Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Pagan
A Witch’s Tale

A Witch’s Tale

Last updated on: September 29, 2014 at 2:00 am by Guest Contributor

A Witch’s Tale 2014-09-24T08:30:38-06:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I am one of those people who goes way over-the-top about celebrating just about anything. I throw themed parties, decorate with lavish holiday displays, go nuts creating hand-made Halloween costumes, and Ostara bonnets. I sing, dance, and laugh too loudly, and both divulge and indulge too much. If ever there are shenanigans to be had, you can be sure that I will attend to them directly.

I’m 40 years old now, and I look back at decades of thoroughly enjoyed antics and I will admit to you right now, in front of the Gods and the entire internet, that I do appear to be completely ridiculous… compared to a muggle. I am so OK with that.

You see, some time ago a secret came busting out of my broom closet, to the shock and dismay of my conservative family and neighbors. That pointy-hatted truth just refused to stay politely tucked away. It was a wild, unfettered and jubilant truth…my raison d’etre…so why should it stay hidden? Even though many fine and respectable people thought I’d lost my mind, people for whom I’d so long bent and subverted my truth in exchange for their acceptance; Even though it meant that my long marriage would end with my broken heart, and I’d lose my cherished stay-at-home mom gig; even that I chose to leave my previous (Well-paying, well-regarded.) profession behind, I eventually took my fundamentalist Christian mother’s advice and let my “little light shine” freely for all to see. As it happens, witchcraft is an unstoppable force. Go figure.

Today I am a public Witch, the owner of the local metaphysical store, priestess, teacher and diviner. I serve Aphrodite/Venus and most days I can admit that by taking the less-traveled path, it “makes all the difference,” but that is the happy ending; let me tell you a story, the back-story, a Witch’s Tale…or as they say in the Southern Baptist church, let me TESTIFY!

One of my earliest spiritual epiphanies came when I was in the desperate depths of depression at the age of 19. I’d suffered depressions before several times though the adults in my life didn’t know what to do about it so it went untreated and unaddressed. What does a middle-class, white kid in a loving family have to worry about anyway?

The worst of those episodes of depression was my reaction to rejecting the Christian faith of my childhood. Starting in the 5th grade and going through early adolescence I was in existential turmoil, having rejected the hatefulness, bigotry and isolation taught me by my mother’s church. But, if I wasn’t a Christian, was I doomed? In that black and white world of “with us or against us,” I thought I had only two options: Christian or Atheist. To them, atheism was on par with dancing with the Devil. Yet, if there was no higher purpose to life, why bother?

At around thirteen years old, I lie in bed wide-awake one night when the room seemed particularly moonlit. Clearly in my mind’s inner dialogue I admitted my worst adolescent fear: “There is no God. I am a freak. I am absolutely alone and this is all pointless.” Immediately, my senses were arrested. I lost control of my body and was pressed into the bed as though the gravity of God Almighty was in the room. I was unable to move, heart beating like crazy; flooded with adrenaline, I became hyper-aware. The room became ten times brighter, filled with bluish moonlight, the silence screamed and my mind rang with the surety that I was NOT alone and I DID have a purpose to fulfill. This did not come as a voice or in words and gave no clues to its identity, or gender. I struggled against this force until I gave in and admitted, “OK, maybe there is a God!”

A quickly as it began, it was gone. I was released and all returned to normal. Still panting and tingling, I looked around at the ordinary room with the ordinary darkness. I moved my fingers and stretched. My rational mind kicked-in, skeptical. I thought, “I’m losing it. God did NOT just speak to me.”

I am here to tell you that the whole thing repeated itself again twice as strong; I was taken hostage by my own body! The moon light intensified once again and this time a voiceless scream rang through my head. I surrendered with, “OK, OK, I believe!” And it was all over.

“Hello, I’m Aphrodite” might have made the interpretation easier, but no, that is too easy. What I got was that it/he/she was BIG, INEFFABLE, and POWERFUL. What I heard was, “Shut up and listen, kid: THE UNIVERSE is ALIVE.”

Today I believe that the greatness of the Universe quickened within me, and spoke through my body and Spirit. At the time, I thought I’d been “called” to Christian ministry. I was horror-struck. I started running from that fate by exploring just about any forbidden thing my mother warned me about.

. . . But I digress. This story is about a night when I was 19. It was May of 1993, as I drove back from a freshman year at Marlboro College in Vermont, to my home town of Greenville, South Carolina. It was a hard first year out on my own. My parents separated just as I left for college. To escape the drama, I’d chosen a school as far from home as my father would finance and lived through a six month long, snow entrapped winter for the first time in my life. I thought I was there for Creative Writing, but I’d mostly studied religion and anthropology.

I’d crawled out from under my mother’s protective rock in the bible belt, and into progressive New England just in time to enjoy regular mind-blowings, including the study of neo- paganismand Wicca. As the rite of passage for all witches of the nineties I’d read Spiral Dance, Drawing Down the Moon, and many others, but I was still in a confused, reactionary state, and by this point had laid that aside as well.

My problem was that I was trying to replace the patriarchal form of “We are the only right way” with an even older matriarchal form of “We are the only right way.” Of course, Witchcraft doesn’t play that game. It’s metaphors, and non-dogmatic, “seek the truth from within” approach, would not give me the same comfort of absolutism in which I’d been raised. I was still too much the “sheep” to take the needed responsibility for my own path. What if I were wrong?

That year, I’d also fallen deeply into a sick and twisted love. We’d even played a short game of “engagement.” After six months I barely pried myself out of the black hole of partying and insanity to which my lover was already lost, and cried “uncle” on New England. I couldn’t wait to get back home but with my family now broken and moved away, there wasn’t much of a home left. This wasn’t my first heart-break and it wouldn’t be the last, but it felt like the end of the world. I was in deepest mourning and I didn’t have a clue who I was anymore.

As I drove down Interstate 85 that starry night, just past Charlotte, my mind churned in an anguished, lost pleading for answers. Why even bother to keep living; to keep opening myself up to loss and anguish? Was this just one long monotonous parade of day following day, months repeating themselves, seasons repeating themselves, suffering the relentlessness of staying alive until at last I would succumb to nonexistence?

For what purpose? Why not skip all the bother and just go ahead and snuff out? I was young and I thought I was faced with a life of nothing more than constantly battling the inherent forces of entropy and decay for no other reason than to make another generation who would just continue the struggle. In short, I was deathly afraid of meaninglessness.

Beside that black highway, I passed by this peach shaped water tower in Gaffney, South Carolina, that looks like an enormous ass glowing in the night. It is a ridiculous spectacle, totally unnecessary for the purpose of being a water tower. It is also fantastic in it’s over-the-top expression of pride for being in peach country.

~~CLICK~~

The moment of gnosis that bloomed within me was like a fourth of July grand finale. The point, I realized, was that we decide to give life meaning beyond the mundane. WE DECIDE to celebrate, to make art, and to live beautifully. Not just functionally. We CHOOSE to throw fabulous parties, and to revel in the sumptuous delights of existence along the way. We make wild, juicy, orgasmic love; not just procreate.

We gather the tribe and share feasts on the holidays; not just sustenance. We eat birthday cake. Why? Why not?! We make the key points along the never-ending cycle sacred. Why bother struggling against the cycle when you can celebrate it, flow with it, glory in the sureness of the dawn and the spring and the new babe?

It occurred to me that life truly was in the details. The efforts we put into making life grand and enjoying it are worship. We decide to give it meaning, then we back that up with effort and trappings and it has meaning. The struggle balances the reward; the gain balances the loss; the love balances the fear.

“Religion” shouldn’t be about being “right”, or serving “god” or duty, or heritage. It should be about fulfillment, growth and love, (and chocolate…everything should be about chocolate on some level.)

I choose if this is heaven, hell or purgatory. Do I focus on suffering, sacrifice and atonement? OR do I focus on love, balance and attainment? These were choices. I opened my eyes and saw that it is ALL Divine and the Divine is LOVE. I changed my mind, and the world around me changed; I emerged from fear into wonder and “god” was everywhere, saturating the world in delight.

I choose to live a life of love. I make cake. I throw parties. I decorate. I dance and make love, all as worship. What I sought, I found it within, and I was saved from fear.

I love; therefore, I am.

~~~~~~~~~
I’m Jason, I usually write most everything here at Raise the Horns but I’m far away from home (most likely at Stonehenge this morning if everything is going according to plan). Because I’m on the road with no time to write I got some of my friends to help out with the old blog. One of those friends is the author of this piece, Michelle “Heron” Jenkins. I met Michelle at the Sirius Rising Festival in 2012 where we became fast friends (we certainly hung out enough). This past Summer I got to visit her bookstore, The Sojo, and had a most excellent time. Michelle is an amazing Witch and an even better person. Thanks for helping me out Michelle!
______________

Heron is a Modern Witch, priestess, mom of two, artist, reiki healer, clairvoyant, business owner, neighborhood pariah, caretaker of The Sojourner Whole Earth Provisions, a metaphysical store, in Greenville, NC, through which she teaches Modern Witchcraft. She is a frequent lecturer at local colleges, universities, and festivals, and participates with the interfaith community. She is available to see private clients for past-life retrievals with reiki healing, tarot card readings, spiritual/magickal consultation and, for something completely different, Mehndi (Henna) temporary body art. Between all of that she sometimes finds time to writer at her blog, Heron’s Rook.

Previous Post

September 27, 2014

Lessons From a War Goddess

Next Post

October 1, 2014 On Ritual Without Faith

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Editorializing Gateways to Paganism Guest Posts Holiday Histories Led Zeppelin News and Views Occult Pagan Pagan TV Club Paganism polytheism Ramble On Reviews Ritual Strange Days Uncategorized

Select a Month August 2026 March 2026 February 2026 November 2025 September 2025 August 2025 April 2025 August 2024 April 2024 February 2024 December 2023 October 2023 August 2023 June 2023 May 2023 January 2023 October 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Select your answer to see how you score.

Jacob Cain Joseph Esau