It’s daunting to be a Witch — to know things, to feel things, and to experience the goddess and godds. At least, it has been for me. I’m frequently, continuously floating between the world others want me to see, and the worlds I know to be real, even tactile.
And I remember the moment it all started.
At Mary’s Feet
I was really into Mary. Growing up Catholic, she was the one that called out to me. Maybe it was the blue veil or the virgin bit or the way that she did was she was asked to do — because you don’t turn down God when they say they have a special favor for you to do.
I prayed to her. I made altars to her. I sang to her. I cried with her. I processed with skinned knees to crown her on May Day with a plastic ring from a milk jug and an offering of lilacs from my mother’s garden.
I wanted to be a nun. The ritual, the solitude, the being able to give over my life to an all-powerful being.
And this feeling stayed with me…until college.
Until my angsty poet, Ani DiFranco, feminist awakening. Until the time I wrote a paper that talked about God being a chauvinist pig.
Mary got quiet then. Complicit, even.
Everything got quiet.
And then I met a boy. And then I lost a friend to leukemia. And then I felt the feeling that comes when you’re being led by something bigger.
It certainly wasn’t Mary, but it was something. Someone.
Going to the Goddess(es)
I followed it. I followed it to a sweat lodge. I followed it to meditation and mindfulness. I followed it on the new-fangled internet that told me about witches on blinking GeoCities pages. I followed it to a women’s goddess group that would become my first coven.
Those women were my Marys. I recognized them, dressed in black and blue jeans, chanting over newly bought cast iron cauldrons. Drinking cheap wine and singing songs to the moon. We went on a guided meditation together where I met Her.
To this day, I’m still not sure who She was. Gaia, Cerridwen, Baba Yaga, Hecate….a nameless goddess. But I met her and I remember Her. And in that moment, I knew I was on the path of my life.
I met Artemis when I would walk in the woods. I heard voices and whispers in my dreams.
From there, the coven broke up, I became a solitary witch. I read “Spiral Dance” and fell in love with the elements, the goddess, the watchtowers, and the stories of witches I would someday meet in Reclaiming.
It’s been 20 years since I first called myself a Witch, since I first heard Her. And since, it’s been a journey of joy, of struggle, of initiation(s), and of beauty.
This is just the beginning of the spell my life creates in each moment. A spell that is unfolding in its unexpected daring and unanticipated depths of emotion.
A Story Unfolding
I named this blog “Charged by the Goddess” because that’s what happened. And I take that seriously: this charge of Her. I am a child of the Moon and the stars, and while I am not perfect by any stretch, I pledge to show up with an offering of myself and of my heart — in all of its radiance and all of its cracked edges.
I guess this first blog is an origin story of sorts. To locate myself, to begin. A creation myth, a segue into the places I encounter with each breath. The ones I hope to hold gently and to name clearly.
I’m a Witch who is seeking wonder and finding magick in the stories of the seen and unseen. And finding that even in the deepest places of shadow, I am not alone.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In