I was just thinking about my experience growing up and the things I have gone through especially the subject of my spirituality and coming out with my beliefs and faith. I had a very peculiar time and difficulty coming out of the closet with who I am not just as a witch and pagan but other things as well.
I had a complicated family regarding reliigion and beliefs. About half of my family are witches, only I didn't know about it until I was around eight. One on my aunts told me stories and tried explaing things to me but I was too young to understand or comprehend the very nature of magic or the craft. My mother was very opposed to the craft and its beliefs and told me that it was nonsense. I didn't actually know what to think about any of it then.
When I was twelve after my aunt had passed away, I had a dream and it was very vivid and clear. I remember it to this day perfectly. My aunt was sitting atop a rock formation by this lake that was outside of where we lived at the time. My aunt, Ari, stood up from the rock and walked over towards the lake. She didn't get in, as I thought she was going to do. She picked something up from the ground. It was a box of sorts. It was very beautiful, whe walked back to the rock formation where she was previously sitting. She sat down the box and opened it, and out she pulled a book, a candle, a rose, a cup, several stones and crystals, and a few other things. She walked back to the lake and filled the cup with water, and then went back to the rock formation. She meditated for a while and then she started chanting one of the most beautiful things I had ever heard. The dream went on for a bit but then as the sun passed through the leaves of the tree that overlooked the rock formation, she looked directly at me as if I were standing nearby. She spoke to me in my native tonue and said "It will find you, the light is already within you". Moments later she disappeared abd the lake started to glisten brightly and the dream had ended.
After I had that dream I really began to feel pulled or called to understand it and what it meant. I started asking my mother questions about our family. My mother always told me not to ask and insisted that we were irish catholic and christian, although she never went or took us to church a day in her life, that I knew off. I didn't let it go, I instead just started reading and studying everything I could about magic and the craft. I had eventually discovered that my family had a mixed spiritual heritage of witches, druids, and gypsies. After that I started studying and practicing in private. I was able to progress without little help. Then about a year and a half later my mom found my first Book of Shadows. She yelled at me and told me if I don't knock this weirdo crap off that I was going to hell. She burned my BOS and grounded me for a month. I was really hurt and depressed for a while but I enetually got over it. I started a new BOS and I made sure to be more careful with hiding it and was careful not to do anything suspicious.
Aftter a while I started to get interedted more and more, not that I already wasn't, but at that ponit I needed to extend solitary study and practice, I needed to find othes and connect with those who believed and studided similar things. I eventually found others and I continued to develop my spirituality and beliefs. (To move things along) I went on and had a few more run in's with my mother. It was very hard and it was difficult. It pulled us apart at times, she even burned a few more BOS that I had made, she even made me stop being frinds with someone that I was close to who studied and believed as I did. Other aspects of my life also made things worse, especially when I came out about my sexuality. In any case I was kicked out of the house for two main reasons: My spirituality and my sexuality. Which in a way was sort of mutual because I was so tired of living like crp always being scolded about who I was and my beliefs.
I moved on and I was homeless for a while but I managed to stay alive and survive a lot of crap and it was uite challenging at times. But I was able to be me, live and breathe with that aspect lifted off of my shoulders and chest, although replaced witha different kind of weight, it was worth it for the most part.
The important this is that I am still here, alive, young with time to still grow and develop, and most importantly I didn't give up or let my beliefs be persecuted and ridiculed. I didn't lose my faith and spirituality in magic, although there were close cases. I am who I am and through all that I have expereiced I am better for it, although what I have explained here is very minute in comparison.
I now live in a beautiful apartment, with a room mate who is dear to me. I have progressively been finishing my higher education. For the better most of my life is beautiful and fruitfull. That doesn't mean that I don't have problems and that I don't face challeneges because we all do. But my point is that I expereinced life up till now with all of it's troubles, challenges, and difficulties; but also with all of it's wonder, mystery, and bounty. I hope that those that are young and are struggling with coming out with your spirituality and beliefs, and even just in general as a person no matter who you are, have faith and courage that you will survive and make it life, and be a better person for it.
My brightest blessings to all those who deal or have to deal with coming out.
~Illyrium
