Merry meet, everyone!
My name is Jen, and I have recently begun my year-and-a-day of study. (As if that were long enough...) I would like to introduce myself on the new forums, and establish contact with all those who would be my guides during my solitary study.
I am 29, and I live and work in China. (I was born in the U.S., though- to caucasian parents...) I am currently working as a production assistant on a documentary film series being produced in China, and so I'm kindof cut off from any covens or other orginizations, as well as teachers and fellow practitioners. I am hoping that all of you can be my community, and answer any questions I may have.
I am not new to beliefnet. I joined in 2004 and surfed through Paganism, Heathenism, and Reconstructionist Religions before finally landing here.  I've found that my core beliefs (greatly influenced by Chinese Feng Shui and Herbal Medicine) mesh quite perfectly with Witchcraft and perhaps Wicca as well.
I am incredibly serious about sticking with this, and growing through study and meditation, but I will need to correspond with other like-minded folks to better understand my path. Thank you all in advance for being there for me!
Blessings,
Jen

Merry meet, everyone!
My name is Jen, and I have recently begun my year-and-a-day of study. (As if that were long enough...) I would like to introduce myself on the new forums, and establish contact with all those who would be my guides during my solitary study.
I am 29, and I live and work in China. (I was born in the U.S., though- to caucasian parents...) I am currently working as a production assistant on a documentary film series being produced in China, and so I'm kindof cut off from any covens or other orginizations, as well as teachers and fellow practitioners. I am hoping that all of you can be my community, and answer any questions I may have.
I am not new to beliefnet. I joined in 2004 and surfed through Paganism, Heathenism, and Reconstructionist Religions before finally landing here.  I've found that my core beliefs (greatly influenced by Chinese Feng Shui and Herbal Medicine) mesh quite perfectly with Witchcraft and perhaps Wicca as well.
I am incredibly serious about sticking with this, and growing through study and meditation, but I will need to correspond with other like-minded folks to better understand my path. Thank you all in advance for being there for me!
Blessings,
Jen

Hey Creaky!
Thank you so much for your reply! I was hoping I could talk to you...
Yes, I am familiar with Witchcraft 101. I read many of the threads (new and archived) before I decided to start my own. I have been doing a great deal of research already. I know my calling is to be a Witch. I am studying to determine what kind and Tradition I want to follow. My year and a day serves two purposes. The first is to learn everything I can about Witchcraft and Wicca to fully understnd what path I would like to take, and the second is to grow spiritually and become closer and more mindful of nature and the divine. To answer your question, my definition of the Craft is religious. This is an exploratory Year-and-day, yet I already know I want to follow the path of a Witch. Maybe if I gave you my reading list it would help flesh out my plan for you.

Jen,

Nothing that one reads is ever wasted. Please do keep in mind however that the opinions of any author – no matter how much one resonates to what they wrote – are always limited to that author’s beliefs, experiences and prejudices. I am going to use myself as an example here with what I am writing to you now and take the opportunity to remind you (or anyone) that it is you that must decide what is right for you based on first-hand experience and UPG. You must decide what second-hand (authors writing about his or her experiences/beliefs) you consider valid and why. You also need to remember that you may have to defend your belief in an author’s claims if these contradict or oppose the experiences and/or beliefs of others on the same subjects. You must also decide what third-hand (authors based on other authors) that you believe in and why.

Based on my researches to date, there are two histories of the Neo-Paganism Movement and within that, Pagan Witchcraft and the Religion of Wicca. One is the documented actual history – the facts - of the conception of this Movement within the last century that draws on many other documented sources both prior and contemporary. The second history is mythological and based on the sincere beliefs of authors at the time of their writings as well as the then prevalent beliefs about folklore, legends and even from occult fiction. Each history relies on the other. Actual history would be impoverished without the mythological because people being people, a well-told story has always been more interesting and easier to remember than dry facts. Moreover myths have and are how we as humans tell the stories we wish to enact and reflect within our own lives. Yet the mythological could not exist without actual history because the latter that tells us how, why and where the mythological was conceived and transmitted. Actual history is the greater setting of the stories that we tell each other and identifies the purpose(s) behind those stories within the endless tapestry of human history. To study and to believe in one without the other IMO is to understand only half of how one got to the here and now within Neo-Paganism, Pagan Witchcraft and the Religion of Wicca. You will find authors who deal primarily with documented history and fewer still those that understand the relationship between the two histories. The majority of authors however tend to edit, adapt and change actual history to support their own version of the mythological and in doing so, disempower both histories. So it remains up to each of us to decide what we believe and why from what we read and not to leave that decision up to the author of any book. For example, while all the authors you listed have valuable insights and will be useful to you in various ways, they do fall into the last category, authors who work primarily with mythological history.

Let me use a visual here. Draw a small circle. Now this is the conception of Gardner’s Religion of Witchcraft in the 30’s in Britain where he re-defined what witchcraft meant (= the Craft) based on what he knew and believed. Wicca as it came to be called, was and is an initiatory, mystery religion meant to be passed down in lineaged traditions and so on. Now right at the outer edge of this circle, I would put ‘Uncle Bucky’ and his Big Blue Book as Buckland wrote during this time when many including Gardner believed mythological history was also actual history. So I would suggest that you take Buckland’s writings about history as a snapshot in time within the evolution of modern Paganism and extract what you can from the rest of his writings as you see useful.

Now draw a much larger circle, overlapping the first (with Uncle Bucky where it overlaps). This covers the 60’s onward when publications on non-oathbound information about Wicca and Gardner’s re-defined Craft began appearing. The older Traditions of Wicca continued to evolve. New Traditions – non-lineaged and book-taught – of both Wicca and Pagan Witchcraft (influenced directly or indirectly by Wicca) emerged and would continue to do so once the Internet appeared. Within this circle, I would put the authors you mentioned. Drawing Down the Moon goes just outside of Uncle Bucky. A great snapshot of then and if it is the updated version, then more relevant to modern Neo-Paganism today as a whole. Now I would put Roderick closer to the smaller circle but not within the overlapping area. He has a traditional background and one can learn a great deal from his writings but I find his references to the Religion to be more recognisable as eclectic and self-adapted than traditional. Both Cunningham and Silver Ravenwolf are squarely in the middle of the larger circle. While they are useful authors for the practical generic Craft, they again wrote about his or her own version of the Religion of Wicca and should not be considered recognisable sources (IMO) on what this religion is meant to be. Both also drew primarily from the mythological where any historical claims are made and SRW does a great disservice to her readers with the prejudiced origin story she used in that book.

Based on your reading to date, IMO, you haven’t really touched as yet on what is the Religion of Wicca as it was conceived and is properly practised today. I’ll see if I can locate some of the better beginner threads for book suggestions about Wicca. You have made a good start on understanding some forms of Neo-Wicca and also about generic Pagan Witchcraft practices. Many of the latter are religious in orientation, religion here being defined as a Witch’s personal faith, his or her relationship to the Divine and private practices rather than within a shared faith. I might also suggest that you consider this exploratory year and a day as preparation towards a future enacted year and a day that would take place once you have settled with a defined path, faith or religion. You can’t really experience the full resonance of an annual cycle while you are also crafting it. As a religious Witch, your primary focus or core would be your relationship to the Divine and all that you do would evolve out of that focus and be linked back to such. There is certainly a broad diversity within that greater circle to ‘craft’ into a religious practise though only experience, experimentation and time will show you what truly endures and works for you. 

A Calling is never easy. Being a Witch is and remains a challenging wisdom walk for anyone to choose. It is rather like going to college and studying for the rest of your life while knowing that the only way to graduate from that college is to drop out of that chosen ‘profession’ and stop being a Witch. Yet such a Calling for all its challenges can be profoundly fulfilling and life-transforming. When you can’t envision your life without being a Witch and enacting the Craft as you have chosen to define it, that is when you truly know that you are on your right path/wisdom walk.

Hope something in all that is useful,

C.H.

Oh, by the way,
What is "UPG" and "IMO"? Sorry, not familiar with these terms yet...
Jen