The Spiritual Evolvement of Me

What exactly is "coming out of the closet"? I guess it is anytime when one feels that their actions or behavior is such that it would embarrass or shame them if those that they are closet to (such as family and friends) knew about it. At least that is what it all boils down too. I understand the need to stay hidden in the closet. Standing up for your beliefs, no matter what they are, can be a very difficult and sacrificing action. Such a decision can change your life overnight simply by the admission or revelation of what you have been keeping secret and behind the closet door.

In regards to my own experience of “coming out” in regards to my spiritual beliefs I am not really sure if I ever would say I was in the closet; although that in itself may be a manner that I use to disguise the fact that I was. I grew up in a small rural town in Oklahoma. The Christian faith was second nature. Much of this was due to the fact that it was rural and there was always a loss for something to do. Although our town held only a population of maybe 1500 there were a total of seven church denominations represented. I was not born or raised in what was and still is called a “Christian home”. My mother was a native of East Germany and after her escape to Berlin; she met my father and eventually came to America. She was raised with the strict regimen of the Lutheran church yet since that was one sect that was not represented in our town she refused to take us. I remember her dislike of the social manner Americans put into church. It was not a place to show off what new clothes or shoes you may have purchased the week before she would always say.

Yet I loved church. I can honestly say that I attended 6 of the 7 churches which stood in our town. It was the Catholic Church which was the one which I refrained from. Yet it was the Catholic church that later led to the beginning of my questions. Seeing a small rural Catholic cemetery one evening driving home I marveled at the statue of Jesus and the lights that shone on it. I told my mother that when I passed I wanted to be buried there. She quickly informed me that this was impossible as I was not Catholic and only Catholics could be there. This answer did not settle well with me thus I started my quest.

Being a child who often sat quietly in the corner and observed her surroundings, I took everything in. I learned at an early age the meaning of the word hypocrite although I had not even heard the word yet. It was something that confused me as a young child. Yet with a dysfunctional home life I had no one to really explain its meaning or reason to me. There were times in my younger life that I was angry for this absence yet when I look back today I am glad. For this is the reason I sought so hard for the answers I am still finding today.

Even when I was quite active in the church, I was still somewhat controversial as my views rarely were toe to toe with those of the denomination I was with at the time. I think that is why I sought so much to find answers. I believed in prayer and still do. And the answers I was getting were not what the other “people” were telling me or attempting to make me believe. For something as important as my spiritual life, I was determined to keep looking until I found that which filled me.

I think it was when I divorced in 97 that I truly began to see the need to look elsewhere. Here I was at a time when there was nothing I could have used more than support and encouragement and I received none. The women of the church shunned me, as I was now a single woman. Rumors and gossip ran rampant and these high and mighty church going individuals followed it with eagerness much like a starving dog to a fresh piece of meat. It was not that I was alone and harbored ill feelings. I had been alone before and listened to the quiet whispers that you hear when you actually really do sit and be still. It was the contradictory in their words and actions that hurt and still even at the age of 35 confused me.

I had always had an interest in the pagan side of religion yet growing up as I did it was not necessarily an option. The internet was not around yet to explore and I daresay the library would have any books that may help out. There were also the constant teachings of my Sunday school teachers; the fact that anyone who even remotely dabbled in such evil would surely be tossed to the far corners of Hell and live in eternal damnation. Yet it still always lingered in the far corners of me, waiting until I finally was at a point where I could embrace its calling.

I have to say that my walk has probably become a run since I rediscovered my husband. With his support and encouragement I have been able to trust myself more and flourish in what I feel most comfortable in. I still very much feel like I am a babe in paganism, yet I have never felt more at home. I do not shout to everyone what I believe, however I was never that kind of person. It is known to most of my family and friends that I am no longer in the church and that my practices have changed. I am open to all who question this area of me yet have not specifically gone to any for the specific reason of telling them. I have always felt that whatever the spiritual path you choose it is a personal journey and unless YOU choose to share there is no reason to. So to the question as to whether or not I have come out of the closet; I think my closet door was always open or at least cracked.

Out of the Broom Closet: Easy Peasy

My parents were divorced when I was four, so it started like this: my father is Pentecostal (I like to describe it as one step away from Snake Handling,) and my mother was an atheist. So on my visits with my dad, it was pounding the devil out of the church floor with the bible, and singing in Sunday school and a lot of fire and brimstone. And when I went home, my mother would tell me that all the stories in the bible were just made up by ordinary people, and that I shouldn’t believe them. So of course, I was confused. However, I held on to my father’s faith for a long time - I guess something was better than nothing. It didn’t take me too long, however, to start to ask questions that he couldn’t answer - If there was a Father God, where was the Mother Goddess? And if the End Times came, and I was pregnant, would my baby be born? I don’t know why that question seemed so important. I was ten. Whatever. Questions like that. I became kind of angry at the idea of God, some old guy in a throne who had, obviously, no real idea what it was like to be a pre teen girl. Why should that guy be the boss of me?

I read a lot as a teenager. Books and books. And I lived out in the country, so I spent a lot of time alone, with only my books. This was important to my religious exploration in two ways: you can learn a lot from books, especially historical/fantasy fiction featuring proto Celtic races who worship Mother Deities and other Female aspects of the divine; and when you spend a lot of time alone with oak trees and a moon so bright you think you could touch it, you start to get in touch with other energies, things outside the realm of the Bible.

So over the years I read more, this time non fiction by Pagan writers and philosophers. And I tried to figure out just what I really believed. The term ‘witch’ scared me at first. So I just focused on the term ‘Pagan.’ Old Christian habits can be hard to shake. When I moved to LA, nearly a decade ago, everything sort of fell into place. I mean here, anything goes. Really. Being a witch is tame compared to most of the stuff you see.

So then I was just honest about it. When friends asked, I explained I was Pagan. And all of them were Ok with that. It never even raised an eyebrow among my LA Christian friends. People asked questions and we had discussions and I learned things about myself and what I really believed in through those talks. I don't really know many other Pagans, and I've never dated one, but I don't feel like an outsider at all. Actually, it made me feel rather normal and confident about the whole thing. But there was still the family.

My mom was first. Over the years, my mom had moved to some sort of Buddhism. Whatever kind of Buddhism it is that allows you to still really enjoy hunting. One day she found some of my bookmarked web sites featuring Paganism and witch craft, which I was more and more beginning to relate to. I tried to explain it as best I could in calm, normal tones in pretty simple terms. She listened and said that it really sounded very much the same to what she believed, which was that “it was all about energy.” And then she started sending me links to interesting Pagan sites she found! Go Mom!

My Dad’s Mom was next. She’s a Scientologist, which used to drive my Dad nuts. She also believes in energy and lots of other stuff, and that she is a reincarnated priestess from Atlantis. And she was explaining to me one day about my cousin, whom she is very close to, who kind of brought together all the stuff he believes in from Hinduism and Christianity and Buddhism etc. to create a body of beliefs that ‘served his needs.’ And we started this long and really awesome conversation about how faith should serve our own needs, and how we have the right to believe in whatever gives us strength and makes us feel loved by the universe. It was all very new agey but very cool, and she was happy for me.

I still haven’t told Dad. Not because I’m afraid of him, or afraid that he will disown me or something like that, but I know that if I do, he will just spend all of his time worrying about my soul and feeling bad, and my Dad is the most loving, caring person I know, and I don’t want to burden him with that kind of worry. He’s happy with his faith, and I’m happy with mine, and he shouldn’t have to fret about that.

And that’s it. I’m out, mostly, and it was pretty painless, and I’m really happy that I have such a loving, supportive family.

Falling Out of the "Broom Closet"

I was very unsure about this path when I first started to read about it.  It called to me, but everything I had been taught about Witches and Paganism made them sound evil.  I didn’t want to go to Hell or be left behind during the rapture as my Baptist Sunday school teachers had warned.  Still I felt pulled in that direction.  Cautiously, I started very slowly by participating on the Internet, hiding behind my first magical name for anonymity.

Once I started to understand the path, my pace picked up and soon I was running, finding everything that I could about my favorite topics.  My first mentor, who would later become my husband, taught me how to cast the circle, research and protect myself.  Things were great, but I really needed more structure to my training.  I also wanted to belong to some sort of group.

When I first found the Family Wiccan Traditions International it was growing slowly.  The idea of practicing spirituality as a family unit was something that we already did and it was exciting to find others who shared our philosophy.  Within a few months of joining the organization I was asked to serve on the Board of Directors as the Web Communications Weaver.  It was then that I really started going by my real name in the Pagan community.  This was my first step to coming out of the “broom closet”.

My husband’s parents and my two sisters were aware of my path, but that was it as far as family went.  Not much later my youngest sister actually took up her own path and is now currently studying as a solitary.  My parents and Grandmother were to be kept in the dark because I did not think they would understand or be supportive.

The job market in Ohio started to take a turn for the worse so my husband and I moved back to Texas.  We lived with my parents while we got on our feet and looked for a place to live.  While we were there it was painful to take the Pagan part of me and put it in a box.  It was actually my husband that grew tired of it and blurted out the fact that we were Pagan to my parents.  This was the second step.

At first they did not know what to do, but have slowly become more comfortable with our path.  Often they will ask what we believe about certain things or have us help them clear out the house (watching my Father smudge for the first time was hilarious).  In a lot of ways I think that we have forced them to take a look at their beliefs and widen their view on many other things.  This year during Yule my parents joined us in circle for the first time and participated in the ritual.  It was a very emotional experience for me.

Grandma and the people at work are really the only people left in the dark about my path.  I truly think that telling her would hurt her too much and that is not something that I want to do.  And while a few of my coworkers are aware that I am a Pagan, most just think I am a little strange.  I am definitely ok with that.

Finding My Way Out of the Broom Closet

  I come from a family that was never that religious.  My mom just always said that a person's beliefs were personal and not meant to be shoved in other people's faces and she was very distrustful of those that tried.

I agreed with this, but I also began to feel the "need" for something more in my life.  I was about 20 years old, I guess, married and pregnant with my first child when I decided to find some things out for myself.  I went to the small library in town and checked out the only two books they had on Paganism and witchcraft.  I took them home--not really knowing enough about close mindedness at the time to realize I probably should not just have left them laying around for prying eyes to see.

It just so happened that my monster mother-in-law was coming to visit during this time period and unbeknown to me, my then-husband told her about the books I had brought home.  Who knows, that may have been the whole reason for her visit.  I was folding some laundry in my room one day when she came flouncing in and proceeded to tell me that witchcraft was evil and of the devil and that I was putting my unborn child in danger!  She said that I needed to get those books out of the house right away.

I was young and dumb and I allowed this woman to intimidate and scare me.  I returned the books unread to the library the next day and I spent the next 13 years trying to be a good Christian wife and mother and ended up completely losing myself in the process.

I ended up divorcing my first husband after only a year because he was extremely psychologically abusive.  Thankfully, I  have my beautiful daughter to show for that hellish year, though.  Later I met a very nice man who I should have just stayed friends with, but married him anyway when my daughter was 3 years old.  That lasted about 3 years before we mutually called it quits and went out separate ways.  Then in '99 I married a Christian man I had worked with for 6 years.  We went through the whole pre-marriage Christian counseling and were faithful churchgoers.  Poor guy didn't have a clue what he was getting into.

I was 33 years old when I realized I was on the wrong path and I needed to make some changes.  I knew what path I wanted to be on but I have to admit, I was still a little scared.  Was I really opening myself and my family up to evil?  Was I going to go to hell?  Christian dogma is very difficult to get out from under.  I just couldn't get the ideas out of my head, though.  What had begun to call to me 13 years earlier was now demanding my attention.

I secretly ordered some books about witchcraft from Amazon.com--because I really knew nothing about it-- and when they arrived I hid them in the trunk of my car.  I would drive to a local park and read the books whenever I happened to have a few extra minutes.  I was so scared that I was going to be found out but I was loving everything I was reading.  Everything these books talked about was something that I believed down deep inside.  It was freeing...I don't know how else to say it.

Well, my husband did found the books in the trunk one day and truthfully, at first, he was a little bit freaked out.  But, he loved me and he trusted me and he knew that I was level headed enough to know what I was doing.  We talked about everything.  I shared what I was learning and what being a Pagan and a witch really meant.  He had a lot of questions and I answered as best I could.  When I didn't know the answer I would look it up and get back to him later.  He has now become completely open minded about it and really pretty much believes as I do--although I know he would never call himself a Pagan.

My children now know what I am and the path that I walk and I am here if they ever want to talk or have questions or if they ever want to explore it.  But, I still agree with my mom's idea that their faith is their own and I know that they will have to find their own way. As for the rest of my family, they know as well and are actually very open to it.  My mom has asked me for house cleansing spells (for negative energy) and I got her a deck of Tarot cards for Christmas.  She is quite intuitive.  My grandmother even got me some witchy books and a journal for Christmas.

However, no one else in the town where I live would have any idea that I call myself a witch.  They think of me as kind of a tree hugger kind of gal but that is as far as it goes.  I don't think, I know, that my family would receive flack and I just can't do that to them right now--not with my husband trying to start up his own business.   So I remain for the time being partially in and partially out of the Broom Closet.  For now, I am okay with that, but I don't think I will be forever.

My Father the Muggle

Bless his heart, my father is a "Muggle." He can't help it and had a very difficult time raising a daughter who was a witch. Oh, you don't know what a Muggle is? You probably haven't either read the "Harry Potter" books  or seen any of the related movies. Well, a Muggle is "a person who lacks any sort of magical ability and was not born into the magical world." <"Muggle." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 18 Feb. 2010>.  Do you see how this might  have lead to a few tears, some frustration and misunderstandings on both of our parts? It's not that we didn't love each other, no, if anything we had such an attachment to each other that we each wanted to be "perfect" in each others eyes, which just can't happen between a parent and a child especially between a Muggle and a witch.

I inherited my mother's penchant for magic and all things mysterious. She wasn't a practicing witch, she gained her incredible knowledge and wisdom from books, other wise women, adult education classes, etc..However, she and I always clashed horribly and I never felt accepted or seen which naturally lead to a great deal sadness and insecurity.

I remember when I was about eight years old I believe and watching on television the 1948 film version about "Joan of Arc" with Ingrid Bergman. I ended up with me sobbing and traumatized with the unjustice and brutality with her being killed as a witch. I ran out to my parents who were sitting in the living room, hungry for comfort and reassurances that Joan couldn't have been possibly killed as she did in real life as she was in the movie. I asked them desperately, "Did she really hear the voices of the Angels? Why didn't somebody rescue her?" My mother replied, "Of course she heard those voices" to which my father immediately shot hack, "Don't tell her that! We don't want her thinking that people can hear "angelic" voices" And so ensued one of their many typical embittered battles. I was left forgotten and felt like a  lost cause, much like Joan of Arc.Life wasn't always that traumatic growing up, but I grew a defensive shell, carefully protecting who I was. I continued to learn more and more about the craft letting everyone know I was a true witch, even though I was just a little girl. Children of my own age, considered me too weird to play with and shunned me. Of course it hurt, but I found consolation in my cats who loved me unconditionally. My father continued to deny that I was a witch or for that matter that any real witch's existed. I knew he was just concerned for me and that out of love  he was trying to protect me from a society ruled by Muggle's.

As I grew older my faith in the  magickal world grew as well.  Everyone whom  I met knew right away what I stood for, who I was and too bad if you didn't like "Wendy the Witch". My situation wasn't "coming out of the broom closet", it was more like I was already out and no one wanted to believe that there was a closet in the first place. I really didn't care what the general population thought, however I did care tremendously that the father I adored still wouldn't acknowledge I was a witch.

The year was  1997, and there was a huge, buzz about a book, called, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone."I had heard the premise of the story and read about the characters of the book, but I myself had no desire to read it. It sounded too trite for me. My father however called me sounding more excited and impassioned than I believed I had ever heard from him. "Wendy, you must read this book! It's exactly how you've described yourself." He went on and on and I sat there listening to him feeling very bemused about it all. who's just this wonderful witch!" He now had my attention.