All my recent Agatha All Along Posts on one place, as requested and cleaned up a bit for a blog. Apologies for any mistakes, the initial posts were mostly composed on my phone.
***
Without spoilers… I think Agatha All Along hits us so hard, particularly Lilia’s trial and “I need you, my coven” is because we have all been there.
We have lost loved ones and couldn’t prevent it. Felt betrayals from Witch siblings, teachers, and students in our Craft. Sought the ideals of coven and community. Sometimes found it. Often not. We can all feel addled in time, living out of sequence and broken. Though not centuries old, being on the outside we can feel centuries old, being so different, and the elation of finding the like-minded, like-souled and the beauty of the magickal group experience. And the disappointment in the dissonance of differences, miscommunication, and misunderstanding. Sometimes our coven is not a formal coven, but like chosen family, our intimate Witches across traditions and places. We often go through many groups trying to recapture that initial spirit until we realize it has to be something different.
The paradox of a Witch is never alone and the Witch is always alone, even in a group. And those brief moments of clarity when it all makes sense.
“I needed you, my coven”
“I loved being a witch”
Me too Lilia Calderu, me too.
Thank you Patti LuPone.
***
In my recent post on Lilia Calderu on Agatha All Along, someone asked for more insights and perspective on how it is, and isn’t, like our own Craft today. Some quotes from that episode, more than others, really struck me as Craft wisdom.
Furious
In today’s work, I think of Lilia asking,“Jen, aren’t you furious?” She was referring to Billy’s betrayal of them. Jen responds with, “I mean, always. But collectively, we’ve moved on.” I think of how many Witches are angry a lot of the time, almost always, and I think we have been for e very long time. It’s easy to think that it is only in today’s current climate, but no. I remember the days in the early 1990s often quoted, put on t-shirts, bumper stickers and jackets, “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” Attributed to writer Michael Cunningham (1992) journalist Donald Kaul (1989) and some say it goes back to the punk movement in the 80’s, it is often quoted by those of us in marginalized communities, and while less visible, that includes all Witches. Yet continual anger can be corrosive, and I’ve seen it eat away at many o Witch. Some are rooted in personal rebellion as a Witch, anger at family, church, the world. Others more in political and social structures of capitalism and environmental destruction. Some angry Witches are personal, directed at specific people or group, vendettas born of insult or wounding. Yet like Jen, the wise Witch knows that anger can still be there, but one has to move on with life. Don’t forget why you are angry, and take actions but don’t let it be your only source of power and drive.
* * *
“Why?”
“Because you are my sister in the craft”
(continuing my Agatha All Along Posts…)
This speaks to the desire for companionship, understanding, kinship, and all that we often project into coven. But it gets into the deeply misunderstood principles of soror/frater of secret societies and occult groups.
Today many equate it with family of origin or chosen family. And while some covens operate like chosen family, it can make it quite messy and lead to heartache when there is a lot of unvoiced and unconscious assumptions about what that means. Like the word Witch, the word family has as many different definitions as the people who use the word. The nuclear family model of many traditional covens, led by High Priestess and High Priest, when held in the tenets of the coven, is incredibly healing because of a code of bounds and honor. But when that boundary dissolves, usually through misunderstanding, it can replicate all the unconscious patterns of dysfunctional family of all the members and re-traumatize. When different family types project onto others in unrelated families, it creates a lot of misunderstanding. As an only child, I was baffled at sibling rivalry in a coven. as I never grew up with that.
Magickal kinship is Soror/Frater, and sadly lacking a non-gendered term in Latin as the Middle Ages German origin of sibling was introduced into English in the early twentieth century. Its a kinship of shared experience and shared subculture, with those bounds and customs. While a less than savory comparison for most of us, it’s like the bond of college fraternities and sororities, a form of adopted tribalism in the context of a “secret” society. Initiation challenges bond people through shared experience. Masonic traditions are likewise a similar culture, with more symbolic ritual. We still feel it today as Witches, and the call for it in our hearts, and particularly tend to mix it up with origin family feelings, because we lack a common shared experience or culture in today’s Craft. We don’t have a common ritual experience bring us into it. That is why formal traditions have grown more popular again, and there is a wider divide between eclectic self-taughts and traditions, as there has been many times and will be again. All things ebb and flow in their mutations. Many online today encourage the messiest of connections because they do not know or have not experienced other options and ways of gathering, or those ways have been closed to them for a variety of reasons. And the formal ways often have a lot of their own problems to deal with and are not the solution to everything. Each ebb and flow of this cycle, each separate and unify brings new options. It’s how my own Temple of Witchcraft came about, seeking a new way.
When I was coming up in the Craft, “tribe” was a popular term that I often used, and now I don’t. Not because of any perceived appropriation from indigenous people, as the root word is Latin. Referring collectively to a people, or most likely originally to a tripartite division of Roman people, Witches of the 90’s without coven looked to their “tribe” as chosen family, looking to an ancient ideal, but had a lot of the same unvoiced assumptions and hurt feelings. I say we are part of the same magickal order, as my Witchcraft is magickal priesthood, and we are part of a specific priesthood, and in general, a continuation, brokenly, of an ancient priesthood in spirit and function. I think all Witches are a part of the larger purpose and function of Witchcraft, and speak often of the Witch Soul as a collective, and the First Witch, Last Witch and how we are all Witches in-between. We are sisters, brothers, others in collective otherhood, siblings in the Craft of the Wise.
When we come together, and even when we are far apart,
known and unknown, well loved and the never met,
you are my sibling in the Craft.
And I am yours.
* * *
Are you rooted in nature?
Are you nimble in your craft?
Do you have a coven?
What do you see?
Your task is not to control, but to see.
—Lilia’s Maestra
The Maestra asks key points we often associate with the Witch. Nature. Skill. Group. Sight. When Lilia answered negatively, not yet realizing the importance of the coven, and complains about her out of control seership power, the Maestra says, “ Your task is not to control, but to see.”
We as students often frame things in terms of being perfect, of being in control, in doing it right, and think anything less is an abdication of skill or power. Her teacher tells her that her power hasn’t gone anywhere. She simply needs to “do it” and see. Then all will becomes clear. If she has forgotten her self, she simply needs to remember.
It’s not unlike the Wu Wei of Taoism, the effortless effort of being in the zone. It’s the peace of allowing all your practice to unfold with skill, efficiency, and effect, knowing you are not doing it, you can’t control it, but you are participating vessel in the process. You must prepare. You learn and practice. You must choose to do it. Then you must get out of your own way and let it happen. So much of Witchcraft, of magick, can be summed up in this way, as can music, dance, art, writing, philosophy, sports, surgery, gardening, driving… all human and Witch endeavors!
And it is a lesson in the guidance of a teacher, a mentor, a pattern of wisdom, living or spirit, memory or flesh, can be indispensable. The Maestra is the center of gravity in these scenes, then the catalyst. We are all students. We are all teachers. We are all in it together.
Learn Witchcraft.
Do Witchcraft.
Be Witchcraft.
* * *
Death
“Death comes for us all…It’s what we all have in common.”
“What will you do with your remaining time?”
– Lilia’s Maestra
(continuing my Agatha All Along Posts…Slight spoilers)
Death and life are intertwined for the Witch. While some traditions focus more on fertility of land, body, and mind, and resign death to the hallowstide sabbat of Samhain, others fixate upon Death and the underworld, and briefly come up for light in the spring celebrations. Both are integral to the cycles of life, as we learn, Rio, Lady Death is the Original Green Witch. Without death, there would be no green, no life. Continual life unchecked is cancerous. Death comes for us all no matter what we do, even these seemingly immortal Witches. Its what we all have in common – Witches, people, animals, plants, even the break down of mountains, minerals, planets, the universe. We all will end. Rather than become nihilistic about it, Witches celebrate it, even if most don’t relish the idea of Death coming to call. Death is our ally. Death is our advisor. Like birth it binds us all together. In the Descent of the Goddess myth of Wicca there are the three great mysteries:
“For there are three great events in the life of man — love, death and resurrection in the new body — and magic controls them all.”
Some versions say it’s birth, sex and death with love ruling them all. But love is intimately tied to the mystery of death. Death, the change of form, is our ally as change is the essence of magick. Love is at the heart of life.
Another favorite pop culture quote on death comes from trans Witch Lord Fanny in what appears to be an epic psychic battle with Mr. Quimper but turns into a healing for this trapped little spirit.
“This is the worst place in the world. You shouldn’t have come here. You’ll die here.” – Mr. Quimper
“Stay in the best place in the world for long enough, darling, and you’ll die there too.”
“In your world there is only ever the ugly caterpillar. Just as in the world above, only the beautiful butterfly exists. Here in my world, there is change. Only in the solid world can the ugly caterpillar become the beautiful butterfly. Only here.” – Lord Fanny (The Invisibles Volume II by Grant Morrison)
The world of space and time where death is possible is also the only place where change, growth, and transformation is possible. That is why incarnation is so precious, and why change is precious to the Witch.
The true teaching, as Maestra says, is “What will you do with your remaining time?”
What will you change?
What will you create?
What will you birth?
What will you end?
What will you learn?
Who and what will love?
We must all ask ourselves that.
* * *
The Witches’ Road
(continuing my Agatha All Along Posts…More spoilers. One more after this!)
The Ballad of the Witches’ Road encodes the Witchcraft teachings in Agatha All Along. It first appears in Marvel in the 2015 Scarlet Witch comic, where the Scarlet Witch, guided by the ghost of an elderly Agatha Harkness, her mentor who she possibly murdered, seeks to heal Witchcraft by following the Witches’ Road. Facing many obstacles, but not trials as they d in the show. The end of the road doesn’t give you anything other than Witchcraft, where they find the Goddess of Witchcraft, the cosmic embodiment of Witchcraft, not simply Magick, bound and with her consort, and work to heal the Craft.
The teaching immediately struck me like that of the Second Road. Growing more popular in the 2000s, we have often called the Craft the Crooked Road or Crooked Path, and some think of it as the allegory for life and learning, while others see it more directly as a visionary tool. In British occult teachings, the idea of the Second Road exists. On a practical level, I learned about it from Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, in her workshop on The Second Road in 2012. The first encounter with it was in the novel of Witches fighting Nazi’s, Lammas Night by Katherine Kurtz published in 1983. Many feel Kurtz had insider knowledge and wove traditional occultism into her novels, as many authors have done and still do. If she is a practitioner of Witchcraft, there is no public revelations as such. She is an ordained or a bishop in the Apostolic Catholic Orthodox Church and then a modern Celtic Christian Church, and started the Order of St. Michael, which has a number of Pagans and Witches I know in it. The descriptions of the Second Road, were so moving to me that my first metaphysical publication, a newsletter from 1998-2001, was called The Second Road. Like the Witches’ Road, the Second Road was a non-physical pathway between the worlds, an astral path connecting places, but also bordering other realms of ancestors, faeries, and magickal beings.
So then in the season finale, we get the gut punch that the Road, looking exactly as Billy would expect it, as its decorated with images and items from his own bedroom, was his version of the Hex, created by Billy and not Wanda. While Wanda’s reality distortion overrode a town in the shape of a hexagon, Billy’s reality was a pentagon, and went under (perhaps where the old failed Subway station was) or within another dimension. The Witches’ Road not real! All a ruse by Agatha that Billy made up! Betrayal! Or the greatest lesson of all when she says:
“The road wasn’t real until you made it real.”
There is the true Witchcraft. That is what we all do. We make our own way in the world when there is none. We become the thing we wished for so others may find it too. It is the path of unmaking and remaking.
We imagine a magickal self and a new reality. We evoke it into the world. And eventually we become it. There is no set path, but we walk a path, and a path appears, because we see it in the bramble. As Raven Grimassi and Stephanie Taylor taught, there is a Well Worn Path where many have walked to cut a more visible way, and a Hidden Path pioneered by the next generation. It will be well worn eventually, and the Hidden Path continues further.
I had a mentor recently deride Qabalah, as something “made up” by 11th century Rabbis. He favors the teachings of India and Greece and China. Have I got bad news for him. It’s all made up. Some things are more inspired, more practical, more artful than others, but everything is “made up” and made real through our efforts. While perhaps describing objective phenomenon, the systems of math and science are “made up.” All art is made up. All religion and metaphysics is made up. And yes, all Witchcraft and magick is made up. Yet all these things can work, be effective, fun, helpful, and advance consciousness.
Our problems come when we feel we have been lied to about it, which often is the teacher’s best understanding at the time, and even the discovery of the lie, or misunderstanding, can be a teaching moment to reframe our understanding. Many of us went through that with Wicca not being an unbroken ancient lineage. We’ve made it an “ancient” broken lineage, a spiritual connection as truth if not historic. So there is magick still in the ballad made up by Agatha and Nicky. Let’s take a look and see what it can show us:
Seekest thou the road
To all that’s foul and fair
Gather sisters fire, water, earth and air
> The road is the path to good and bad, ugliness and beauty, death and life, our archetypal Crooked Path. To walk it, one must evoke the bond of Witches, sisters here, and the four classic elements found in the circle and much of our ritual magick.
Darkest hour, wake thy power
Earthly and divine
Burn and brew with coven true
And glory shall be thine
> Often practiced in the dark (though not required) there is a power that comes with night, the moon and stars and of not being seen. Our power is the balance and paradox of terrestrial and cosmic, practical and mystical.
> Is our brew here a potion to enter into trance? A sacrament? Or a collective consciousness, the cauldron of community, that a magickal group creates together? Many forms of magick require a group gestalt for the working. I can’t help, as a former Catholic, to see the word glory and think, “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, now and forever.” Witches don’t often use the word glory. It can be defined as honor, achievement, fame, delight, magnificence or majesty
Down, down, down the road, down the Witches’ Road
Down, down, down the road, down the Witches’ Road
Down, down, down the road, down the Witches’ Road
Circle Sewn With Fate
Unlock thy hidden gate
> Fate is the province of Witches, turning and twisting, or here, sewing with fate to open something not accessible to most people.
Marching ever forward ‘neath the wooded shrine
I stray not from the path
I hold Death’s hand in mine…
> Our path is found near the woods, and the woods are holy a shrine. We are called to a path, but have the option of falling from the path, or getting lost, of getting stuck. We are urged to keep on our crooked path. Death is our constant companion, its what we have in common. As the controversial Carlos Castaneda would teach, as a Sorcerer, Death is my ally. Death, and knowing this can end, guides us in life.
Primal night giveth sight
Familiar by thy side
> Just as there is one Earth, there is one night ever flowing, the primal night, Crowley’s cosmic Night of Pan. In the darkness, much is revealed via intuition, our sight. Our allies of spirit, our families walk with us and guide and support us.
If Sun be gone, we carry on
Spirit as our guide…
> when sung as “Sun be gone” we go by the darkness. When sung as “one be gone” we realize not all we get to the same place in the road, and loved ones leave us for their own journey, in life and in death.
Down, down, down the road, down the Witches’ Road
Down the witches road, down the Witches’ Road
Down, down, down the road, down the Witches Road
Down the witches road, down the Witches’ Road
Down, down, down the road, down the Witches’ Road
Down the witches road, down the Witches’ Road
Blood and tears and bone
Maiden Mother Crone
> Blood of ancestry, and depending on the magick, sometimes literal blood is needed. It’s a hard path, and we embrace the spectrum of emotion and experience, including tears, as they can be sorrowful or joyful. The vision of the cosmic goddess of Saturn, the Vision of Joy and Sorrow.
> While many today have tried to abandon the Maiden, Mother, Crone image of the triple Goddess, thinking it strictly biological, its one of time, of space, of the moon, and of fate. It’s not personal, or not just personal, but its the Goddess expressed through time and space on a level of human experience and understanding.
The road is wild and wicked
Winding through the wood
Whеre all that’s wrong is right
And all that’s bad is good
> What’s fair is foul and foul fair in the wisdom of Shakespeare. Or as my Hindu teacher would say, what is sweet turns sour and what is sour turns sweet. Things are not what they seem. Key teaching in understanding our Craft. Like the knight in the tales of the Lothly Lady, appearances can be deceiving, and the ugly queen becoming beautiful for the true of heart. Facing our assumptions and prejudices yields true magick.
Through many miles of tricks and trials
Well wander high and low
Tame your fears, a door appears
The time has come to go
> It is a crooked road of unexpected twists and challenges. We are often tested as we go. In the classic Reclaiming chant, where there is fear, there is power. Fear is a gate to understanding and growth, or a natural barrier stopping those who cannot cross it. The motif of initiation everywhere is to face your fears.
Down, down, down the road, down the Witches’ Road
Down the witches road, down the Witches’ Road
Down, down, down the road, down the Witches’ Road
Down the witches road, down the Witches’ Road
Down, down, down the road, down the Witches’ Road
Down the witches road, down the Witches’ Road
Follow me, my friend
To glory at the end
Down, down, down the road
Down the winding road
Down, down, down the road
Down the winding road
Down, down, down the road
Down the winding road
Wherever it may bend
I’ll see you at the end
The road is wild and wicked
Winding through the wood
Where all that’s wrong is right
And all that’s bad is good
Through many miles of tricks and trials
We’ll wander high and low
Tame your fears, a door appears
The time has come to go
>Repeating the themes of inversion, of illusion and facing fears to move through to the next level of initiation and wisdom.
Down, down, down the road
Down the winding road
Down, down, down the road
Down the winding road
Down, down, down the road
Down the winding road
Wherever it may bend
I’ll see you at the end
I have learned the lesson
Of all that’s foul and fair
Our love was forged in fire
Water, Earth and Air
The spell is cast, how long it lasts
I cannot divine
The road is there
And so I dare
To risk this heart of mine
> Reference to the blacksmith mystery of forging, but with love. Understanding that even with divination, all things cannot be known until they happen. All Witches will find an important topic that will not reveal its future secrets. The part of our pyramid, “to Dare” is necessary to face fear, to do magick.
Down, down, down the road
Down the Witches’ Road
Down down, down the road
Down the Witches’ Road
Down, down, down the road
Down the Witches’ Road
Follow me, my friend
To glory at the end
>Friendship is often a key in the work of the Witch, teacher, mentor, companion, coven.. and it is a path of splendor. Perhaps not fame and fortune as glory, but in the glorious mystery.
I have known the power
Of midnights in the woods
I’ve danced inside the circle
Of all that’s bad and good
The dangers grеat, the trials wait
For those that seek the prizе
Tame your fears
A door appears
To love that never dies
> The prize Agatha dangles before her victims. Any truth to it? One would say the prize of Witchcraft is Witchcraft! Is being a Witch. But the prize is initiation, not for the status, but for the awareness it conveys. Through initiation, we understanding the mystery of life, death and return through love. We find the grail, the “love that never dies.:
As we go
Down, down, down the road
Down the Witches’ Road
(Down the Witches’ Road)
Down, down, down the road
Down the Witches’ Road
Blood and tears and bone
Together and alone
If I can’t reach you
Let my song teach you
All you need to keep our love alive
If I can’t hold you
Remember what I told you
It’s the only way we survive
We survive
>The Wu version of protection, to keep love and teaching across the valley of death to your descendants. Is that what we all do with our written notes, our books, and rituals – pass them on to help the next generation.
As we go
Down, down, down the road
Down the Witches’ Road
Down the Witches’ Road
Down, down, down the road
Down the Witches’ Road
Down, down, down
Wherever it may bend
I’ll see you at the end
I’ll see you at the end
I’ll see you at the end
I’ll see you at the end
I’ll see you at the end
I hope that helps illuminate some thought in the ballad that “might” be real. One more post to go. I’ll see you at the end.
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Agatha All Done
And last by not least, some fun lines and thoughts from the series that stick out in my head, concluding my Agatha All Along Posts…. Beware spoilers!
“So you are a bit of a cook. Every witch has her own process.” – Agatha
True that! We might learn culture or traditions of a group or coven, but eventually have to express our own process and creativity. On our own, everything will look a bit different, as we all approach magick in different ways. Teachings are just frameworks to guide us.
“I don’t mean to question your methods.”- Agatha
“Then don’t.” – Lilia
In the same vein, how often do we get questioned without someone asking “why” we do something or waiting first to see if its effective. Granted, we usually don’t have literal swords hanging over our heads…I remember my very first public circle, someone told me I “did it wrong” and when I asked the reason why, other than “tradition” they couldn’t tell me, but I proceeded to them why I did what I did, and why their tradition probably does it differently, and where they got it. She agreed the circle was fun and worked, despite being wrong, and by the end, perhaps understood different is not wrong.
“Magick as it does, took the path of least resistance.” – Rio
Intention is great, and very important, but you realize its not the most important thing or only thing, once a spell does what you said, not what you intended.
“The only way to end a curse is to face it.” – Lilia
Another truism of magick, though facing it doesn’t automatically break it and some things, curses or not, are things we have to learn to live with as the consequences of our actions and the consequences of other’s actions. But if you don’t face what is, you have no hope to change it.
“Once vengeance is loosed you can’t reel it back in.” – Agatha
For those who have gone down that path, another truth you don’t really realize until you experience. You can address wrongs you have done, with magick or otherwise, but you can’t make it as if they never were set into motion. Sometimes neutralizing a spell works, sometimes its too far gone out of your grasp and has a life of its own until its completion or failure.
“Don’t steal her struggle.” -Agatha
In an effort to aid others, we often short circuit their process, wanting to spare them difficulties or hardships we’ve faced, but those difficulties give us skills and experiences. I know as a teacher, it has been hard to find the balance between helping and enabling under the guise of helping.
“You should see me in a crown.” – Billy Eilish song regarding Billy
A key point in so much of my early Craft learning was the teaching that Witches keep going the sacred mysteries of kingship, of sovereignty, stretching back from ancient times. I was told Atlantis, so of course I hold that myth near and dear to my heart event today. We wear crowns, physical and etheric, as secret kings and queens, and that the true role of the sovereign is to serve, not to rule, to keep the world going and our role now is to work quietly behind the scenes to keep things going, keep up the day and prevent harm despite the forces of destruction all around. And I just got such a charge at the crown reveal with the song in that episode ending!
Was the end what I hoped for? No, though I am still digesting. I like redemption in a clear way. Do I get the “to be continued” end? Yes, and I look forward to that story and a more comic accurate Agatha as a ghost. did I love the kiss? Yes, spectacular! Still shocking to see overt LGBTQIA things on tv, to be honest. I hope we see Jenifer Kale again and explore her Atlantean sorcery. Generally as a comic geek I am rarely satisfied with cinematic marvel stuff. Is this better than 99% of what Marvel has put out? For me, absolutely. Is it a home run for me, no.
My thoughts echo a lot of my husband Steve’s here: https://stevekenson.com/2024/10/31/witches-superheroes-mistrust-of-power/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGQlOFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXp5uZPb_r-owJ4RoNg_-cHnnYKGC__lB2K27jtNjH0_E4ZhyL49xiMDgQ_aem_YocortQ-1jZ79Dy2_MGmrg
I would also encourage those who have liked these characters to get a Marvel Unlimited subscription for their tablet and delve into the original source material. As Witches we are always asking people to give into the sources – the grimoires, the PMG, Hesiod, the Eddas, etc…. dive into Young Avengers while you are at it, and by far the best Scarlet Witch book, her 2015 series that has lots of Agatha and the WItch’s Road in it. Comics can have a depth and nuance that doesn’t always get seen in tv and movies.
And as a good reminder for Witchcraft too, as much as I’ve enjoyed this, don’t use online Witchcraft as your primary resource for information, lore, or learning. Inspiration yes! But dig into other sources.
My worst complaint about the series is that I’m going to spend the next ten years trying to explain that a sigil is not a “redaction spell” to silence someone from speaking just as I had to explain that unlike Dark Willow, you will not get addicted to magick and becomes an evil tyrant or that we don’t don’t a lot of “light as a feather, stiff as a board” from the Craft. That’s not how this works. But overall, I really loved Agatha because it made me think and feel while getting me excited and entertained.
And with that, I say farewell for now to Agatha All Along and Joe Locketober!
(Thank you all for humoring and encouraging my ramblings. I apologize for typos. Did most of the posts on my phone Notes. Will clean it up, stitch them together, and make a big blog for my personal website someday soon.)