My Spiritual Journey

Ok, I know you probably are on my site just for the small rituals and spells, but rather than posting one today, I wanted to post the essay I had to do for my Comparative class (If you didn't know I am in college). I wanted to let you know my personal spiritual journey. If you dont care, then just skip over it, but for those of you who wish to know what growing up Wiccan was like for me, keep reading.

Wicca in My Life

What is religion? Is it a set of beliefs? No, religion is in fact how we practice and worship our beliefs. Few people believe the exact same thing. They may be classified under the same category but may be on two opposite spectrums. I am a Wiccan, but Wicca is one of those religions that do not have a specific book that lay out all the laws, such as Christians have the Bible. Our laws, customs, and beliefs are passed mostly through word of mouth or by reading one of the many books that are now out there. The beauty of this is that all Wiccans are a little bit different in beliefs, though the underlying basics remain the same. However, being a Wiccan, is a bit more difficult in this country especially when living in the south most of one's life, because Wicca is a form of paganism and witchcraft.
Like most people, I do not believe in the big bang theory, I believe the Goddess created the universe. What I believe about how this came about is in the beginning there was Spirit. Spirit was of pure energy and pure love. Spirit fashioned itself into the Great Goddess. The Goddess then created the Earth, as a part of her, and then all of the creatures. She became lonely after a while though, so the Great Goddess fashioned herself a mate, the God. Here is where what we call "The Wheel of the Year" starts. The Wheel of the Year is the never ending cycle of the God's death and rebirth. This cycle is also where our holidays come in.  As it is well known Wicca is a natural and season based religion and I have always celebrated it with the corresponding days, which is a bit different.
I celebrate eight holidays a year, and there are four major ones and four minor ones. The way I have always celebrated them is different though. The four major ones are Samhain, Imbolc, Beltaine, and Lughnassadh. Samhain is the first and is celebrated on October 31st. It signifies the death of the God, though he is growing inside the womb of the Goddess. It is also a celebration of the last harvest and my family and I always celebrated with baking bread and eating a special feast before we went trick o' treating. We usually ate the foods off of the altar after our ritual. We also had to wear the colors red, gold, and black, but not orange because it was not a true color of Samhain.  The second major Imbloc, sometimes also referred to as Candlemas, is celebrated on February. It is my belief that the God is now a young boy, playing and growing as the Great Mother Goddess recovers from giving birth. The holiday celebrates the coming of spring and the further strengthening of the sun. My mother called it our "Festival of Lights". We used to go through our house and light all of the houses lamps and candles in celebration, now that they converted to Christianity though; I just light all my candles and lamps in my room. I go through my entire house, clean up, and set goals for the future. This past one I even painted a beautiful picture in her honor. Beltaine, also known as May Day, is celebrated on May 1st is a major Sabbat. Beltane is the third of the major Sabbats and is the second most famous. The God and Goddess are getting married. We would spend hours decorating the altar in flowers, bread, eggs, and bright images of the Goddess and got to get up bright and early and dress up in bright, festive spring colors. My family and I used to make our own maypole with ribbons, usually white (for the Goddess) and red (for the God), and a giant pipe symbolize the joining of the God (pole) to the Goddess (Earth). I remember once our neighbors saw us. The daughter was one of my best friends and after her parents saw us she was forbidden from talking to me. I lost a best friend because her parents were too closed minded to accept our differences and unfortunately she wasn’t the last one. From that day I vowed to never judge or abandon someone because their views were different from mine. The last major Sabbath I celebrate, Lughnassadh, also called Lammas, is celebrated on August 1st. Unlike the rest of the Sabbats, we would celebrate this all day; Mom would even take off work before she converted. I now celebrate the first harvest alone by decorating my altar with wheat, berries, barely, fruit, oats, and bread. The God is beginning to lose his strength, though he lives on inside the Goddess's womb. This past year I baked wheat bread for my family and took my little sisters out to the woods for a picnic, all of us dressed in green, yellow, and brown. I also normally change all the decor in the house to give it a more Autumn feel, but since I was about to move I waited to put all of decorations up until I got here.
  Then comes the four minor Sabbats I celebrate, which are important, but the celebrations are not as large. The first one I celebrate is Yule, kind of like the Wiccan Christmas, and it is celebrated on the winter solstice. It represents the God's rebirth and I always found it funny how Christianity always thought it was originally their idea. I always coated my altar in evergreen plants such as pine, cedar, and rosemary.  A great tradition I always did growing up was to put candles in every window and we would turn out all the lights in the house before lighting them. It represents bringing light and strength to the Sun on the darkest night of the year. We also never used a fake tree; we tried to buy trees that we could replant when we were done with it. And we would decorate it using mostly the traditional colors like red, green, white, gold, silver, and purple. My Aunt, being a strict Catholic, found it suspicious how we celebrated a few days earlier than everyone else. Her and my mother didn’t get along until Mom converted back to Christianity. Ostara is celebrated on the spring equinox. I plan on starting a garden this upcoming one. The God is an adult and the Goddess is now fully recovered. They are completely in love and the Goddess and God have become lovers. A lot of people are creeped out by the incest and the sexual relationship before marriage. Sex is not considered a dirty desire of the flesh in my mind. The flesh and instincts are to be followed unless they involve violence and cruelty. I love decorating my hair in flowers and placing them all around my home. Ostara is in my mind the original Easter. I love dressing in extremely bright joyous colors and dancing. When I was about 11 years old my Mom bought me a book on Wicca and it taught me a new custom to do every year and I have done it every year since. Starting exactly one week before the day of Ostara, I write down every injustice or act done to friends or family and throughout this week, go back to that person and rectify everything I did wrong. What I decided to do, taking it a step further, and rectify everything I did wrong to anyone. Litha is celebrated on the summer solstice. This is another one I always tried to celebrate outside. If it was legal, my friends and I would try to throw a bonfire in honor of the God who is at the height of his strength. I used to have a gray cat that was striped like a tiger. She was somewhat of my familiar. A familiar is a pet who practices with a witch. I held a big circle and blessed her, casting protective charms for her. I had decorated the altar with vegetables, fruits, and whatever flowers are growing around my house. Normally, she eats all flowers in sight but she didn’t even bite at these. I would decorate my entire room in green and brown earthy colors. The last of the minor Sabbats, Mabon, is celebrated on the fall equinox. The God is now very weak and the Goddess is sad. We celebrated the last harvest as basically the Wiccan Thanksgiving. The altar was decorated wheat, berries, barely, fruit (especially apples), oats, bread and then other stuff like corn and pine cones. I take time to reflect over the past year and think about everything I accomplished or anything I intended to do but never got around to. Last year I meditated by a lake and asked it to bless me and wash away all of my impurities dressed in reds, browns, and oranges. This year, I have no idea what I am going to do.
I have discussed everything about what I do. Why? Why would I choose to stay practicing a religion that cost friendships? When my mother converted to Christianity, I tried it for a couple years, but I couldn't believe how different it was. I couldn’t understand how the body was evil after being brought up to believe it was a holy temple for the Goddess and God. Most importantly I couldn't understand how there could only be one supreme God who was a male. Everything in the world has a pair. I believe that the deities are the same way. It seems more logical to me. It is also a law in my belief system not to judge others for their belief system. All the things you hear about love spells and curses are also false. Wiccans are not allowed to interfere with a person's free will or harm anyone or anything. There goes the theory of animal sacrifices. I believe people only hate other religions because they are afraid. They are only afraid because they don't know and therefore don’t understand. If everyone took the time to listen to others beliefs, there would be less hatred.