My Journey to paganism, witchcraft, and the Goddess
My path to witchcraft and the Goddess was pretty serendipitous.
Part one: The story of Job
I was raised as a Christian, but very loosely. My family wasn't devote. I think my mother may have just thought that's what you do, send your family to church. I think she also wanted us to have faith. We did go to church when I was younger, about early elementary school. My mother also would read us the bible at night before bed.
When I was still quite young, maybe around 8-10 years old, I began reading the bible for myself and asking questions. Sadly I felt questions were not very welcome in the Christian religion. I was met with a solid - "It is God's will." "Just have faith." "We just can't know or understand."
For me, that felt like running into a brick wall. I couldn't believe something just because I was told, I needed to know the why and how and have it make sense.
Around this same time, as I said I was reading the bible on my own. I came across the story of Job... This story made me lose any faith I may have had.
If you do not know the story of Job, it is a pretty awful story. One of the worst in the bible, besides the rape and murdering of children... It tells the story of a man named Job. Job was a great guy. He was pious and so awesome that God was boasting about him to Satan. (Which aren't we mere humans not supposed to be prideful and boast, but somehow it's ok for God to do so?)
But Satan was like, no. Job is only so good and faithful because he is blessed with an amazing life. He isn't suffering or wanting and it's easy to be good when your life is so good. I have to hand it to Satan, he brings up an interesting point. I'll call it the zombie apocalypse theory, Most people are pretty normal decent human beings but let's say the zombie apocalypse begins and suddenly everyone is waiting to steal, murder, rape, eat you themselves, beat you to death with a bat, etc....
So once we lose our warm, safe, comfy lifestyle we turn into monsters.
But that may not be true! I've read lots of studies that suggest that the majority of people are truly inherently good. There have also been tons of emergency situations where people have come together and helped one another. There is also the fact that many people in some of the poorest communities can be the most selfless and giving vs billionaires who hoard wealth and screw their employees over.
But Satan brings up a good discussion topic and the story begins with a good thought on if you would still have faith and love for God if you were suffering, in pain, struggling. Because in those times it is the hardest to have faith and love.
My issue is that God was just like, "You know what, bet? Go ahead Satan, go fuck his life up, torture and abuse him, do whatever you want except kill him. Then we will see who is right."
So Satan goes and while he couldn't kill Job, it was apparently fine to kill all his livestock, servants, and TEN children all in one day. And when that didn't work he gave him sores and all this drove Job to hate his life, wish for death, and wish he had never been born!
His wife tells him to curse God because of silly weak women of course....
His "friends" suggest he must have deserved all this for being a sinner, and poor Job who is already suffering has to defend himself and proclaim his innocence, which let's remember is TRUE. Job did nothing wrong and God is letting him be tortured and suffer.
Job begins to question our relationship with God, how God can even understand humanity, how God can let good people suffer while evil people prosper. Which are great questions...
But Job persists saying he will do no evil and continue to FEAR God.
Another friend comes to give bad advice but this time God appears and basically says how powerful he is and that humans are weak, ignorant and can't possibly understand his ways. Job agrees. And God grants him more property, new children (because children are easily replaceable!), and a long life....
My issues with this:
1. Now Gods in all myths can be rightful dicks. But they were held as myths. The bible is supposed to be 100% true.
2. God is supposed to be 100% all-powerful. God can see all of us and step in to talk to us or apparently grant us genie-like wishes or at the least end our suffering.... but he doesn't. If God can control everything, why would he allow good people to suffer? Children?
3. Job's friends also show a very interesting point. None of us are supposed to really understand or grasp God's will or why stuff happens, yet we can be punished for this. We were created with these minds that allow us to think, wonder, and question everything but are also supposed to follow a set of rules that we don't exactly know or understand?
Now remember I was a child when I read this but it upset me greatly. It shocked me. God was supposed to love us, God was our father. I couldn't imagine my parents ever allowing me to suffer. I could never allow another human to suffer like that without trying to stop it. If someone was torturing someone and I could end it at any time, I would right in that second.
How is this diety, less compassionate than I am? How is God supposed to love us and allow us to suffer? How will he send me off to suffer for all eternity in hell if I make a mistake?
I could not in any way see God as being that. Either God was an asshole on a power trip unworthy of our worship or he wasn't really all-powerful.
Part two: Atheism
Now I wasn't really a sheltered child, but I wasn't really exposed to many other religions. I was pretty sure everyone around me was either Christian, Agnostic/Atheist and didn't discuss it, or if they were another religion never discussed it either.
I was young, naive, and ignorant about the world. I just did not know you had every option imaginable for a religion!
I thought everyone in my culture was Christian. It's just how it was. I knew other religions existed like Judaism, Islam, Hindu, Buddism, I didn't really know what they were and I thought you had to be that culture to be them. Like you were born into a religion and that's it.
It is so sad to me that children are raised like that! And this often is a pathway to prejudice, fear, hate, etc.... because of closed-off communities where you aren't exposed to other types of people. Even in the US, even growing up in some larger cities, I just wasn't exposed to many different people. I think the internet has really helped to bridge that gap in many ways for people.
I think also most if not all of the Christians I met were not "good" Christians. They didn't regularly go to church, they didn't read the bible, they sinned ALOT, they barely understood their own religion. It was just what you did but you held no actual faith or meaning. Most people were simply indifferent. So many people I would talk to had no real faith or care about it. I think most were truly agnostic and just saying they were Christian just because their family/society did. Of course not all but many.
At the time I didn't even know about Agnostic, so I said I was an Atheist*, with a big fat asterisk, because I wasn't Christian and didn't believe in the Christian view of God, but I was spiritual, I had faith in something even if I didn't understand it at the time. I would say I thought God was everything, God was in us all and in the trees. Looking back now that always makes me smile.
Part three: The encyclopedia of witches and witchcraft
My grandmother would order tons of stuff from mail-order catalogs, this was before the internet really. She did one of these, order a billion books and get one free sort of things. One of the books she bought was one called - The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft.
This book was outlined as an encyclopedia all about witches and the occult. Some had a few pages of info others were just small snippets to define what something was. But I was enthralled. It was a pretty good-sized book too! I found it all so interesting.
Then I found the section on Wicca and my life was changed forever...
I was 16 when this happened and I mostly knew about witches from tv/movies. I was aware of the witch trials but I had no thought on what that was about. I certainly did not think that there were actual practicing witches today.
So for one, I was certainly surprised! But reading about Wicca and reading about having God in nature, God in the trees... lightbulbs, and fireworks went off! I felt like I was awakened!
From that moment I began going to the library (thank the gods for libraries!) checking out and reading so many books on everything Wicca, witchcraft, magic, etc... I began going online and chatting with people and checking out websites.
I didn't officially decide to call myself Wiccan/a witch until a few months went by, I was 17.
I remember telling my mother I was and she was just like... "Yeah, we know you nonstop read the books and tell us about them. " lol!
I was lucky that my family was fairly open-minded and laid back. My grandmother at the time, whom I had gotten the first book on witches from... and who considered herself a bit of a secret witch, did tell me I was going to go to hell for not believing in Satan....
I'll discuss being out of the broom closet more HERE. *the broomcloset is a bit of a play on "being in the closet" it just refers to not being open about being a witch.
Part four: The Goddess
I've always been a feminist and I love being a woman! And after maybe a few years of Wicca I began to struggle and lose interest from a feeling that I just wasn't connecting. I couldn't explain why at the time. I kind of had once again fallen into the trap of only thinking I had this one option available, and even though I knew there were other pagan paths/religions I felt like I had to be Wiccan even if it wasn't fitting.
This is quite a common thing with Wicca because it is more well known and mainstream, many find themselves drawn to it at first but then find it isn't quite the right fit and struggle. Some people, of course, love Wicca and it suits them but others find another path but then some just label themselves eclectic Wiccan and do their own thing even though it in no way resembles Wicca anymore. (This is why I do not call myself Wiccan, my beliefs do not fit.)
For me, I found myself drawn to the Goddess and feeling no connection to the Gods at all. At this time on a religious form (belief.net, I think?) a woman suggested I look into the Dianic path.
It was a bit of a struggle at first, my own fears and anxiety about going off onto a new path. I had it so smushed into my brain that there HAD to be a balance of Goddess and God/Masculine and feminine from Wicca and felt the distaste from the community, as there usually is when there is talk of feminism, and strong women!
But luckily I was able to get into an online Dianic study group which absolutely changed my life. These women were amazing and encouraging. I absolutely loved it and them and they shaped my life. Two books really helped me were Z. Budapest's Holy Book of Women's Mysteries and Shekinah Mountainwater's Ariadne's Thread: A Workbook of Goddess Magic. I have more book suggestions on this page.
Part five: In conclusion
My path has grown and changed in huge ways from the start and in a million small ways every moment along the way.
We can't become stagnant in life, we are constantly growing, changing, and shifting. Our energy and focus ebbs and flows just like nature. We have to be open and loose enough to change as needed.
Change can be scary but it can also be exciting. And sometimes it can be sad, to let go of the old. It's a death, an end of one thing but we know that the end of one is the beginning of another.
I began my path when I was 17 years old. I was so young and just really finding my footing in this world. I'm nearing 40 now! This has been half my life! It has shaped who I am as a person.
I write more about my specific path and beliefs on another page but I am dedicated to Persephone though I do focus on a bright vs dark Maiden path and honor many different Goddesses.