Something Wicca this way comes…

Technically I am not a Wiccan, I hate labels but pushed as most of you know class myself as Pagan.  I am only in the early stages of my journey in my beliefs, still feeling my way along as you might say which is why althoug I read avoricously through blogs and fb posts from various groups of different branches of paganism I do not class myself at this time as belonging to one specific branch. I never really intended in using this blog to go into my beliefs I hate people preaching at me and try to avoid it at all cost but today I am going to make a little exception, not in the idea of converting anyone but more in talking about me and why I feel the way I do.

I grew up in a little village surrounded by fields and woods.  I have always felt at home there, even now if I dont get out into the fresh air at least once a day I go a little crazy.  Just after my son was born 4 years ago I noticed my back hurt.  Well normal you would think…so did I.  Then a part of my thigh went numb the midwife said don’t worry mention it at your six week check up.  By my six week check up I could barely stand never mind lay down flat for the examination that followed.  My doc to her credit diagnosed a slipped disc immediately and referred me to physio.

The physio pulled a few strings to get me an MRI scan and toget me referred to the consultant.  In all this process took six months I will not go into the whole scans and rereferrals here but those six months were the darkest of my life.  I spent months trapped in my own home, well actually upstairs as I could not get up and down them.  I suffered from depressions I had a new baby I could not care for properly and was out of my head on drugs most of the time that did not take the pain away but at least numbed the edge of it.  It turned out it was three discs that had slipped not just one and the road to recovery has been long and hard and I still have a long way to go.

But last year I turned forty and decided that things had to change.  My life had been on hold waiting for my back to improve and it was but very slowly.  So I wrote myself a list of things I wanted to achieve in life one of which was my novel.  And it was through my novel that my journey on the pagan path really began.  In researching medieval religions, witchcraft and the like I started to find they shared many of my beliefs or should that be I shared theirs.  I am not sure how I classed myself really before I had beliefs I had faith in an afterlife of sorts in that I didn’t believe that we existed without purpose but I couldn’t believe in a God one all powerful being controlling everything.  I did believe we were all connected though through spirit and this was where I was drawn to Paganism.  The connection to the natural world and everything in it.  When I sit in the woods or in a field I never feel alone in many ways I feel more connected to the earth than I ever have in a room full of people.  Since starting to explore this side of my nature I see far more than I ever did before (anyone on my fb knows this from the sheer numbers of photo’s I take and believe me you guys have only seen a small percentage) and in seeing the beauty of nature afresh I draw inspiration from it and in turn it refreshes and invigorates me.  Could I happily go live in the woods? Hmm probably not I do like my creature comfort and without internet how would I read all your wonderful blogs but could I go live in solitude away from town life yes, yes, yes.  I take great pleasure in sharing the natural world with my son now and watching as he sees it all with the wonder of a childs eyes.  Do I share my beliefs with him no not really one he is only four and secondly I believe he has to find his own way the same as his sister did (she is an athesist) I did however make sure she experienced and learnt about different beliefs and for a while she did have her own now as a teenager she is sceptical and believes in science and when she is older who knows.  She has inherited from me though a way of looking at the world around her and seeing the beauty in the simplest flower or the drift of the clouds across the sky.  Only last week she shouted me to look out the window at the moon as the way the clouds were drifting across it were spectacular that night.

I think the relationship I have with my Goddess is in someways a personal one, I don’t feel I have to be part of a group to experience it or shout it from the rooftops (which is contradictory I know as I am here blogging about it) but I believe it is something within me which connects me to her deep inside my and that I need only listen to hear where the next step on my journey will take me.  In many ways Paganism is like a huge nature reserve, there many be many paths traversing its depths, paths crossing before diverging only to rejoin at a different point and each person must take their own route as I take mine.

Anyway maybe this will help you get to know me a little better maybe not but I will wish you all a peaceful, inspired and blessed day.