Everybody has an opinion. Here's mine, for free & cheap at
twice the price.
In "Wicca for Couples: Making Magick Together", author
A.J. Drew bases his writings upon experiences and understandings
that differ profoundly from my own. Too many authors of the Llewellyn
stripe try to speak for "us all".
His laudable intent in this book is to present ways in which
one can experience the divine with and through one's lover. This
is a great - even essential - idea. A couple of areas in which
the author's and my experiences overlap:
- The Great Rite isn't about sex.
- You can worship the Gods or practice as a witch just fine
without participation in a coven.
I found his sections on the rituals of a couple's daily life
together delightful. Love is the central theme of Wicca for Couples.
I take issue with the author (and many others) when he attempts
to draw upon the myths of ancient cultures for Divine Couples
to model a couples-focused Wiccan practice upon, since marriage
has only been founded upon love for the last few centuries even
in Western cultures.
Traditional coven-based Wicca comes in for a bashing because
it isn't family-oriented. From my POV, covens were never designed
to substitute for families or personal relationships. They are
parallel to the magical lodges, mystery schools and medicine societies
found in almost every human culture throughout history.
A.J. Drew's beef is with ill-trained coven leaders who haven't
got their own lives together presuming to act as role models for
spiritual development. His solution is to avoid covens altogether,
instead concentrating on experiencing your lover as a vehicle
of the divine. Coven practice isn't for everyone, but neither
is a couples-focused practice. I suspect many people can do both
without conflict.
