In response to the question, ‘how did you become a Pagan, and what does it mean to you?’:
In many ways I believe that I have always been spiritually Pagan. While my parents, “home Catholics”, tried to expose me to organized Catholicism as a child, by the age of 5 I had convinced them that church wasn’t for me. By the age of 8, after watching lots and lots of PBS (Nature and Nova) I had well thought out and eloquent arguments as to why I was an Atheist. Strangely enough, I was still experiencing spirituality in my personal life.
As a child and a teen, living out in the country without access to like minded individuals, themed reading material, or the Internet, I still had a complex and satisfying spiritual life. I didn’t know that you could reject Christianity as your own personal path (God) and still be “spiritual”, but I was living it. I remember once when I was a senior in high school, the Witnesses came to call. I didn’t let them in the house because they were strangers, but I had a nice long conversation with them on the upstairs porch. “Don’t you want to know God” they asked. I replied, “when I stand here in the dark, and the wind moves my hair, and the night is so perfect and powerful that I feel like I can step off and fly… that is my God. The trees, the earth, the sky and all the stars in it, those are my Gods”. Then I knew what I was feeling was my personal path. They were perplexed that nothing they could say or put in my hands could shake that peaceful confidence.
Shortly after graduation the world opened up. I had access to the Internet, and the freedom to go where I wanted. I found a coven, and while it didn’t end well, I learned a lot. I have been a Pagan for 13 years now (I’m 31), and I am content with it. From time to time, especially in my early 20’s, I yearned to coven, and it bothered me how secretive and protective many groups are. A part of me felt that to really “be” a Pagan, I had to pick a named Path and coven, otherwise I was missing out. Thankfully, many of my friends are Pagans of varying stripes, and I am lucky to have them.
Since then I’ve learned that my relationship with Deity (Lord & Lady) is enough as it is. When I feel like my skin is too small for my body, and I’m on fire with the need to create, we are at peace. When I step onto my porch and am compelled to be still and open to the night and the wind whispers around me, we are together. And when I photograph the light, the plants and creatures, the land around me, I know that there is no other Path for me, and that I am loved. My Path has roots in no one culture, and no one holy book. It lives and grows inside of me.
My beliefs are always slowly changing and growing, and like many other Solitaries out there, I don’t fit in a box. There are times I don’t believe in a conscious Deity, but I believe in the power that archetypes hold over the human mind and heart. Then again, there are times when I have been in need, dreamed of the Goddess and have gained wisdom… and I open myself to the idea that They are manifest.
These things I know to be true: Paganism, by and large, has never told me that I am less because I am a woman. Paganism has encouraged me to believe that I was born full of potential and with a clean slate, that my choices are my own to make, and that I own the resulting consequences. Paganism has taught me to respect all paths and people who hold true free will and respect at their cores. Paganism has run true to my inherent belief that the earth around me is more than just rock and water, that it holds the potential for magick and mystery, if only because that is what it inspires in me. Paganism has taught me that all acts of love are sacred, and that while evil may exist within us, that we are not beholden to it. Paganism has taught me that I am powerful, full of a great and terrible beauty, as are we all.
I still have a lot to learn, and I know that I’ll never be done with the learning of it. Truthfully, I’m content in that. Those who love me know that I am still their little girl, their friend, their lover, and I am blessed in that acceptance.
