What is Wicca?

So, after deliberating on this for a few days, Ive decided to write about it and this is truly what Wicca is TO ME. If you ask 5 different Wiccans, you will more then very likely, get five different answers...That is the true beauty of Wicca. You have the liberty of truly believing what YOU want to believe. Wicca is needlessly scary to a lot people. I’ve been asked on several occasions " Well, isn't Wicca a form of Satanism? Doesn't *that* star you wear, mean Satanism?"... Well, first, the Star....no, it is not satanic in any way... If in fact you look UP the Satanic star, you'll find that its upside down with the bottom of that star being quite a bit longer then that of the star Pagans or Wiccans wear...OUR star has five EQUAL length points...The points of our star represent the five elements: Air, Fire, Water and Earth, plus Aether (or Spirit).... people who say these things are ignorant about what Wicca is or how they can bring magic into their lives. Second, "Wicca" was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica". From the 1960s onward, the name of the religion was normalised to Wicca.... For hundreds of years before the Salem Witch Trials, people have been accused of being witches and tortured for their beliefs.......they've been hung, stretched, or tortured in some other forms...Yes, *SOME* have been needlessly burned and for no reason...Even today, witches are being killed in Haiti, being falsely accused of causing the cholera epidemic. Whenever people are afraid, they can fall back on old hatreds. And with Wicca, there is no need to be afraid. It’s always easy to criticize what you don’t understand. Wicca is about love, kindness, and energy. And in all roads in life, there are two paths you can choose. Wicca believes in the path of love and light – not in the path of darkness and hate.Wicca is a very peaceful, harmonious and balanced way of thinking... we don't worship Satan or the devil because we don't believe in it. We believe that the earth is a mother to us all and we should honor and respect her and live a harmonious life. We don't own the earth but we are part of it... We respect life above all. We believe in a Goddess AND a God. Both EQUALLY...neither is above the other. They are in us, around us, above us and below us on the earth, beneath our feet, in the air we breathe and the sun that beats down on us...in the rain and snow, and all the elements around us. They are the grass, the clouds, the dirt and the trees...They are in us, our bodies, we are them... As a rule, you’ll find Wiccans don’t spend much time debating. We’d rather focus on positive energies and magic in our daily lives and not let the negative energy in. We are peaceful folk.We never try to “convert” someone to Wicca. All gentle people are welcome and take what is meaningful to them and leave what is not. We use spells and drawing energies and prayer...yes, prayer. We dance, we sing, we have celebrations of LIFE, of love, of kindness. We tend to be vegans, "tree huggers", people that love the earth and her beauty. We are recyclers, "do gooders" in some ways...Wicca spells are powerful. But if you just trust in yourself and in the pure and innocent power of the Universe, you will be safe. Spells are like tools. We have lots of tools we use, alot like alot of churches and religions...we use holy water, salt, candles and incense, we use music to worship and meditation to ground us...Anything can be a tool...You can use a tool to build a home, bake a loaf of bread, or put together a children’s toy. You can also use these same tools to destroy and uproot. It’s a matter of your personal sense of morality and ethics. Wicca is the path to power. You must make the choice to use it responsibly. Our medicines that we have today are based on the herbs and concoctions that many witches used back in the day to heal and make someone better. Aromatherapy is also another way that witches used to heal. Reiki is another. We use divination and prayer to get answers much like other religions... Like many Catholics venerate Mary, Hindus acknowledge the Divine Shakti, and Jews pray to the Shechina, and Christians worship Jesus Christ, Wicca acknowledges the power and magic of the Goddess and God, some concentrating more on the Goddess and some concentrating on both, still others, the male half, the God. In Wicca, men and women balance different energies. Men and Women are equal in the Wiccan religion, even in Paganism. When you see a coven, there is very often a High Priest and High Priestess, both equally do things in their covens, circles, rituals and groups. I am hoping that anyone not familiar with it, if they have questions, they will research it more instead of instantly just assuming that Wicca is just "a form of Satanism." Again, this is MY Belief...Like I said, if you ask 5 Wiccans a question, you more then likely WILL get 5 different answers.