The religion post

Wicca is defined as: A modern Pagan religion with spiritual roots in the earliest expressions of reverence for nature. Some major identifying motifs are: reverence for both the Goddess and God; acceptance of reincarnation and magick; ritual observance of astronomical and agricultural phenomena; and the use of magickal circles for ritual purposes.
source

I am Wiccan.

But I have not always been.

I was raised in the Episcopal Church since I was born. My father and aunt sang in the choir and I was in the youth choir.

My mother has always believed that you don't have to go to church to be a good Christian. We went to church because that was what my father wanted.

My parents divorced when I was 7. We moved to a different town when I was 8. I still went to church when I visited my father up until we move out of state when I was 11. My step-father had the same feeling about church as my mother did, so we never went. But I still considered myself to be Christian.

When I was 16 we were living in Louisville, Kentucky. I'd been going through a rebellious phase since about the age of 12. My mom was(is) uber-conservative, so while, in retrospect, the things I did really weren't that bad, at the time she thought I was devil-spawn. She sent me to Oneida Baptist Institute, a boarding school in southeastern Kentucky.

Yes, this was a religious boarding school. We had to go to service every day, and twice on Sundays. I'm not one to hate on any religion, but I didn't appreciate being told that I HAD to believe what they told me to believe, or else I was going to Hell. I believe in free will. It seemed to me that free will didn't exist in the Baptist church.

By the time I got expelled from OBI (that's a whole other story), I was pretty much fed up with religion being forced down my throat. I basically considered myself Agnostic at that point.

My entire life, I'd always been fascinated with the Occult, particularly Witchcraft. I knew enough to know that it was about nature and the Earth and had nothing to do with Satan or anything like that. Satan was created by Judeo/Christians, after all, therefore has no place in Wicca.

When I was about 25, my best guy friend started dating a girl who had been practicing Wicca for about 5 years at that point. She was a Solitary Witch (meaning she wasn't in a Coven). She and I became friends and I started asking her about Wicca and how she came to it and all that. I wanted to soak up every bit of information she could give me.

A couple of days after our initial talk about it, she brought me a book. Wicca: A Guide For The Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham.

By the time I was finished with that book, I knew I had found what would make my soul complete. I had also decided to practice as a Solitary.

After about a year of study, I preformed a self-initiation ritual. I occasionally attend public rituals. There's a huge public ritual at a local park for Samhain every year. I try to attend annually. But beyond that, I am still a Solitary Witch.

Although I have been bashed for my religious choice by ignorant people who have no idea what it's really about in the first place, I sincerely believe that whatever faith a person follows, as long as it gives them peace and makes them a better person, then it is the right faith for them.

Blessed Be.