I am a solitary, ecletic neopagan witch. The information I share with you here is gathered and distilled from books, articles, other webpages, other Pagans, other witches, meditations, visionary journeys, and listening to my inner voice. I am not a...
Someone emailed me and asked, just what DO you believe in? What gods or goddesses do you worship?
My first thought was here was a Christian spoiling for a fight. I get various versions of this question in email and real life now and then and it seems the less grammatically it is phrased, the more obnoxious and challenging the tone, the more likely it is a Christian who will just interrupt me in about ten seconds to tell me I worship the devil.
So let me just get that out of the way first.
I do not worship the devil, Satan, or evil in any way shape or form. In fact, I do not BELIEVE in the devil, Satan or any of the Christian demons. What I KNOW is that a few hundred years ago the controllers of the Christian church took the names of various pagan goddesses and gods and decided they were demons. The names of the goddesses were masculinized – heaven forbid a woman have ANY kind of power. Elements of many pagan gods and pagan ceremonies and beliefs were mashed together by people ignorant of them and lumped into a composite called "Satan" or "the devil".
This isn't about spirituality – it is about politics. It is about conquering people through religion and conquering rival religions by slander, misinformation, and fear.
I DO believe in evil. I do believe there are evil forces, evil spirits, and most certainly, evil people in the world. I do not worship them. I do think, that by fearing them, and focusing on them, you give them power. If your own heart and mind are turned towards "good" (positive, loving), you don't need to fear the "evil" (hate and fear).
You know why "God protects children and fools"? Because, unless you teach it to them, there is no hate, no fear, and no evil in them. So "evil" has no hold on them and cannot truly harm them.
So just who do I worship?
Let me back up a step to my beliefs. I believe in the life force, the Higher Power, if you will. I believe it is impartial, all accepting love. I believe it will give you what you ask for. I believe we are here to learn and to experience this life, and when it is over, as many psychics have described it, the Higher Powers and your eternal self will sit down and look at the record and decide how you did. Then you can come back here, go to another world, or progress even higher.
I believe that the trick is to give your mind in this life something it is able to describe to itself. For me, in this life, it is the threefold Goddess, Maiden~Mother~Crone. The explanations of "everything you do comes back to you in threes", "life is a circle, a spiral", and the other Pagan conventions, make sense to me. I am able to work within that framework and find the structure and reassurance my mind and emotions need.
Because I had been abused by men, it was a number of years before I began a slow reapproachment to the Green King, the Oak King, the Holly King, or whatever you chose to call the masculine force in the world. But we are working it out. (Actually, I am partial to Kokopelli and the other trickster gods. Must be the pixie in me.)
Because it is what I am comfortable with, I call the Goddess – usually – The Goddess. If I have a specific need I may call upon Selena, Isis, Kwan Yin, Bast, Epona, or Kali, to name a few of my favorites.
Yes, Kali. I know – she scares some people. I am not afraid of the dark, or afraid of death. I know that I will return to the Goddess, become part of her again, and be reborn. And that is what Kali promises.
I follow some customs of the Native American people as well as many customs that are Wiccan and Celtic in origin. I am French, Cherokee, and the last fellow over the fence in ancestry and not too surprisingly, given my matriarchal family background, I am drawn mostly to the Gods and Goddesses of my maternal family.
I work with the fey folk. I can see them and sense them. I have a whole set of beliefs about them, but they couldn't care less ;). I will go into all that some other time and place.
I am drawn to water, especially running water, and strongly to the river that runs outside my door. If she has a native name I am not aware of it – but she soothes me. I call her Mother River. With any luck, she will flow free until I die and then take my ashes to the sea, the great mother of us all.
And that's just me. Ask that question of a hundred Solitary Eclectics, and I bet you get one hundred different answers.
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