Absolute Mayhem (17 page)

That said, it's not an easy spiritual path to explain to
the uninitiated if they're not already interested. Wicca,
as a pagan religion, should be practised according to the
seasonal changes of the land that your physical body is
in, so you have to be very attuned to your own physical
space. (Fiona Horne rewrote her book
Life's a Witch
for
readers in the northern hemisphere after she moved
to Los Angeles.) You should only do rituals when the
timing is just right, based on whatever you are trying to
achieve. You have to get your planets right, your moons
right, your days and hours, and it's actually very hard to
put it all together in order to do a successful ritual.

I also tend to have psychic dreams from time to time,
one of which was about my ex-husband, back when we
were still married. I dreamt that he had a hernia. When
he came home, I told him and he flipped out. He said
I had put a spell on him, because he had just come back
from the doctor's, where he'd been told he had a hernia!
He really believed I was evil and didn't understand that
it was just a dream, a premonition. The funny thing is,
after all his believing that witchcraft is evil, he went and
got a huge pentagram tattooed on his arm after we got
divorced.

Christians love to email me and try to get me to 'accept
Jesus' into my life. That drives me crazy, because as a
Wiccan I do not judge others for their beliefs. A devout
Wiccan would never try to convert anyone to change
what he or she believed in. And why on earth would
I want to get involved with a group who tortured and
killed so many Wiccans during the witch trials back in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? What bothers
me the most is that one of my best friends became a bornagain
Christian and almost didn't speak to me any more
because I am Wiccan. She was told we were evil, and she
didn't understand until she discovered that her 12-year-old
daughter is just like me! She didn't understand her
daughter either, so she needed me to help her out.

If you ask me, there are all those people who like
to say 'This is right' or 'This is wrong' or 'This is the
way it should be', when all you really need to know is
as long as you believe in yourself and have the universe
to guide you, then you will be fine, and for all of
your mistakes, you will be forgiven, because no one
is perfect. The world is not perfect, and humans are
not perfect, and that is what makes us special. That is
how we live and learn, and hopefully from our mistakes
we become better people. My belief is that if you can
remember the basic Wiccan truths, that 'What you do
comes back to you threefold' and 'And it harm none,
do as ye will', then you should have no problems in life.

I actually have a personal shaman, Troy, who is my
spirit guide, and even though he lives in another city in
another state, we talk a lot by Instant Messenger. He is
one of the few people I can say I trust completely. Troy
and I first met on 1 October 2007 on MySpace – who
says online social networking isn't useful? We were both
looking for spiritual people to talk to. We talk as much
as my crazy schedule allows, at least two or three times
a week. Most of the time, we chat online, but once in a
while he'll call or text me just to check in. He's spiritually
pagan, and he believes that Wiccans and pagans are the
same – it's just a different name – though he is also in
tune with his own Native American ancestry.

Troy's main calling as a shaman is that of a healer,
and I know that in the course of the past year and
more he has already done a lot to heal me. I feel more
grounded now, with his guidance, and he has helped
me to refocus my energies and reset my priorities in
life. I'm also so relieved that I don't have to keep things
inside me all the time and it's so reassuring to have
someone to talk to who understands me. He has said
that I will do well in the future but things will take time.
I need to learn a lot more and train myself, to separate
myself from my physical essence and move towards
another essence. That's where my music career comes
in, and he believes it's a good thing for me. But I have to
believe in myself first. 'You are stronger than you even
think,' he says.

I have to admit I have a hard time with that, what
with all the constant anxiety attacks I get and the kind
of self-esteem issues I have. Troy tells me that the most
important things I need to focus on are twofold. First,
I have to learn to calm down my own mind, because
I'm so stressed out and mentally exhausted, and all the
things that cause the stress and the exhaustion will not
have the same impact on me if I can slow down my
mind. The second thing is to cope better with my own
eagerness to help out my friends. In this respect, Troy is
always advising me about doing 'energy work' – which
is his spiritual term for helping others.

'You have the drive and willingness to do such
things, but by the same token you have to take precautions
and know exactly how to heal, how to balance the
energy work,' he has told me. 'You have knowledge of
those things, but there is more you need to learn before
developing those abilities and using them in helping
others.'

It's almost impossible to fully explain the significance
of what he has said to me, but I can say for sure that
he hit the nail on the head – because those are the two
things I have been grappling with my whole life. It's so
incredible when you meet someone who can tell you
exactly what the very core issues in your life that you
need to work on are. Troy has told me that I have a deep
hunger and a curious nature about life, that I live for
new experiences. We've already had many talks about
the people I've associated with and he reinforces my
own drive to weed out people from my life who are false
friends and don't treat me with respect.

For now, I'm using my spiritual beliefs to help me
deal with my daily life. I can do spells and rituals but
I definitely don't hex. Real witches who can hex don't
ever need to do so. I believe a real witch is a Wiccan, and
Wiccan rules say not to hex or do 'black magic', although
we are all more than capable of doing so. A long time ago,
back when I was new to the craft , I learned my lesson
doing a karma spell. I did not know that it was bad to do
that, and it did come back to me threefold. The karma
spell was basically just a chant saying, 'All the hurt that
so-and-so brings upon me shall come back to so-and-so
times three.' I thought, 'Hey, as long as this person
doesn't keep hurting me, they'll be okay.' But they did
keep hurting me, and really bad things kept happening
to them.

Finally, they called me out on it and I reversed it,
because I felt terrible about it. I guess that shows how
powerful Wiccan spells can be if they're done right,
though I am restrained by a vow of silence from disclosing
any further details as to what exactly transpired
between myself and this person. The thing I learned
from it, however, is that if you remember to meditate
and pray and do rituals, you'll find that Wicca does help
you get through hard times. It's only when you stop
believing in yourself, when you allow yourself to soak
in the negative energy, that you get sucked down into a
deadly whirlpool.

One thing I have been asked about regarding my
spiritual practice, predictably, is the role of sex. I can't
blame people for asking, but they're oft en disappointed
to hear that I have
never
incorporated sex into any
Wiccan ritual. However, I am still learning and Fiona
Horne has written about practising naked (which we
prefer to call 'skyclad') and about how orgasms can be
part of Wiccan ritual.

Fiona has even gone as far as saying that powerful
energy from her orgasms can propel her spells to
fruition, almost like a tantric-sex practice. I myself have
never experienced this, nor have I ever included it in
my own practice. I mean, I don't disapprove of masturbating
as part of a Wiccan offering, and I know what
Fiona means when she says that 'witchcraft honours
sex because in pagan times it ensured the longevity of
the tribe'. I would say that we are definitely more free-spirited
and open-minded than most other religious
groups. My own practice differs from Fiona's in that
I don't do rituals naked. Sometimes, I'll wear white
for purity. I like to cleanse myself in a bath and then
wear clean clothes and sage myself so I'll feel totally
cleansed.

However, there is nothing wrong with worshipping
when you're skyclad, because many rituals are done
that way and that is how we were born and there is
nothing sexual about it. It's just natural to be naked,
and the gods and goddesses don't look down on you
for that. That's the great thing about Wicca – it tells
us there's nothing wrong with being who you are and
that no one is judging you. How this applies to me
is that if I can make a living using my body for
other people's pleasure, then there's nothing wrong
with that in the eyes of Wiccans. As long as I'm not
hurting anyone, I may do as I will. That's the crux of
our creed.

On a personal level, I have not engaged in sex
with other Wiccans. I have never even had a Wiccan
boyfriend, just because I don't really know any. I am
a solitary witch and I practise alone. Fiona Horne
wrote in one of her books that it was aimed at 'a new
breed of eclectic witch emerging now, not tied to a
tradition or who hasn't been initiated into an established
coven, who perhaps has been drawn to it of their
own volition'.

Now, that is so absolutely me. I too am eclectic, which
means I believe in all different types of Wicca. I pick
and choose from the different traditions. (For those of
you who are interested in books on Wicca, I've studied
a lot of Silver Ravenwolf and Doreen Virtue, but don't
go by my recommendations, because I could be way off
as far as what's good for you.) In short, I am solitary,
which means I worship without a coven, although that's
because I have not yet found one I feel I can belong
to or have not trusted the right people to create a
coven with.

I only know one other porn star who is interested in
these kinds of things, but she is not exactly Wiccan –
my friend Noname Jane, who is a 'ceremonial magician'.
Ceremonial magic is a practice, not a religion, and it is
extremely complex. Its workings are very lengthy. Ceremonial
magicians focus highly on correspondences and
the correct performance of a ritual, usually called 'high
magic'. The ultimate intention is to bring the magician
closer to the divine (as compared with 'low magic',
which has mere practical purposes and is oft en equated
with witchcraft ).

Some girls in my industry claim to be interested in
Wicca because they are looking for comfort, but it's
really a matter of whether they are spiritual enough and
whether they really do feel it. I tell them to study Wicca
for a year and a day, and if they can't do that they are
clearly not dedicated, so Wicca is not for them. All I can
tell them is that Wicca has been good for me. I was born
with this gift to be able to spiritually heal or help others,
and no matter what happens in my life I will always have
my spirit guides to get me through. Although others
may call me a freak or not talk to me and judge me
for my beliefs, I can't help who I am and what I feel.

Finally, let me say a few things about the impact of
Hollywood and pop culture on my spiritual beliefs.
We've all seen the TV shows, like
Bewitched
and
Charmed
and
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch
, and movies
such as
The Craft
and
Practical Magic
. Fiona Horne said
she liked the old
Bewitched
series the best, because she
thought 'the incantations were really good' and 'they
rhyme and connect with the subconscious effectively'.
I think she is right about that, although we can't just
wiggle our noses and make something happen. That
would be awesome if that's how magic really worked!
In
The Craft
and
Practical Magic
, some things aren't too
far from the truth, although you usually don't see results
right away. Some of that stuff in those films is actually
against Wiccan rules, as you cannot call yourself a true
witch if you practise evil.

On the other hand,
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch
is
just so far-fetched, and while
Charmed
has some good
rituals it is also mostly fantasy. (I can't criticise these
shows too heavily, though, because I wrote and starred
in that movie called
Witch Coven College
, after all. I don't
want to be the pot calling the kettle black!)
The Mists
of Avalon
, meanwhile, is one of my favourite movies
because it shows the Wiccan side of the King Arthur
story. It's somewhat on the mythical side but great fun
to watch.

Many people turn to our kind of pagan spirituality
for the same reason that Fiona Horne did. She grew up
Catholic and decided that Catholicism was, as she put
it, 'so sombre and serious, based around mistakes and
pain and problems,' whereas Wicca was 'more about
having love'. I can relate to that; Wiccans are supposed
to lead a life filled with happiness and spiritual healing
– of ourselves and others. Wiccans also do not believe
in taking money for teaching, which is why we don't
have big fancy churches to congregate in. We prefer to
use the land and be close to nature. We've never killed
anyone in the name of our religion, yet we have been
killed so many times – all those witches of yore having
being burned at the stake – and still to this day many
people do not recognise Wicca as a real religion.

Most people just want to believe what society tells
them is right. That is easier for them. It makes it easier
to deal with life, and it is easier to follow someone else
than go your own way. I believe in what I believe, even
though it is actually harder to do so, because I don't
believe it should be that easy. You have to do the work
or it won't work.