Using the darker side of the craft...?

QUESTION - Hello, I find myself in a dilemma and I kind of know the answer but not sure of the outcome? I have recently returned and chose the Wiccan way, but to be honest it's not sitting very well with me. For as long as I can remember I have always been different, a Witch. My power was always from the 'dark side', anger, pain, despair etc. I shut the door on my gift, (sensing spirits, in tune with the seasons and weather, feeling at peace with nature, prefer the Autumn/Winter months) when I was 19 years old, because my Dad died, and a few months afterwards my Mum was diagnosed with her first brain tumour, I could not cope, so shut the door.

I am nearly 40yr, Halloween to be honest, happily married, disabled and felt the need to be a Witch again, but, I chose Wiccan because I thought it was good, 'harm none' but I feel flat and empty. But when I'm angry, had enough, peed off, THEN I feel the power in me. I will never deliberately cause harm to anyone, I am not an evil person but I know my true self is a Witch, not Wiccan.

My question is this ; Is it ok to use the 'other side' to fuel my power? To be a Witch who's strength is based on the negative, but spells are positive...... I need some advice please.

Answer - It is interesting that you ask if using your power in a way that feels right to you is ok? I suppose I'm intrigued to know who you mean it to be ok with. With accepted Traditional Witchcraft traditions? Certainly! No self respecting Trad witch chooses to limit her power by focusing solely on the "love and light" found in so many modern Pagan cultures.  Though I very much doubt that adherants of Wicca would give you the thumbs up as Wiccan practises generally tend to exclude anything that involves magic straying into the greyer areas. 

You'll get different opinions depending on whom you ask (and I'll give you mine in a minute) but the only real way to know if what you are doing is right for you is to look inside yourself with total self honesty and ask - Does it work for me? Does it enhance my path? Does it fit my personal views on morality and how I choose to interact with the world? If the answer is yes then I don't think anybody in the world has the right to tell you that what you are choosing to do is wrong. I doubt there is an absolute right or wrong about which parts of yourself you should utilise and this is one of the reasons I personally choose not to follow the absolutism of religious laws and creeds. It is too simple to say "harm none..." People are complex and so it follows that any magic we work is also by its very nature complex. We live in a morally complicated world - some people may desperately try to keep it simple with easily quoted maxims but that is indicative only of their attempt to understand the world, not a reflection of what the world actually is.

I personally use every emotion I possess to assist with my magic workings. I generate as many outcomes from anger as I do kindness or altruism. Negativity is a part of all of us and I cannot deny that I feel a witch who turns her back on parts of herself is both denying who she is and preventing herself from taking the chance to develop into the best witch she can be. I have a respect for those who choose to turn solely to the light but it wouldn't work for me and I suspect it won't work for you either...

Do I think that having found a way to make your own powers and the world work for you, you should now turn your back on it and confirm to a concept of what somebody else believes you should be? Do I hell as like!


Image http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=1077565 (rockmelon1)

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