Another foot out the door

Alrighty, while I was playing MahJongg this week we were chatting and so on & one of my MJ friends told me that her daughter had gone to my etsy store, SpelledWith aW.com. And then she said, "now you are...???wiccan...??? Yet, again I  almost fainted & of course, instead of leaping up, grabbing the broom by the bristles & shreiking, "Yes! Yes! Alright, yes! I AM a witch!" I stuttered & stammered, turned red & finally said, "I don't know quite what I am, yet." Now, what is wrong with me? Why didn't I seize the moment. There isn't anything wrong with my religious beliefs. I am such a weenie. My little boat is so tiny & fragile & I am so afraid to rock it, lest it founder & sink...glug...glug.......glug

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.