My journey to Wicca and Witchcraft

Salutations everyone. In this my first posting to this blog, I wish to say something about myself and my journey to becoming a proud Eclectic Wiccan. [an aside - isn't it ironic that a blog for the Wiccan Community declares words such as 'Wicca', 'wiccan' and 'Dianic' as spelling errors?]

Anyway, like most of us - growing up in a religiously diverse but Christian Caribbean - I grew up Christian. Firstly as an Anglican, then branching off into the 'full gospel', Pentecostal churches in my teens. Yet even then, my spiritual experiences had always been characterised by two things - great passion (all or nothing), and atypical ways of doing things.

Even the way I got 'saved' was atypical. It wasn't at some crusade or after a persuasive conversation. After a traumatic experience, I heard a voice (or myself) one night say: 'From now on, its all or nothing'. I knew that it had to do with my spirituality and the way my life was going at the time. At the time, I interpreted it to mean that I should get saved and join a Pentecostal church. So that very night, I said the sinner's prayer (like on the church tv shows) and joined a church that very week. From that moment on, I was the poster child for the fundamentalist Christian teenager. I was so passionate, that I was able to influence my mother and my sister to get saved as well. So much so that my sister is still very much a passionate Pentecostal Christian, even after I left the church and Christianity behind.

So how did I go from fundie to witch?? Well interestingly, even before I left the church, I always had what some people would call 'occultic' experiences. I always had invisible friends, as long as I could remember. I would have long conversations with them, while sitting alone in my room. There was one I had a particularly long relationship with, while in my teens. I even had a name for her, which of course I will not post. 

I was always attracted to the idea of magic and the power of it. At times I felt like a storm in a teacup, knowing at some level of my psyche, that if I decided to, I could manifest some interesting abilities. However, my Christian upbringing, plus my own fear of power led to me choosing not to open those doors - over and over again. But my spiritual guides stayed with me, even through my fundie days. Of course, during those times I called them the voice of the Holy Spirit.

So when I finally left the church for good, I automatically shifted towards my natural inclination. It started with the Internet, coming across Witchvox and their webpages of Wicca 101. I started dabbling in witchcraft -  setting up an altar in my room (being in University by now), making spells and seeing them work. (One particular spell is a perfect example of 'be careful what you wish for'; but that is another post.) I considered Orisha for a very short time, but did not feel a personal affinity to it.

However, at the time, I was still battling my own fears and misconceptions of witchcraft, so I left it behind to graduate, get married and make babies.

When I became separated (a short five years later), Wicca and Witchcraft were like the comfy bed that I could fall into, as I came back home to myself. Since then - after many false starts - I finally made a personal commitment to practice Wicca and Witchcraft as my spiritual path.

Now I am a proud Pagan, though I do not proclaim it from the rafters. I still struggle with fears of people's opinions and the negative perceptions out there. However, it is a battle I am slowly winning everyday, and with dignity.

I consider myself mostly Celtic and Dianic, but my practice is very eclectic and intuitive. That will be yet another post.

So this is myself, Featherstone - a Witch. 

Thank you Celtic Crystal for setting up this blog and inviting me to write. Sorry for taking so long, but what better time than on a Samhain morning to write my first post! At a time of endings and beginnings!!

Blessed be