Thursday, May 2, 2013

Pagan Coming Out Day - May 2, 2013

Today is Pagan Coming Out Day, a celebration that began, as far as I know, in 2011. It's become an important tradition for many Pagans of all different spiritual identities, and I feel that each year its importance grows stronger than the last. I've never had any sort of official "coming out of the broom closet," so I wanted to take some time today to write about my experiences and participate in the PCOD tradition.

As it seems with most people who are not born into Pagan families, I encountered Wicca through pop culture when I was around 12 years old. I saw movies like The Craft, or watched shows like Charmed and Buffy on TV. I was curious and started talking to a friend about it in junior high school. He also liked all the supernatural shows, but I had no idea that he had already began exploring Wicca as an actual religion -- I didn't even know it was an actual religion! This friend really changed my entire life because of a book he let me borrow one day, and I don't think there's a Pagan in the United States today who isn't at least familiar with it: Dorothy Morrison's The Craft. That book created something like a paradigm shift in me. I was completely fascinated and obsessed, I think I finished reading it in only two or three days before starting it over again. What followed is predictable. I moved on to Buckland's "Big Blue Book," made my way through Scott Cunningham's bibliography. I tried one Silver Ravenwolf book (but even back then, I knew I didn't want anything to do with her writing, hahaha). I dedicated myself, very privately and very quietly, in November of 2003.

Fast forwarding to the present, I no longer identify as Wiccan (the more I studied it, the more theological issues I had with it), but I am proudly Pagan, with a heavy focus on European witchcraft and a growing passion for Hoodoo and conjure practices. I suppose I officially work with the Egyptian pantheon, though lately I've been combatting a lot of deep spiritual issues when it comes to Deity. I don't want to get too side-tracked, however, I just wanted to lay down a little bit of my religious history.

It took a long time for me to really be a public Pagan, both in terms of people who knew and also participating in public rituals and holidays. I went to a Yule party once in a high school, and a few different rituals in New York after I moved there, but I didn't ever stay with a particular group. A lot of Pagan communities can be really difficult to break into, and I think that leaves a lot of solitary practitioners feeling lonely. I know I did, because while I was practicing witchcraft at home alone, I didn't get the kind of community that comes with holidays. Think about our sympathy toward those people who are alone on Christmas or Thanksgiving -- I felt like that every time I was alone on Beltaine or Lughnasadh or Yule. Ironically (perhaps) it took moving to the Bible Belt before I found a stable, wonderful, diverse Pagan community, and I'm proud to be a member of it.

And now that I am a member of a Pagan church, I feel like I'm more "out" than ever -- I have one of their stickers on my car and my laptop, I have their business cards, I talk about them frequently with my friends, both those who are Pagan and who are not. Since I've been attending their festivals and rituals, my first one being Samhain 2010, I've lived everyday as an out and proud Pagan.

Except with my family.

It's a strange feeling, not really lying to them, but cutting them off from what's become a huge focal point to my life and my identity. I did talk to my parents about Wicca occasionally when I was in early high school, but I'm not sure they ever took it seriously. When I went to that Yule party, my mom tried to convince me that that wasn't what they were actually celebrating and that I shouldn't assume. My dad once made a joke about casting spells on my brother with the clay pentacle I was making. Though, he also once brought me back a pentacle necklace from a business trip. I don't believe that either of them wanted to make me feel weird or bad about my religious interests, but I did anyway. I've never been comfortable with the idea of discussing that with them. And I don't really know why.

Last summer, I visited with some cousins in Texas and while I was there, one of them asked me what my religious beliefs are. I'm sure she knew the answer; I have them displayed on my Facebook page (where all my family can see it), but even knowing that she most likely knew, it still felt strange or foreign to say it out loud to her. I mean, it was also a little weird for me because her family is very Christian, which is fine, but I always get a little weird about discussing any alternative religion with most active Christians, but the discomfort I was feeling was also because she is my blood family. Maybe it's because of the obligations that exist between blood relatives, whether real or imagined, I'm not sure, but I'm afraid of their judgment. I'm not afraid of anyone else's. I feel awkward truly letting in any of my family. I don't hide from them, but I don't bring it up either. It's difficult and depressing.

And I don't want it to be that way. I want to be able to tell them about the awesome friends I've made in Kentucky, about the cool new things I learned from these friends, about how much I look forward to festival season and how happy my church makes me. I want to tell them when I finish my degree, I want to go through my church's ministry education to become a Pagan minister myself. I want to tell them about how much being Pagan means to me, how passionate I am about it, but they just don't get the opportunity to know that side of me. And for that, I feel guilty and dishonest, as well as sad because I don't think it's going to change. It's a conversation that I don't know how to begin and I've used that fear to block off a huge portion of my life. It also makes me feel like a hypocrite, because I believe the greater Pagan community should be out and public and known, when I myself am not those things entirely. Maybe someday I'll be ready to remove those self-imposed chains from my life. And wouldn't that be relieving?
Part of my temple room (and my dog who likes to hang out in there)

4 comments:

  1. That room of yours is gorgeous, and oh my goodness, your dog looks so lovable!!!

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    1. He actually looks quite frowny in this photo, usually he's all smiles!

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  2. I have always been curious about Wicca. I may explore it someday :)

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    1. I think you would appreciate a lot of it because you're already so nature-oriented. My problems with it lie in what I see as beliefs that are nonexistent in and irreconcilable with nature.

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