I have a pretty damned good bio, if I do say so myself . . . and I do. Successful, upwardly mobile, a quick peek at it may give you an impression of a privileged upbringing. Y-e-a-h, s-o-o-o-o not the case.
My parents raised my 3 brothers and me in a 2-bedroom apartment in a Brooklyn neighborhood ravaged by substance abuse, low literacy, and the generational cycles of poverty and welfare dependency. Many of our neighbors were single moms and had several kids by the time they were 21. College was a stupid and wasteful “white” or a “rich” thing to do. Everyone grew up knowing terms like “face-to-face meetings” and how to fill out a welfare application.
My father emotionally, financially, sexually, and physically abused my mother and emotionally and physically abused us. He was also a raging alcoholic but we liked that back then. He was nice and giggly when he was wasted. My mom did the best she could with the limited internal and external resources she had.
My parents sent us to a bible-waving, electric-guitar-playing, tongues-speaking, pamphlet-distributing, brimstone and hellfire church. That’s right. They SENT us to church but they never attended church. I didn’t understand why I didn’t “feel the spirit” or speak in tongues or why I simply could not “accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior.” None of it felt right but I preferred going to church (sometimes as much as 5 times a week) than staying home. The songs were cool, I got to play the guitar, and I liked reading the Song of Solomon, the “sexy” chapter of the bible! ;-)
I also escaped by reading voraciously. I never wanted to put my books down. I read walking to the bathroom and eating. If I didn’t have a book, I read milk cartoons and cereal boxes. Judy Blume’s books were constant companions and I all but worshipped my well-worn library card. When Reading is Fundamental (RIF) came to our neighborhood, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. RIF, a children’s literacy organization, encouraged children to read by giving them books. Basically, RIF “paid” me to do what I absolutely loved to do. Unbelievable!
I knew I had to get out of the puke-hole I was raised in and intuitively knew the only way out was to get an education. And so, I went on an unheard-of journey (well, for both sides of my family and the folks in my tough Brooklyn neighborhood): college, moving a million miles away to Manhattan, grad school, a career, an actual wedding, waiting to have children, owning a home, etc.
I became an atheist in college. I was a big fan of saying “I got here alone, I’ll die alone.” However, every now and again my best friend and I would go to St. Pat’s and light a candle for one reason or another. We went to Paris one year and I was awed by the “sacredness” of Notre Dame but still didn’t “feel” the Christianity. I attributed this disconnect to something lacking in me.
Atheism suited me just fine for 8 or 9 years. When I started dating my husband in the summer of 1998, he jokingly called me a Witch because of the “spell I had him under.” Some time in late 1998, Moe mused “I wish there was a religion that honored women and nature.” I happened to read an article on Wicca in Self Magazine a few weeks before that. Coincidence? Who knows? I told her about it and left it at that.
Well, so I thought.
A few weeks after that (February 1999), I purchased my first book on Wicca, Laurie Cabot’s The Power of the Witch. I was on my way home (a shoebox I absolutely loved in Tudor City with a Murphy-bed) on the 1st Avenue bus when a woman sat next to me. I felt like I was walking around with contraband so I tried to hide what I was reading. She read over my shoulder and told me her name was Amethyst and that she was a “practitioner of the Old Religion.” Not knowing anything about magickal names at the time, I thought “Oh god, who is this weirdo?” Coincidence? Doubtful.
That wonderful book was the start of a very, very, very long list of books I’ve read over the years. I read every thing I could get my hands on. Books on Wicca, Paganism, Tarot, astrology, women’s spirituality, feminist thealogy, Native American spirituality, ecology, feng shui, shamanism, you name it. I attended herb magick classes, Tarot workshops, astrology seminars, just about everything Manhattan had to offer in metaphysics. I feel like I have a Ph.D. in esoteric psychology. “Metaphysical grad school” was a wonderful women’s spirituality program I took in late 2000. It taught me a lot – the most important lesson was to trust my intuition.
So much of who and what I am today I can honestly say is a result of dogged determination and my connection to the Universe -- how else would I intuitively know what decisions to make? At times, my choices were difficult and not fun (honestly, I was in my early 20s and would have loved to go to the Bear Bar or the Ski Bar or the China Club or any of the 6,000 bars in Manhattan but I was too busy studying). Ritual, circles, prayer, invocation, journaling, meditation, yoga, and certainly 6 years of therapy, 15 months of coaching, and Al-Anon have contributed to my sense of peace, awe, and serenity today.
Goddess has been really good to me. I mean, honestly, having started life with patriarchal monotheism quite literally shoved down my throat, I regularly commune with nature, develop and renew my spiritual commitments to Goddess, and live by the principles of eco-feminism and rainbow medicine. Having no model of healthy living or a healthy relationship, I am happily married to a warm, wonderful, cuddly, and loving man who knows we are equals, and treats me as such. Having been dependent on social service programs such as Reading is Fundamental and the Summer Youth Employment Program when I was a kid, I now generously and regularly donate my time and money to several Pagan and social justice organizations.
I do not gloat when I mention these things. I am in awe of all that I have achieved and been given. Yeah, I’d say the Big Chick Upstairs has been looking out for me!! I give thanks to Her every day for showing me the interdependent web of life of which we are all a part, guiding my sacred journey, and illuminating the divinity in all of us.
My sacred journey continually unfolds. BCU has brought some of the most amazing people in my life. Two, in particular, come to mind. They’re both ordained ministers. I’ll call them Stud Muffin and Buffy.
These two wonderful people have brought an incredible depth and perspective to my spiritual life. I try to convey to them how much I appreciate their honesty, compassion, faith, vulnerability, willingness to share their theology, faith, knowledge, and ideas without judgment or proselytizing, but I don’t think I’ve articulated it well enough to them. They’ve quite literally changed my life. And, no, I didn’t convert. Indeed, it has strengthened my faith.
On many occasions, Stud Muffin, Buffy, other friends (e.g., Willow, Xena, Tattoo, Mojo Jojo, et al), and I have stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, discussing God, theology, faith, philosophy, the meaning of life, etc. Through these conversations, I learned about transubstantiation, christology, theodicy, theosis, differentiating between the meaning of the bible’s text and the cultural, historical, and sociopolitical context in which it was written, and much more. That is WAY more than I learned at my catholic university!
More importantly, through these conversations and our friendship, I learned that Christians are not the enemy and roadblocks to all good and progressive social change. Right-wing theocratic zealots are. It took this gentle soul and powerhouse to teach me that with their presence, kindness, and normalocity (yep, I make up words when the English language doesn’t suffice). This duo also reminded me of what I liked most about Jesus: he was a progressive liberal who rallied against the bullies in power and loudly and publicly criticized their hypocrisy. For that, I will be forever grateful.
A missionary once asked Ghandi, “Mr. Ghandi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?” Ghandi replied, “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Ghandi would have dug Stud Muffin and Buffy.
