Witchvox Article

Author: Asha
Posted: January 6th. 2013
Times Viewed: 1,346

I might be what you could call, �new� at Paganism, although it might depend on how you categorize it. I was born to two Lutheran Christian parents. My father died when I was eight and my mother still worked a full time job, but she still had time to go to church four times a week. She is very proud to be the first female president of her church. They ask her, �How do you have time for your family?� and she replies, �I just make it work�. My sister and I were stuck with many baby sitters from the church while we were growing up. She also put us in Girl Scouts the fall after my dad died. The kids in the scouts and the youth groups would laugh at us and say our dad was ugly. Our hearts broke when our mom would laugh off the bullying. �They wouldn�t say that; they were from church�.

The only non-Lutheran interactions we had was with our aunt Carol and her partner Kari. Carol and Kari have been a couple since high school and my sister and I were never told anything straight out, but we figured it out ourselves. Although much of our church was homophobic, we never noticed or even thought of there being anyone who might have a problem with them. They are mostly (thankfully) not hugely religious but are open minded people who are hardworking and focused. A nice change from our scattered mother whose loves were in order: church, work, and family.

As my sister and I developed into young ladies, we noticed the creepy looks from the men in the church. We developed early and our mom wasn�t around to notice we needed bras and bigger clothing than other kids. We never tasted a Twinkie or regular coke until we were 14. We were sheltered from everything except the church. We both could quote much of the Bible and were sick and tired of hearing about it by the time we were 15 when we started high school.

Our youth group was basically a pack of preppy �godly� kids who were pretty and cliquey. We only came because of these two wonderfully nerdy boys who were just as odd as we were. We would bring some friends with us who the youth leaders hated, like my gay bro Mikey or my codependent friend Zibelle. They were the only reason it was survivable� the jokes under our breath and the fact that we wouldn�t be allowed to hang out unless we were at church on the Wednesday nights.

My sister and I had kind of had it from years of being beaten over the head by the Bible, and all of the homophobic things that were written and preached that we couldn�t excuse anymore. We slipped quietly away from the beliefs without letting mom know. We still were forced to church when mom was tired of us sleeping in and refusing to go and we still said that we were Lutheran just for our mother and her precious church friends.

For years, we were just kind of out of any spiritual loop except for our books. We may have considered ourselves atheistic except we both had a close kind of relationship with the moon. We had always been fascinated by Greek mythology in particular and by the moon, interests increased by our reading of the Daughters of the Moon series of books. My connection with the moon and the subtle powers of people were deepened by my fascination with the human brain and our perceived consciousness and how the brain affects the body and everything around. Books like �The Immortals� introduced me to the concept of Summerland, herb and crystal healing and reincarnation. Books like �the Pelinor series� gave me appreciation of the earth and the balance. Faery books like �Wicked Lovely�, �Tithe�, �Ballad�, and �Wings� gave me a sense of something more that�s unseen. �The House of Night� that gave me a love for a goddess and the idea that not one person or thing is right or wrong, that the universe is too big for one entity.

I am a healer at heart. I look up herb meanings and color meanings and stone meanings and make little bags of tulle filled with lavender, sage, allspice, jade and turquoise. I would think to the little bags that they needed to protect and heal my friend, sister, and me. I made these things myself, thinking nothing but of my love for my friends. I didn�t think of it as spell work at all, just medicine pouches with herbs and intentions of love and motherly protection.

From the summer of 2011 to winter, I was just a theoretical �medicine woman� for my little clan of 3. I didn�t realize anything special would happen either when I bought a small tarot kit from a big bookstore, or when I instantly fell in love with it. My Cards have never done me wrong and have always been relevant and helpful. This nurtured my sister and my belief of energy in things�that no matter where you got it or how commercial it is, its energy is what you put in to it. I put my love and trust into the cards, and they showed me love and energy in return. Weird things to think for a non-pagan, don�t you think?

On a lazy Saturday in mid-February 2012, I randomly thought of a passage in a �House of Night� book referring to �gentle Wiccans�. I remembered the hate in the words of my youth group leader when she spoke about the media making witches seem �not so bad� in shows like �Sabrina, the Teenage Witch�, or �Charmed�. She had talked on and on about how �the devil will get you�, and �don�t be tempted�.

�Charmed� was my favorite show in Jr. High and so I began to wonder if my medicine bags were spells or not. I looked up Wicca and Witchcraft searches the entire day. The more I read, the more I fell in love. My hungry eyes feasted the summaries and the FAQs. My mind and my heart felt as though they were coming back to a home almost forgotten, a place where the body is sacred and that all people are amazing and beautiful. Here was a reverence of the universe and the acceptance that humans aren�t superior and the earth isn�t to be merely used or wasted.

The thing I got most from my reading was that there was so much to learn and there was no one opinion or book to follow. �Go to the library and check out as many books as you can�. The following day, I walked two miles to a small library where I looked for hours to find three books �Family Wicca�, �Encyclopedia of Celtic Wisdom� and �In the Shadow of the Shaman�. I read �Family Wicca� and loved the writer O�Gaea and the way she brought up her child in her Covenstead without the usual taboos and without hiding. It opened my eyes to the way families should be: open to clear communication and without judgment. I cried. I was excited to celebrate pagan holidays, learned about Esbats and Sabbats, and I, just wanted to share this with my sister. I did and to my surprise, she was just as excited as I was!

Through the weeks, I read through �Family Wicca� and then through �In the Shadow of the Shaman� which opened my eyes to other Pagan traditions in a new way. I build my own beliefs and I will practice my own medicine. Through my research further and further into paganism and the craft of the wise, I found my new responsibilities and myself.

To �Harm None� means more than hurting someone; it means to be responsible for yourself; you can�t blame your problems on a �Satan�. To be a witch is to be a human who accepts that there is always someone smarter than you at something and we always want to learn more and grow our Book of Shadows and our souls and to learn all that we can in each life.

I am a Pagan planning my Dedication with detail, not settling for one written in a book. I am a Kitchen Witch and a decent cook. I am an adult female living in my mother�s house and she still thinks I am Lutheran. I am connected by both blood to my twin sister and soul to my best friend. I am a Witch with a love of paper mache masks painted with Wolves, Trees of Life, and the Lord and Lady. I am really good at convincing my mom that altar tools are my �collections� and Athames are �totally kool knives�.

I am a girl coming home to Earth.

ABOUT...

Asha

Location: Rancho Cucamonga, California

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