Witchvox Article

Author: Athenesic
Posted: January 20th. 2013
Times Viewed: 1,286

I�ve been reading quite a lot of essays about people�s experiences when they �came out of the broom closet�. As I read through them, I found myself relating to these people and their experiences and fears. Some were blessed enough to have accepting friends and family and others weren�t so fortunate.

It�s those essays that have prompted me to write of my own experience and tell everyone my fears as well. I�m not just doing this to jump on the bandwagon, I�m doing this to show people that they aren�t alone, and that other people are and have done the same thing and have had the same fears and doubts.

My fears were that my parents and siblings wouldn�t love me or accept me after I told them. I doubted my family and myself. I was afraid that if I told my friends they would shy away from me; believing the stories about Witches and evil spells.

I wasn�t as old as some of you were � some of you were thirteen, fourteen, even in your twenties -- while I was an eleven-year-old girl. You�d think that eleven-year-olds wouldn�t have the maturity to be able to change religions and to research the religion that they are interested in, but I did. It wasn�t a movie or a TV show that started the search for me as it was for some of you � not that there is anything wrong with that because there isn�t.

Whenever I went to Church and sang the psalms and sat through the sermons I never felt right. I had an itch that I couldn�t scratch � not that I wasn�t able to but that I didn�t know how. I knew about Wicca because my parents use to practice it when I was younger, coven and all (although they didn�t know I knew that) . I had always felt a pull to it; a sort of calling I guess.
I acquired a book about Wicca and the practice of it. Silver Ravenwolf�s Teen Witch was my first book.

I�d been reading that for a few months when I decided that I should tell my parents. That�s when I started having problems. When should I tell them? Should I even tell them? What will they do? How will I explain it? Those questions kept rolling around in my head when suddenly an idea came to me: Don�t tell them until you do your research. I didn�t know a lot about the history of Wicca; at this time all I knew was that it was a religion and that most Christians didn�t like it.

I went to the library every day after school and researched the history of Wicca and I started compiling everything that I would say to my parents. This went on for a few weeks. When I felt that I had all that I could possibly research, I girded my loins and went to speak with my mother. Dad wasn�t home at the moment because he was at work. My mother was always the easiest to talk to when I was younger.

I told her that I didn�t feel right with Christianity and that I had found a religion that I was interested in. I started to tell her all that I learned, and then I presented her with the book that I bought. Her reaction wasn�t what I thought it would have been. She nodded, flipped through the book a bit, and then handed it back to me with the warning of �be careful�; and that was that.

The harder part was telling my dad. He�d always been the more stubborn type and more set in his ways than my mother. I was closer to my mother than I was to my father back then. When I told him, he didn�t react. He didn�t yell, didn�t bluster and go red in the face like I thought he would. It seemed like he accepted it. Over the years, we had our skirmishes over my religion and he said things about my religion that was extremely negative and hurtful, however; I always noted when he bought me another book. I�m not going to get into why he said those things because then I�d be typing for a very long time explaining why. All that I will say is that my father had a problem while I was growing up and he usually wasn�t in his right mind.

I didn�t tell my friends; they just sort of found out. I didn�t feel like I should tell them -- it shouldn�t have mattered. It didn�t to some and others drifted from me because of it. That hurt a little bit but I decided that if they couldn�t accept me for who I was then they shouldn�t be my friends.

I continued to study on my own for years. In middle school, I had a bit of trouble with people because they would see me wearing a pentacle or reading and they would pick on me. I ignored them and the problems stopped. In high school, I became friends with someone who was Pagan and who had a Pagan mother. We studied a bit together but didn�t really do anything. I�m a still friend with her today and we now have a study group consisting of her, my sister, my best friend and me.

Speaking of my sister, telling her wasn�t a problem. She had already started to drift from Christianity and is now currently studying Wicca, Hindu, Buddhism and Shamanism. I told my brother as soon as I thought he was old enough and he only had questions for me. My brother isn�t a judgmental person and so I knew his questions were for curiosities sake.

Also, when I met my best friend (obviously I didn�t know she would become my best friend and one day become my maid of honor) when we were in middle school. We talked but never really started to hang out until high school whereupon I learned that she had always wanted to learn about the Craft but never knew anyone. I gave her a book by Scott Cunningham and she seemed to like him and the idea of Wicca.

All of us just formed this group and haven�t done anything as of yet except discuss it. Since I�m in Hays and they�re back in Kansas City it�ll be a little difficult to plan things. I�ll be going to a Croning ceremony soon with them for the one with the Pagan mother and I hope it will be interesting and insightful. I�ve never been to a ceremony of any kind. The only one who has is the one with the Pagan mother and even then she was very young.

Hopefully this will inspire others to �come out� and practice openly.

ABOUT...

Athenesic

Location: Hays, Kansas

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