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 Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 4:45 pm
Many stories are quite similar, but everyone has their own little chapter in the tale.
Tell us how you discovered, or chose to become Pagan whee
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Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 5:09 pm
Well, to understand how I grew up you have to know a little of my mother (She's the only one I've ever lived with, because I don't know my father).
My mother has always been as close to Pagan as she can be and still think herself Christian. She loves the trees and Earth, but she likes controlling them rather than living with them. She doesn't go to church because she hates all the "My church is better than your church" contreversy that goes on between the churches in this town. She's basically a Pagan but worships God and Jesus as we do the Lord and Lady, and she doesn't acknowledge "evil." Anything that's violent or Christian-contradictory she completely shuts out of her life. She wouldn't let me watch The Craft or The Crow or The Talisman (wow that's a lot of "The"s) or Edward Scissorhands (All movies that I really really wanted to see when I was younger) because they were "evil". However, a few years ago she ended up watching about 30 minutes of The Craft and seemed pretty intrigued, until they mentioned magick and she freaked out and changed the channel.
Okay, now back to me. I've always been pretty spiritually confused because of lack of information resources (until my discovery of the Internet, that is). When I was little I prayed every day that I remembered to because Mom told me I needed to , but I always felt really silly talking to some big dude up in the sky that never replied, and one night I just thought "Gee, doesn't this guy get tired of all these people asking him to do this or that every day?" And after that I didn't pray, except to thank him for good things that happened (so basically--never). Well, I went to chuch a bunch of times with my grandmother, trying to figure out what all the God hype was that kept happening, but I always got really confused and mad and wonder why I was left out of so many things (I didn't get to eat the crackers or grape juice that was passed around, nobody ever gave me a bible to sing out of, but I still had to donate when the plate came around), and I eventually gave up on that and started reading the Bible that one of my friend's mother's gave to me. Well that just arose more questions and I realized that the whole thing is a big hypocrisy. So when I was 8 I denounced Christianity within myself and decided to try to figure out my own beliefs.
Well, for a few years I started writig down my own thoughts and philosophies, and found out that all the answers were in myself, I just had to quiet my mind and look for them (I'm a firm believer in the Ancient Wisdom being a part of all of us). I've always had deja vu since I can remember, and the only dreams I can ever remember are bad ones warning me of things, and I eventually learned that my deja vu caeme from my forgotten dreams, and if I concentrate when I have deja vu I can get inklings on things that are close to happening, and sometimes actually predict what's going to happen. Well, until about a year and a half ago (I'm 16 now) I thought that I was all alone (My aforementioned friend had tried to rebel from her uber-Christian mother and gotten into basic teeny-bopper Wicca--the "Make your boobs bigger" and "Make all the guys like you" kind of crap spells--so the only connotations I had from Wicca or Paganism were negative). Then I met my current boyfriend and found out that his mother is Wiccan and his uncle is Pagan. Well, he started borrowing lots of books from his uncle and reading and sharing some of the more interesting information he found with me (There's a divine spirit within all of us, all souls--plants and animal and human--are connected, etc.) and I was like "Duh...wait, other people know about this, too?" and started to Stephen (my boyfriend) about some of the details of my philosophy and he was like "Hey that sounds a lot like this Celtic stuffI was looking at," so I borrowed a few books on Celtic Druidism from his uncle and it fit, so since then I've been calling myself Pagan. The Internet has been a great resource for finding other people who share my views and being not so alone, but instead of adopting one denomination of Paganism I prefer to just follow whatever I think; everyone's reality is different, and what fits a bunch of other people will never exactly fit me.
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Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 11:26 am
For me it wasn't so much a matter of finding the path so much as it was a matter of realizing what it was called and consciously deciding it was the right path for me.
When I was young I would do things like talk to the trees, and the earth. I would hug the trees and they were just as much my friends as the kids in my class. When I would get hurt, I used clovers to cover them like Band-Aids, and wove grass into a band to tie it on with. I would catch ladybugs and talk to them, tell them all my secrets.
When I just turned eleven I met a girl a few years older than me that was Wiccan, and she taught me everything she knew, and for a while I was Wiccan. I went to the local library and checked out books on witchcraft. Admittedly some weren't all that good, things like 'how to bring twenty bucks to you' spells. After a while I began to be able to sort through the crap and figure out what worked and what didn't (or what worked safely without bad karma).
Eventually my Wiccan roots blended with everything I was learning and everything I had figured out myself, and after a while, I realized I wasn't strictly Wiccan anymore, and more eclectic than anything.
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Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 5:09 pm
Well, I was raised Catholic. At one point in my life, I even wanted to be a nun! However, something never "seemed right" about the whole religious thing. I went to church every Sunday with my Mom and I took all the classes at school (confirmation, confession, etc) but I asked too many questions and I never felt at home.
When I went to regular school ( I went to Catholic school until I was 13), I started to learn more things. I watched TV shows about religion and such and watched and observed others. I kept this all to myself because my parents would have "killed me." Then one day I say an advertisment for this book, "The Magic Power of Witchcraft." I ordered it. When it came, I told my Mom that I have ordered it for one of my friends because she was too scared to send it to her house. She believed my story. I took the book to school to "give to my friend" and that started my true learning process. I bought book after book and now my library is quite extensive, but I have read each of those books! Anywhoo, I read and meditated and such and felt so at home! This is what religion is! At least to me....
All those questions and all those thoughts that I had growing up have answers and explanations now. I still keep my paganism under wraps at work (I have to) and around my Mother. My true friends know, my husband knows and I'm happy with that.
I went down the Wiccan path too, but it's not for me. I am much more ecletic and lean heavily on the druid/celtic way more that anything.
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Posted: Sun May 13, 2007 9:54 am
heart whee It's so great to hear other people's stories ^^ Almost everyone I've asked this question to has said that realizing their Pagan roots has felt like coming home 3nodding T'is great.
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Posted: Tue May 15, 2007 6:53 pm
well...almost everybody here knows i was raised Catholic (well, that's what my parents think lol)
any ways... i actually never liked catholicism, since i was....what...5..or 6 i think..i made myself ALOT of questions but i used to keep them to my self (i almost never speak, dunno why, but i hate speaking), so when i was like 8 i sais "enough" and i started to look for something else, what i was missing.
Since i was in a catholic school(with nuns) i read teh WHOLE bible...adn i thought it was just a big bunch of lies and hypocrisy and i hated beeing htere because the nuns were always like " jesus love syou, and he died fo r you and bla ...
well...let's say i'm not a saint ("rules were made for us to break them" i always say that) i used to spent half of the day at the principals office (nun) she always said stupid things like " jesus this... and u'll go to hell if you do this...and bla blabla" and i always asked her " well, if there is really a god, and he forgives everything, whys there a heel and what's it for?" after this she always shuted up and i could go home ((with a report ofcourse, but i always ripped them lol)) so this brought me a LOT of troubles at school, but i didnt care.
Since i was 9i started looking for other paths, until one day i felt a strange fellign when i was the word WICCA for the first time in my life, i start researching for it, and i loved it. I read a lot of stuff i actually did, i love nature ( i can spend hours looking at a tree, or standing infront of a river, or just talking to animals) so, as soon as i knew what it was about, i realized that was my path, and as some of you said, i felt like coming home.
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Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 3:37 pm
Well, I'd been brought up as a Christian for most of my life, and I always accepted that as what I should be. My parents aren't overly religious, but took us to Sunday school as kids. I never felt comfortable in the religion, it felt kinda like an add-on to everyday life, something I did on a Sunday out of guilt and feeling like I had to, though I read through the New Testament about 20 times. I never felt like I lived up to the religion because I couldn't make it my entire life I suppose.
My first boyfriend I had was in the 2nd year of university, and I started going to the Church of Mormon with him. I liked it there, but I still never felt like I really fit. After a few weeks of going out with him he pressured me into sleeping with him (which I didn't wanna do for religious reasons as well as not feeling ready personally), so this added onto the religious guilt trip majorly. But then I thought that if I stayed with him it would make it alright... and I did love him, though he was emotionally and sexually abusive towards me. Anyway, I found the sense to see what he was doing to me and left him after two years, then decided to rethink my life. While I was with him I wasn't anywhere near living as myself. I was constantly having to worry about offending him and not saying the wrong thing, and making up excuses for his behaviour to my friends and family. So, my religious views came under the spotlight during this time of restructuring my life.
I decided to research into different religions whilst keeping an open mind, and see what my heart was drawn to, and what felt right for me. I looked into a few different belief systems, I was quite drawn to Buddhism but it still didn't feel right to me. Then I came across aspects of the pagan beliefs, and they spoke to me straight away! The concept of the Goddess and God, and the flow of divine energy through all of life, amongst other things, really drew me to the beliefs, and it all feels so alive! Many things I'd pondered in my mind about the way things are are the same as many of the beliefs I found described. Now that I've begun to walk this path, I find that my religion is an intrinsic part of my everyday life, and I feel more myself than I have ever been!
I am grateful for the mistake I made in going out with my ex, because without that I would probably not have had the push I needed to re-examine my life and find this beautiful religion. I've learned to love myself and truly love others as a part of this path, and I couldn't be happier than I have been for the past few months! There is so much for me still to learn and discover, it's so exciting!
Sorry, this is a bit long sweatdrop
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Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 6:47 pm
Yay! ^.^
Don't worry about long posts, I think mine was longer than all of these sweatdrop
And besides: long, unabashed stories are the best! 4laugh
And way to go for you for leaving his a**!
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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 2:25 am
blaugh hehe! They always look a lot longer in this bit where you write them than on the final screen, I was half expecting it to stretch on for an entire page lol!
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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 8:21 am
Yeah I know!! The little box is so small xd
Wow, Gaia runs a lot faster when everyone's at school...
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Posted: Sat May 26, 2007 3:56 pm
How did I find Wicca?
Well, it all started last year...
The relationship I was in was failing slowly, and a magazine in the School Library caught my eye.
"Real Magic! Love Spells and more from a real teenage witch!"
Something like that...It was in a TeenPeople magazine...
Curious, I picked it up and read the story about a teenage witch who wanted to get closer to a boy in her class, after casting a spell, the teacher moved her seat closer to the boy.
She went on about the time when her dog was sick and how she casted a spell to make her dog better.
"Wicca" was the name of the religion.
And instantly I was interested.
I have to admit, when I first got into the path, mom didn't like it at all.
Dad, my grandparents, and most of my aunts and uncles are okay with it, but they don't want me to practice "Dark" magic.
I'll admit to this...
At first I was a fluffy bunny.
My initial reason for going into the path was to save a falling relationship(which failed anyway).
But my new reason for sticking with Wicca is this;
All my life I've wanted something to believe in...I didn't want to be agnostic for all of my life, and when I found Wicca I knew it was my destined path.
I've been studying Wicca for a year now, and I plan to continue my studies. My friends, for the most part accept my path, and as far as I can tell, my current boyfriend accepts that he's dating a wiccan.
I don't know any other wiccans IRL, but I'd like to meet one someday, though there is the possibility that I could be the only wiccan in my area. Most of the people I know are athiests, christians, agnostics and one of the teachers is a Muslim(He's a very nice person too.), yet the only people that know I'm wiccan are my close friends, my boyfriend, and my family.
3nodding
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Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 1:05 am
The way I found Asatru is a little different then most.
Throughout my life, I've been into mythology.
Most of the birthday presents I received when I was young where books related to Mythology in one way or another. ((Even got this huge encyclopedia of mythology... I loved that book T-T))... I had read all of them front to back, and loved the Norse Gods / Goddess and their stories, their strengths, their honor, courage, valor and the such.
Well, my family started to move around, and I lost my books. So I forgot about the legends, and the lore.
A bit more then a year ago, I got Medieval Total war, and the Viking Invasion expansion pack, I started to play through it, and got interested in the Vikings (Again), and started to do research on the vikings. Well, obviously I found large articles about the Norse religion, the Gods, the Goddess, the Nine worlds, and the such.
After much time, and self debate, I gradually converted myself.
Who wants to believe in, and worship some all powerful (Which I never believed), Deity? Some Deity that you have to be scared of, who you have to watch what you say around at all times, because if you don't, you'll suffer in some fiery Hell for all eternity? Not I.
So.... I have still yet to tell my family, though I will in time. I could honestly care less what any of them think, other then my father who I've got a great relationship with. I know he'll accept it once I talk to him about it, and show him that I've put much thought into it, and truly do believe in it, and am not just trying to 'hop on the bandwagon' when it comes to pagan religions.
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Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 2:52 pm
Aww, those are both wonderful ^.^ Books and magazines can be great sometimes 3nodding And don't worry Stargirl, a fluffy bunny was the first person to tell me about Wicca ^^ And I turned out pretty great whee
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Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 4:00 pm
The gods led me. Cernunnos called to me through many visions, and all I had to do was reach up at the oak branch, dripping with dew, and take hold of the torc. from there he proved his existance to me, and several others soon followed.
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Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 8:50 pm
it was actually a very long process. I suppose it started when my cousin had to do a summer report on her family lineage. Turns out one of our ancesters (female) was a wiccan. and she being rebellious to her catholic school roots decided to research it the next day. That was when we found our spirit guides.
It wasn't untill several years after that when I really started to doubt my christian upbringing. My parents had just announced that they were getting divorced and that threw me over, even being 12 at the time I saw the signs and prayed that it wouldn't go through. It did.
I went to church for the next two years but I looked at it all differently, and questioned it all just te same, heck I even went to bible camp. Then on another visit to the cousin, I saw that she had a book on Wicca and asked to borrow it.
And so for the past three years I have been making my solitary steps into this world. I just rcently told my parents, they're both fine with it but my dad thinks it's still a phase that i'm going to grow out of.
Not going to happen.
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