and daily religious mindset that will foster a connection with the divine, the Wiccan faith, and oneself. From prayers for waking, sleeping and eating to a religious approach to work to a commitment to ethical behavior and productive contributions to society, she calls for an intrinsic, personal, daily commitment. The payoff of the hard work, dedication, and sacrifice is a strong relationship with the divine and the same sense of joy that the author claims to have in her own faith. Again, while many of the details introduced later in the book are Wiccan, this underlying principle is one that can and perhaps should be applied to all faiths and is especially useful to those walking a path without much guidance (such as Bibles, churches, and religious communities).
I will admit that, personally, this left me longing for Wicca. That path is so open and comparatively well-defined compared to the research that I've been doing, and I envy that level of simplicity. I feel that Wiccans can self-dedicate earlier and create a very individualized, self-affirming faith. While that does mean it's easy to get swept up in the self-creation and omit all research, and while it does create a very diverse group of people all under the same name, I think a personalized, unique path can be very powerful and lead to a lot of personal growth. That said, Wicca isn't the path that I'm choosing to follow, and I do find the simplicity of the God and Goddess too broad for my taste. Sylvan herself pokes a bit of fun at the ease with which Wiccans pick directions, follow carts of symbolism, and select a god here and a goddess there from disparate pantheons, and there's something to be said for that critique. Not enough Wiccans do the research on the routs of the symbolism and lives of the gods and goddess that they focus on, and my desire to understand and join and culture and worship and entire particular mythology is what drives me away from Wicca and towards Celtic Reconstructionism.
Personal tangent aside, I really do think there is something useful in this book for anyone on an alternative path. The Wiccan elements were lost on me, and I didn't find the rituals and prayers in the second half of the book particularly useful, but I appreciated the sentiments, the sense of joy, and the various thought-provoking, encouraging, and even personally demanding aspects. I hope that I am able to integrate the goals of daily conscious belief and practice into my own faith, even if I won't be able to use the meditations, rituals, and thoughts on the God and Goddess. All in all, I was glad to read this book, and was sufficiently engrossed to read the entire book in one day. I recommend it.
Review posted in part here at Amazon.com.
Author: Dianne Sylvan
Published: Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 2003
Page Count: 189
Total Page Count: 25,709
Text Number: 75
Read For: religion research, from
circle_of_ashesShort review: Sylvan aims to help her readers take their Wiccan religion to the "next step" by integrating religion into every aspect of their lives. Going beyond basic book reading and the holy days of the year, Sylvan urges Wiccans to incorporate daily prayer, sacred space, and conscious, intentional living, thinking, and faith into their daily lives. Writing with welcome honesty and (a bit too much) sarcasm and humor, she discusses what it means to have a personal spiritual practice, how to form a relationship with the Deity, defining and walking an ethical path, creating sacred space, building a daily practice, defining the wheel of the year, and creating personal rituals. In the second half of the book she provides a number of rituals, prayers, and invocations related to the aforementioned themes. Theoretical, challenging, and highly personalized, this is not an introductory text but rather pushes the reader to take risks, make commitments, and dedicate their life, not just their holidays, to the Wiccan faith.
As a non-Wiccan but rather an aspiring pagan, this book still appealed to me and I found it easy to read, useful, and inspiring. Sylvan's attitude to her religion is so joyful that it's impossible to read this book without feeling uplifted and inspired to find the same dedication and joy on your own path. Her writing style is approachable, she avoids overtly fluffy Wicca while still embracing humor and joy. At times, her sarcasm and humor get a little repetitive and annoying, but on the whole this is an engaging and quick read. The greater part of the book useful not just to Wiccans but anyone starting down an alternative religious path—it encourages introspection, dedication, and observance, all of which will help anyone discovering religion through self-direction and study. The Wiccan elements, including invocation of the elements and conceptualizing the God and Goddess, are broad enough, not restricted by a specific practice or pantheon. Sylvan also recommends personalization of all of the invocations and rituals that she includes. As a result, the ideas in this text are highly applicable to Wiccans and Pagans alike, and if you follow Sylvans advice and personalize and adapt as necessary, this has the potential to be a very useful text.
The approach to religion and religious practice that Sylvan offers is not an easy one, but it should be able to function within, and even be a boon to, daily life. Sylvan advocates a conscious and daily religious mindset that will foster a connection with the divine, the Wiccan faith, and oneself. From prayers for waking, sleeping and eating to a religious approach to work to a commitment to ethical behavior and productive contributions to society, she calls for an intrinsic, personal, daily commitment. The payoff of the hard work, dedication, and sacrifice is a strong relationship with the divine and the same sense of joy that the author claims to have in her own faith. Again, while many of the details introduced later in the book are Wiccan, this underlying principle is one that can and perhaps should be applied to all faiths and is especially useful to those walking a path without much guidance (such as Bibles, churches, and religious communities).
I will admit that, personally, this left me longing for Wicca. That path is so open and comparatively well-defined compared to the research that I've been doing, and I envy that level of simplicity. I feel that Wiccans can self-dedicate earlier and create a very individualized, self-affirming faith. While that does mean it's easy to get swept up in the self-creation and omit all research, and while it does create a very diverse group of people all under the same name, I think a personalized, unique path can be very powerful and lead to a lot of personal growth. That said, Wicca isn't the path that I'm choosing to follow, and I do find the simplicity of the God and Goddess too broad for my taste. Sylvan herself pokes a bit of fun at the ease with which Wiccans pick directions, follow carts of symbolism, and select a god here and a goddess there from disparate pantheons, and there's something to be said for that critique. Not enough Wiccans do the research on the routs of the symbolism and lives of the gods and goddess that they focus on, and my desire to understand and join and culture and worship and entire particular mythology is what drives me away from Wicca and towards Celtic Reconstructionism.
Personal tangent aside, I really do think there is something useful in this book for anyone on an alternative path. The Wiccan elements were lost on me, and I didn't find the rituals and prayers in the second half of the book particularly useful, but I appreciated the sentiments, the sense of joy, and the various thought-provoking, encouraging, and even personally demanding aspects. I hope that I am able to integrate the goals of daily conscious belief and practice into my own faith, even if I won't be able to use the meditations, rituals, and thoughts on the God and Goddess. All in all, I was glad to read this book, and was sufficiently engrossed to read the entire book in one day. I recommend it.
Review posted in part here at Amazon.com.
