Spirited (4 page)

The following is the true account of how I came to discover the path of Witchcraft and how it imbued my life with meaning.

Childhood

As a child, I was “different.” Although most of my male peers were into rough games and sports, I was never comfortable with such mannerisms, and as such I formed friendships with girls most of the time. I found myself playing softer and gentler games with my friends, involving imagination and visualisation.

On my own, I created worlds in which my
other
friends would dwell. Every day after school, my insides would squirm with excitement as I knew I was about to enter my worlds—worlds where I would go on extravagant adventures and meet amazing people.

I truly felt emotion when I was there. When my lengthy adventures came to their climax and I was just about to defeat the dark creature that had been enslaving my friends, I felt courage storm in my heart, and at times I would cry out in sadness when these adventures ended. Throughout my primary education, these games played a major part in coping with growing up. I clung to my love of imagination and these envisioned places where I was special and important.

With my games in the garden, I grew to appreciate the natural world, and the roots of trees would often provide refuge to sit and ponder. From an early age, I also had a keen interest in wildlife, and early school reports revealed that my artwork often reflected the natural world.

As I look back on these experiences now, I can see these worlds as being real places on some level of existence—places I could find refuge in and fashioned through my will.

Alongside this, I would also do what I would now call inspired singing. I would break out in chains of words that allowed me to sink into a peaceful and receptive state, much like the feeling of introspection and reflection I have nowadays as a Witch. My songs came from inside of me and were not of any particular style. They were words spoken of life, the subtle existence that I had. Often they were tainted with sadness, as though something was missing and I needed it back.

As I grew older, I began to take to books, and the library became a second home. I often sat down to read about other countries, and what interested me the most were the sections on culture and tradition. I loved the diversity and beauty of the world's religions, and with this interest safely contained, I was a step closer to my home.

I was eleven when the onslaught of Witches in the media hit me, and it just so happened that I stumbled upon an early
Charmed
episode. After my first taste of Hollywood Witchcraft, I became utterly absorbed into the fantasy of it all. The influence of the show grew on me, and I began to romanticise the personages of the warlocks within the show, dubbing myself a warlock. Having no idea what the term actually meant, I “outed” myself to everyone at school, and most viewed me as eccentric or just plain weird. While my friends and I played at school, I would chant little rhymes that wrought influence on the mundane, and at home I would mix plants and cleaning liquids in jars by my favourite log and use them for magickal purposes.

Towards the end of the year, a Taiwanese student living with us took my family and me to a Christmas function (she was a newly converted Christian), and by the end of the night I had renounced my ways. After this, I announced to my friends at school that I was no longer a warlock, and so I came to a void again. My interest in Witchcraft never died, though; it simply remained idle deep within me.

By age twelve, I took up a speciality class focused on writing and delivering speeches. By the end of the term, I had completed my planned speech on Witches, based on information I had compiled from a book my mum owned—
Into the Unknown
by
Reader's Digest
. When it was my turn, I gave a very entertaining performance involving a dead lizard within a jar, plastic frogs I threw at the audience, and a clay cat and broomstick to demonstrate a Witch's flying habits. I managed to obtain the highest mark in the class.

There was one boy in my class who I had talked to whilst writing my speech. He had told me at one stage that he didn't believe in good and evil, and it was because of his religious persuasion. I asked him which religion he followed, and after a while of prying he confessed he was Wiccan. At the time, I had no idea what it was or that it was even connected to Magick and Witchcraft.

In the summer holidays that enjoined the years 2000 and 2001, I met with my destiny. I was at a shopping centre with my mum when I walked idly past a bookstore, and out of the corner of my eye the word
Wicca
became the focus of my entire vision. The word itself seemed to be jumping from the shelf, screaming for my attention. My initial thought at the time was only of affirming that my classmate was telling the truth, and that the word
Wicca
was not of his own invention.

For once in my life, I felt as if all the loose pieces of the puzzle had come together and formed a picture. I felt secure at the same time as feeling anticipation for the path unravelling before me.

There is no turning back along a path that is a circle. The Witch's path is a wild way, and it takes great courage to walk it and to continue to walk even if your mind tells you to turn back. It is the way of the heart and of the instinct. It is the way of Magick.

The Awakening

Perhaps a Witch's becoming can best be explained through an analogy. In this case, I shall speak of an awakening. There are a series of passages I go through before I am fully alert and awake: stirring, yawning, and stretching. These stages relate to various levels of the awakening to the reality of being a Witch along with various stories I have collected from other young Witches at various stages of their revelations.

To Stir: The Foundations of Curiosity

By opening this book, you have performed the first step. Curiosity may come from several places. Maybe you were at the public library, innocently surveying the shelves, until you came across the occult section and found an array of books on Witchcraft. Maybe you have always held a taste for fantasy since you were a child and now wish to resurrect those feelings. Curiosity marks the beginning of most journeys. Would Alice
ever
have gone down the rabbit hole if it weren't for her curiosity for the hurried white rabbit? So with your curiosity, you are stirring from your sleep. You feel something calling you, yet a more logical part of your brain is urging you to continue to sleep. But what are you missing out on in the world? What is happening without you being there? Thus, more and more, this curiosity encourages you to open a sleepy eye.

Hannah (twenty) is a Witch, a dedicant of the WildWood, and a daughter of the Old Ones. Her Craft/spirit name is Arione, which is the name of an ancient Greek winged horse—child of Demeter and Poseidon. She is of Friesian descent
6
and proudly claims her heritage.

My name is Hannah and also Arione. It's only in the past six months that I have taken active steps down the path of Paganism; however, I've been aware of and experienced Magick in my life for many years. Having grown up travelling through the Australian outback, I've always had a deep respect for Nature and the undercurrent of life/Magick present in everything. I was lucky to have many amazing spiritual people in my life, giving me many glimpses into this undercurrent. Also, the acceptance and love of my parents gave me the freedom to explore this world fully.

I grew up quite wild, roaming the forests around my childhood home on foot and on horseback. As a child, I would sit by the flooded creek, watching how quickly the water rose. I'd stand on the water tank before a storm, feeling the electricity in the air, waiting for the rush of wind before the storm. I tracked the phases of the moon through my bedroom window, and I would wish for Magick on the first star almost every night. It wasn't until a few years later that I realised it had always been there.

When I was about ten years old, I went for a walk with a family friend, an herbalist and healer. We sat by the creek, and she told me about her travels in India. I heard the Magick in her stories, and I began to look for it in the world around me. Eventually I began to read books, some fiction, some not, and I learnt more about Nature, about the season and the patterns of the undercurrent. I also learnt about the ancient traditions that honoured and revered these things.

In 2007, I was in the Netherlands, the homeland of my ancestors. Despite the years of Christian influence, the Pagan traditions of the old people were still present in hundreds of tiny ways. At the end of spring, all of the farmhouses lit their summer fires. The lights could be seen for kilometres around. I realised I had come to a point in my life where I wanted and needed to walk towards the path of my ancestors.

Nearly six months later, back in Australia, I finally sought out a coven to celebrate and share my spirituality with. Since then, I have found immeasurable joy, love, and Magick. My path is well lit around me and soft beneath my feet. It stretches out impossibly far in front of me, and I will follow it as far as it will take me.

To Yawn: Raw Desire

Desire is one of the most essential emotions there is, and it represents the things in life we are instinctively drawn to. These have come to be classed as sins in some of the major religions, especially the Abrahamic faiths. Desire can often lead to corruption, and thus many spiritual ascetics (e.g., Buddhists and Christian monks) attempt to strip themselves of worldly possessions and earthly desires in order to lead “pure” lives.

Paganism does not share the same perspective on desire. In terms of Magick, desire is a powerful fuel that helps direct and focus our intent and energy. It is said that a spell backed up by desire is the most powerful. To ensure our spells will work, we need to get involved in the Magick; thus, desire is one of the most powerful catalysts in the Craft.

I have often said that to be a Witch, all you need to do is
simply
to desire it. Once we are certain of our innate interest in the Craft and in Magick, we begin to desire. However, life was never meant to be easy, and although the Craft can help infuse our lives with meaning, it does not mean we are above anyone else. We encounter the same problems, we feel the same heartache, and we experience life's ups and downs, although we may deal with these problems differently than others. Even the highly exaggerated programs like
Charmed
and
Sabrina
reveal that the main characters deal with mundane problems while simultaneously saving the world from oblivion. This sacred limbo is the reality of the Witch: while surrounded with problems of unemployment and school, we are simultaneously in awe of the power of a ritual.

Yawning corresponds to desire. We breathe in the scents and dusts of a new morning in hopes that on some level, this day will change us for the rest of our lives.

James is a nineteen-year-old Witch, a devotee of Rhiannon and Freya, and an initiate, priest, and co-founder of the Coven of the WildWood.

I have found that the desire to follow the Craft comes from deep within. For many Witches or Pagans, this yearning was always present, perhaps only realised at an age when the notion of spirituality became less ambiguous. For me, there was a sense of “homeyness” in all that I found within the Pagan community.

It is difficult now to put words to feelings experienced years ago, almost as hard as pinpointing a specific time when these things occurred. If I were required to consider a general time, I would say that I was eight or nine. While I feel that I have always been a Witch and Pagan (spirit and blood aside, I recently watched a video of me as a toddler chattering about the gods), the time when I felt drawn to naming it was a very significant time for me. Around then I felt a stronger connection to the world around me, suddenly becoming conscious of everything, becoming a vegetarian. My personal connection with the earth and everything deepened and brightened, and I suddenly felt the need to name my path. It was a few years later when I embraced the word “Witch.”

As could only be expected of a boy of ten or so, I loved to proclaim this loudly to my friends. I wrote spells for them in class and passed them around on little pieces of paper. But I'm quite confident in saying now that this was not a phase, as my grade five teacher would vouch. I remember when my class was playing Secret Santa and one of my clues was “I'm a Witch!” When my teacher found out, she took me aside after class and asked me to never say such a thing again. I agreed but crossed my fingers behind my back. This deep and strong desire to follow my path could never be suppressed by anyone, thank the gods.

To Stretch: Connecting to the Web of Life

At this stage, we begin to make our first serious decisions—to learn a little more, to take our first step over the threshold into the world of Magick. We turn to the New Age section of the bookstore, although it can as easily be the Internet. This is the stage when we consider committing ourselves to a period of study and experimentation. We begin to ground ourselves in the philosophies and the ideas inherent in Craft philosophy. We test our mental faculties through divination and spellcraft, learn various ways of casting a circle, and begin to celebrate the Wheel of the Year. As we do, we are further attuned to the cycles of Nature and recognise those subtle yet divine signs that have always been there.