VOICES: Connection to Calm

At church camp, when I was younger, I was always the first to
memorize our Bible verses—”God hath given us eternal life, and
this life is in his son”—and the first to participate in our
church music groups, writing songs and singing them onstage during
worship.

My favorite Bible story was about Noah and the ark. I loved how he
and his family lived with so many animals, and no one was hurt. But I
was also the one who questioned everything we were taught at camp:
Sure, something had created us, but how did we know it/he/they
had stayed around to watch over us? If God was real, why didn’t he just
show himself instead of working through other people? And how could we
be sure we weren’t just doing things on our own?

When the leaders at my church didn’t answer my questions, or asked
me to be quiet, I wondered if they actually knew what they where
talking about. How could any of us actually know what Jesus and God
wanted? If my teachers couldn’t answer me, did that mean they were
fakes?

Although they caused me a lot of confusion at the time, my questions
became the basis for a new kind of spirituality—Wicca—that
has taught me to remain calm and steady.

Over time, I became annoyed and stopped wanting to go to church, and
eventually stopped attending. Not long after, Child Protective Services
took me from my mother—it’s a long story—and I stopped
believing in God altogether. I didn’t understand why this was happening
to me and my family, and I wasn’t sure who or what to believe. It felt
as if everyone was trying to keep my family apart, like I had been lied
to my whole life. I was confused, and my confusion became anger. Anger
grew into physical violence.

I let my anger loose at my middle school. I didn’t want to wait for
answers anymore. I wanted to fight back and hurt anyone I could. I
wanted others to feel how I felt. Looking back, I was detached from
myself, living in a fog. But when I fought, and the other girls hit me
hard enough, the fog would clear. But the fights only temporarily
relieved me of my anger, offering an hour or two of peace to recuperate
from the physical pain I had endured. I knew fighting was only a small
relief, but I didn’t know what else I could do. I needed an escape.

In one of my classes at the time, I talked with a friend about The
Black Dagger Brotherhood, a series of books I was reading. In the
books, the vampires had their own Goddess who had created them. One had
a physical form and showed herself to all of her creations. I loved the
idea of being able to actually see, hear and feel the very thing you
worshipped, to have some form of confirmation, communication. Just
before our teacher interrupted, my friend said one more thing to me:
She was Wiccan.

At the time, I didn’t know what Wicca was. But a quick Web search
changed that. I learned that Wicca was a nature-based, neo-pagan belief
system. The fact that Wiccans worshiped both a God and Goddess equally
was surprising to me, as I was used to hearing that there was only a
male divine figure. But I liked the idea and felt it was
right—women are the ones who give birth to the next generation.
Wouldn’t it be fitting for a woman to give birth to the worlds’
existence?

Soon, I started seeing signs of Wicca everywhere: in the fantasy
books I read, a tattoo on someone’s arm, a simple piece of jewelry. The
idea seemed to haunt me. As I wandered around my school library, I
found a book on Wicca for young adults in the reference section. I sat
down on the floor and read.

As I read, I was most attracted to how Wicca could be practiced
alone, and that solitary practice is common among teenagers.

Carol Garr, high priestess of the Tucson-based Silver Midnight Coven
and co-founder of Mother Earth Ministries, which ministers to prison
inmates, advises new Wiccans to choose how they practice carefully.
Covens—close-knit groups of practitioners who share similar
beliefs—are one option for Wiccans. But Garr cautions, “You’re
better off being solitary than being in the wrong coven.” For example,
it wouldn’t be a helpful or pleasant experience to worship with people
who do not share your values.

Equality is also central to Wiccans. According to Garr, “We teach
that all paths are valid to those (who) believe them as long as it
makes them a better person.” Simply, Garr means that if the religion a
person follows helps them to do good, then Wiccans will respect it.

I had been taught that there is only one right path, one true
religion, one God, and only one way to worship him. To be able to be
part of the Wiccan religion, but still have the choice to worship
differently without being criticized, was comforting.

Something inside of me needed what Wicca offered. At the time I
found Wicca, I was staying with a foster mother who was not happy about
my newfound interest. As soon as she learned that I had books on Wicca
in her house, she fought with me until I got rid of them. But a little
more than a year later, when I was reunited with my mother, my practice
got more serious. This time, I hid my studying from my mother until I
was sure I wanted to dedicate myself and pick Wicca as my true
religion.

Finally, I told my mother. Even though she had raised me as
Christian, she accepted my decision and was proud of me for making my
choice.

With my decision came change. I took Wicca seriously, because it
gave so much to me: My readings in Wicca taught me that we are supposed
to respect ourselves and others, neither of which I was doing. Soon
after, when people tried to fight me, I didn’t jump in. I started
studying at a close friend’s house, and my grades improved. I set aside
time every night for homework and school projects, and I stopped
ditching classes.

Wicca has given me a calm that I’d never felt as a Christian. Now,
after choosing Wicca as my true religion, I no longer feel confused. I
don’t feel the need to fight. I don’t feel as if I am talking to a
mediator, like the meaning of my words gets lost by the time it gets to
the Divine. I am finally getting answers to my questions.

Cathrine Suddarth spoke to Carol Garr, the co-founder of Mother
Earth Ministries, which provides Wiccan guidance and counseling to
prison inmates and their families. She is also the high priestess of
the Silver Midnight Coven.

I was raised Jewish, but I never really felt like that was where I
belonged. When I was your age, I just felt like I was weird. I believed
that nature was sacred, and I felt the connection to all life. I always
kind of thought of myself as a witch, but I never knew why. And then I
read Diary of a Witch, by Sybil Leek. That was an awakening for
me, because I read that book and said, “Oh yeah, that is what I
am.”

When I was in college, I saw a little ad in the paper, and it was a
coven call. It gave the date, and it was at Himmel Park. So I went and
I hung out in the background, and I liked the vibes and the people. So
I started to go to what they still call the cauldronluck: a potluck for
witches.

(Paganism) is an umbrella of nature-based religions. Native
Americans who are not Christianized are pagan. Druids are pagan. Wicca
is one facet of Paganism. And even within Wicca, there are many facets.
There are the more traditional Gardnerians, and the next branch of the
Gardnerians, the Alexandrians. I consider myself an eclectic Wiccan: I
use what works. And that’s because I didn’t learn from a coven; I
didn’t learn from a book; I learned from the energies of life. I felt
the Goddess’ heartbeat.

Wicca always addresses at least some aspect of the feminine deity.
There is one denomination within Wicca that downplays the masculine.
Personally, that doesn’t work for me. The complementary opposite of the
Goddess and God energy makes sense to me—just like you can’t have
energy flow from a battery if you don’t have a positive terminal and a
negative terminal. You have to have both, or it doesn’t work. None of
us got here without both a mother and a father.

(Wicca) is a worldview. I notice the flowers when they’re blowing
(in the wind). I notice the scent of the breeze. I watch the moon
phases. And (I) stop and say hello to the moon, and to the stars, and
look at the sun, and draw the energy in and interact with the forces of
nature in everything I do.

Magic is the direction of energy by force of will: faith-healing.
You go to a church, and they say God did it. We as Wiccans know God
didn’t do it. We did it. We asked for energy help; we asked the
energy to aid us; we asked the Goddess and the God to aid us.

This article appears in May 7-13, 2009.