At the risk of sounding like a goggle-eyed groupie, which of course I am, I just love Mark Morford. In his latest column he comments on Sarah Palin's "de-witching," and, to be fair, most of the Pagan blogosphere has been quoting from this article and singing about what a friend we have in Mark.

As I've said on many previous occasions, Mark Morford's writing is very funny. He's very liberal both politically and socially, and if I were a guy with a column in San Francisco, this is the way I would be writing.

Read the whole article, I urge you, and then delight yourself with the archives of his column. But here is my favorite part:

Is it worth setting the record straight? Pointing out how true 'n' deep witchcraftery has nothing to do with evil or Satan or excessive black eyeliner or sacrificing newborn babies while listening to Ministry and smoking cloves? That those who've taken up this most ancient and potent of callings actually study their enchanted craft for years and know more about, say, the cycles of the moon and the body and the rhythms of the planet than Sarah Palin's most secretest pagan fever dream could ever conjure?

Really, the irony of this whole affair is just too tasty to pass up. Because real witches are, of course, all about self-determination, complete spiritual freedom, and are often practiced in the innate magic of the earth, the body, the self. Most follow no particular deity or dogma, though that's entirely optional (you can be a witch and a Christian, for example). Truth is, it's too bad Palin's not a witch herself. She'd be so much more interesting. And, you know, useful.

Hell, I know a number of happy, accomplished, practicing witches at work and play in the normal world right this very minute, running errands and playing with their kids and texting their boyfriends, not a single one of whom is currently indulging in a ritualistic blood-drenched sex orgy at the feet of Lucifer. Wait, let me check Facebook ... nope, all normal.

As for the Wiccans, well, those witches are, of course, even more about nature and fertility and earthly ritual, a deep, life-affirming reverence for the cycles of life, for protecting the environment and celebrating the body, and it's all wrapped in a rather limitless chthonic self-determination and therapeutic ritual magick that's essentially the ideological opposite of what evangelical Christianity often wallows in. I mean, is it any wonder they're so terrified?

I couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you, Mark.

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 6:58 AM