My Religious Transformations

My religious choices have been the proverbial "Long and Winding Road" throughout my life.

The house of my parents was ruled by my mother. She made the decisions, and my father went along. On Sundays, particularly, the entire morning was devoted to church and sunday school. My mother played the organ and directed the choir in a Methodist church on LBI, taking no salary, and also taught sunday school. The church was not a joyful place for me. I was teased and tormented by most of the same kids I went to school with, and I was bullied by many of the adults, since I was "Mabel's daughter and supposed to be setting an example for the other children to follow. "

This song got drummed into our heads at an early age:


I wish some of the adult members of that church had taken the words to heart.

My mother left that church heartbroken when a family member of one of her sunday school students reacted to a comment she had made before she begun class. The comment was about one of the girls needing to wear deodorant- the girl was not named or singled out. Specifically, my mother said that somebody in the front row had body odor.
Yes, this should have been handled privately, and with much more tact. Tact was never my mother's strong suit. The girl's grandmother came to our house and started screaming and yelling. I was dancing in my room to a loud radio, and I could hear this woman carry on at our front door. A few weeks later, my mother had her first heart attack, and decided to turn over everything regarding the church music to the minister's wife, who, of course, demanded that the church pay her for the work that my mother had done for free.

We didn't go to church after that for about four years. I felt an attraction to a more formal and ceremonial kind of religion. I would go upstairs and listen to a radio show where the rosary was prayed. I learned to pray it along with them. My parents were very unhappy about this, especially my father, whose parents had come to the US from Northern Ireland because of the religious warfare over there.
I had a great aunt who had lived with us for four years until she died, and she attended the Episcopal Church. I found her Book of Common Prayer, and liked the things I read within the pages. At age 17, on my own I attended a service at the Espicopal church in Beach Haven. I enjoyed it, and felt welcomed, My mother came with me the next week, and for sundays after that, and continued going after I had started college and was living on my own.



I was active in the Episcopal church for 22 years. I became a Lay Eucharistic Minister at All Saints' in Florience, SC, and continued that ministry when I moved to Florida. Both of my children were baptized in the church; my son was confirmed, and became the first acolyte to reach Master Acolyte status at St Clement's church in Tampa, FL. My daughter was also a Jr. Acolyte at St. Clement's, but changes were on the way.

In 1990, I was in an accident during the course of my duties as a social worker for the state of Florida. The accident left me permanently disabled. For four years, I fought a tooth and nail battle against the state (my former employer) that left me destitute before it was all over. I lost my home, and the state wasn't even going to pay the medical bill for the five day hospitalization after the accident until I got an attorney and sued them!
My financial situation was such that my children had to be separated, with my daughter living with her father. My son's father was out of the picture, as I had terminated his parental rights due to his violent nature. I had debilitating migraine headaches that were not diagnosed until two years after the accident. I had permanent back and neck injuries, the effects of which I will deal with every day for the rest of my life.

I would go into the church every Sunday and pray and pray to God to settle this case- not just for my sake, but for the sake of my children, who were both suffering due to my financial instability. My son and I subsisted on my worker's comp checks and food stamps, and whatever money my son could earn doing odd jobs, or acolyting at weddings at church. The months and years went by and nothing happened. I would hear "God will do something in his time." I went along with that line of thinking for a bit, but then decided to take matters into my own hands and help things along.

I started working with Astrology at age 11. At age 15, I added Palmistry and Numerology to my studies. Living in Tampa, I started meeting people who were attracted to various means of Divination, also known as Fortune Telling. Some of these people were learning things that went beyond mere Divination. They were learning Magick, and Witchcraft.

I started out with a book called "Helping Yourself with White Witchcraft". It was a pretty good beginning book, although I would find out later that some of the information wasn't entirely accurate. Since I was still attending church, I obtained two more books called, "Powers of the Psalms" and "The Greater Key of Solomon the King". The first book taught how to use the Psalms for Magick, with candles, parchment inscriptions, etc. The second book was much more powerful and advanced. It contains several series of Planetary Talismans (pentacles) that you make and consecrate. I was so broke, I picked up tin can lids by the railroad tracks in Tampa to make the Jupiter pentacles. Since I could not work, my time was pretty much my own, so I could get up at the appropriate planetary hour (which the books taught me how to calculate) and perform the rituals at the most effective times of the day.

Within two months after I started doing this, my injury case, which had dragged on for four years, was settled. The state very suddenly came up with an offer, my attorney made a counter offer, and the state took it. I had a second attorney who got me $15K MORE a few months after the initial settlement. WHOO HOO!!

I was buying my books at a store in Tampa called Merlin's (it is no longer there). I showed the owner the pentacles that I had made. The owner, Richard Clear, told me that he gave a year and a day class in Wicca, and offered to teach me. It was free of charge- we only had to buy the books, and he sold them to us at cost. Dayna had moved out of the area by then, and encouraged me to go ahead and learn with Richard and his group. Lots of good things came out of this- this is where I met my Jim!! Of course, that romance didn't happen until a few years later, but he was the man who initiated me into the Craft.

During the time I was studying Wicca and Magick formally (with a formal class and not on my own or one on one with Dayna), this song kept running through my head:



I guess there was a small vestige of fear or regret. It was a big change. I certainly don't hate Jesus. The way I thought of Jesus changed. I had a dream the night after the initiation, where I met Jesus and started to cry, and asked him if I had hurt him by making this change. He told me not to be sad, that he was no longer my lord, but my brother, and he'd still be around when I wanted/needed him to be.

In the years that followed, I learned more about the ancient Pagan Gods and Goddesses. Here are some songs that I've sung in wiccan circles-2 different songs:




I also wrote some wiccan and pagan songs of my own during this time.

In 2001, I saw full force the two-faced nature of the organized Pagan community. The tipping point was the safety of my then 12 year old daughter. We were meeting at a nudist facility in Pasco county. The owner also made the club available for Swingers' meetings, and allowed them to come into our worship area and gawk. We were not allowed into their area, which included the pool and hot tub, but they could freely trek in and out of ours and disrupt what we were doing. The last straw was when my family was rehearsing the ritual we were performing, and two men wearning loin cloths and nothing else stood about 10 feet away from my daughter, lifted their loin cloths, and shook their "junk" at her!!! I was not amused.

Other things happened, and we broke from the large group and did our own rituals on our property. It was the same kinds of negative things that had existed in toxic churches, just with a different religious slant. I began to get curious about the traditions of the Northern Europeans, since that is my ethnicity, and read the book "Northern Myths and Magick" by Freya Aswynn. I was mesmerized! I thought I had finally found what I have been looking for.

In 2002, I began to study Asatru with the now-defunct Osprey Bay Kindred. I met the author, Freya Aswynn, in person, and sponsored her first and only Rune Workshop in Florida:



I learned a lot from Heathenism- took away some life lessons that have made me a better, more self-reliant and productive person. However, once again, the group dynamics changed with a change in leadership, and became toxic. The good folk of the Tampa Heathen Association welcomed me to some of their functions, but the price of gas and the lousy economy made it cost prohibitive to go very often after a while.

So, here we sit in Sebring. Well, we do a lot more than sit. I have a hearth of my own, and am seeking out locals who are pagan. They usually attend services at Unity - haven't been yet, but I'll probably go check it out.
My main worship is done at home, either in my own back yard, for when I want to feel close to nature or honor the land wights, or in our bedroom. I've come full circle about a lot of things, and am more of a Unitarian Universalist type now.

There is truth and beauty in almost every religion- haven't seen much of it in Satanism, but then I would never attend one of their rituals. The danger comes when religions become centered around the leader, the minster/ priest/ high priestess/ chieftain, and turn into cults. The danger comes also when the group turns inward, sees themselves as better than other bodies and styles of worship, takes an "our way or the highway" attitude, and seeks to isolate the members and to discourage them from befriending others who are not a part of the church/ coven/ kindred. I saw that in the Methodist church in Beach Haven Terrace, NJ; in As Always Coven, and after the change in leadership of the OBK. I have never seen this attitude in an Episcopal Church I have attended, but I also know that going back there as a full member is not for me now. I've seen too much beyond the scope of any christian church to be able to return as a "believer"- just a guest who will go to see a grandchild baptized, etc.

The lovely moon is beckoning me outside for worship and adoration. Thanks for reading!