Recently, I met a very nice man who told me he’d attended his first Wiccan ritual.  During our brief conversation, he mentioned that at the ritual there had been sacrifices … bunnies!  I told him there is no sacrifice in Wicca.  The friend who took him to this ritual had said that it was a sect of a larger ‘coven.’  I say again, there is no sacrifice in Wicca.  The one foundational tenet of Wicca is:  Do as ye will, an’ ye harm none.  What does that mean, exactly?  It means to live your life as you choose, to be true to yourself.  Blue hair, 25 facial piercings, or a three-piece pinstriped suit and attache … as long as you harm none, nothing!  Not bunnies, not the forest, nor the rivers, nor any life … including Mother Earth, a living being!  There is no wiggle room in that tenet for sacrificing bunnies and calling yourself Wiccan.  No room for polluting rivers and calling yourself Wiccan.

“I say again, there is no sacrifice in Wicca.  The one foundational tenet of Wicca is:  Do as ye will, an’ ye harm none. “

If I bleed, if I prick my finger with a thorn from a rose or blackthorn, that is me mixing my essence with the essence of the earth, of the plants.  But I have harmed none in that ritual.  If I add my nail clippings or some of my hair to a potion, to a spell jar, again I’m adding my essence to my workings.  Not bunny fur!  Not someone else’s bits and pieces, bits and pieces not willingly given. Of course, if I were to create a spell of some sort, I would not be practicing Wicca.  Rather, I would be practicing the Craft, Witchcraft, which is not synonymous with Wicca.  They are lovely companions, Wicca and the Craft.  And if one is Wiccan and also a Witch, one adheres to “Harm ye None” as a guiding principle. Do I make offerings, leave gifts of thanks?  Yes, but I harm none in the process, my gifts do not take lives. I try not to judge, as it is not my place.  Yet is it not the responsibility of each of us to speak up for others who perhaps have no power?  That’s a tough question, as I would not welcome interference if I thought I was doing right.  Yet I feel that those bunnies probably had not willingly given their lives for a ceremony that meant nothing to them.  Those bunnies needed someone to give them a voice.  As a small voice for them, I speak up now too late for them.  Yet perhaps my voice will be added to yours, and to others’ voices, and we all will say in defense of the powerless:  There is no sacrifice in Wicca.