WARNING: This is an unedited sample chapter. It is subject to change. We do not promise it will not rewrite your hard drive, make your boyfriend break up with you, insult you, spoil the milk in your fridge or cause ants to invade your coffee maker. Read at your own peril!!! 
1.    One Man’s Trash

he myth of the Golden Age Matriarchy was a standard of early Wicca. The idea, put simply, was that before the coming of patriarchy the world was a happy place run by women, with peace and love and ancient knowledge to be had for free. Wicca, or as the early Wiccans always called it, witchcraft, was the surviving religion of this golden age, practiced in secret and passed down through the generations.

The problem with the Golden Age Matriarchy myth, and with the associated ‘Wicca as an ancient surviving religion’ myth is that there aren’t any facts associated with it. Archaeology, history and human nature are pretty much aligned against this view. For early humans life was ‘nasty, brutish and short[1]’ and there is no indication that the requirements for a peaceful matriarchy existed before the industrial revolution.

There have been a couple of different ways Wicca has dealt with the problems of the Golden Age Matriarchy. One method, and to my mind the most problematic one, is to accuse historians, archaeologists and ethnographers of hiding the evidence and to support only those few who support the myth. This is no different than those literalist Christians who only support archaeology which supports a seven-day creation and Noah’s ark, and it’s just as scary a view.

Assuming you’re of sound mind, you generally have to work very hard to believe in something that facts just don’t support. You have to do a lot of ignoring, and a lot of accusing. As Wiccans, who believe in the Hermetic maxim of ‘as above, so below,’ you have to ignore the ‘below’ (the natural world, and the evidence that exists in it) altogether.

A less problematic view than this literalism is taken by hard modernists, who basically state that since the Golden Age Matriarchy myth is a fictitious myth it is not important and can be ignored as a relic of a Wicca of a less evolved time. This view is more rational, but turns off those people who like to imagine the possibility of such a world, even if only in a parallel dimension or the far future.

A more comprehensive view, and one that has more merit than either, to my mind, is to recognize that the Golden Age Matriarchy myth is part of a legendary cycle of myths, a sort of modern epic poem that we use to express distaste with the current state of affairs. This belief in the Golden Age Matriarchy as never having really happened, but nonetheless being something to think about, is very productive for the uncluttered Wiccan[2].

For example, many Wiccans, myself included, rely on the internet and other forms of technology for (at least some of our) community. Thinking about a time before such luxuries both allows us to be aware of the use of the technology and be capable of working without it. If we understand the view of Wicca as a surviving religion hiding from an evil patriarchy as a metaphor, we can still take to heart lessons about keeping silent, keeping safe and making do with less.

As Wicca grows, and potentially becomes a large religion, the ability to make do with less can shelter us from the sort of consumer culture that will lead to the inevitable collapse of the mega-church brand of Christianity. If we see ourselves as subtle and grounded, we don’t feel the need to force others to comply with our religion to feel ‘safe.’

Likewise, being able to understand metaphor and use it to interpret our world means that we don’t need to defend a literalism that won’t hold up to scientific (or just plain honest) scrutiny.  Instead of needing to found the Golden Age Matriarchy version of “Creation Museums” or tell lies to support a belief in a past that just didn’t happen, we are instead free to investigate the natural world and draw our conclusions about reality from that, the ultimate lesson of ‘as above, so below.’

That being said, as we work on an uncluttered Wicca, we can ask ourselves what a fictional matriarchy would do in the situations we find ourselves in, and streamline our rites by imagining how a person hiding from an oppressive society could do them. In short, we put the metaphor to work for us.

That’s not to say that the only metaphor we can take heed from is the Golden Age Matriarchy one. There are people who store years of food and basic supplies because of the fear of a coming apocalypse. In times of economic hardship, these people tend to fare better, not because an apocalypse actually came, but because they have fallback supplies. Whether you think the rapture, the Mayan calendar or an inevitable Zombie Apocalypse are going to happen and destroy us all the simple fact remains that if you’ve stored food your family does not starve.

If imagining an evil patriarchy coming to stop you gets you to learn to practice your religion without the assistance of others, without tools or access to books, then so be it, as long as you can keep myth from fact. You should know how to do these things anyways, and whatever helps you is a good thing.

Since the Golden Age Matriarchy myth is highly politically charged for many people, let’s imagine a non-politically charged myth and put it to use for us... 

Imagine you wake up one day and there is no technology; no computers, no Internet, no television.  In addition to these obvious electrical technologies, there are no cars, no printing presses, not even any refrigeration or air conditioning.  If this happened, how would you live?

By imagining this scenario, we can prepare as thoroughly for an unknown future as Biblical extremists prepare for what they view as an inevitable future. How would you practice Wicca if you did not have access to candles or incense? How about access to the dates of the solstices or even the time of the full moon? How about without access to books, pens, paper or knowledge?

What is the minimum material you need to practice Wicca? If you were the only person to survive in this mythological future, would you still practice Wicca? Why? Would not having people or things change your beliefs? Would you be angry at the gods or the universe for your situation?

This personal myth bears a lot of thinking about. Whether you call it your “Zombie Plan” or just a healthy respect for planning for emergencies, the fact remains that people who do prepare for emergencies, even only in their brain, are better prepared to handle them when they occur… and emergencies, even if not Zombie attacks or the end of technology, do happen.

The book of shadows is one example of a Wiccan technique for surviving the Zombie Apocalypse. Ideally, your book of shadows could be used to reconstruct Wicca from the ground up if your teachers and students disappeared. If you’re like me, the book you use personally contains everything from recipes for those cookies everyone asks for to the stories and quotes that provide inspiration to you on a daily basis.

I personally think that a book of shadows should be written as if you are going to completely lose your memory and need to be reminded what you believe and why. It should be part journal, part instruction manual and part scrapbook, and while this could get very large, I’ve found that the best Wiccans can get it into one large notebook.

 Since the Zombie Apocalypse hasn’t happened yet, I’m going to assume you can access a notebook of some kind and some sort of writing instrument, and this book will help you construct the book of shadows you need to practice uncluttered Wicca. If I’ve done my job well, when you’re done with the book you’re reading right now you can throw it out (please recycle) or pass it on and use only the notebook we’re going to construct together to practice your uncluttered Wicca.

I suggest using an inexpensive notebook, maybe even the remains of a notebook previously used for school or work, rather than an expensive, beautifully bound leather journal. If you really love those expensive bound journals, try transcribing your material after you’re done with this work. By using the cheap notebook, you’re freeing your mind to waste paper and cross out things as the need arises. I’ve found that this freedom really does translate into willingness to take risks, even if only at the personal level.

So, since we’re going to work on this notebook together, let’s start with some ground rules, ground rules that should probably be written on the first page of your notebook (hint, hint.) After we’re done you can toss these rules to the wind, as you see fit, but for this journey, just play along:

1.       Don’t call the notebook anything.

It may well be a book of shadows, or a journal, but for this journey we’re going to call it a notebook. Resist the urge, if you have it, to write a big title on the cover or otherwise restrict what you’re going to put inside it. In my own Wicca journey, I’ve discovered that when students call their book a “book of shadows” or a “journal” they cognitively restrict what goes in it. If you must call the notebook something, call it Francine[3].

2.       Don’t erase anything.

For the sake for this project, don’t erase your ‘mistakes,’ because they can actually teach you a fair amount. If you think that you can correct some mistakes (like spelling) without the urge to erase stuff you feel you’ve ‘put badly,’ then do so, but rather than remove lines of text you feel are ‘wrong,’ simply put a single line through them.

3.       Leave space.

I don’t care how you leave space. You can skip lines, put a big margin at the side, use only the front of pages, it doesn’t matter… you will revisit material, and you may wish to add to it.

4.       Date your entries.

Wicca is a journey. You should be proud of this journey. Even if your intention is to toss out the notebook when you’re done, if your entry is dated May 1^st, and contains notes dated from October that show that your beliefs about the material have changed, you should be able to see when those beliefs changed. This can really help you understand how you learn.

Remember—One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Each day you change a little bit, and there is always the possibility that the idea you throw away today is tomorrow’s brilliant observation. If you hide the thought away you may never see it (and learn from it) again.

5.       Don’t read more than one chapter a day.

This is probably the one rule that I would have the hardest time following if I was reading this book. People who study how we learn often discuss something called ‘the incubation phase,’ in which ideas and concepts are given a chance to churn around in the back of your mind. By taking time, and following this simple advice, I promise you will get more out of this book.

If the thought of doing this grates on you, I want you to think about the Catholic concept of the novena rite, which is so common that at least one Wiccan author has included it as a “dedication” to her form of Wicca. In this rite, you light a candle and say a prayer at the same time every day for a specified number of days. The reason for the specified number of days is not that the saint or god can’t hear you, but to demonstrate your dedication to this goal.

If you really want to get a good handle on practicing uncluttered Wicca, you’re going to need to start by demonstrating your dedication to the goal. To that end, when you’ve finished this chapter and finished the brief notebook assignment at the end of it I want you to wait at least twelve hours, including one night’s sleep, before moving on to chapter two.

If you can’t do this, you lack the dedication that this work requires and should stop reading the book now. Your brain needs time to take in the material you’ve just read and to work on it, and if you rush the brain, you get lousy work. Don’t worry if the stuff you’re reading never crosses your mind again, because your subconscious is working on it, whether you know it or not.

6.       Don’t be afraid to write about “unrelated” stuff in your notebook.

When I was discussing this chapter with a student of mine, she came to the realization that she hated zombie movies. She found the notebook assignment really difficult at first because the only thing she could think about when she started writing was a particular zombie movie that she’d seen and disliked. I encouraged her to write about her reaction to the zombie movie, and as she wrote her five page spiel against it, she realized that the reason she hated the movie so much was that the characters in it were stupid. If she’d been them, she said, she would’ve done things differently!

In writing what she would’ve done differently, she took the time to think about the exact material this first notebook assignment expects, so I’m going to use that as a shameless segue…