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Hi, my name is Danielle. I was raised to be Catholic, but it never really took. In fact, I have always had a great interest in all religions except that of Christianity. All my life I have been an avid reader of mythology, ever since I first stumbled upon a tattered copy of Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age Of Fable in my parents study when I was a child. That book opened my imagination to new worlds and possibilities far beyond that of my home in suburban America. Yet while the myths and legends and religions of other cultures always fascinated me, my allegiance has always been to science first. I have never been one to easily accept things without some form of proof. That is one of the reasons that religion never really took root in me beyond that of an intellectual pursuit. On the other hand, science bestowed upon me a love for the Universe and a desire to learn more about it. One of my earliest influences was Carl Sagan, whose book and television series Cosmos forever changed me. He lit a fire in me that has never abated. That of the True-Seeker. Even now that I have become a very deeply religious person, I still view my spiritual path through the lens of science. Most specifically in the terms of psychology and history (or herstory if you prefer that term). This is the world-view through which I see and experience much of religion, and because of it I find as much inspiration in the writings of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell as I do from Starhawk or Christopher Penczak. I did not discover Witchcraft until a few years ago. I had heard of Wicca before of course, but I have never really thought of it as much more than some New Age thing. That changed one Autumn several years ago when I was involved in a debate about the prevalence of rape in our society (one of those cases where men were decrying how women always lie about being raped in order to get at men). Needless to say I was a bit infuriated, so I went out looking for the facts. In the process of digging up statistics to back up my arguments I came upon several websites devoted to the Great Goddess. I found them intriguing, but did not tarry there because I wanted to get back to the debate. Sometimes I can be very single-minded that way. Those Goddess sites planted a seed in me however. One that would reach fruition during the coming Winter when I began writing some amateur fiction in which one of the characters was a priestess. I wanted her to be feel authentic, so I went back to those sites I remembered to do research. In the process I found myself taking the advice of some of those sites, and looking at life in a different way, stopping in my busy schedule to simply look at the world around me and appreciate its beauty. I found it brought me a great deal of serenity, and it was not long before I started to learn more about Neo-Paganism for its own sake. By the time Spring had rolled around I had Dedicated myself to the Great Goddess. It was not something I had planned or intended to do. I just did it. That is one of the hallmarks of my religious evolution in fact. In this case it was the first time I actually physically spoke with the Goddess, introduced myself by name, and clearly stated my intent to follow Witchcraft as a spiritual path. When I got home afterward I read about Dedications in a book, and suddenly I realized the significance of what I had done. To be honest, learning to follow my intuition is one of the most important things Witchcraft has taught me. More than anything else, this is what I use to guide me in my spiritual path. When my intuition tells me to follow something, I do. When it tells me something is wrong for me, I avoid it. Our intuition is our unconscious mind talking to us. Core Shamanism would term it our Lower Self, or the Faery Tradition would say our Younger Self. In any case, it is the hidden part of ourself that sees the things our conscious mind does not notice, often because we do not want to acknowledge it, or because we are too preoccupied to do so. Listening to that deep part of myself has been a far truer guide than anything else in my life. The more I have learned about Neo-Paganism, the more my practice has changed and evolved. At first I called myself a Wiccan, and devoured their beliefs. However, I eventually came to a block. Namely the Hetero-centrism and strict gener polarity that forms the core of Wicca. While that works for most people, it does not for me. The reason being that I am a male-to-female transsexual who happens to be attracted to other women. It was not until I came to see that the God and Goddess/Masculine and Feminine Energy paradigm of Wicca were only metaphors and not to be taken literally that I began to move forward again. This is a place where my understanding of Jungian Psychology and humanity's use of Symbols really helped me. As did Ann Moura's and Raven Grimassi's writings about Masculine and Feminine energy, which clearly differentiate them from actual human genders. By then I had stopped calling myself Wiccan and was identifying myself exclusively as a Witch, or as a Neo-Pagan when I wanted to be more general. More importantly, I found that there was a specific place for me in Witchcraft. I discovered just how rich and prevalent Queer spirituality really is. Because most of what we know of mythology and ancient practices has been handed down to us by very biased people of a different religion, they neglected to pass along much of this information, and when they did, it was distorted by their own fears and inhibitions (as was also the case with Women's spirituality). Finding unbiased sources on Gay, Lesbian, and especially Transgendered religion was as prophetic as watching Cosmos for the first time. It changed me forever. By this time I had found the Goddess Hekate. Again, it is one of those cases where I did not sit down and decide I was going to follow this particular deity. Rather I found myself being drawn to her slowly but surely. As is my nature, I followed. At first I had trouble learning anything of consequence about her. But in spite of that I knew there was something powerful in her that called to me. She was there on my first visit to my Astral Temple. I saw her face when I looked at the moon. Then when I acknowledged directly that she was my guiding star, I was suddenly flooded with information about her. It was a complete turnabout. Since then it seems like I cannot avoid learning more about her even if I tried. A few months later I formally Dedicated myself to her as one of her Semnotatoi. It was exactly a year and a day since I had first, unwittingly, Dedicated myself to the Great Goddess. After that first time, I had resolved to perform a formal Re-Dedication ritual every year and day to re-affirm my path. It was also an open acknowledgment on my part that not all things last forever, and that at some time I may move to a different spiritual path. Everything changes, it is the nature of the Universe. At the same time Hekate came to me, I also began a long and arduous process of facing my Shadow Self. Both within my Astral Temple and without. Specifically, I was facing my fears. My fears about transitioning. My fear of other people. My fears about the choices I was making in life. I was also facing the feelings of self-loathing that had been drummed into me for my entire life. Our society's programming that tells me that I am a freak and a monster. Along with that I faced my need for acceptance and approval by other people. It was not easy, even though I honestly had begun this process long before I ever became a Witch. I just never realized there was a specific name for it then. In time I came to face these things in myself. To embrace them and call them my own. To love them, and in so doing, love myself. In the process I took back my power over them, and I found that I no longer felt afraid, or ashamed, or needed anyone else to justify my existence. I found more changes in store for me. Up until now, while I had always acknowledged the The God of Witchcraft, I had never truly reached out to him. My transsexuality being the main reason for this. To put it simply: maleness has brought me a lot of pain. But thanks to Witchcraft, and my understanding of Masculine and Feminine energy, I was beginning to see things in a different light. My movement to accepting the God was a slow and steady one to be sure, however, it was marked by a one liminal event. One night after I had Drawn Down The Moon and become Hekate, I found I was not alone. The Horned God joined us, and the experience was incredible. One that has repeated every time I have Drawn Down The Moon since. I came to accept the God in my life, and I found myself much more balanced and at peace. Most of all I found myself more at ease with and confident in my identity as a woman. I no longer felt a need to prove it to anyone, least of all to myself. It was the God who taught me this, and I will be forever thankful to him for that. Soon afterward I adopted a wild cat in my neighborhood. When I first set eyes upon him, I did not see merely a cat, but the God personified. Here was the Lord of the Beasts given flesh, all wildness and freedom and vitality. I firmly believed that it was no accident he came to me, but rather I saw the hand of the God in his arrival. It should come as no surprise that I named him Mercury then. Sadly, Mercury also personified another aspect of the God. That of the sacrifice. He had gotten into a bad fight with another stray cat shortly after I initially found him, before I had won his trust. What I had thought was just a bad scrape from that fight turned out to be an abscess, so I took him to an emergency veterinarian to have it treated. That is when I discovered he had FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus). I had not known it, but he had been dying from before I had ever met him. I did the only thing I could, and helped him die with grace. That broke my heart, but it has taught me something else about Witchcraft. It brought the philosophy of death and rebirth into sharp focus for me, because it had ceased to be merely an intellectual concept. It was a reality, one that I played an intimate part in. The world has not been the same since. Even though it still hurts me to think of him, I now see that the God not only sent him to me so that he could play a more direct role in my life (which was all I had originally thought), but also so that I could be Mercury's own Goddess. I gave him love, warmth, comfort, safety, and family. Things he never would have known in his life were it not for me. I was the White Goddess of his world. Then I carried him from life to death, and I became his Dark Goddess. Hekate's priestess. That was the hardest lesson I have had to learn in Witchcraft. But there were other lessons in store for me. After Mercury's death I stopped performing formal rituals. I just did not have the will anymore. Part of it was grief, but most of the reason lay somewhere else. For I had found my desire for formal ritual steadily lessening even before that. It just was not inspiring me the way it did when I began my journey into Witchcraft. I do not mean to offend anyone, but it had come to feel like performing a part in a play, and my magical tools seemed like nothing but toys. It was not until I went to a local Pagan festival the following Winter that I performed ritual again. Once again, something had changed. Christopher Penczak was his name. I went to one (well, all...) of his workshops during the festival. At the beginning of the first workshop, before he introduced himself or otherwise got things going, he created a circle around us, invoked the Elements and Watchtowers, called the God and Goddess, the whole ball of wax. All without saying a single word and for the most part using no tools at all. That was like a bolt of lightning for me. Since then I have been performing my rituals with no spoken words, and no tools except a few candles, a statuette of Hekate, and my beloved Mercury's ashes (contained in a Butterfly-inscribed Wishing Box I had found at a local craft market). No wand, no athame, no fancy invocations. Nothing else. Now I no longer feel as if I am playing out a part, but rather dancing with Divinity. Now it is on to my next lesson, which may be one of the hardest. That of community. My first step along this road was going to that festival. In spite of myself, I met people there and actually have kept up with a few of them. I also began participating in the Live Journal Community of Solitary Wiccans, and just in general have been finding myself feeling more comfortable being social with other pagans. This is not easy for me, as I have a lot of trust issues with the human race. I will never be a social butterfly. Yet on the other hand I think I can at least take regular vacations from my Fortress of Solitude. In fact, this website is one example of my will to do so. Along with this, I have come to the realization that I need to face my Shadow again. For just as one's life is not a static moment in time but is rather always in motion, one's Shadow is also constantly evolving to reflect those motions. In my case, I see that my Shadow is now comprised of envy. The jealousy I feel for others who were born more fortunately than I. Not in economic or social status. But rather in bodies that correspond to their gender identities. I often find myself wondering how much different my life would be if I had been born like them. How much better, richer, happier, I would be. I tell myself that I walk this path in this lifetime for a reason. To learn things that only one such as I can. But it is not an easy struggle. It will probably take a long, long time to work my way past this. Yet I hold this in my thoughts. I never imagined that one day I would have come so far as I have. I have already performed miracles I reckoned impossible. That makes the future truly uncharted territory, where anything is might be. Even my own happiness. |