Welcome to Gaia! ::

i'm also an "in-the-closet" Wiccan, just some of my closest friends know i'm a wiccan, you don't need to worry, my whole family is REALLY catholic and i wear a pentacle necklace ALWAYS i never take it off...it is not a bad thing, i sure that people wont notice...so don't be afraid of using one, except if you think that your parents won't like that or something like that. 4laugh it is really up to you

i wear mine almost everyday, and no one seems to mind, if you're afraid you'll get berated by wearingit around your family then wear it under your shirt. but after the inital questions (assuming there are any) people will get used to it.

Another thing to remember, is that you can easly empower any necklace to have the same meaning and function as a penticle. If you don't feel comfortable with wearing a penticle neclace in public, or at home for that matter, then find a different symbol. A circle on a chain could represent the circle of everything, the wheel of the year, any great multitude of things. It dosen't have to be a penticle for it to be speical.
I have a pair of sacred spiral earings, and to anyone that didn't know it, they would just look like pretty spirals. You can also use jewlery as color representation. Most of my jewelery is silver, the color of the goddess, and today for instance, I have a pair of green earings on, for the color of growth and renewal, and the comeing of spring. I also have a loop earing on my top left lobe that symbolizes the wheel of the year, for it is a holoday. I am also wearing my sacred spiral earings on the bottom holes, and my penticle ring, necklace, and belly ring.
If you are creative, you can work around anything. 3nodding

The most problem I ever had was a strange look form a elderly person or two. Most people don't care anymore, and if they do.. well then they'll get over it eventually.

I do have a brass ring with a leaf pattern on it...
It's big enough to fit on my pinkey, but it's still really pretty.

I guess I could say the leaves are the leaves of the great tree, right?
That could count as a symbol...Right?

As long as it means something to you it's a symbol 3nodding Other people don't have to know what it means, as long as you like it.

And as for the initial question, I'm pretty much sitting on the doorstep of the closet with the door wide open (lol). I wear my pentacle necklace to school and public functions, but take it off when I'm around my family because I haven't openly declared that I'm a different religion than they are. If they asked, I'd gladly explain it to them.

I don't really know the people in your family or town, but it really depends on how much they know you if they'll bug you about it or not. A few people made "Oh that's a pretty necklace" comments about my pentacle (It's silver with a mother-of-pearlish stone in the center of the star) when I started wearing it, but no one really seems bothered by it --except for one teacher who keeps bugging me to go to church, but she can get over it. However, my boyfriend's little brother is a stupid troublemaker and he usually wears the pentacle just to be cool, and he tries to fit in with everyone so no one really knows him, and when he drew a pentacle on his jacket the school and all his "friends" started bugging him and teasing him.


So, to sum it all up, it's up to you. If you want to openly declare your devotion to your religion, go ahead. But be prepared for questions and statements such as: "Are you a Satanist?" "Do you hate God?" "Honey, give God another chance, Jesus loves you" "Are you Gothic?" etc.

i suggest a long chain... you can tuck it into your shirt .... i wear mine on a long chain to family events to placate my mother....