So what is a witch? A person that practices witchcraft. Yes, witchcraft is real, but not in the way one would assume. What is a Wiccan? A practitioner of the religion of Wicca. Wicca is a Pagan religion; Paganism is a sort of umbrella term for polytheist (the worship of many gods) religions that worship nature. All Wiccans are Pagans, but not all Pagans are Wiccan. Paganism is "the old religion" , it is possibly the oldest existing religion dating back to the ancient druids, even further.
Not all Witches are Pagan and some Wiccans I am sure do not practice witchcraft. But the majority of us do, it is a huge part of our religion and our lives.
Much like the Christian cross,the pentacle is our religious symbol. There are so many misconceptions about pentacles and pentagrams. This symbol is not evil! The Satanic symbol people mistake the pentagram for is called the Baphomet. There is nothing negative about the pentagram.
A pentagram is the star without a surrounding circle, a pentacle has the circle around it. The Pentacle/Pentagram is a representation of the five elements - Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit. These elements are the basis of the earth and really life itself.
Wicca as we know it today was founded by a man named Gerald Gardner. There is much debate among our community on this man and his methods. Personally I believe he was exploiting the religion to have sex with lots of women; but that is neither here nor there. What is beautiful about Wicca is there are no set rules as to what you have to believe in. You are free to believe in and worship as you wish! You can actually choose which group of gods you wish to worship - this even includes Norse, Celtic, Egyption and Greek gods. Typically most Wiccans worship two gods, known as the lord (or father god) and the lady (or mother goddess).
Personally, I am an Atheist Wiccan. I do not believe in any form of god. Now, you may ask me how am I a Wiccan if I do not believe in a god? It's simple; I worship nature and spirits. Though I do not believe in any sort of deity, I believe in spirits. I worship nature and the spirit of mother nature that runs through everything. Which is why I spend so much time in nature, it brings me peace and if you're aware enough you will witness some amazing things.
We celebrate the Earth and the circle of life - The Wiccan calander containing all of our holidays is called The Wheel of the Year. Each season and holiday (called a Sabbat) represents a certain phase in the circle of life; many choose to use the god and goddess as representations of this. This is where the goddess or trifecta symbol comes in.
This symbol not only represents the moon cycle of the waxing, full and waning moon which is oh, so important to us but it is a representation of mother nature's forms in life - the maiden, the mother and the crone. These forms are a representation of the circle of life - birth, life and death. The maiden is young and beautiful though can be naive, the mother is nurturing and the crone is wise.
Now where does witchcraft fit into this all? It is our way of worship, through ritual. Again, there is no animal sacrifice or flashes of light shooting from our wands. Real magic is quite different. It is energy and intent; you must project the intent and energy into the universe. There are many factors that contribute to a spell's success such as the tools used, the day of the week, even the moon phase. We set altars, light candles, we chant, we scatter herbs, we light incense. However, you must believe without an ounce of doubt that it will work, or it will not.
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| One of my Spell Altars |
We trust our intuition and are more in tune to the universe and things that most cannot explain. I completely believe in magic. I have witnessed too many strange happenings in my life to not.
As there are many different types of witches and paths, there are different ways to worship - as a solitary or with a coven. A solitary is a lone witch who practices on their own; a coven is a group of witches with the same beliefs that worships together. If you are in the right coven, your coven is like your family. I am a leader (with the title of High Priestess) of my coven. Though I did not become serious about the craft until a year ago, I have been a Wiccan for 10 years now.
With practice of the craft comes different interests or hobbies that can assist with our rituals. Divination is a huge one as well as honing psychic abilities. I am personally a skilled tarot reader, I am knowledgeable of essential oils, and I am very knowledgeable on spirits. Currently I have been studying up to be an herbalist, as well as practicing my scrying skills. Very recently astrology has tugged my interest as well. Then there is my coven co-leader who is skilled with crystals, knowledgeable on chakra and healing as well as skillful in tarot. One of the best things about a coven is the amount of knowledge you can pass between each other. In my coven, I feel at home. I am among people that understand what I deal with from skeptics and people that fear Pagans. There is also no judgement or negativity. We support each other and we help each other learn.
If you know someone that is a Wiccan or even just Pagan, I urge you to get a (knowledgeable and correct) understanding of their beliefs and support them. It can mean a lot. Even in this day and age I get harassed and judged for my beliefs. I have gotten strange looks for wearing my pentacle in public. Most of my family knows that I'm strange and I do post witch things on my Facebook page, but most do not truly know how into the craft or my faith I am. When I bring up the fact that churches make me uncomfortable it opens up a shitstorm of debate - never mind the fact that I do not believe in a god. My mother has a basic understanding of my beliefs and what I do - she tends to just roll her eyes and ignore what I do. She tends to not care, but I still get the ignorant comments from her asking "What are you doing? Sacrificing a chicken?" every single time she catches me before or after doing a spell. My co-leader of my coven was interrogated by her mother when she "came out of the broom closet" and was asked if she believed in Satan and if she believed in Jesus Christ.
What was my religion before becoming a Wiccan and how did it influence my converting?
My parents were agnostic - believing in a god but not too religious. As a child, my grandmother's sister's husband (my great uncle) was a pastor at a local church. I went to church with my grandma and to sunday school when I was little. I was in a lot of church plays (there is a picture of me somewhere in a mouse costume singing in one of the plays when I had to have been no older than 7.) and I was put into "Vacation Bible Camp", a church day camp for a few weeks in the summer for a few years. I often would help my great aunt and great uncle out in the food bank, mostly doing organizational work of the pantry. After a while the church had lost its appeal. My grandma would ask me to go to church with her but I found it terribly boring and didn't have much of a want to be involved anymore.
I was fairly close to my second cousin (mother's cousin's daughter) when I was a child, we are close in age so we played together a lot. At one period of time, we were almost inseparable. Her mother was a very religious Christian, with her beliefs rubbing off on her daughter. So I heard a lot of religious talking. Wanting to spend more time with them, I started going with them to their church. At some point further on, I went to a different Christian day camp with my cousin. This place was the equivalent to what I now would consider hell. It was SUPER Jesus-fied! I wasn't too enthusiastic about going but my parents needed someone to watch me while they worked, so I was enrolled with my cousin. Literally every single thing was religion based from crafts to anything else we did.
Around that time I began to question my beliefs. What probably really helped me was the falling out I had with my cousin and her mother -when I had a terrifying accident that though I wasn't severely injured left me mentally screwed up for a while. When I stopped spending time with them, so did my exposure to the amount of religious things.
I began to slowly question my beliefs and I stopped believing, becoming an atheist when I hit middle school.
What lead me to the craft and becoming a Wiccan?
It started when I was 13. My memories are a little hazy as to the exact moment I discovered wicca or real witchcraft but somehow I did. I think I learned it from a friend or the internet - again hazy memory. It seemed so alluring and wonderful. Fast forward to the summer of that year. A library in my state not too far from my home town has a book sale every weekend during the summer. I LOVE book sales - I dream of someday having an entire room in a house filled with all sorts of books. My dad and I frequently visited to get some new books and to support the library. I was browsing and I came across a used, slightly worn copy of Scott Cunningham's book Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner. My dad did not approve of the book or really anything relating to witchcraft, but he begrudgingly bought me the book knowing it would make me happy. And it was cheap! Hahaha.
I flipped through the book and suddenly I knew I wanted to be a part of this awesome religion. Now admittedly I did not so much get into the learning part of it. I did some spells, held steadfast to my beliefs for a while and wore a pentacle but I did not properly study. Once I hit high school I sort of forgot about learning to be a proper witch for a while - but I did still wear my pentacles. I owned three - all three my dad ironically bought for me even though he hated the symbol. One was a little sphere sort of locket type that could hold a crystal or a pompom for essential oils. I kept a green pebble in it. The next being a small silver colored one on a black rope string and the third being a much larger metal, silver colored one from Spencer's. This was all before pentacles were readily available at Hottopic and you had to hunt for one at the local Spencer's or Indie shop. I also wore a Celtic knot a lot, of which my aunt bought for me at a renaissance fair.
Even if I wasn't a practicing witch any longer, the symbol always gave me peace. When I was having a particularly rough time, I kept it close. I would draw the knot for protection on notebooks, pieces of paper and even my wall for protection. I wore my pentacle on the black rope every single day under my clothing while my dad was dying of cancer.
Now I always was very interested in the occult and supernatural. I had always wanted a ouija board (oh, silly child) and a tarot deck but (despite his insistence that he was a skeptic) my dad refused to allow such items into his house. I'm not sure when it exactly clicked, but as most of you know I went through a very rough time in 2015. At the beginning of the year I became very, very sick which lead to me having permanent tinnitus. I became wracked with anxiety to the point where I couldn't function. I would barely eat. I could not leave the house, in fear of a panic attack starting and becoming dizzy or passing out from it. I barely slept - at the height of it I went a week sleeping maybe two or three hours a day. I would be up all night with panic attacks, unable to calm them and would slip into my mom's bedroom once she left for work to try to get a little sleep.
Aside from medication, rediscovering Wicca saved my life. One day I just had the random urge to get back to it. So I began to read up on it more and devouring every single topic that I could. It gave me something to hold onto and give me some sort of hope while I was struggling and losing my mind. I studied intensely for months. I bought a large hardcover journal to use to record my Book of Shadows (a witch's spellbook. The name derived from the fact that witches were forced to hide and practice in the shadows for so long in history. Also referred to as a grimoire. ) and I recorded all sorts of spells and information in it for 8+ hours a day for a month, all handwritten.
Before I knew it, I had gotten through my anxiety or I was doing better and I had become immersed in the craft. It all felt so good! I found that I was rediscovering myself after all of my breakdowns and panic and Wicca helped me to return to the root of who I am. It allowed me to become more at peace and more myself. It is just one of those feelings where you know what you're doing is so, so right.
There is so much information, but I did my best to provide basic knowledge. If you ever have any questions, feel free to ask!
Xoxo
Heather Zombie
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