The Path of a Christian Witch (11 page)

On the side of the road, I saw a woman dressed like myself tending to a man under a fig tree. His arms and ribs were caked with blood. The woman was patiently bandaging his wound with fresh white linen. I saw that the man had two large wounds on his forearms. The woman looked up at me, a questioning look in her eyes. I could hear her thinking,
Will she recognize us
? I got off my donkey and walked toward them. As recognition dawned in my mind, blood started to trickle from the man’s wounds. The woman started to tend to his wounds once more. I came closer and pushed the man’s cloak aside. On it was a picture of a robin. I exclaimed, “You’re the man with the robin!”

I woke up to a new world. I had found a part of myself. I felt as though I had been there and met my deities face to face. I had felt the sandy desert wind and smelled the sweat of a thousand pilgrims. I had been there, in their presence. They were there, on my path, under a fig tree. I recognized them. My search had ended.

That night I was there, in the presence of my Lord. I could feel the heat and the dust on my face. I could hear their thoughts and feel their power: a couple, in perfect balance, one taking care of the weakness of the other.

Looking for a deity couple was a new concept for me. Doesn’t the first commandment say that there is only one God? Isn’t that what separated us initially from the ancient Semitic religions? If God encompassed everything, all possibilities and all energy, wasn’t the reverence of a couple of deity figures redundant?

I started practicing with this concept long before I really understood its implications in magic and in daily life. The main concept at work here is
polarity
. As humans, we constantly think in terms of polarities: big/small, light/dark, good/evil . . . This learning comes very early on and is in fact a milestone in our development as children. We usually classify people, events, or things along a spectrum between two opposing forces. It is simply natural for us to do so. It is very difficult for us to think in terms of absolutes, or to integrate all the information available to us for a given situation, without relying on the easy classification system available to us through opposing spectrums.

God cannot be classified this way. God is an all-encompassing entity, a state of energy. In other words, God is a concept we cannot grasp with our human range of understanding.

The ultimate human form of polarity is the male/female polarity. All our spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental faculties come to fruition in the sexual union of the male and female counterparts. Whether this is in the actual physical union or through a symbolic encounter of male virility and female receptivity, there is no denying that the union of the male/female polarity is the closest we can come to a balance or a feeling of oneness. So much energy and yearning is unleashed through this union! It has been thus since the beginning of time. It is necessary for the survival of the species and the passing on of winning genetic combinations. But in humans, mating is more than that. We are not overpowered by an instinctual need to reproduce. We are looking for that completion, a sacred unity that takes place when we find our complementary half. Then we are whole again. At last.

This need is so strong and its power so great in our psyche, that it has pervaded ancient religions for thousands of years. Each god had his goddess consort: Isis and Osiris, Zeus and Hera, Asherah and El . . . As a Christian, I grew up with a fatherly image of God. The more I learned about world deities, the more having a single image could not satisfy me anymore. A fatherly image is a beautiful thing, but it lacks so many other dimensions that are equally important. We have all experienced the difference between fatherly love and motherly love. There are some things we simply wouldn’t go to our father for, and other things we wouldn’t go to our mother for. The differences are not in the intensity of love. They are qualitatively different.

As a Christian Pagan, I was faced with two choices: adopting an all-encompassing deity or adopting a deity couple, a representation of the polarity that is the source of life on Earth. Under that fig tree, I saw my whole God. I saw loving service, humility, strength of character, even defiance. I have chosen Witchcraft because I am a human being here to fulfill my human aspirations: to love, to search, to be amazed, to hurt and heal, to overcome, to hope and to have faith. Too long I witnessed my church destroy every beauty my humanity had to offer. I am human. That is why I can experience this beautiful world. I’ve decided to experience God in a human way. That is the way I will get the best understanding possible under my human circumstances.

A Long-Awaited Blessing

We all stood in circle. Joyce gave thanks to the deities and elements present. She smiled and looked at each of us proudly. Eight of us were finishing our first level, and we had come to be sisters in many ways. Joyce called me to the center of the circle. I walked up to her, my heart pounding in my chest. Our eyes locked. She said, “Adelina, have you chosen your deity pair?” I answered, “I have.” She continued, “Who have you chosen?” I took a deep breath, bathed in the energy of this holy gathering and I stated for all to hear, “Jesus of Nazareth and Mary of Magdala.”

Joyce smiled and nodded her head. She dipped her finger in an oily blend and brought it to my forehead; making the sign of the cross, she said, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth and of Mary Magdalene, I bless you and congratulate you on completing your first level.”

I went back to my place in circle with tears in my eyes. A woman had just blessed me with a holy cross, in the name of my Lord and Lady, in the midst of a most holy gathering of exceptional women. My whole body was shivering from the unexpectedness of this gift. To be in holy space, in a gathering of women, in the presence of my God and Goddess, living our magic and offering it as our legitimate gift to the world . . . I had come home.

A Year and a Day Later

It had been a year and a day since I had visited my sacred grove of trees. I had come with a simple pledge: to walk the Pagan path once more for a year and a day to see where it would lead me. I had asked for guidance and protection as I set out on unchartered waters.

Here I was, a year and a day later. So much had happened over the course of that year. I had met extraordinary people, women I knew would walk with me and teach me for a long time. A bond of sisterhood had been solidly forged through our experiences and the sharing of our successes and fears. We had all grown immensely. I stood here, a different person. Where doubt and fear had been, I sensed a grounded strength.

I had been aimlessly wandering in the desert, looking, hoping for the Promised Land. I had lived in conflict, wishing for a resolution, hoping that my vision of magic and devotion to my lineage was not an impossible dream. My quest was to find a central pillar to my faith. This center, I had found it where it had always been: in my friendship and devotion to Jesus, to his teachings and example. And I had found female force and beauty in a new devotion to Mary Magdalene. This was something I could build on. As long as I had this to rely on, I could wander in the desert and test the slopes of the highest mountains, and I would always have a central pillar of faith in the teachings of my Lord and Lady. I felt overwhelmed by emotion and peace on this sunny afternoon. I stood in the midst of nature with nothing in my hands to offer but the most soul-felt gratitude. I looked around me and whispered for whoever could hear me:

“Here I am, faithful to the calling, for my path has told me that I truly am the daughter of the birthing waters and keeper of the stone slate.

The path of the seeker has led me to your wonders, without and within, and I offer my thanks today.

I have seen the face of my God and Goddess and am rededicated to their course.

Jesus Christ and his consort Mary Magdalene have lifted the questioning from my brow through their love, as it was in the beginning and now shall be.

The path of the seeker has led me to a coven of people who love and accept and judge not. A place where my beliefs are respected and where counsel and support abound.

The path has led me to my sisters, whose love and power feed in me the recognition of my own name.

The path has opened my thirst for the earth and its glories, opening a physical need for the freshness and rejuvenation through the elements.

And within the glories abound, most of all in the recognition that I am Hope. Hope and knowledge of evil are the weapons given to me to love and cure.

“For the strength to be strong through the power of unwavering faith,

For the belief in beauty,

For the power and need and pain to create and bring things forth into the world,

For the eyes of the Witch who sees in all things the lessons of life,

For the recognition of the barriers that still stand and the respect for their presence,

For the acknowledgement of the Dark Moon within and the expression of its presence,

For the knowledge that balance is within me and around me as an active process that I influence every day,

For the balance within now that I have found you, Lord and Lady, and the conviction in myself to walk my own path,

For all these things,

I thank you.”

[
1
]. For more on monotheism by inclusion, see R. J. Z. Werblowsky, “What’s in a Name: Reflections on God, Gods, and the Divine,” in the
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
, vol. 12, no. 1 (1985). This essay is also online, at http://www.jstor.org/pss/30233339.

[
2
]. Matthew 17:20.

[
3
]. See James M. Robinson, ed.,
The Nag Hammadi Library in English
(New York: E. J. Brill, 1996).

[
4
]. David A. Cooper,
God Is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism
(New York: Riverhead Books, 1997).

[
5
]. Merlin Stone,
When God Was A Woman
(Orlando, FL: Harvest Books, 1976).

[
6
]. Luke 2:51. Also see E. Ann Matter, “The Virgin Mary: A Goddess?” in Carl Olson, ed.,
The Book of the Goddess, Past and Present
(New York: Crossroad, 1983).

[
7
]. See, for example, Kyriacos C. Markides,
Gifts of the Desert: The Forgotten Path of Christian Spirituality
(New York: Doubleday, 2005).

[
8
] . Michael Baigent, et al.
Holy Blood, Holy Grail
(New York: Delacorte, 2005).

[
9
]. Robinson, ed.
The Nag Hammadi Library in English
.

[
10
]. David Mycoff, trans.
The Life of Saint Mary Magdalene and of Her Sister Saint Martha
. (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1989).

[
11
]. Sandra M. Schneiders,
Women and the Word: The Gender of God in the New Testament
. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1986).