Witchvox Article

Author: Priestess Najah [a WitchVox Sponsor]
Posted: May 3rd. 2009
Times Viewed: 2,784

The Goddess calls upon me to write this article. Her voice speaks to me to share. My story is not unique, it is not different, but it is my story, and through it, I pray it reaches out and touches just one person. I pray it reaches the person who is struggling or has struggled as they walk the bliss filled and oftentimes lonely road of a spiritual journey.

A business trip to New Orleans takes me into the French Quarter. I�m on a mission for my beloved friends, who own a Spiritual supply store. I�m looking for graveyard dirt, Spanish moss, and cypress bark. After going into several different stores, but sensing they are mere tourists attractions, I find myself in a lovely WitchCraft store, on Rue Dumain. The proprietor discerns I am true, and offers to gather the necessary items for me. I�m not really clear as to the purpose of these items, but I can sense their importance, psychically.

I return home, deliver my items, and find myself drawn to a book called Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic by catherine yronwode. I wasn�t ready to buy it, but I couldn�t get it off my mind�but we are not ready to start here. Let�s go back for a minute, because we can�t know where we�re going unless we know where we�ve been.

I�m a child of the 60�s and 70�s, raised in sunny LA, California. I spent my days catching butterflies, daydreaming, going to the beach, playing in the park, and feeling distracted. Easily and blissfully distracted by something I couldn�t put my finger on. A voice, a thought, a feeling, was always calling me away from the mundane of life. My parents did not appreciate this distraction, and it caused me much grief and heartache.

I started out in the Black Baptist Church, going to Sunday school, singing for church events, at my Big Mama�s church in South Central, LA. I loved my Big Mama so, and Big Daddy too. Big Mama was our caregiver, and I bless her and honor her with this work. But although I was going to Church, I didn�t feel it. In fact most of the time I felt frightened that I would be eternally punished and damned for my transgressions, which is a heavy burden for a child.
Apparently my Dad, wasn�t feeling it either, for one day in the early 70�s, he announced he had found his God, and we were all now going to be Black Muslims.

We left Christianity, and covered ourselves from head to toe, prayed 5 times a day, gave up pork, went to Temple, men on one side, women on the other, and fasted during the month of Ramadan. Miserable, I was absolutely miserable. Again, the voice in my mind was telling me I should be walking free in Nature, lying by the ocean.

I rebelled hard and life was most unpleasant. In my 18th year, I walked away from Islam. My Dad is still a practicing Muslim, an Imam of Islam, and I respect him for his beliefs and convictions, including his accomplishment of making the pilgrimage to Mecca.

But these ways were not my ways. Yet I have gratitude for my time in the Christian and Islamic religions, for they gave me clear seeing into living life as part of an organized religion, and an understanding of the conflicts between the two.

In my 18th year, Life opened and shared itself. I was told I had been born of a different father, and that my ancestry was not only African-American, but Cherokee as well. Well now, that shed much light on the voices of Nature calling, calling, calling to me! It also ushered in a shattering of self, and I was lost for a long time.

But She did not leave me. She called to me in a circle of evergreen trees, in my beautiful Colorado. She held me as I swam in the tropical, azul, waters of Cozumel. I saw Her beauty in a Mayan statue as She sat on the ocean floor. I felt her breath as I walked through the gates of IxChel.

She pounded on my heart in my years of drumming for my beloved Mother Drum Circle. She held me and guided me on a solo trip to Crestone, Colorado. She strummed my past life pain on a trip to Salem, MA where I cried for all the Witches, and dreamed of bodies buried in a large hole, the night before I ever set foot in Salem. And She touched me, through Tituba, and I honor Her. I came to know Her as I learned to read the Tarot, Medicine Cards, studied herbalism, became an Ordained Minister, and a Spiritual Teacher.

I searched, I sought, I listened, and I kept saying �yes�.

And finally after many years, the magick would not be denied. My trip to New Orleans woke my deep mind, and she demanded to be addressed, seen and no longer hidden, and we stepped into the Hoodoo.

I came home through the Hoodoo. My ancestors jumped and cheered. My whole being locked into motion and my path laid out before me. And through the Hoodoo, I found my true relationship to the Goddess, and declared myself Witch and Priestess, openly, honestly and faithfully.

I worked hard and completed my studies in Hoodoo. I exposed myself, found myself, lost myself, and regained myself. I walked the Year and the Day journey, completing it after much heartache and loss and struggle, for those with whom I began my Year and Day journey did not end up with me. I bless them and remain grateful for their knowledge and teachings of The Craft.

As my soul and heart cried out, feeling forsaken on the path of Seeker, She came to me in the quiet of the forest and told me I was not alone. In Circle She kissed my forehead and I looked into Her eyes and found my family, my beloved Circle of The Silver Ring. And my walk towards the ecstasy continued.

On a cold Rocky Mountain Spring morning, the Ecstasy rolled over me, the Divine touched me and the Bliss enfolded me, as I completed my Year and a Day. I felt the Divine presence as I knelt on sacred ground, in the early morning mists, before running waters and sacred trees. My soul felt the presence I had longed for so long, and in that time and place I was changed. My heart was held in that moment, and I continue to see and listen for the voice the Goddess, as She speaks to me through Nature and my dreams.

And when she calls me, my answer to her is �Yes�.

Footnotes:
Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic by catherine yronwode

ABOUT...

Priestess Najah

Location: Denver, Colorado

Website: http://craftandconjure.com

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