The Witch's Circle: Commitment

This post is in response to the first post of the continuing 'The Witch's Circle' discussions over at Aine's blog, The Deepest Well. To view her thoughts on commitment, click here. To read about The Witch's Circle and add your ideas for discussion, click the dancing witches image below.

Beginning to walk this crooked path was, I believe, a bit easier for me than it is for a lot of people. I was raised in a home with no formal religion; my parents both claim to have religious belief, my father being catholic and my mother just having faith, but they never discussed or passed those beliefs on to us. We didn't go to church, were never baptized, never were expected to follow any religion in particular. It was all very... sterile, I suppose. Growing up, I did a lot of reading about religions, I devoured holy texts as well as books from the new age sections. The librarians at the school and local libraries must have thought I would grow up to become a philosophy teacher, because why else would a kid be checking out these sorts of books over the usual popular fiction?

The truth of the matter was, not only was I curious, but I was searching. I had friends with deep religious convictions and friends with deep convictions that there is nothing out there; none of their philosophies clicked with me. Having grown up feeling like there was something out there, something in the tree line, something in the heavens, that watched over me and guided me on occasion I just couldn't say 'nothing exists but science.' By the same token however, none of the major world religions resonated with me; my Irish Catholic grandmother telling me french kissing would put you in hell along with rapists and murderers scared me shitless, sure, but it also sounded like unfit justice all around. The thought of karma, that unbiased cosmic bitch who delivers justice, rang a bell of sorts within me but it still wasn't enough.

The place where I found that which began to wake up my soul, was in the dusty pages of long neglected books of mythology. The Greek gods began it, and I fell asleep most nights praying to the Olympians, always beginning and ending with Hestia. Shortly thereafter a friend gifted me a deck of tarot cards and in my studies of them I came across the first books I had ever seen on Wicca. I began to devour book after book on the subject, everything from Cunningham to Ravenwolf, whatever I could find in the libraries and shops. Remember kids, this was during the dark ages before the internet and during the internet's first dial up baby steps - internet research wasn't a possibility like it is now. While they clicked to a point, they still weren't quite what I was looking for. I continued my search and years later discovered works on witchcraft, paganism and the many different traditions there in. I met the gods of the Celtic Pantheon as well as the lord and lady of the Greenwood and there, my loves, is where I found the beginnings of this dusty winding path and made my commitment to grow, learn and practice.

Unlike so many, I didn't have anything that I needed to give up to make way for a new, undiluted spiritual path. I was well read, but without prior biases. Making the commitment was not a tough choice for me and still is not. Though I didn't have any prior attachments to faith to work through or renounce, there were other sacrifices that came along with donning the green mantle. Friends were lost or estranged and there are many times that I have to bite my tongue to keep certain peaces. There are still moments of nagging self doubt, brought on by the difficulty or inabilities I have when trying to do certain things (like meditate; which seems so very basic.) or when I feel disconnected from the deeper parts of my path due to long boughts of depression or apathy (re: the past four months) but I know that I've made the commitment to walk this path. By continuing to learn and practice, to not give up on the things that I have difficulty in, by tending my patch of earth, by getting up each morning to face the day despite the shit in my head, I know that I am honoring my path.