Yet Another New Level

I went book shopping today at both amazon.ca and at the local Chapters, seeking out books by Wiccan 'elders', picking up a copy of Starhawk's The Spiral Dance, Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon, and Isaac Bonewit's Essential Guide to Witchcraft and Wicca. I'm no longer focussed on what Wicca is to me, but, rather, what it is to others, as well as its true historical roots. In other words, I've now finally turned an academic eye to my Wiccan studies.

I am content with the way I live Wicca and the direction I am taking with my faith. But I find that my knowledge is too self-centred, too focused on what I feel inside. I have a hard time externalizing my beliefs. At first, I thought that was not necessary. But the broom closet becomes stuffier and stuffier and I think that I will eventually have no choice but come out of it to my family.

My extended family (especially my grand-mother) is devoutly Catholic while my immediate family (especially my mother) seems agnostic, maybe even atheist. I know that my grand-mother will understand, if she wants, my description of religious revelation, but my mother will want a much more academic, even 'lay' description of my beliefs. I need to be able to show that my beliefs didn't materialize out of thin air, that they have a history, that they are 'legitimate.'

This weekend, I attended a baptism for my nephew. He was baptized not because of his parents' personal beliefs, but, rather, because of family pressure. I'd like my beliefs to be known ahead of such events, so that my grand-mother won't faint should I ever be handfasted, or my mother be completely flummoxed by the death celebration ritual I have prepared.

Reading Being a Pagan, a collection of interviews with Pagans, I now have a greater sense of my own faith, seeing that while I do have an individual, even unique, take on it, my foundation is no different than that of those who follow a Druid, Astaru, or Faery path.

Most truthfully, though, I am getting lonely and am eager to reach out to the pagan community at a gathering of some sort and I'd like to be able to show up knowing that I'm not completely misguided in thinking of myself as 'Wiccan' and that others I meet will find me a kindred spirit.

The more I read the more I see that, a) I am most definitely Wiccan; b) I am most definitely following an uncommon path; and c) there is a definite (and desperate) need for Tameran Wicca literature.