Welcome to Gaia! ::

i don't really know. what i do know is that i'm about 80% or more germanic so i know that my ancient ancestors were germanic pagans. and i'm really all about my ancestors. learning about were my ancestors came from and what they believed has brought me to believe in a lot of things they have.

I don't know any of my biological family history, so I have no way of knowing if any one else in my family ever was a witch. However in my adopted family my great grandmother (according to my mother) was very much like a witch in many ways. She read playing cards, and was very spiritual.

So I don't really know. I do wonder that from time to time, but I have no way of knowing right now the truth or not. I do know that when I was removed/taken away from my biological family that my mother was experimenting with some form of Satanism, maybe satanic witchcraft. I'd have to go deep with in my subconscious to find out...

All I know is that past or not I am a witch and proud of it. That's all that really matters to me. Nothing is going to change who I am and what I practice, so I don't really think about it that often. Besides we all come to this path for some reason, hereditary or not that's just how life is.

When I meant Hereditary I meant basically it has been in the family before. Like you I don't think it makes you a witch. What makes you a witch is your personal practice and if you so choose connection with deity. It does seem to me that Traditional Witchcraft involved some form of deity. That doesn't mean atheistic witches are any less valid. IMHO I don't understand it, but if it works for you then great! You have your own power!

We all get brought to this path for some reason. What it is we might not always know. We just follow our hearts, and really when you think about it that is where our magic comes from. Our hearts give us needs and desires. Listening to it makes us powerful. There may be other factors when it comes to spell crafting, but in general heart and desire = power.

My mom thinks that her grandmother may have been a witch with out claiming the title of witch.. is that possible?

I think the idea of a 'higher power' bothers some people or they don't fully appreciate the gamut of what 'higher power' can mean. Consequently they don't understand the wide gamut of what 'God' can mean either. I try to keep that in mind when regarding self-proclaimed Atheists - it isn't that they don't believe in that entire wide spectrum of 'God' or are insisting there is no power greater than their own ego. So I doubt the average Atheistic Witch truly places themselves on a pedestal; they're probably still befuddled by what someone said God is 'supposed' to be and have yet to recognize that what someone said about God and what God actually is are very often two completely different things.

Anyway, as far as heredity goes... no clue. However, I have absolutely no doubt that it's in my ancestry somewhere. I have absolutely no doubt it is in the ancestry of every single human being alive. And that it pervades back even further beyond humanity and into that first cell out of which all other life came. The interconnected, unified multiplicity of all living things.... that's magical heritage in of itself.

I guess. You label people all the time don't you? Like you see someone walking up the street and in your mind you say "Prep" or "Goth Wanna Be" or "Emo", so It's possible to label someone a witch without them thinking themselves to be a witch...

oO; You know?

Hmmm....I would say that curiosity of other religions brought me into Paganism.

I was an atheist, but still curious about all of the other religions out there besides the Abrahamic Three, so I did some surface research on some other religions which brought me to Paganism, which in turn pointed me towards some shoddy sources on Neo-Wicca. The whole idea of a nature-honoring religion that valued balance, the natural cycles (lunar cycles, the solstices and equinoxes, the seasons, etc...) and encouraged spellwork was very interesting to me. So I kept researching online and popped into a few Pagan threads here on Gaia to help me learn.

I then was educated that what the interwebs called "Wicca" was not actually Wicca. I sort of felt like what I was now doing and calling it was an affront to Traditional Wicca, so I stopped and went back to the drawing board. I was still very interested in Paganism, but I didn't want to just give up on it because I was misinformed. I started some meditation on the different pantheons and learning a bit about the different gods. I had particularly felt a draw to the Norse pantheon, so I started there. It was quite an amazing feeling, studying the deities and the culture they came from; sort of like "Ah! This is it 3nodding ." So I continued my digging about the Norse pantheon and discovered that there was a branch of Paganism devoted to it and the historical practices of it: Asatru. whee I had found my appropriate niche in Paganism.

And that is how Violett became Asatru.

The End.

What is Nahara-Ak?
Can you provide us with a website? Does the temple have a website?
Who is Rulke? I'm not finding him on Godchecker.