The Path of a Christian Witch (15 page)

With your mind and energy focused on your center, imagine a string of light emerging from your center and going downward into the earth, like a root. Feel your roots going from your center and from your legs, thighs, and back like a giant tree, going through the floor, through the foundations of the house, and digging through the rich earth beneath you. As you inhale, imagine the richness of the earth nourishing you. Feel the energy of the earth, the nutrients going up your roots in a trickle of colored light and filling you with stability and strength. As you exhale, let your tension and negativity go down your roots into the earth, where they can be recycled. Continue breathing in and out, feeling connected to the center of the earth, knowing that anytime you need this stability and nutrition, it is right there beneath your feet. When you are filled and balanced, slowly bring your roots back into your body and into your center. Take a few moments to get back to your reality. Listen to the sounds of your surroundings. Feel the floor under you. Then slowly open your eyes.

Creating sacred space in your home

The place where we live is a reflection of our own inner space. Allowing space for our tradition in our home gives us a place of focus, a reminder of the path we have chosen.

• The first step in creating this space is ritual cleansing. The first tools of the job are a good ol’ mop and a rag. For additional magic, I add some herbs to the water for washing the floor. You can choose any herb according to the energy you want to fill your house with. I sometimes add birch for protection, lavender for serenity, and roses for love.

• Clean the psychic energy of the house. This is traditionally done with incense. Sage works great to fumigate out bad vibes and has been used by Natives for centuries. You can also use the other elements to help you out: the purifying aspect of fire by lighting a candle, a bell or gong for air, a mixture of water and herbs to spray through the air, and of course your own energy, drawn up from the earth and directed toward the space you wish to dedicate.

• Create a focal point: Once your home is clean, select a place where you’d like to create your space. It can be in any room or even in the garden, next to a place where you can sit in meditative peace. It can be as simple as a picture on a mantle or a special stone or object you hold dear. You can also build a full altar, complete with elemental representations and tools of the Craft. When I look at my altar, I see bits of myself. There is an icon of the Black Madonna, symbol of the Great Mother and her connection to an older fertility tradition. There is an icon of Jesus, pillar of my faith. I have my drum and rattle to walk the spirit worlds. There are stones, incense, a candle, and a chalice as representations of the elements. These objects are my signature, symbolic representations of my journey. I can walk up to this altar and present my request to the Great Source in the words of a Christian Witch, in all honor of my heritage and with all the power of the lineage of those who came before me.

Churches and sanctuaries

Whenever I find myself in times of trouble, I rush to a sanctuary. I have spent many hours at St. Joseph’s Oratory on Mount Royal in Montreal. I would walk into the great sanctuary and sit in peace, away from the world and its torment. I would feel the blazing heat of a thousand votive candles and inhale the warm scent of polished wood. I would be surrounded by the symbols of my tradition and feel comfortable there.

Outside of service hours, there were few people scattered throughout the large space. Closing my eyes, I could hear the soundless echo that filled the vaulted ceiling. The crypt was filled with the memory of a million whispered prayers. Padded feet walked the aisles and stopped at the foot of the cross. Occasionally, you could hear a sigh, a sob, the murmur of a rosary. This is where I could truly pray. All of a sudden, breathing wasn’t so hard anymore. There were others like me, living what it was to be human, with all its joys and pain. We were all the same in front of this great power. It did not judge us or lecture us. It was just there, in its abundance, embracing us in the velvety silence of a church. These fervent, whispered prayers, tears, and joys are what have sanctified these buildings. And I know that I can always come in for a moment of peace, no matter the time of day. These churches are always there.

As I delved more into Witchcraft, even the faces of my Christian sanctuaries started to change. One day I entered the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal, a smaller-scale replica of the Notre-Dame de Paris. I had passed by many times but had never entered. I looked up to see a thousand silver stars on a dark blue ceiling. I felt as if I could lift up my hands and celebrate as I had done a hundred times in the light of the full moon. The dedication of this sanctuary to Our Lady struck me as oddly synchronous with the female symbology inherent in the moon and stars. My vision had been turned on and my curiosity piqued. I walked down the main aisle and marveled at the beauty of the construction, the ornate pulpit, and the side chapels. There were numerous alcoves around the perimeter where votive candles burned in front of statues of the saints that had marked the foundation of New France. I looked up at the altar and the cross above it.

But it was not the cross I got hooked on. There, at the foot of the cross, were the women. They were there, where they should be and where they had always been. In this sacred site dedicated to Our Lady, she had not been swept away. Both my Ladies were there, Mary and Mary Magdalene, looking up at their beloved. They were as large as life. Then my gaze narrowed in on a benign object at the foot of the cross. What was that? I got closer to get a better look. At the left side of the cross, as if it had been forgotten there by a passerby, was an urn. The chalice, the womb, the Holy Grail. It could not be otherwise. What artist would casually add something so ordinary to the rendition of such a crucial moment if it was not meant to convey some deep, hidden meaning? So there was the crucifixion with the two blessed women of the Gospels and the urn of life, the lost grail. Another holy trinity.

The light changed through the stained glass, and I noticed yet another detail of the scene. The cross stood on a block of stone. On this rock, I will build my church . . . Yet on this block was carved the crouching figure of a woman. Was it an angel? I couldn’t tell. But it looked undeniably female. I looked up in complete amazement. I might as well have been standing in the sanctuary of the Goddess. I knew that if I could search every nook and cranny of this place, I would find more of her presence. Here I was in the presence of the Goddess in her new form. I could feel her vibration—that cool, crisp ring like silver bells or the light of the moon. I had never felt this energy in other churches. She was the Goddess.

It made sense that she would still be among us in our sanctuaries and that she would manifest herself through her symbols of old. All I needed was the vision to read these symbols to rediscover that she was still here in the midst of my own tradition. I knelt down one more time, the smile on my face a testimony that I knew something others didn’t. I had seen the cauldron, found the Holy Grail. I did not need to go elsewhere. Here in this holy site, I could sit in the presence of both God and Goddess without betraying either.

Outdoor space

It is clear that no construction or holy site can rival the holiness found in nature. This holiness is of a completely different fabric from that found in an enclosed space. It is only by being in nature that we truly understand the greatness of the Creator and the greatness of our human condition.

I was walking down the street one night in a small community called Waskaganish, on James Bay in northern Quebec. It was very cold. The snow crunching under my feet was crisp from the frigid, dry air of late December. The stars were like blue jewels on a dark, velvety sky. I couldn’t remember having ever been more alone. I was so far away from everything that I knew. I was in the land of the Cree, far away from home. I knew no one in this community. I was far from my friends, my husband. There was not a soul on the street, no familiar hum of cars and machinery. But I did not feel lonely.

Here I was in a small community of a thousand-odd people in the middle of complete emptiness, hours away from any other settlement—a little hub of civilization in the winter whiteness. I looked up at the sky. It looked so far away and yet it was so clear. At that moment, I felt an intimate certainty fall over me. In the velvety, wintry silence, I had a glimpse of myself in a vast white light. I heard words spoken in my mind:
I have chosen to be here.
This is the world that I have chosen. I felt the knowledge of having been somewhere else before. I remembered having looked down upon the world and having made a conscious choice of becoming part of it. I made a choice of leaving my familiar world behind and choosing to experience this world fully, as a rightful inhabitant of this planet.

I suddenly felt such a connectedness with everything. I exulted in my physicality: I could feel, I could smell, I could hear the silence and feel vibration. I could see sound and hear images. The world vibrated in this cool, clear rhythm. It was so clear then what the world was about. I was walking down the street alone and I could feel everything. I realized how wonderful this world was. It is part of an experience that we are all meant to live. One wise man said that we are not humans looking for a spiritual experience; we are spirits looking for a human experience. That’s what I felt at that moment. I felt that I really had to live this experience to the maximum of my ability. It wasn’t just a passage. It was a choice to be here, my own free will. There is nothing debasing about this world. Being in the world is not inferior to being in the spirit. The world is a spiritual dimension. It is an honor to be here and to have the opportunity to experience what the world has to offer.

God created the world. That, in itself, is enough to venerate every pebble that lines the earth. Nature is also God’s way of communicating with us. Jesus himself used nature to teach us about God. He used birds and flowers, the weather, precious stones . . . Looking at nature, we can come to understand God himself. Our world could have been any number of things. It could have looked like a barren, rocky desert. We may have walked in the sky and stared up at the earth in amazement. Trees may have been gnarly purple things with colored pustules. We may have been the sole organic creatures to roam, feeding ourselves only from the sun.

But no . . . that is not how things have played out. God’s creation is such that we have an expanse of emptiness above us with beautiful orbs of light, enticing us to look beyond our world and into the next. We have trees linking heaven and earth, made of hard, strong wood. We have this hard matter under our feet to support us. And what to say about this most peculiar substance we call water—a formless entity, impossible to grasp yet completely yielding to shape itself to whatever holds it? And the pure energy in action we call fire? And the invisible life we call air? Who could conceive of such things? In nature, there is godliness. By opening ourselves to our surroundings, we enter into communion with God.

Nature talks to us in symbols. If we keep our eyes open, we can see the signs of the times unfolding before us, no matter where we live. These symbols are often embedded within animal totems and archetypes. The more we interact with nature, the more we realize that we are not separate from it. We are an integral part of it. We are not a ruler caste put on Earth to control and dominate. Our planet lives according to its own cycles and rhythms. Wolves howl at the moon. Salmon spawn at a precise time and location. Birds migrate according to weather and light. Busy building a world of stone and concrete, we forget that we are also subject to these powerful forces.

We are influenced by the cycles of the moon, by the weather . . . Jesus himself said, “Can you not read the signs of the times?” When we look up at the sky, we know if it will rain or if it will be hot. He told us to look outside ourselves into the spectrum of time and see that there is something bigger than ourselves that constantly speaks to us. It tells me to look far and wide, farther than I’m used to. It tells me not to limit myself to the here and now, but to expand my consciousness to the signs of the ages that are still imprinted in nature. A tree, for example, has a record in its very trunk of the cycles of drought and rain it has witnessed. Nature holds the secrets of the past and of the future. By keeping our eyes open to the world and to nature, we reconnect to a vital part of ourselves.

Animals also have a lot to teach us. I’ve often had moments when animals come to me unexpectedly, to give me a quick lesson or message. Turtle has taught me patience and peace of mind, telling me that I needed to slow down and let things come. It taught me to relinquish control and let go of anxiety. All was to be done in good time. Tiger was with me during my more aggressive years, when I needed to fight and prove myself. At that time, I needed to convert a devastating energy into something productive and fought to prove myself as a woman in a world dominated by men. Tiger exemplified a female, feline sense of power. Dragon accompanied me for a moment. It taught me about painful sacrifice. I experienced the pain of metamorphosis, the shedding of an old skin. I struggled to free myself, much as a newborn struggles to move toward his first breath of fresh air.

All these animals talked to me in a way that no discussion could have. I received all their wisdom on a purely instinctual level. I felt it in my being and in my soul. My reason did not interfere, could not rationalize them away. They stayed with me, teaching me a way of being and a way of growing.

By following the cycles of the seasons and the lessons of our animal kindred, we become less estranged from the world, less isolated, less alone. We become connected to the grand realm of things, to the godliness of the world. And we can touch this great power, listen to it, and learn from it through our communication with all aspects of creation. People are yearning to go back to a more natural surrounding. We so yearn for it that we can’t help but answer the call of the wild. I just hope we can do this before too much damage is done to our life-sustaining planet.