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Friday, August 22, 2014

Q is for Questions

For this week's Pagan Blog Project post, I wanted to address some questions I often get regarding my spirituality. Where to even begin? Anyone who is part of the pagan community knows that as soon as someone finds out you're pagan, the dam breaks and the questions and judgement flow out

However, I don't want to address the most common questions, the one's you will find in my FAQ and the ones we are all generally asked. I want to talk about some questions that even other pagans ask me. The first is if I am Wiccan. No, I am not Wiccan. I used to be in a very loose sense of the word. When I first started "dabbling" in the Craft, Wicca was convenient. The books cover shelves in every major bookstore and information online is prevalent. This made it easy to study, but after about a year I realized it wasn't for me.

Why wasn't Wicca for me? Wicca is a religion. I didn't need religion; I needed spirituality. I didn't need the structure or the deities or the rules. I needed a way to harness the gifts I knew I had to bring harmony to my own life; to make me happy; to make me feel whole. Wicca did not make me feel whole. It made me feel trapped and in so doing threw my life off balance, just as Christianity had done years before. To some, this is hard to understand, and I realize that. However, please consider that not all faiths work for everyone. Wicca did not work for me, but that doesn't make me wrong and you right.

The third question is what I do believe. I think that it's pretty obvious on this blog that I am a hedgewitch. I also don't believe in any deities, a pagan atheist if you will (Sagan Pagan, anyone? Read my FAQ's for more details). What is a hedgewitch? Well, I have a wonderful post explaining what a Hedgewitch is to me. Mind you, everyone has a different opinion on what a Hedgewitch is. Some say they are Green witches. I don't agree with that. I work closely with nature and use herbal remedies like a Green witch, but I also cherish the hearth and home and dismiss most formal rituals. I move to the beat of my own drum.

The last question I am asked is how did I get here. That is an excellent question, and the answer is long and complicated. I arrived here through years of study and work. I experimented, much to my husband's dismay, and it wasn't until I let the walls come down that I realized exactly where I wanted to be. It actually took a book by the often dreaded Silver Ravenwolf to lead me here. In 2010 I purchased her book on Hedgewitchery. I have never done the 13 rites she outlines in the book, but I did read it cover to cover. For the first time I had a name for what spoke to me the most. Her book, along with several others on hedgecraft, are much more structured than I like to be, but the foundations are there. The entire idea that hedgecraft grew out of the term "hedge riders" spoke to me. It screamed at me actually. Witchcraft, to me, is being a witch in so much as our ancestors who lived on the edge of the towns and forests were. They cared for their homes and they healed others. They brought life back to a world often shrouded by death. I spend every day breathing life into everything I do. This was what I needed; hedgecraft was the answer I had been searching 5 years for. It hasn't always been easy, but I don't regret my choice. And that's it; that is what is so awesome about paganism. We can essentially choose our fate, our destiny, our path. Unfortunately we can't do this free from persecution, even from other pagans, but that is a whole other can of worms.

I hope this has been enlightening and if you have any questions for me, please feel free to comment or email me. I love to hear from my readers!


4 comments :

  1. Well, Merry Meet, Willow! I'm really looking forward to get to know you more through your posts.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! So far enjoying writing these posts!

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  2. This is very enlightening. It is often hard to put a label on our beliefs when we bounce from here to there. Another brilliant post.

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