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 September 2004  For
the Witch In You recently had the privilege of helping out Sci-Fi UK,
and none other than leading Wiccan icon Fiona Horne, by lending them
a selection of Wiccan ritual tools for a photo shoot to promote the
reality TV show Mad
Mad House. (Airs Thursdays
for the next ten weeks at 11.35pm from 16th September 2004, exclusively
on UK SCI-FI). As you can imagine, we were absolutely delighted
when Fiona offered to be interviewed for the Coven Column. The following
is a transcription of the telephone interview by For The Witch In You
with Fiona that took place on 6th September 2004 at 1.45pm GMT.FTWIY: How long have you been a witch? FIONA: I’ve been practicing for about 17 years, since I was in my late teens, I'm 38 now. I think it's 17 years, I lose track of the time, I initiated myself at 21 so yes, it is 17 years. FTWIY: Do you think that you can become a true witch through self initiation and working and learning solely from books? FIONA: Yes, I think it's an integral part of the evolution of witch craft as a spiritual path in the world now and I absolutely support people who are forging their own path, learning and teaching themselves to a degree. I think it's inevitable that at some point in our practice that we meet up with others - it just happens, it's meant to be that way as well. For people starting out as solitary, I very much honour the work and dedication it requires, you're on your own and you don’t have anyone to ask questions of. It requires in some ways, even more of what being a witch is: trusting the inner voice, hearing the inner voice and knowing it. I also have great respect for people born into it by inherited lineage because it's been around now as an established spiritual path for quite a number of decades, so it's possible for there to be a second generation now who can clearly state that their mother was a witch. As a spiritual path, Wicca was really only cohesively formed in modern times, in the late 40s and 50s from Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente and that group, so it’s very young still. FTWIY: What's your best advice to teen witches? FIONA: I think at that age, it's all about fostering a love and appreciation for nature and understanding the magic to be found in nature, and understanding that-that magic is reflected in yourself as a natural being. So for teen witches I think that there's a really healthy aspect in honouring and revering nature and understanding its innate powers. It’s a really great insight into yourself as a growing and evolving human being too. I would also say that one of the things that I think is terrific about witch craft is that it can foster in young people a strong sense of self preservation, self respect and self reliance. As well as honouring your elders, it's important as a teenager to be stronger than peer pressure, to be able to rise above feeling apathy and disenchantment with the world because there’s so much emphasis on war in the media and sadness. As a young teen witch, one of the things that’s really worth while doing is seeing the beauty and goodness in life. FTWIY: What's your favourite form of divination? FIONA: It used to always be tarot and now I've moved into palmistry. In such a way though I’m not an expert on it, I understand exactly what the lines are but it's holding the person's hand that gives me the link. I used to do a bit of psychometry, almost involuntarily really, someone could hand me a ring or another piece of jewellery and bang, I’d get all these images in my head. I think palmistry incorporates that sense of being in touch with a physical object, in linear time and space that I can connect with and is the doorway that I can open to then see what else is going on. FTWIY: If you could have only three items on your altar, what would they be? FIONA: The first thing that jumps into my head is a very large abalone shell that I have that I often use for scrying. It’s quite large and can also hold objects, its very representative to me of the ocean and the beauty of it, of the blues and greens - and the reflective surface I find very meditative, gazing into it helps me, so I would definitely have that. I would definitely have my rocks from the river bed in Arnum Land which is a sacred land for the aborigines in Australia. I collected them from the river bed in the dry season and they’re imbued with a lot of meaning to me, given the time in my life that I collected them and the experience that I had. My athame keeps jumping into my head because I’ve had it for so long and I love it, I think it’s a ritual tool I pretty much take with me all the time, but I’m thinking that I would have a candle as well, so the shell, the stones and a candle. FTWIY: You've started your own coven haven't you in LA? How's that going? FIONA: Good, its very small and very private. I’m probably closest with one particular member at the moment, but there are always people dropping in. FTWIY: Do you think that covens are very closed? FIONA: Well, it depends. I’ve actually written a book about forming covens called The Coven, published in Australia. I don’t have a publisher internationally for it. I’m actually thinking of possibly releasing it on-line as an on-line book to the rest of the world outside of Australia. There's a whole chapter in there about reaching out and meeting other people and I do suggest a sort of chat room thing. But with that, you also have to be very careful, as with anything like that. I find that covens are closed in my experience not because of some elitist snobbishness, it's more just because it’s really, really hard to find a group of people that you get along with and that you work well with. Especially with something as intimate as magic and spiritual practice because we’re so hands on and so proactive in our craft. Much more so than if you were to go to church and just walk in and have the priest say some stuff. There you’re kind of more of a passive observer. When you are so proactive and so hands on, and the members are having to make so many decisions that affect each other, it’s really hard to find a group that you really love working with. I mean, if you were having dinner with your family you wouldn’t let someone just walk in off the street now would you? You’d want to know a bit about them and know that they could fit in to join you for dinner. That’s what I find most with covens, though I’m sure there are elitist people out there that do it more from an egotistical standpoint. But I find that once you’ve actually got a group of people that you mesh with, then if you’re doing more structured forms of magic, like ceremonial or something, then really it’s a part of natural progress. A coven is a relationship, it’s like you go into a relationship with these people and there are specific things that need to be done for it to be a coven and not just a group of witches together just having a chat or open ritual together. It’s also very hard work and I think that’s why there are fewer covens than solitary witches. FTWIY: Can you tell us about the book Pop Goes The Witch? FIONA: It was an anthology that I edited. This was the first time I've ever edited anything, I’ve always written my own material so it was a real lesson to learn how to edit other peoples writing without changing their voices. It was an insight into writing that I haven’t had before. It was an immense privilege to edit the work of such an array of amazing writers, to have Ray Buckland featured in the book and to count him as a friend and a mentor is really remarkable. FTWIY: What's your favourite Wiccan book? FIONA: Well I’d say my favourite one right now would be one by Phyllis Curott. She wrote Book of Shadows and Witch Crafting and is a very good friend of mine. I’ve got the pre-published pages of her brand new book. It’s fantastic, so everyone’s got to keep an eye out for Phyllis’ new book when it comes out; it’s called The Love Spell. FTWIY: Did you enjoy making the reality TV show Mad Mad House? FIONA: I very much enjoyed making the show; it was a real privilege to spend the time with the people that I did. The final edited version is very different to what went on in the house in many ways, but that’s the case in all reality TV now. I hope that when people watch it, they can take something positive away from it, because what we experienced together in the house was extremely positive and I’m very, very proud of our winner - that person ultimately takes away something worth a lot more than the money. It was a remarkable experience but it has been edited to - sort of air on the side of shock and salacious thrills. That’s what reality TV is. For the first few episodes it starts off very nice, then goes really crazy, and then goes really nice again at the end.  Fiona Horne is a best selling author, journalist, television/radio personality, musician, actor and Witch. She has been practicing the Craft for 17 years. For more information please visit her official web site :: fionahorne.com |