The Path of a Christian Witch (4 page)

I was here for a couple of hours, to relax while I waited for him to finish another apartment one floor up. I was reading
Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior
by Dan Millman while lazily enjoying the summer afternoon. I had followed the author to the exotic land of Hawaii and had witnessed his many encounters. I felt great. I put the book down, turned on my back, and stretched.

It was all around me.

The Green Light.

Aqua swirls filled the room, pulsating around me like a warm blanket. The Green Light . . . How long had it been? Five years? Ten? I was just a child then . . .

I loved to read then, too, anything I could get my hands on. My father had an inclination for the paranormal and had a complete library of esoteric teachings. I remember hearing him talk about astral travel and the aura, how he had been fascinated by these phenomena. I must have been about twelve when I picked up one of his books:
The Secrets of the Aura.
[1]
I would practice at night under my covers, marveling at the silver lining around my fingers like thick smoke. And the Green Light, always around me, shining with a radiance that was out of this world—a color that might be somewhere between a blue and a green, always moving in swirls in the darkness. On that, I would fall asleep.

That is how I came to understand this phenomenon we call energy. Until you feel it and experience it, it remains an abstract concept that is as flat as the words on a page. And here I was in the most unexpected of places, being reconnected with an old, old part of myself. I remembered the exercises I used to do as a child to see my aura and to leave my body. I remembered moments when I could anticipate what people would say. I remembered vague impressions that I would get, like daydreams, only to find out that the things I had seen had actually happened to people I knew at precisely that time. And there were dreams of battles with the devil and of strange entities whispering my name. I had walked that world and I had felt its power. I had felt at home in that strangeness. So many years later, I realized that the world of men had gotten in the way. I had completely forgotten about that part of myself.

The Green Light opened a gateway through which I could peek every so often. My senses started to open up a tiny bit. Unexpected feelings often came out of this gate to nudge me out of my perception of the world—through an unexpected letter or the mysterious words of a stranger I’d met on the bus, or from a premonition of things to come, a sudden blinding flash of color, an uncanny dream . . . This repeated rush of excitement filled my days and my nights and made me look for more beauty and adventure. It became an essential, magical part of my life. The more I looked for this magical feeling, the more I found it in everything I touched. It was there in the rustling of the leaves or in a comment on television, in a sudden vision or a song playing on the radio. I realized that what had initially been just a gateway now encompassed my whole world. It came with me everywhere I went. It was a part of me.

How could I have forgotten? It had come back to me unexpectedly in a dirty old apartment. There it was suddenly back in my life—unbeckoned, given freely. A part of me retrieved with no effort. There was magic in the world once more.

No
, I thought.
It had never left
. Only my sight was given back to me.

An Angel in a Bookstore

A million thoughts and ideas flew through my tired mind as I walked down Mount Royal in Montreal, not one of them related to the upcoming exams that would decide whether or not I would graduate. This was my third and final year in microbiology. I should have been eager and motivated to give it my all, one last time. But I had reached a saturation point. I had nothing left in me to give. Would this year never end? I couldn’t join the rest of the recluses in the library, studying useless facts about protein synthesis in bacteria. It would be time wasted. I needed a break.

I looked up and found myself in front of the university bookstore. As if moved by an unseen force, I opened the door and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Finally, the sounds and smells of civilization! The slightly dusty smell of books, the coarseness of espresso, the excited chatter as cups clinked in the nearby café . . . I walked down an aisle and grabbed a book at random, hurrying toward an empty armchair by the window. It was only when I got to the chair that I saw what I had picked up. It was a book about extraordinary occurrences of angels in everyday life.

The busy bookstore and café were hushed to a throbbing murmur as I plunged into the amazing stories of real-life miracles. I read tales of extraordinary rescues, road signs appearing magically to indicate the road to a nearby hospital, chance encounters that changed lives . . . Time stood still. I just could not tear myself away from this book! I felt such relief wash over me. Where was it coming from?

I had just spent days, nights, weeks, months cramming information into my tired little brain. It analyzed, memorized, synthesized, calculated . . . all for the glory of science. I realized suddenly how parched I was for something greater than logic and scientific rigor. What about love and spirit and humanity and godliness? How could science have become so divorced from them? Could we ever have knowledge without spirit? Ambition without passion? Yearning without love? Science was so cut and dry, irrefutable, fact-filled. The university was teaching me to shuffle these pieces of knowledge around, rotating them to make them fit into theories and hypotheses. Where was the creativity in all this? Could anyone truly experience genius without reaching within themselves into the divine part of their being?

I had attended classes in biology, immunology, biochemistry, genetics. Each had focused on the mechanics of things, how we thought things worked. Where was the wonderment about it all? The acclamation of God in his tiniest creations? No one marveled at the complexity and genius of life. They only dissected it down to the smallest part possible so they could put it back together again. But the truth was that no matter how rigorously you studied the building blocks of life, you could never put them back together and behold the flow of life. This was not the prerogative of science. It was the domain of God. Without God, without Spirit, these studies were futile, pointless. I had always felt that something was missing from it all. This book I was holding had reconnected me to the spirit dimension. And all of a sudden I felt comforted. It all didn’t seem so pointless anymore.

The bookstore became the chapel where I could reconnect with Spirit while trying to survive the tedium of my studies. Whereas classes taught me the “facts,” reading books on spirituality gave me a context, a point. Most others saw the point in the pursuit of research and the furthering of knowledge. But without Spirit, knowledge was just random information. It could never be wisdom. And I wanted no less. Sitting in the bookstore became my lifeline. I needed to connect to something greater than myself, to the essence that manifested itself in these very things I was studying. Without it, my life made no sense.

I became a bookstore junkie. A world of wonderment had opened up in front of me, and I became addicted to this new way of getting in touch with something higher than myself. I started going to the bookstore every day. I perused the shelves, in search of the lesson of the day. These books were like a million teachers, spanning across time and space, to reach me in my mundane little life. I read texts on African women preachers and on quantum physics and more on angel messengers. One day, a title stood out more than the others:
Ask Your Angels
.
[2]
I brought it home with me and delved into it.

It began with a simple meditation called grounding. This book had grabbed my attention in such a peculiar way that I felt I was meant to really pay attention to what it was saying. I sat on the floor in my room and closed my eyes, breathing deeply and rhythmically. I had never meditated before, and I was amazed at how easily I was able to focus my mind. I followed the steps to the grounding meditation, which is the first step in the angel communication process explained in the book. I let my mind float carefree as I pictured roots going down from my spine and legs into the cool, rich earth.

Once there, I drew up the sparkling crystals of nourishment the earth had to offer and let them fill every inch of my body. I was parched for this energy, and I drank it in like someone who had just spent years in the desert. As I reveled in this new light, I started pulling it upward to different centers of my body. Each energy center felt different, and without effort I started seeing images and hearing bits of sentences. For the first time in my life I was receiving wisdom that came neither from books nor from formal teachings. It came from experience. My experience. This wisdom came through my body and through the earth and through the energy of the universe. A new dimension was opening up for me.

The next day I returned to the bookstore. My vision was changed. I felt a profound serenity. The colors around me were brighter. I could hear everything without being overwhelmed by it all. My breathing was even. I felt so peaceful that the fact that I lost my wallet that day did not jar me. I merely observed that it was missing and went about the process of finding it. I felt none of the usual stresses and anxiety that I was so prone to. I felt the world.

It was in this state of openness that I walked down an aisle in the bookstore and picked up the book that would turn my journey around.

I walked over to the spirituality/New Age section. I let my fingertips linger over the books as I walked. I had just finished my exams the week before. I had all the time in the world. I was filled with that glorious feeling of youth and summer vacation. My fingers stopped and I took a look:
Book of Shadows
by Phyllis Curott, Wiccan High Priestess.

I had never heard of Wicca or Paganism. I picked up the book and went to sit in the bookstore’s café. I had spent innumerable hours here, cramming for exams. It felt so good to be able to sit quietly and read whatever I wanted. I opened the book and started reading. I was plunged into a woman’s journey as she discovered the magic of a new-old religion called Wicca. I was with her as she found her way to a magic store and joined other women and celebrated her femininity in ritual, as she conjured magic and awakened an untapped power deep within, the power of the Goddess. I followed her as she became a Witch.

I realized then that there was nothing I wanted more. I wanted to lead rituals and feel magic in the world. I wanted to worship the sacred image of myself through the Goddess. I wanted to feel connected to the universe and worship the sanctity of nature. I wanted to feel the rhythms of the earth and walk the world in pure awareness. I wanted to be a Witch.

I held the book close to my heart. Books are the vehicle of stories and fairy tales. They tell the tales of other people.

But what if ?
. . . I thought.
What if the magic could happen to me?

Maybe I could join a group at a distance, a group like the one this woman had joined. Maybe I could do some distance courses . . .

I sat at my computer and I entered the words: classes, Witchcraft, and Paganism.

Crescent Moon School of Magic and Paganism
Ste-Catherine Street West . . . Montreal . . .

I stared blankly. I had lived around the corner for two years, and I’d never noticed the little magic shop. It was there, right around the corner. I could not believe my eyes. I could meet others, learn about magic, celebrate the Goddess and the cycles of nature. I could dance around a circle and lift my hands up high in praise. I could be a Witch.

Now, I had to ask myself a serious question.

Did I dare?

A Goddess Made of Clay

There was no doubt. I was afraid.

It was right there at my fingertips. All the magic and beauty I’d always wanted. What if it was really a strange cult, waiting to get me? What if I lost myself in it? Worst of all: What if God disapproved and cursed me forever? Was I willing to take a chance on this? I disagreed deeply with many of the positions of the church on gender and homosexuality, the place of women, and other political stances. Yet the voice of doom kept booming in my ears. Concepts that I’d cast away, like hell and sin, came sneaking back into my life. What if I was being seduced by an image of beauty and that heathen image was taking me away from the one true faith? I knew logically that it was ridiculous. I did not believe in a vengeful God. But the propaganda of the church was effective. I was afraid.

For weeks I debated. I called the school and asked questions. The teacher seemed very nice. The new semester for level one was starting the next day. I had to make a choice.

I took a lump of clay and started to fiddle with it to relieve my anxiety. I tried to make a cup, a gnome, a flower, but nothing worked. The anxiety was flowing all the way down to my fingernails, and the clay refused to cooperate.

In frustration, I banged the lump of clay on the table and stared at it blindly. As my gaze started to focus, I saw her face. She was veiled, sitting on a mountaintop. Her veil covered her head and went down to drape the mountain itself, so that she seemed to be one with the mountain. I started to clean out the lines of the clay, making each curve smoother, each crevice more defined. Line by line, stroke by stroke, the Goddess entered my world. I took her in my hand, and looking at her I made a decision. I would learn more about her. I joined Crescent Moon.