The Path of a Christian Witch (3 page)

And that is when the dreams started.

As much as Jesus was becoming a part of my days, suddenly he was also a part of my nights. One night I dreamt that I was in the schoolyard with three of my friends. Jesus passed by, bearing his cross. An angry mob followed him as he made his way to the top of the mountain and out of sight. We were saddened to our core. The very foundation of our world was being destroyed, the love of our lives. We knelt down by a cross and prayed. We needed to make this moment last. We could not accept that he was gone forever. Roman guards passed by and laughed at us and threatened us with a similar fate. We just bowed our heads and prayed more fervently, shaking with fear and yet not wanting to let go.

Words could not express the feeling that inhabited me. The love I had for the man with the cross was my treasure. I would not give it up. My soul needed it. It was a part of me. A centurion passed by and witnessed the scene. He was moved by this picture of our innocence and fervor, and he ordered the others away. He told us to go play and we did. We felt safe again to be ourselves in spite of the hostility of the world.

Dreams came every night, and I spent a lot of time talking to Jesus and God and Mary before going to sleep. I read the stories of the saints from A to Z. They were my friends, my confidants. They were a true part of my life and I wanted to live a life that honored what I learned from them. In my dreams they would talk to me and tell me great things. Yet I did not talk about them excessively, and my outer life was still largely secular. They belonged in my private sanctuary, my sacred space.

Falling from Grace

When I left The Abbey, it was as if something was ripped away from me. My friends, those I loved like family, were gone. I ended up in a school with people I just did not understand. They put attention on their hair and clothes, on boy bands and makeup. It was all foreign to me. I found comfort in sports and music and, as always, in my books. By the end of seventh grade it was clear that this was not the place for me, and I started eighth grade at a Catholic school for girls. Adolescence is a confusing time for a teenage girl. It would be no different for me.

“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. It has been many months since my last confession.”

My hands were clammy and the walls around me seemed to swallow me. I could see the faint outline of a face as the priest urged me to proceed.

“Well, father . . . ” I stammered. “There was this guy . . . ”

My heart was pounding and sweat was trickling down my back. The air was hot and dry, and I had a difficult time breathing. I felt my knees digging in to the prayer kneeler. I thought I was about to pass out.

The booming voice on the other side of the confessional replied: “Did you touch?”

The shame, the guilt, and the utter embarrassment came crashing down on me. The innocence of my fourteen years was not prepared for such a question. Asked so plainly, it looked ugly and depraved. We had kissed. Did that count? I assumed it did, but in this tight place, talking to this elderly priest, I was sure of nothing anymore. So, I answered, “Yes.”

“Well, you know that is bad. Imagine how your poor mother feels, knowing her daughter did such things.”

I was devastated. This boy had meant nothing to me. Was I no better than those other girls who were rolling up their skirts and flirting shamelessly?

All my life I had lived according to the highest ideals possible. I tried to live with compassion—listening to others, helping others. One little mistake, and all the good I had done seemed erased in one bold stroke. I believed what the priests were saying. I lived every moment trying to follow what we were supposed to do. That is what being Catholic meant, right?

I stumbled out of the confessional and into the school chapel. I dropped onto my knees and begged for forgiveness. Adolescence blows everything out of proportion, and you try desperately to hold on to something solid through the storm. The church had been my structure, my lighthouse. I had lost sight for a moment and I felt lost. I vowed not to fail again and to live by the rules. I promised to do everything in my power to be perfect from then on.

I became superwoman at age fifteen. I trained in karate six hours a week, working out my anger and resentment toward myself. I was fearless and I showed no mercy. I joined every club and activity I could, partly to develop myself to the best of my ability and partly to keep me from thinking about this rotten feeling I felt inside. I slept little, praying to be better.

As always, the only time I took a reprieve from this self-persecution was in the presence of God. I took refuge in the school chapel every Wednesday for Mass. Very few of us bothered to show up. But there was something soothing about the velvety silence, the smell of the wood polish, and the familiar words we would all say together. It was a humble setting and I could just relax there. There were no judges inside my head. I felt at peace.

A Calling

Sister Joan had noticed my attendance, and one day she signaled to me.

“I was wondering if you would be interested in helping us with the Easter Vigil celebration?”

My high school was attached to a convent where elderly nuns came to retire. Most of the teachers were secular, and the interaction between the convent side and the school side seldom occurred anymore. This was a rare occasion to go to the convent side of the chapel, which was much bigger than our school chapel. Sister Joan gathered a few girls, and we rehearsed the choreography for the readings and for several songs and psalms. We raised our hands in unison and walked reverently in our slippered feet, moving to the words of the psalms, hymns, and prayers.

We came together on Holy Saturday for the Easter Vigil and prepared in a side room. I felt like one of the vestal virgins preparing to serve at Vesta’s temple. We were excited, but we were also filled with the solemnity of the occasion. We wore robes of white and gold, and prepared the altar for the ceremony. I felt the exhilaration of the assembly fill the chapel up to its vaulted ceiling. This was the greatest night of the year, the most holy night of all.

The organ struck a chord and we walked in, holding smoking plates of frankincense and myrrh. The smoke rose to the heavens and filled the air with our praise. We laid down our gift of incense at the foot of the altar and bowed deeply. The priest blessed the fire and soon the whole chapel was illuminated, as hundreds of little candles were ignited. In the light of the candles, everyone looked at peace. Our voices rose to glorify God in the person of his son Jesus. We recited the litany to the saints, each name like a mantra that took us body and soul.

As I moved my hands, I realized my whole being was absorbed with what I was doing. My breathing was even, my body free of tension. This energy flowed through me like the waves of an ocean. We felt the whole congregation breathe to the movements of our bodies. We felt their sighs and their uplifted spirits. I was lifting up their prayer with each step and each movement of my hands. I was bringing their whispered prayers right into the ears of God.

I could feel what it might have been like to stand in Athena’s temple or in a sacred grove. I bridged the worlds, keeping one foot on Earth and one hand in heaven. I looked out at the congregation, and I knew that my presence was leading them in prayer. I wanted to walk the hallways in silent prayer, every action an act of devotion. I wanted to be a part of liturgy, a song of praise, an instrument of God’s presence. I was fulfilling what I was born to be. I was clergy. A priestess for my people.

Finding Love

With time I came to realize that I still wanted to live in the world. I did not want to take my devotion and hide it within the walls of a convent. I was a bright student, and I didn’t want to sacrifice the gifts that God had given me. I wanted to spread them to the world by dedicating my life to making the world a better place. I went on to college to study microbiology and immunology, in hopes of dedicating my life to medical research.

Going to college was exciting. Although I stayed in Montreal and continued to live with my family, I suddenly felt like I was part of the world. I traveled downtown every day and walked in the midst of the bustle of the workforce. I went shopping and had coffee with the girls. I discovered the city: museums, movies, clubs, and restaurants. I met new friends, and we enjoyed everything that downtown Montreal had to offer. It was just plain fun.

I walked into the school cafeteria one day, expecting nothing more than a casual meeting with friends. But when I saw him, the world collapsed around me. The noise of the crowd vanished and I was transfixed by his eyes. It took me a moment to realize that my friend was taking me right to his table. He was in her class, and she wanted to introduce me to some of the friends she was going to school with. I said hi to everybody, but my eyes stayed on him. We exchanged some banalities about our weekends or something of the sort. In my head, one thought: this is the man that I need. My whole being rang with that conviction. There was something about the sound of his voice, his bearing, and his eyes that was comforting, like a soft place to fall when the world becomes too hectic. And the most magical, miraculous thing is that he felt it, too.

He asked for my phone number, and we started calling each other. I can still see him waiting behind a column near the subway entrance, waiting to take me on our first date. We walked all night in the old city, talking about everything: our families, our love of music, our aspirations, our interests . . . We didn’t ask if we should be together or not. It was never a question. We simply were. This was love, pure and intense. The kind that takes you by surprise and amazes you. The kind that makes you believe in fairy tales and in angels, and that obliterates the ghosts of the past. There was nothing wrong here. Nothing to be ashamed of. With each kiss and each embrace, I felt stronger and more beautiful and more of a woman. I grew and bloomed and felt happiness in the core of my being. I looked back at all the time spent in misery and hurt, and I mourned all that time wasted. For now I knew with every fiber of my being that love and intimacy were the most beautiful things in the world.

My father did not share my excitement for my new sense of actualization. He could not shake the idea that his nineteen-year-old daughter, his first born, was being cheapened by some man. As I listened to his lecture, something inside me clicked. For the first time in my whole existence, I knew what it was to feel complete conviction for something. I stood up calmly from the argument and said, “No.
I
know.”

I remember the look on my father’s face. There was frustration, but I know I detected a hint of pride. I was not to be devastated this time, nor was my love going to be trampled through the mud. Love was my treasure. My whole being resonated with this truth. And I could see this resonance in my love’s eyes as well. Only a perverted mind could see evil in the bond we shared. Those who have been profiting from caging women in shame for centuries were still hard at work. This time
they
were wrong. I was no longer bound to this perversion. I was bound only to my honor and to my love.

I started looking at my parents through adult eyes. They were wonderful, generous, loving people. But they were human. They were the sum total of their own life experiences—experiences that differed largely from my own. I realized that many of the things I had classified under the heading of “That’s just the way it is” were not marked in stone. All around me, I could see the golden cage of patriarchy, the legacy of thousands of years of Judeo-Christian rule. I saw the subtle way in which this ideology infiltrated every aspect of our lives, like a cancer poisoning us slowly. More than ever, I noticed its consequences on my life as a woman. And the church was largely to blame for this. It had soiled my sexuality, put sin into my childbearing. It had denied me my right to clergyhood. The world had followed this blindly, marking us all as cheap labor, second-rate citizens, a simple commodity to be traded and bargained for. Not only did this destroy the souls of women but of men as well, for whoever did not acquiesce to the image of the alpha male was no better than a woman.

But, there were also good aspects of religion, weren’t there? Like love and spirit and a sense of community, of belonging somewhere. Of feeling safe. The ugliness was merely politics, the inner workings of the world. That was not all religion was about. Something became clear to me at this point: church and faith were two different things.

Now,
I
knew.

The rules I used to follow blindly simply crumbled to the ground. I wouldn’t listen to my family, nor my country, nor my church. I now knew what it felt like to resonate with something true and pure. From now on, I would follow only my heart, and let the magic of the world surround me.

And There Was Magic in the World

My first year of microbiology had just ended. It had been difficult, grueling work, and I was happy to finally get a moment to relax. I lay on my stomach in an old, rundown apartment that my boyfriend was repainting. I liked this building, despite its rundown looks and its busy location in the midst of the student ghetto. My boyfriend was working here as a local “superman,” taking care of poor students, their blocked plumbing and their failing heaters. Summer brought new waves of eager beavers looking for a dream in higher education. That meant hot days of painting and renovating for the caretakers of the building.