Magical aid to gender alteration.
Over the last few days I have seen several people asking for some of the most ridiculous spells. One of these was a request for gender alteration. I do apologize but if you think you can wave a wand, say a few words and ta-da you have changed gender... You may well be certifiable, and might want to rethink your gender alteration before you wake up and realize that you made a few mistakes.
Despite cries to the contrary, gender is first and foremost a state of mind. I am female. I would still be female were I to wake up tomorrow with a penis attached. I can't imagine the anguish of feeling, and knowing yourself to be one thing while the physical denies it. This does not apply to everything in life, let me assure you. Just because you know you are a werewolf and the physical denies it, does not mean you can relate back to this post and say I gave you irrefutable proof of such.
Let me point out here and now, as I mentioned above, the physical does not dictate your gender. Were you to have a sex change operation and realize later it was not for you, you can't very well change your mind at the drop of a hat. Be sure it is indeed what you are looking for and perhaps try living in that gender role for some time before making a decision. I am talking months and years, not days and weeks. perhaps some of what I mention below would be good to start on before making that final step.
While you can not cast a spell and change your gender in the blink of an eye, you can very well augment the change to the physical with some mental exercises.
Meditation is a good start. I don't mean just thinking on, I mean meditating on the gender you wish to become.Meditate deeply. Feel the energies associated with it.
If you are FTM indulge in some stereotypical masculine behaviors. They are stereotypical for a reason. This doesn't mean to do them makes you male, but doing them has more of a male association than female. Put on some heavy steel toes, some rugged jeans, an old wife beater and go blow something up! Or build a bookshelf, split some wood, work on a car... are you feeling it? Maybe throw in a beer straight from the can. Have a scotch on the rocks, or a snifter of Brandy. Maybe even smoke a cigar. When you're done, sit back and meditate on what you felt, separate what is feminine from what is masculine. As they say; It's not what you say but how you say it... well in this case it's not what you do but how you do it.
If you are MTF then surround yourself with pretty things. Find a dress that you find attractive and wear it. Dance. Shop. Do your nails, and your hair. Put on some make up. Bake a cake. Try some ultra feminine craft like sewing or knitting. Add in a delicate glass of wine, or a dainty cup of tea. When you're done meditate on what you felt. Separate the masculine from the feminine. Breath in femininity and out masculinity. Enjoy what you experience and over all, find you.
For either gender. Have a session of meditation. Allow yourself to just float. Bask in who and what you are. Now, without leaving your wonderful floaty place, envision your body as you would have it. As they say, when you grow up you can be anything you want to be. So BE it. No, they didn''t mean gender-wise, but take it and run with it. Be that person you want to be. Feel it, breathe it and become.
I was a rough and tumble child. I was stuck smack dab between two brothers. Through association and my parents always talking about how much more they wanted boys rather than girls, yes, I had some gender ID issues. I fist fought, climbed trees, built things, destroyed things did dumb stuff right alongside my brothers. I carved the name Ben into my bed along with my older brother carving his name in. In all the games we played I was Ben. I was sad that I wasn't this Ben, because being a girl just wasn't good enough.
I am perfectly happy with being a girl now. I wouldn't have it any other way. Yes I am still curious from time to time about what it would be like, who isn't? I am happy that I found my niche in life. Your niche may be the same or similar, but be sure to find it before you make a final choice. Being who you are is (to me) the building blocks upon which your spirituality is built.
Who you are, inside, IS good enough. Always remember that gender is a two way street. It will not solve all your problems. It could make more problems for you. It's a balance of Yin and Yang, you must take the bad with the good. Through out it all you must be searching for one thing, Love of yourself. Remember to keep that as your path AND goal. The ends do not justify the means and the means do not justify the end. If you feel yourself losing who you are then go back to where you last remember seeing yourself. Meditate on these things daily. As you move forward along your journey, you may find things that are applicable to you that you wish to add. You may find that my advice is no longer applicable to your situation. I can not define the path for everyone, but merely set the basework and show you that yes, there is still a door here, just maybe not the door you were looking for.
Tags: Alteration, Feminine, Gender, Masculine, Meditation
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Miss Nel (Red Bird) on -
This is fantastic, Betsy. I think this post needed to be written, not just as an example with those "I need a spell for such-and-such" posts but because I'm sure there are many people out there who *need* to read it.
Bravo, darling, bravo.
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Permalink Reply by Julica on
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Thank you so much, Nel. I'm glad to see it is well received and I truly hope it will help someone :)
Miss Nel (Red Bird) said:This is fantastic, Betsy. I think this post needed to be written, not just as an example with those "I need a spell for such-and-such" posts but because I'm sure there are many people out there who *need* to read it.
Bravo, darling, bravo.
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Permalink Reply by Arimesis on -
I recently had the opportunity to sit down for a long period of time with Ruth Barrett, she is a very strong lesbian influence in the pagan community and a Dianic matriarch. She is quite outspoken in her beliefs and practices. She studied under Z. Budapest.
Ruth stated a male, even with gender alteration, would not be accepted to any self-respecting Dianic coven or tradition. Even with surgery, the DNA remains male.
We are all here to learn lessons that we chose the summerland. While I don't know if some chose lessons that include mutilation of the gender form, I think it might better be stated that the lesson was to learn to cope and appreciate the other gender. Just my two cents.
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Permalink Reply by Julica on
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As a rule, I personally find Z Budapest to be offensive in her mannerism, and judgmental with no room for others beliefs. That is a personal opinion of my own, as is this entire post.
She, and her entire coven are welcome to their beliefs. I too hold to the belief that we were placed here to learn. Learning encompasses many aspects of humanity. Perhaps some who were intolerant of the other gender have come back to find themselves trapped in it. It's a horrible way to learn a lesson, but certainly fitting. That they live in it, then go back to their own does not diminish what they learned in that time, but maybe showed them what the other half had dealt with.
Tolerance and respect do not have to be shoved down ones throat forever for them to take hold and grow.
Arimesis said:I recently had the opportunity to sit down for a long period of time with Ruth Barrett, she is a very strong lesbian influence in the pagan community and a Dianic matriarch. She is quite outspoken in her beliefs and practices. She studied under Z. Budapest.
Ruth stated a male, even with gender alteration, would not be accepted to any self-respecting Dianic coven or tradition. Even with surgery, the DNA remains male.
We are all here to learn lessons that we chose the summerland. While I don't know if some chose lessons that include mutilation of the gender form, I think it might better be stated that the lesson was to learn to cope and appreciate the other gender. Just my two cents.
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Permalink Reply by Sangraal on -
I guess that Ruth has real problems with the McFarland Dianics, since a male, Mark Roberts, was a co-founder of the tradition and, while not exactly egalitarian, still accepts men as initiates. Bah to sexism, especially pushed into religion- any religion.
Gender is a socially constructed role with no bearing upon our plumbing. Such roles differ from culture to culture, and can easily differ from one's sex. Sex is plumbing, hormones and genetics. Gender is, as well stated, a condition of the mind. There's no excuse for hatred of either the mind or the body, from jaded authors, religious institutions, or social bigots.
The biggest Woman's Mystery to Budapest is why any self-respecting female would have anything to do with her.
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Permalink Reply by Arimesis on
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There is also a matter of fit, when it comes to training and covening. We (Elyria and I) have a student who is lesbian and in a very loving relationship. She has been accepted with us for Trad training in Gard. Her partner, who is also interested in training, would never fit into the Gards. She is better suited for the Budapest style of witchcraft.
Psychological/Gender Choice is very much like religion: there is no scientific proof. When you speak in the realm of absolutes and there is no defining proof, you run a very slippery slope.
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Permalink Reply by Turner Cain on -
But that does not mean she "her partner" would not be acceptable to another Gard Coven. As a Gard seeker how can you have students? Or do you need to update your profile here? I only would take a fully transitioned person not someone who is in between into our coven. Start one way end the same, if you change genders go back through it again. starting at 1*
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Permalink Reply by Ma'ateo MacDougall on -
"At all events what Ransom saw at that moment was the real meaning of
gender. Everyone must sometimes have wondered why in nearly all tongues
certain inanimate objects are masculine and others feminine. What is masculine
about a mountain or feminine about certain trees? Ransom has cured me of
believing that this is a purely morphological phenomenon, depending on the form
of the word. Still less is gender an imaginative extension of sex. Our ancestors
did not make mountains masculine because they projected male characteristics
into them. The real process is the reverse. Gender is a reality, and a more
fundamental reality than sex. Sex is, in fact, merely the adaptation to organic life
of a fundamental polarity which divides all created beings. Female sex is simply
one of the things that have feminine gender; there are many others, and
Masculine and Feminine meet us on planes of reality where male and female
would be simply meaningless. Masculine is not attenuated male, nor feminine
attenuated female. On the contrary, the male and female of organic creatures are
rather faint and blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. Their reproductive
functions, their differences in strength and size, partly exhibit, but partly also
confuse and misrepresent the real polarity." ~ C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter 16.
Gender is a spiritual, mental, primal identifier. To understand that the physical sex is an extension of the will and power of the spirit and mind is to apply a fundamental concept of magical thought to the understanding of the world.
When attempting to differentiate between the masculine and the feminine, it is often helpful, but as Lewis says, partly confusing and misrepresenting, to look at the physical gender, if such can be determined. However, it stands to reason that, no matter what your reasoning for and understanding of the chaos and flaws in the universe, those flaws will manifest in myriad ways, allowing for the infinite possibilities of what is actually flawed. This includes the physical sex representation of a gendered being.
As Julica has said, "who you are inside is good enough." I would agree, and yet take it further to make the argument that who one is inside is not just enough, but it is only. To insist that someone's physical is not good enough when their spiritual fits whatever your arbitrary requirements may be is folly, and is to deny a fundamental principle of the universe - namely that the physical world is the creation and extension of the spiritual, and not the other way around.
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Permalink Reply by Frater Teneo on -
Well, as interesting as all this is I don't think gender transcends beyond the physical. In a majority of spiritual text the spiritual is generally looked at as transgender. For example the God that is responsible for creation is that of Elohim is both made of male and female characters which would indicate that man being created in gods image was androgynous as well. Adam being representative of all mankind means that Adam and Eve (Masculine and Feminine) were within man and woman. Even in the circumstance above, we're still not talking gender, but opposite forces desiring to unite (symbolic sex if you will).
I dont find reasonable grounds to associate gender to anything beyond the physical, there is too much evidence to suggest that gender does not apply beyond it. Penis = man vagina=woman the only way to procreate is the unity of them both. This of course does not speak out against homosexuality at all, its just saying that this is the only way to classify gender. As Adam was both the male and the female and eve was within them both. In the spiritual there is only water and fire (masculine, Adam & feminine, Eve) which i need not remind is not a reference to gender but force or the mirror of Elohim.
Granted DNA is associated to the gender you were born with. By changing the physical you do not change the DNA, but DNA is of the physical. If you are a MALE (DNA) with a vagina or a MALE (DNA) with a penis you are still spiritually androgynous. (in some beliefs).
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Permalink Reply by Arimesis on
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Turner: the answer your question about how we can have students and still be seekers with the Gards, we have run an eclectic coven for many years, have people who look to us as HP and HPs. To walk away from the eclectic coven and leave it cold, stranding the people who we love and care about would be far worse in the name of being a seeker than any ethical requirements put to us by the Gards. The HPs and HP of the grove we will train with understand the position that we are in and accept it without reservation. Everything in life is not always black and white and to expect it to be so is to have your head buried in the sand.
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Permalink Reply by Julica on
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With your post in mind, "not everything is black and white", why would gender be any different?
Arimesis said:Turner: the answer your question about how we can have students and still be seekers with the Gards, we have run an eclectic coven for many years, have people who look to us as HP and HPs. To walk away from the eclectic coven and leave it cold, stranding the people who we love and care about would be far worse in the name of being a seeker than any ethical requirements put to us by the Gards. The HPs and HP of the grove we will train with understand the position that we are in and accept it without reservation. Everything in life is not always black and white and to expect it to be so is to have your head buried in the sand.
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Permalink Reply by Turner Cain on
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You must have missed read what I wrote. Until you are running a Gard Coven or Grove you have no idea what is or is not acceptable for that group. Your not a Gard yet, And so until you are the ability to speak on what is and what is not Gard is very questionable. no matter who your upline will be one day. It will be years before you are in a position to determine what is or is not acceptable as a Gard. What you do in eceltica is up to you. as it is up to others of the eclectic world.
Arimesis said:Turner: the answer your question about how we can have students and still be seekers with the Gards, we have run an eclectic coven for many years, have people who look to us as HP and HPs. To walk away from the eclectic coven and leave it cold, stranding the people who we love and care about would be far worse in the name of being a seeker than any ethical requirements put to us by the Gards. The HPs and HP of the grove we will train with understand the position that we are in and accept it without reservation. Everything in life is not always black and white and to expect it to be so is to have your head buried in the sand.
© 2010 Created by Sangraal
