First off I would like to start off by saying these are my thoughts, opinions, experiences in practicing Wicca for *counts on fingers...runs out of fingers.....* something like 15 years.
I would also like to state that I am ecclectic ( I don't follow a tradition strictly) and largely self taught ( back in my day the Wiccan folks weren't really jumping out of the woodwork and then later on the ones that did hop out were bunnies).
I also hate holidays.
And I can't really say I am a strict Wiccan practitioner.
However I spent a looooong time studying it and applying it to my life ( before I realized that it's still not quite the right flavor for me).
This doesn't sound like I am building a very strong case about being knowledgeable about it ( gasp self taught! Ecclectic! Hates holidays!)...so why am I telling you all this?
Because I am honest. Because I am not coming off from some direction of a giant moral Wiccan horse. Because I do have at least enough baseline knowledge to help others who are looking about and looking for info.
And why should you listen to me?
If nothing else because you are bored and this might be more informational than a FaceBook Quiz....
Oh yeah and this is a lengthy topic ( why else are there shelves filled with books on Wicca?) so I will be discussing this in installments.
In this installment we are covering:
What Wicca is Not.
Wicca as a Religion.
Touching base on the God and Goddess.
So what IS Wicca?
First off I sometimes find it easier to describe what something IS NOT before I try to give it some defining perimeters of what it is.
So Wicca IS NOT:
Worshipping the devil or any entity of soul sucking and sin tempting for that matter. Wicca does not reconize Satan ( or whichever of his many names you wish to call him by). This means Wicca is not about worshipping or cavorting about with demons either ( after all if Wicca does na reconize the head honcho of hell, how can it then start reconizing his legions of evil doing baddies?).
Wicca IS NOT
For guuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrllllllllllssssssssssss only. It's for men and women. And by men I do not just mean the soft men ( the ones mistaken for gay, are gay or totter towards metrosexual). You can be a big bad ass macho axe wielding lumberjack kind of fellow and STILL be Wiccan. Wicca does focus on the feminine in Divinity and Humanity HOWEVER to keep balance and harmony in play Wicca also focuses on the masculine too ( so another misconcept of Wicca being only for lesbians can be thrown out the window here too people).
Wicca is NOT
About "Love and Light" and that is it. Sure the focus is on Love and Light for that is power in its own positivity. However there is no complete utopia out there where bad things never happen. Wicca is about Balance, Harmony,Love,Learning, Respect, Honor, Responsibility,Honesty, Compassion, Healing, Wisdom and more. If you only focus on Love and Light as a heal all without understanding pain,fear,anger,insecurity,violence,violation,dish onesty and all those other things, then you really aren't understanding or focussing on Love or Light.
To use Love and Light without an understanding is to use those words as some shield or worse a moral soap box to be better than other people.
Worse it can leave one vulnerable and blind sided ( sorry if someone is trying to rape me I am going to fight back and beat the crap out of them because I LOVE my own survival).
Wicca is NOT
About being vegetarian or anti-synthetic. Some people may have you believe that if you eat sugar, margarine, smoke cigarrettes, have a beer or two in the evening, adore lycra, and eat bacon with your eggs....that you are some how dishonoring the entirety of the universe and therefore can not ever be Wiccan enough until you change your ways.
That is bullshit.
No Divine Being has ever turned away from me for my marlboro habit ( though I do not honor my body with that choice).
Wicca is NOT
About the doodads and fancy gadgets. Rich silks, flashy altar materials and hundreds of aromatic candles and incense make you no more Wiccan than any place that sells the stuff. Too many people focus on the "purty" side of the religion and get caught up with what they have to prove they are Wiccan and now what they are learning or how to apply it.
Wicca is NOT
All about spells, rituals, magic and circle casting. Sure that stuff plays a big part of it.....but then that would be like saying Catholicism is all about the kneeling and eating of crackers and juice.
Recap on what Wicca is NOT:
-Devil worship
-A girls only club
-One sided Love n Light
-About being a vegetarian or strict follower of au naturale only
-Fancy Shmancy tools
-Spells and magic
So What IS Wicca?
A way of life. One that harmonizes oneself from the inside ( with oneself) and outside oneself (with other people, animals, the environment, celestial influences, the divine, etc). It is about respect, understanding, love, loyalty, responsibility to oneself and others. It is about a deeper knowing of how you not only connect and affect yourself but others too.
I thought it was an ancient religion you ask.
Well the CONCEPT of living Earthwise is as old as we are as a species. Ever since we were bright enough to eat another animal, make a tool, mate and raise offspring successfully, there has always been a survival need to connect with and understand our environment. Inside ourselves and outside.
By inside take a look at a hunter. If he was all messed up with self doubt or fear I find it hard to believe he would have dinner ready later.
By outside take a look at our planting folk. Does no good to seed your crop when the temperature is too cold or the ground too hard.
Those are minor examples.
Over time we evolved from just survival to more spiritual. And all that time we were striving to make connections ( family, clan, animals we hunt or keep to help us, the gods and goddessess of weather) to survive and to understand ( and perhaps even to control...that seems to be within our DNA).
So as a way of life, a concept, something to connect back to and where we came from....Earthwise has been with us since we became us.
As a RELIGION Wicca is a baby. Something like 50 years old ( maybe? I hate math and I hate history).
As a focused and structured route and guideline to spirituality it is a drop in the bucket of time. Do you really think the cavemen were worried about drawing up a ritual with properly color corresponding scents and candles to ensure there was no storm that night?
Most likely they tuned into the way the air smelled and what the clouds looked like.
So why bother with a Religion like Wicca at all if it is so ingrained in us?
Obviously it isn't ingrained. If anything Earthwise common sense has been bred the hell out of us.
What was Wicca about again?
Wicca is a dual focused religion. It focuses on the Feminine and Masculine that reside within and without us at all times. I may be a chick however I do have a small percentage of testosterone that runs through me biologically speaking ( and guys don't cringe here....you have progesterone and estrogen lurking in your own biological monad).
To help us focus on the Feminine we have the Goddess. She represents the three stages of the feminine life cycle.
Maiden - Youth, innocence, freedom, virgin ( as in she who is unto her own law...not she who is pure and has not been tainted yet
). The maiden can be seen as the fruit you persue ( innocence) or the independence that has not been won out ( Think Diana the moon goddess...she was maiden and a warrior).
Mother -Compassion, wisdom, nurturing, hard work, multi-tasker, healer, fertility,and so much more.
Crone - The hag. The old witch. The wisewoman.She is no longer young or fertile however she has been there and done that and in her ripe old age she has much to teach if you will only listen.
The Goddess represents the female cycle.
Sorry gals but it is true. We are born and ran by our hormones. I speak from multiple hormonal experience ( and I fear the day I go through menopause....I'm scary when my hormones are on empty).
We are born and are doing fine until the flag for puberty hits. From then on out we are biologically owned until we die ( menopause is the lack of hormone production and it plays havoc with the mind, body and emotions).
Through the Goddess one can focus on the many aspects, cycles, lessons, wisdoms, follies and weaknesses that the feminine side has to offer ( whether you are male or female and by the way guys.....mark your calendars when you find you are moody, low energy or in a funk and you may notice the equivalent to a male PMS cycle).
She is only one half. The other complimenting half is The God who focuses on the Masculine side. And yes I said complimenting half. There is no "better" half. It's all yin-yang, weakness-strengths, etc etc.
The God is said to have only two faces ( aspects) and I totally disagree with that. I have yet to meet a boy and then man. You will have to dig deep in the pantheons to find the corresponding God aspects as He is generally listed as Youngmanbecomingmature and Oldandwiseashell.
My take on his cycle:
Boy/Young Man -And you won't find Boy God. Baby God sure ( check out holidays for that reference....it would be Yule btw). But Boy God? The closest you are going to find really would be say Pan.
Yes he is half animal.
No he is not the devil. He represents the immature boyish side to the masculine. Free, prankish, territorial yet loving. Naive and quirky. Of course Pan being represented as young man is also horny as all get out too.....which does not quite correspond to Boy/Youth.....
Post Puberty Man/Father -So once you were a kid and all about running, playing, establishing yourself....then you discovered girls. Then you matured some and discovered deeper feelings for them.....The Father aspect represents that maturity. Throwing aside that freedom to share himself and to sacrifice and settle down. He is the compliment to Mother Goddess aspect.
King/Old Sage - Now like the Goddess he is old. Been there done that. And now he is a wise old man with vast knowledge ( and in some traditions the one who guards the gates to the Wiccan equivalent to Heaven though Wicca has no actual Heaven or Hell concept....more on that later). He is The Crone Goddess counterpart.
So here you can see the Masculine life cycle from Boy/Young Man, Mature Man/Father, Sage/WiseMan.
Men too are ruled by their hormones, however it's not just the sex related ones I am talking about. You know that flight/fight response? That's really the cyclical focus ( with a dash of testosterone thrown in for measure...I envy men no more or less for puberty than I do women).
The God aspects help us learn and focus on the many parts to the Masculine cycle ( playing to hunt, honing skills,strength, healing, nurturing,awareness of the environment and of ones placement in it etc).
The God is no stronger or weaker than The Goddess. And visa versa. They both compliment and work with each other to create a whole.
Duality is in my opinion the core basic to Wicca.
More on that in the next segment.
C/S/
Wicca in a nutshell (I) 
Linear Mode
