I am a solitary, ecletic neopagan witch. The information I share with you here is gathered and distilled from books, articles, other webpages, other Pagans, other witches, meditations, visionary journeys, and listening to my inner voice. I am not a...
I've always thought I came to Paganism in a round-about way. At the same time, I think I was meant from the beginning to be Pagan.
It is a family story that my great grandmother was an actual witch. The grandchildren lived in a state of superstitious fear of her and what she could do. It is also an accepted fact that the women of the family have prophetic dreams. I have had them myself, as far back as I can remember. Lastly, it is true that when I speak of my family, my family considers itself the female decendants of my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother. Men are often dead, divorced, or otherwise disposed of, and never mentioned again. They seem to be little more than sperm donors in some cases. Many, but of course, not all, Pagan cultures are also matriarchal. It is very clear that my blood family is a matriarchy.
As a child I was dragged to a Methodist church for a few years. Mainly for the sake of appearances, I think. After church I was treated to a scathing indictment of the preacher, his wife, the churchgoers, hypocrites all it seemed according to my mother. If that isn't guaranteed to make you a skeptic nothing will. My stepfather and his parents were Baptist, so I was treated to a few hellfire and brimstone sermons that did little more than confuse me thoroughly, as I knew the people who took me to them, and if all that was true, they are STILL burning.
So by the time I was a teen, I had evolved my own sort of philosophy from extensive reading, meditation, and a bit of soul searching (not to mention a certain amount of drugs and the hippy culture of the time) that you got whatever you were expecting, and that karma works. To a certain extent, that's still my philosophy.
I went on to marry and divorce a Catholic who only thoroughly increased my cynicism between his cynical stories of nuns & priests, and seeing his mother, a truly wonderful person, go to her death fearing that she would go to limbo or hell because she had divorced her husband (for more than sufficient cause - but only then because she was forced to).
I divorced my first husband and took off, on my own at last. I landed in the nest of my first mentor, a woman with a deep interest and belief in the occult, astrology, and New Age philosophy, not to mention feminism. She started handing me books to read and since I LOVE to read, that's what I did. What an education. My first forays were into books with themes of womens' liberation. Believe it or not, in the mid-80s this was little more than an intellectual concept to me - since I had never been in a situation to experience anything other than abuse from those with power over me up until then. Occasionally, those books would touch on concepts of Paganism, matriarchy, and related subjects. I started delving more into those ideas. Not my first trip down the rabbit hole of research, and certainly not my last.
I took a book on astrology, an ephemeris, and my 15 years worth of diaries and did a detailed analysis by first going through the diaries and writing down my mood and the general situation for each day I had an entry. and only when I was done with all fifteen years, going back to the ephmeris to see what sign the moon was in, and how it was supposed to be influencing my mood (being a Cancer, the moon is a big influence on me). I was stunned at the correlation, as well as convinced. So I started reading up on astrology and comparing the descriptions of the signs with the people I knew, and discovering them to be largely accurate. I was further convinced.
My mentor started handing me crystals and stones. I've always loved and collected rocks, but this was a whole new way of thinking about them.
I moved away from my mentor , but her influence continued as I continued to read and do research and try different things. I started reading a lot of self help books, particularily by Stuart Wilde. And I started practicing full moon rituals and celebrating Sabbats, doing minor blessings and cleansings and healings on my dwellings, friends, and pets.
Over time, I have come to learn more and more, celebrate the quarter and cross quarter holidays, drawing down the moon, and do more work with herbs, rocks & crystals, spells & ritual. But most of all, the PHILOSOPHY of being Pagan, which from the beginning suited my beliefs and feelings on a gut level, has become an integral daily part of my life.
Rather than a Bible, or Torah, or books and sermons and interpretations, Paganism exists of two simple truths that nearly every religion in the world agrees upon, openly or not.
An Ye Harm None, Do As Ye Will.
Everything you do, comes back to you. (Karma works)
Of course, there is far more to it than that, and far more to my own beliefs - but that is the core on which all else is built. IMHO.
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