New Year, New Leaf

 When I was a teen until I was 20, I practiced as a solitary witch with my deities as Bridgid and Pan as I was drawn to them. 

Being a teen in a house full of strict “burn witches at the stake” Christians, I was in the closet about a lot of things including my practice. Mum would literally burn anything remotely non-Christian and then lecture about having the same. Often using guilt and verbal abuse to drive her points home. Suffice to say this period of my life required, and still requires, a lot of counselling to overcome.

When I turned 20, I became depressed. My understanding of the craft was still very limited and back then the ease of researching anything was difficult as there wasn’t communities like this or even internet fast enough to research without being caught. All I had was a book that was unrealistic and unhelpful. 

Looking back on that book now, it was one that appears when something becomes popular. When I was a teen, shows like Charmed and Sabrina were popular and showed “witchcraft” as fun and interesting. I couldn’t understand why if I banished someone from my life that they didn’t go away no matter how much I believed.

My depression sparked my atheistic view. Deities didn’t exist and if they did their priorities focused on healing someone’s sight instead of the thousands who die without food and water. I stopped practicing and because of that my connection to my spiritual self faded away.

The only aspect that remained was my connection to owls. Owls had been my spiritual totem/guide and I was always surrounded by owl figures, toys, whatever I could get my hands on. It was they that drew me back. I’m 34 now, just to put that out there.

I began to find crystal owls. They drew me to crystals in general. Then to essential oils, candles, and then colour magic. It was like clicking on related items in Pinterest or YouTube until you are somewhere completely different from where you started. It brought back a lot of memories, both good and bad.

But I had a cognitive dissonance with the idea of returning back to practicing. My world view as an atheist was strong but my wish to honour the male and female aspects, if I was to return to practicing, was also strong.

So I began to research. I found a few atheist witches online but their practices were confusing and had a stronger cognitive dissonance with what they practiced as something had to give way which meant shutting down a part of who you where in order to practice. I couldn’t practice that way.

I knew I needed to focus more on nature rather than deities. I became drawn to Native American imagery of owls and the idea of Mother Earth and Father Sky. Removing the deity aspect from them, using the Earth as the feminine aspect and the Sky as the masculine aspect sat comfortably in my mind. To me, the idea of using the Sun as male and Moon as female worked too but the pull towards Earth/Sky was stronger.

But, I still feel I need to research and learn more before I start practicing again. I want to practice with myself as a whole and not having to hide or pretend a part of me doesn’t exist just to practice. It would be a disservice to myself if it was any other way.