| This Featured Story is about Finding the Path |
The following story reveals how one person found her way onto a Pagan path. It
has several elements that resonate with my young life, and perhaps with yours
too. For one thing, there is the enchantment of mythic tales that we discovered
in our childhood. Like the narrator of this tale, I too have fond childhood
memories of reading myths, and I have to wonder how universal this experience
is for many of us. Or perhaps it’s our annoying habit (annoying to our elders,
that is) of questioning dogma – another trait this contributor and I shared in our
youth – which sets us off onto a different path.
More specifically, this tale describes the first tentative Pagan steps of a young
girl, steps she had to take solo with no guidance other than what she found in her
heart and in her dreams. But isn’t this a defining characteristic of neo-pagan
faith – the importance of our own experience of the Divine? After all, Deity is
infinite, ranging far beyond our limited grasp, so at any one time, it reveals to us
that part of itself that we need to see and that we are able to understand. This
constantly evolving revelation is part of the excitement and richness of a Pagan
faith, and it shines through in the tale you are about to read.
has several elements that resonate with my young life, and perhaps with yours
too. For one thing, there is the enchantment of mythic tales that we discovered
in our childhood. Like the narrator of this tale, I too have fond childhood
memories of reading myths, and I have to wonder how universal this experience
is for many of us. Or perhaps it’s our annoying habit (annoying to our elders,
that is) of questioning dogma – another trait this contributor and I shared in our
youth – which sets us off onto a different path.
More specifically, this tale describes the first tentative Pagan steps of a young
girl, steps she had to take solo with no guidance other than what she found in her
heart and in her dreams. But isn’t this a defining characteristic of neo-pagan
faith – the importance of our own experience of the Divine? After all, Deity is
infinite, ranging far beyond our limited grasp, so at any one time, it reveals to us
that part of itself that we need to see and that we are able to understand. This
constantly evolving revelation is part of the excitement and richness of a Pagan
faith, and it shines through in the tale you are about to read.
| First Steps on a Long Path |
When I was 8, I checked Bulfinch’s Mythology for Kids (a large, picture filled book of
Greek and Roman myths) out of my hometown library. Absolutely enchanted, I renewed it
again and again. Eventually I had to return it, but I could always take it out another time
and I did — many more times in fact. I couldn’t get enough of the stories and the pictures
of fair-haired goddesses doing battle or falling in love or riding their chariots across the night
sky.
Virginal Artemis refusing to be tamed, Athena jealous over Arachne’s boasting, and Juno
furious at her husband but forgiving him all the same. And then there were the gods! Apollo
with his hypnotizing lyre, Prometheus risking death to help mankind, pitiful Hephaestus cast
from Olympus for his lame leg. They were so powerful and yet so human, falling in love
with mortals and fearing the wrath of their wives while they divided up the world into their
own kingdoms. After a time, the book became too childish for me and, since I lived in a
small town, the library was seriously lacking in other mythological material. In due course, I
stopped checking out the book and thought that I had forgotten all about the people, heroes
and gods who had once populated my daydreams and my night dreams.
But they came from within at the most unlikely times. While coming home from catechism
classes in the car with my mom, I questioned her “How can god have given birth to the
world if his is a man? Shouldn’t there be a goddess like Gaea?” Then another time on the
way home I queried, “How come god needed Mary to give birth to Jesus if he is god? Does
that mean that women are just as important?” Mom wasn’t good at answering these
questions, to her it was the way it was, they way it had been taught to her and so the way it
was to be believed. I made it all the way to confirmation, which for those of you who are
not catholic is about 8 years worth of catechism classes, before I balked and refused to go
through with it. My refusal led to a few meetings with our parish priest and more than a
few fights with Mom, but my teenage logic was unshakeable. I remember saying, “If I don’
t believe it, then why should I swear before the gods that I do?” Luckily she missed the ‘s’
or assumed that I had merely made a mistake. Even I didn’t know which was true at the
time, but either way it worked and I was freed from making the commitment.
A period of time passed during which I could be heard asserting that “there was no god”
and I truly believed it; there was no Catholic god for me. The whole story, from Genesis to
Revelations, just didn’t make sense in my mind, but no matter how hard I tried to articulate
my thoughts, I couldn’t make myself clear, and it seemed that no one could answer my
questions, not to my satisfaction anyway. Life quieted down for a while until, like all
teenagers, I had my heart broken. Then the Greek goddesses came again. At night I dreamt
of Aphrodite, smiling and laughing, covered only by her long, wavy golden locks. She
never spoke to me, but instead seemed to glow with a comfort that I carried with me upon
waking. For three nights, the same dream came and each morning I awoke feeling a little bit
better about my situation.
On the fourth day, I felt that I had to do something in return. On the way home from
school, I stopped at the drugstore and stood staring in the aisles. I thought, candles would
be appropriate, but what color would she like? And they were all scented, what smell would
she like? What could I give her to show my appreciation? At the cash register, I plunked
down 3 pink freesia scented candles and one generic love card covered in pink, red and
white hearts and tried to look as casual as possible. If this lady knew what I planned to do
with these things, would she think I was crazy? What do I plan to do with this stuff? Am I
crazy? Does anyone else do this? Questions were flying around in my head, but I took my
bag and headed home.
At home, I shut the door to my bedroom and made my bed before I dumped the contents
of the bag out on it. I had two hours before Mom got home to figure out what to do with
my purchases and I had yet to come up with a gift for the goddess. First thing was figuring
out what could be used as an altar. Wait, altars are for priests, is this sacrilegious? NO, she
had helped me and now I wanted to say thank you. That settled in my mind, I took apart
the white plastic bookshelves so that only one was left, cleaned it off, unwrapped the
candles and set them on my new altar. They looked so lonely, three rose-pink colored
votives on a big white expanse, so I set about cutting the hearts out of the card and
scattered them across the top of the altar. Better! But I still felt the need to give something,
something personal, yet appropriate that she would like. My eyes set upon a gold necklace
with a cage pendant hanging in my jewelry box, in the cage dangled a solitary pearl. A
goddess born from the ocean would love a pearl. Wire cutters solved the problem of getting
the pearl out of the cage and the pearl solved the problem of my gift. Since I still had the
envelope from the card, I sat down at my desk to write to her. The letter was finished and
securely tucked in the pink envelope before Mom came home.
After dinner, I returned upstairs to my bedroom and waited until dark to light the candles.
The candles lit, I sat in front of the altar, took the letter out of the envelope and read it
aloud. Maybe I was thinking that Aphrodite wouldn’t be able to read it, regardless of the
reason, I read it aloud, then asked the goddess to hear me and sat quietly waiting for a
response. I don’t know how long I sat there, thinking about her, envisioning her as she had
been in my dreams and feeling the same sense of calm assuredness I had felt upon waking
for the last three days, but when I opened my eyes, the pearl was swimming in a pool of
melted wax and the votives had burned low.
I set about cleaning up the wax, hurrying to catch it before it could run onto the carpet and
put the letter back in the envelope, drying wax and all. Knowing that it would not go well if
Mom found the letter, I tore it up and took it, the remnants of the candles and the rose-pink
wax-coated pearl and placed them in a small trash bag. Later that week I disposed of the
bag by burying it on the bank of the lake near our house.
Mom never found out about my first ritual and I didn’t even know to call it a ritual or that it
would be the first of many until four years later when a friend of mine said that she had
something to tell me. She was pagan and had been raised pagan by her mother, did that
bother me? Not at all, in fact, I was thrilled to listen to her tell me everything she knew and
I was even more pleased to find that there were others who did regularly and openly what I
had done once and secretively. My friend became my first priestess and the members of
her study group, my first coven mates and friends. Today, she lives further away from me
but she is still there for guidance, solidarity and camaraderie.
The goddess Aphrodite stayed with me through my maiden years and the first years of my
marriage. She has only recently pulled back to be replaced by Selene as I move into a new
stage of my life. But that, of course, is a story for another time.
Greek and Roman myths) out of my hometown library. Absolutely enchanted, I renewed it
again and again. Eventually I had to return it, but I could always take it out another time
and I did — many more times in fact. I couldn’t get enough of the stories and the pictures
of fair-haired goddesses doing battle or falling in love or riding their chariots across the night
sky.
Virginal Artemis refusing to be tamed, Athena jealous over Arachne’s boasting, and Juno
furious at her husband but forgiving him all the same. And then there were the gods! Apollo
with his hypnotizing lyre, Prometheus risking death to help mankind, pitiful Hephaestus cast
from Olympus for his lame leg. They were so powerful and yet so human, falling in love
with mortals and fearing the wrath of their wives while they divided up the world into their
own kingdoms. After a time, the book became too childish for me and, since I lived in a
small town, the library was seriously lacking in other mythological material. In due course, I
stopped checking out the book and thought that I had forgotten all about the people, heroes
and gods who had once populated my daydreams and my night dreams.
But they came from within at the most unlikely times. While coming home from catechism
classes in the car with my mom, I questioned her “How can god have given birth to the
world if his is a man? Shouldn’t there be a goddess like Gaea?” Then another time on the
way home I queried, “How come god needed Mary to give birth to Jesus if he is god? Does
that mean that women are just as important?” Mom wasn’t good at answering these
questions, to her it was the way it was, they way it had been taught to her and so the way it
was to be believed. I made it all the way to confirmation, which for those of you who are
not catholic is about 8 years worth of catechism classes, before I balked and refused to go
through with it. My refusal led to a few meetings with our parish priest and more than a
few fights with Mom, but my teenage logic was unshakeable. I remember saying, “If I don’
t believe it, then why should I swear before the gods that I do?” Luckily she missed the ‘s’
or assumed that I had merely made a mistake. Even I didn’t know which was true at the
time, but either way it worked and I was freed from making the commitment.
A period of time passed during which I could be heard asserting that “there was no god”
and I truly believed it; there was no Catholic god for me. The whole story, from Genesis to
Revelations, just didn’t make sense in my mind, but no matter how hard I tried to articulate
my thoughts, I couldn’t make myself clear, and it seemed that no one could answer my
questions, not to my satisfaction anyway. Life quieted down for a while until, like all
teenagers, I had my heart broken. Then the Greek goddesses came again. At night I dreamt
of Aphrodite, smiling and laughing, covered only by her long, wavy golden locks. She
never spoke to me, but instead seemed to glow with a comfort that I carried with me upon
waking. For three nights, the same dream came and each morning I awoke feeling a little bit
better about my situation.
On the fourth day, I felt that I had to do something in return. On the way home from
school, I stopped at the drugstore and stood staring in the aisles. I thought, candles would
be appropriate, but what color would she like? And they were all scented, what smell would
she like? What could I give her to show my appreciation? At the cash register, I plunked
down 3 pink freesia scented candles and one generic love card covered in pink, red and
white hearts and tried to look as casual as possible. If this lady knew what I planned to do
with these things, would she think I was crazy? What do I plan to do with this stuff? Am I
crazy? Does anyone else do this? Questions were flying around in my head, but I took my
bag and headed home.
At home, I shut the door to my bedroom and made my bed before I dumped the contents
of the bag out on it. I had two hours before Mom got home to figure out what to do with
my purchases and I had yet to come up with a gift for the goddess. First thing was figuring
out what could be used as an altar. Wait, altars are for priests, is this sacrilegious? NO, she
had helped me and now I wanted to say thank you. That settled in my mind, I took apart
the white plastic bookshelves so that only one was left, cleaned it off, unwrapped the
candles and set them on my new altar. They looked so lonely, three rose-pink colored
votives on a big white expanse, so I set about cutting the hearts out of the card and
scattered them across the top of the altar. Better! But I still felt the need to give something,
something personal, yet appropriate that she would like. My eyes set upon a gold necklace
with a cage pendant hanging in my jewelry box, in the cage dangled a solitary pearl. A
goddess born from the ocean would love a pearl. Wire cutters solved the problem of getting
the pearl out of the cage and the pearl solved the problem of my gift. Since I still had the
envelope from the card, I sat down at my desk to write to her. The letter was finished and
securely tucked in the pink envelope before Mom came home.
After dinner, I returned upstairs to my bedroom and waited until dark to light the candles.
The candles lit, I sat in front of the altar, took the letter out of the envelope and read it
aloud. Maybe I was thinking that Aphrodite wouldn’t be able to read it, regardless of the
reason, I read it aloud, then asked the goddess to hear me and sat quietly waiting for a
response. I don’t know how long I sat there, thinking about her, envisioning her as she had
been in my dreams and feeling the same sense of calm assuredness I had felt upon waking
for the last three days, but when I opened my eyes, the pearl was swimming in a pool of
melted wax and the votives had burned low.
I set about cleaning up the wax, hurrying to catch it before it could run onto the carpet and
put the letter back in the envelope, drying wax and all. Knowing that it would not go well if
Mom found the letter, I tore it up and took it, the remnants of the candles and the rose-pink
wax-coated pearl and placed them in a small trash bag. Later that week I disposed of the
bag by burying it on the bank of the lake near our house.
Mom never found out about my first ritual and I didn’t even know to call it a ritual or that it
would be the first of many until four years later when a friend of mine said that she had
something to tell me. She was pagan and had been raised pagan by her mother, did that
bother me? Not at all, in fact, I was thrilled to listen to her tell me everything she knew and
I was even more pleased to find that there were others who did regularly and openly what I
had done once and secretively. My friend became my first priestess and the members of
her study group, my first coven mates and friends. Today, she lives further away from me
but she is still there for guidance, solidarity and camaraderie.
The goddess Aphrodite stayed with me through my maiden years and the first years of my
marriage. She has only recently pulled back to be replaced by Selene as I move into a new
stage of my life. But that, of course, is a story for another time.
| Special thanks to Aeris Fiama (http://www.sapphiremoon.info) for sharing this delightful story with us. |
| The following are some links to other great first-person stories on the Internet: |
** A Pagan? Who Would Have Thunk It...
** She Unveils Me...
** There are no Atheists in Foxholes
** A Paradigm Shift - How disapproval can be turned around into Positivity
** Growing up in Secrecy: A Traditional Wiccan's Story
** She Unveils Me...
** There are no Atheists in Foxholes
** A Paradigm Shift - How disapproval can be turned around into Positivity
** Growing up in Secrecy: A Traditional Wiccan's Story
| For more information about the Pagan and Wiccan -- In their own words project, you can use the following links: |
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| Or click on one of the following to check out other things besides Wicca on my website -- |
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