this blog will be about my spiritual path and concurrent experiences, thoughts, and areas of interest regarding it. i have other journals for other areas of my life; this will be mainly to help process & share various aspects of my shifting spiritual views.
to elaborate: i was raised Christian, and now find myself on a Pagan path, which is more attuned to the views and inner workings of my spirit than Christianity ever was. i'll speak more about that in a moment. to be more specific, i am studying and beginning to practice the ways of the Traditional Witch. after much research on various paths, this is the one that "felt" the most like me, the one already in line with so much of how i have seen and experienced the world for several years. my main focus at this point is continuing to do research, and to become entrenched in the mindset and lifestyle of the Trad. Witch. my primary focus at present is on herbalism, meditation and inner reflection, learning to work with runes, and harmony and balance within my home and relationships.
okay. now the back-story that has led me to this point. my birth parents were not religious as far as i know. my mother adored nature, animals, music, creative things, etc...my father was the strong, intelligent, silent type. unfortunately i went into foster care fairly young (i won't get into this--it would take too long). and so i lived with one particular foster family for the next 11 years. they were devoutly religious, "born-again" Christians. the whole of our lives revolved around the tenets of this religion. when i look back on it now, i honestly believe it to be a form of brainwashing and mental control. i went along with it when i was young, because i was an agreeable sort of kid, and plus i had many friends at church, so it was fun at the time. as i got older, things started changing within me. i started noticing the contradictions, the illogicality of faith without proof, the people who did not live the principles they claimed to so heartily believe in, the intolerance of anyone that wanted to be an individual (to be themself). still, even with so many questions, i did not feel comfortable to voice my inner struggles; i felt trapped. i had been taught that if i didn't believe, i was doomed to damnation and hellfire. not only that, i had alot of friends within these religious circles; would they still care for me if i decided to be an individual, to try to figure out my own path- not just what was mentally drilled into my subconscious?
the answer to that was no, they would not- i would be ostracized. this became apparent when my life reached a turning point at 17, when my biological mother-- whom i still loved so dearly and had regular communication with despite my being in foster care-- became gravely ill. i was severely depressed and despondent. yet, at the time i needed to be embraced and loved the most, i was shunned by these people i had known since i was a child, the very same who had taught me about "Christ-like love" and "the good samaritan" and blah, blah, blah. i lost my mother to her illness shortly after i turned 18. i stopped going to church then too. i couldn't fathom why this "God" i had been taught about would take her from me, after everything i had already been through in life, including already losing my biological father at 8 years old as well. the kind of pain i had experienced in my life made positively no sense if there was indeed a loving, caring protector somewhere up in the sky.
i've spent the last 10 years since in periods of confusion regarding what I believe, and searching for my own version of truth. I stopped communication with my foster family in order to be free of the dogma (and other reasons), and find my own inner wellness. these 10 years involved periods of believing nothing at all ("there is no God, or if there is He certainly doesn't care about me"), taking scraps of wisdom from various other faiths (not following them- simply studying them), and even at rare times trying to revert back to Christianity as an easy way out. the latter never worked though. i tried to convince myself i "believed" again, i tried to will myself to go back to church and i just never could bring myself to do it. i had several co-workers at my old job offer to take me with them to their churches; but something inside me knew it wasn't right, knew i didn't really believe. but i was scared not to. it was a conflict that wreaked havoc within me. at other times, formal learning became my religion of choice. i went back to college, studied various subjects like mad even while working full-time jobs, and this was somewhat fulfilling for me at times. at least, it kept me pretty busy, and kept my mind sharp and focused.
but somewhere lurking beneath educational, intellectual, and emotional pursuits, still was the question of what i believed spiritually, beyond what i had been taught to believe. i knew with certainty i believed in the "other side", the spirit realm. when i was 6 or 7 i had a few occasions wherein i saw spirits in my room at night. the two times i remember vividly was one wherein an old woman was sitting in a rocking chair in my room, just rocking back and forth; the other was a spirit of a man, who walked through my room, stopped at my foster sister's bed and seemed to vanish through the other wall. these experiences terrified me and i stopped seeing them soon after. i was told they were simply "nightmares", but when i look back now i am quite sure i had experiences with actual spirits. anyway, as an adult i've seen nothing of the sort with my own eyes, but i have felt spirits around me. in times of dire need, i have received bouts of help and guidance i have a hard time believing were mere coincidence. i've also connected with my mother on several occasions, in dreams. a psychologist would say this is simply because i miss her, but to me it felt as if i was having an actual conversation with her. i strongly believe in ancestral spirits, and spirit guides, and i do think i have been sent signs and comfort from them in my adult life-- from my parents, and also perhaps my grandparents (who all 4 passed away before i was born), and so on.
my inner questions pretty much came to a resolution of sorts when i talked to a friend of mine about my then-conflicting beliefs. she gently steered me to research Paganism, and in so doing i began to feel a peace i had no prior experience knowing. it's hard to explain-- but i felt like things finally made sense, like i finally knew what i had been looking for. i felt relief in knowing that i was indeed not going to "hell" for no longer being a Christian, and that i didn't have to believe in the Christian concept of "God" (or any God for that matter if i so chose) in order to live a fulfilling, spiritual life. i began researching different Pagan paths, to hopefully find one that aligned with what I already felt to be my spiritual ideals, my intrinsic unnamed beliefs. the more I read about Trad. Craft, the more "right" it felt (and continues to be right for me). My spirituality and world-view is now evolving every day. I don't feel guilty or shameful anymore about living my life by my own moral code, not one written in a book. I have the same love for animals and nature, for ocean and stars, for self-expression, compassion, peacefulness, morality and genuine living i've always had-- but now it doesn't feel like a burden, something to hide so as not to be exploited or trampled on. it just feels right and true. so now i can move forward, finally rid of ingrained false pretenses, and nurture my own personal truth. and as a Seeker now, i feel undoubtedly content within my beliefs at last.
