This article is GREAT!!!

Finding Wicca
Author: Kamrusepas
Posted: February 8th. 2009
Times Viewed: 598

For most of my life I have been pagan- I just never really realized it. I have always believed in magick (Or magic, pick whichever you like) and I have always believed in fairies.

When I was younger I tried so hard to be Christian. I was still somehow in that stage where, because you don’t know any others, you think it’s the only religion out there. Then I got into history, the ancient Greeks to be exact. I learnt so much about the beautiful mythology of their civilization; I could see Athena, Artemis, Hekate, Demeter, Hades, Poseidon, Apollo, Zeus and Gaia. I could feel them.

I was still only about six.

I went to a Church of England school. My first proper RE lesson was ‘draw a picture of Jesus’. Up until year six all RE lessons were Christianity based and every Wednesday we’d go to church. So I got back into Christianity. I dismissed the myths and stories as just that, stories. I dismissed what I’d felt as my imagination (I had quite a lot of it!) Yet somehow I still couldn’t fit into Christianity.

We went to church each Sunday and I’d be bored. I read a children’s Bible and found it too contradictory. An eye for an eye? Hurt no one? Which one was right?

My mum is a Christian, and I respect that. She tried very hard to bring me up as a Christian; at Halloween we wouldn’t go trick or treating- she actually once told me it was too pagan! But the problem was, I couldn’t fit into it.

They got me a book of British history- I was still into history- and I read it. It went from the Bronze Age to World War II.

I read the sections on druids. Still thinking, Oh no, they’re pagans. That’s bad. I read about Cernunnos, how Christians identified him with the devil. Now I know that was just cause they wanted less pagans but I took it to heart.

I read books with magick in them like ’The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe’. I believed that Lilith was, you guessed it, evil. I was so gullible. I thought I was a bad person because I didn’t believe in God. I hoped that maybe if I were a good person, maybe I wouldn’t then go to hell. I longed to be a witch. Just to know that magick was, for certain, real. Just to feel like I belonged in a belief.

I went to these groups with our local priest, preparing us for confirmation. My mum made me go. I questioned. I refused to get confirmed. I told my mum I did not want to restrict myself. I was twelve, too young, I thought, to say that this was my religion. But I also couldn’t agree with it. It wasn’t what I believed.

My thoughts on pagans changed when I read a magazine article with a girl who was Wiccan. She went to circles and cast spells. I felt like this was me, this was what I wanted. I know now that I did not understand fully what Wicca truly was. But still I dismissed it, fearing my mum’s ’wrath’. I carried on with my life forgetting religion, just being a person who felt agnostic at that point in my life.

Then Wicca and I crossed paths once more, two years later on Christmas Eve. It felt relevant to me as I had learned a lot more about religions than my primary school ever taught me. I saw the flaws in Christianity as well as the good things. In the morning I would go to church as we always did on Christmas day.

But I decided to research Wicca. I wanted to know more about it, to see whether it was right or not for me.

It was so right.

You will hear many people say that finding the right religion feels like coming home- and it is. It was. I looked at it, learning about the threefold law, the Lady and Lord, everything. Well, except one thing. Somehow I still didn’t get how profound it was. I hadn’t truly felt the Goddess or God. It hadn’t truly touched my heart yet.

I decided to take a breather. I read something decidedly non- Wiccan (cowan, if you like) . I read ‘Does My Head Look Big In This?’ by Randa Abdel Fattah. (Which by the way is an amazing book, so read it!) Yes, it’s a book about a Muslim girl putting on the veil. Yes, it’s not the average thing that will make people feel the Goddess for the first time, but that’s what happened. I felt so overwhelmed by this girl’s faith in her God. The way she carried on through the racism and the bullying just because this was her faith.

I thought about the discrimination that many witches around the world face. In so many ways, Muslims will have to face it too- every person, every religion may have to.

And I felt the Goddess. I felt her amazing never-ending love for the first time. It was amazing. It was nothing like God spoken of in churches, it was so magickal. So, well, beautiful (If it could be described like that) . She felt so motherly and loving and wise. And I loved her back.

So if you’ve managed to stay awake through my actually quite long story (Hopefully not too boring...) I hope you get my slightly abstract lesson (or moral) :

Sometimes to truly know your own religion you have to understand others. Which may sound strange, but really, if you can understand what other cultures feel for their god (s) then maybe you’ll know more about your own.

I still read the Bible occasionally. There are so many lessons in there which Wiccans could adopt as well. My parents know about my beliefs; my Mum’s ok with it. It took a bit of persuasion, but I proved to her that Wicca is truly a beautiful and peaceful religion. I don’t think she completely understands but at least she won’t burn me. My friends know too. One of them actually collects pagan stuff but she doesn’t practice paganism.

So, that was my journey into paganism and Wicca. I hope that on some level you learnt something.

Blessed be.

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Footnotes:
does my head look big in this by Randa Abdel Fattah


PLEASE READ ORIGINAL HERE