Category: Off the cuff – Morgause Fonteleve

MORGAUSE FONTELEVE. To the best of my ability I shall continue to strive to be a vehicle of information and illumination, guided by Nature and Reason, aided by Divine Instinct (Conscience within) and Justice, practicing Equity, striving to understand the struggle and beauty of life and those whose lives touch mine and not to be blind to the light of others. Madame Blavatsky wrote that in accordance with Occult Law, no man can rise superior without uplifting ever so little the whole body of which he is an integral part of, for there is no such thing as separateness.

MORGAUSE FONTELEVE. Those who love us keep us in life and in death, they keep the memory of us alive in their hearts, mind, actions, songs and stories. Remember with love the Ancestors at the end of this year, honour them with songs and feasting, perhaps even the “dumb feast”. Say their names! Let not their stories and memory be lost in the deafening silence of forgetfulness. Repeat their history, tell their old stories, and hail their names.

MORGAUSE FONTELEVE. I believe Clergy should have no right to tell a President how he should act or tell their spiritual flock whom to vote for, or that any politician should be denied the right to be elected, or be labelled as corrupt or evil, because the religious beliefs he holds are not mainstream.

MORGAUSE FONTELEVE. ‘Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill, An’ it harm none, do what ye will’.” Truth or diabolical suggestion? Could it be possible that the supreme neo-Pagan (Wiccan) Rule is not Pagan at all in origin? And where does this discovery leave us who live according to this Law?

MORGAUSE FONTELEVE. On 15 March 2013, Morgause Fonteleve, Convener for the SAPC and CEO for SAPRA, addressed the CRL Commission and a body of UNISA students, at the NG Church Hall, and invited the community to attend the opening of THE ADVOCACY exhibition the following day at Caster Bridge, White River.

MORGAUSE FONTELEVE. The Witch-hunt is a centuries old tool of prejudice against society, in particular women. It is a form of genocide that is bound neither by ethnicity nor time and which continues to demand its victims across the world. Witchcraft accusations, hangings, stoning episodes, burnings, beatings, hackings, banishing and forced relocations are common types of brutality and violence women in particular, are still subjected to in rural communities of South Africa. All too often, with epidemic frequency as a matter of fact, the disempowered (old women, children and men) are subjected to false accusations, brutal and abusive treatment at the hands of rural courts, superstitious and angry mobs who wish to purge their community of the “evil” amongst them.

MORGAUSE FONTELEVE. Recently I was asked if the SAPC had an “orphans and widows” fund. I had to explain that we did not, but that I believed it was a wonderful idea. This conversation obviously got me thinking long and hard, trying to find a realistic solution to a very common problem. My solution? Adopt an Elder. Reach out and help an aged community member.

MORGAUSE FONTELEVE. Many Pagans arrive on this Path without the foggiest of how diverse Pagan schools of thought or belief are. They find themselves caught up in a melee of ideologies, contrasting ideas and ideals and some never move beyond this point. Some even give up on Paganism’s complexities. The definitions I will provide in this article are purely academic and not meant to in any way presumptuously say that this is the “be all” and the “end all” of Paganism. May you,through it, find the freedom of expression of your personal understanding of the Universe and the Divine Nature which permeates it.