Who am I?

This is a resounding question for so many of us, and one I’ve been thinking about a lot, esp since re-creating this blog.

I have a brief “hello, this is me” at the start of my blog, but a recent experience has had me digging deeper, and this is part of that exploration.

Who we are can get so muddled by how we are raised, by who we are taught we should be because of family expectations… by society & what we see on TV & in our social media feeds. Even how the news spins events gives us an idea of what is acceptable to be or to do in today’s world.

But we are so much more than these things that are put upon us – and finding that part of us that truly is at the core of who we were created to be is not an easy task!

Who was I raised to be, told that I was? A Christian. A good, obedient girl. Someone who went to church, believed in God, prayed, read the Bible & never spoke my mind. Because good girls were silent, obedient & reverent. I was taught to tow the line, be submissive, keep the peace – don’t raise your voice, go against the flow or be “different”.

(In full disclosure, I think my mother knew I was different from early on & didn’t know what to do with that except try to train in out of me. She had a book on her nightstand “How to Raise a Spirited Child” & regularly told me that I needed to stop doing things just to be – that word again – different. Little did she know just how strongly that would backfire as an adult! 🙃)

And for 30+ years, it worked for me. I didn’t ask myself questions, I didn’t look closely in the mirror. I was comfortable. I didn’t rock the boat, I blended in with those around me. I never even questioned whether or not I was happy.

Then one day, I began to wake up. Call it maturity, call it no longer having any fucks to give after years of not being myself, but I began to see the world differently, and those around me with new eyes. I began to question whether or not one religion could possibly hold all the answers, and whether or not it was reasonable that those ‘answers’ sent a large majority of the world to hell if they weren’t believed. I began to see organized religion as a way to control the masses & ostracize anyone who was remotely different. I wasn’t comfortable in church anymore. I didn’t want to sit & listen to patronizing sermons or partake in trivial conversations. I didn’t want to be part of a system that shunned any part of humanity.

I began to realize that I was created to do more than walk this earth with my head down, my eyes closed & my heart shut off because it had been taught to acquiesce to those around me, maintain the status quo. Fit in.

[Mini focus shift here to say that I don’t have a problem with Christianity as a whole – I, too, have faith in a Higher Power & believe we were created for something greater. In some ways my Christian training will never leave me, and I take no issue with anyone walking a Christian path, as long as it is one of love, kindness & support for those around them. It is when the opposite becomes true that I get twitchy. 😉]

I wanted to study. To learn. I began to delve into herbalism & yoga & crystals. I learned mantras & what chakras were. I studied the sabbats & the wheel of the seasons. I learned that Christianity borrowed (stole?) from many other belief systems in creating their own, systems that were around long before the Bible was written – and then had the audacity to criticize the very beliefs they stole from. I began to see that people who held differing beliefs were still good, reverent people – but on their own path, not the one they were being told to follow. I bought Tarot & Oracle cards. Not because I had any idea how to use them but because the idea of communing with the Universe held so much truth for me. The idea of learning to look inside of myself for the answers of who I was, what I believed & who I wanted to be became almost as vital to me as breathing.

And I found witchery.

Anyone who’s known me for a long time probably wasn’t surprised by this – it was a natural progression of the path I was on. I am, at my core, a rebel.

Surprised?

Trust me, no one was more surprised than me.

Not many see it, because it was repressed out of me by 30+ years of “do the right thing, be the right thing, never misstep and NEVER shake the system”. But it was there – I just kept it in check. And it was easy, because I am also an intensely insecure person. Who rebels when their nature is to say, “… but is this okay? Am I still okay, do you still like me?” However, it was there, bubbling under the surface, even though it only showed itself in the smallest of ways.

I am no longer a “follower”.

I spent so much of my childhood and early adult years being one that I thought it was just a part of who I was. But my desire to NOT be like everyone else was making its way to the surface – I just couldn’t see it yet. Things that should have shown me who I was were there – I just wasn’t looking. The fact that I spent so many years NOT looking at myself will always be a regret of mine.

I intensely dislike authority that exists for authority’s sake & those closest to me know how much I hate doing what I’m told just because I’m told to do it – it will literally almost force me into doing the exact opposite. My mother called me “willful” – but really, I just wanted to understand things. I DIDN’T want to just follow the crowd, but it got so drilled into me that by adulthood I was doing it without even realizing it. So what small stances did I take? Ones that allowed me to feel like I was standing up for myself without creating a fuss.

If there was a fad out there? I wanted no part of it. A popular TV show or movie? I never watched it. The latest famous label? No thank you. (When Game of Thrones became popular, I couldn’t stand the amount of chatter surrounding it and turned my back, while everyone who knew me was like, “But this is YOUR genre! It’s costumes & medieval & wolves & DRAGONS!!” And I was seriously like, “Whatever… ” until I finally gave up my pride before S5 & caved. Because if the entire universe was talking about whether or not this Jon Snow guy had really died, maybe I’d give it a go. And of course – I loved it & never looked back. 😁)

But did any of those things really make me any better or any stronger in who I was? Not at all… they were just symptoms of a larger problem – not knowing how to express who I really felt I was.

All that to say – the word “witch” strikes at the heart of being different. It invokes reactions. Whether they’re good or bad, they’re intense. It is a word of the olde world, of secrets & signs, of rebellion & empowerment. It is a dicotomy between the good & the bad.

And all those things appeal greatly to me.

After years of repression, I found a way to shake things up in my life & begin to reclaim my power. My strength. My own belief system.

Does this mean I wear black, summon the devil & make sacrifices?

Absolutely not. That is Satanism, NOT witchery. Or at least not the witch that I subscribe to being.

If you google the word “witch” & look at the images, 99% of what you see is old women with warts on their noses, black cats, bats, broomsticks, cauldrons & spiders. (Okay, and in today’s modern world, you also get the random “sexy witch” – but she also sports a hat, striped stockings, a broom & most likely a cauldron or black cat.)

Guess what? That’s not a witch.

A witch is so many things – but what it is not is an image. A conjuring of spells & black magick & voodoo. In reality, it is (most often) someone who communes with nature. Who observes the cycles of the moon & tries to live a life aligned with the Universe. Who believes we were given things in this world – herbs, crystals, seasons – to connect not only with the Universe but with the world around us & our deeper selves. To heal. One who holds spirituality very close to themselves but does not believe it makes them any better than those around them – someone who is intensely aware of their power & their energy & believes it makes them stronger. Vital. It is someone who believes magick comes from within, if we give ourselves the grace & the time to learn who we really are & align our lives with that truth.

So yeah. I’m witchy. I’m a dreamer. I’m a lover of the moon, an owner of more crystals than I will ever fully understand how to use. I’m a novice herbalist & I love a good Tarot spread. I believe in the power of the mind to commune with nature & in what the Universe has to teach us, both as a whole & personally. I believe every person on this earth has a place within it & something to teach others as they walk through life. I throw intentions into the fire & I talk to the skies.

And yes, I occasionally wear a black hat (for fun), I own a black cat (who actually belongs more to my husband than me) & I have a cauldron. And if I’m honest, I believe everyone should – because life is too short to be normal.

✨✨ Blessed be! ✨✨