out of the broom closet... unexpectedly

I never spent much time in the broom closet.  I was only in the closet when I was first researching Wicca and wasn't entirely sure it was the path for me.  Once I decided that it was for me, I didn't hide it from my friends or family.  I was open and honest about it.  It wasn't a huge coming out or anything, but as it came up I was honest about it.  Some wanted to know more, some were unsure about it, some didn't want to know anything except to ensure that I wasn't getting into anything of a Satanic nature.  I've always felt comfortable talking about what I believe.  There are certain questions that are harder to answer than others and I prefer specific questions.

There has been one place that I've always been hesitant about talking about my religion and that's work.  My religion has no effect on my ability to do my job and it doesn't make a me a better or worse employee.  I work hard regardless of my beliefs.  I'm not naive and even though I know that religion is a protected class, I also know that if someone wants to fire me, they'll find a legally acceptable reason.  I don't want any possible prejudices to cloud a performance review or possible promotion, so at work, I have always remained in the broom closet.  I've played along with whatever the expectation is of me.  I was raised in a Protestant family and my mother's side of the family is Roman Catholic, so I know just enough about the Bible and the religion to get by.  If co-workers asked if I believe in Jesus Christ, I would say, "yes, I believe in Jesus Christ."  And as far as I'm concerned, I never lied since they didn't ask what I believe about him.  Do I believe he lived and brought a good message to many people?  I most certainly do!  Do I believe he is the messiah?  I'm not going to rule it out, since I believe that all paths are true, it just happens to not be my truth.  If they made a comment about my rosary beads, I would say they're at home.  I have my great grandmother's rosary beads in my jewelry box.  If religious discussions came up, I could participate.  I would bring my dedicant homework to work and tell them it was for a meditation class I attend so that I can stay "zen."  When they asked why I could never work on Monday nights, that was when I went to my meditation class.  No one ever questioned me and if they did, they never voiced it.

Recently, I inadvertently outed myself at work.  I requested Halloween off, which I know calls some things into question since I don't have children.  I told my manager that I needed it off for religious reasons and that made her more willing to work with me, but she didn't ask any questions.  Another co-worker was not pleased about me having it off as she has children.  And don't get me wrong I understand her wanting to get out of work early to take them trick-or-treating, but since she didn't need a full day for that, there was no reason that I couldn't have it off and that's how my manager felt about it too.  My co-worker saw the schedule and was not happy.  

I got into work and she asked, "why do you need Halloween off?  Are you going to a party?"  I said, "no."  So she asked, "are you going down to Connecticut to see your family?"  Again I said, "no."  I had hoped my one word answers would give her the hint that I didn't want to talk about it, but she kept pushing.  She asked, "so why do you need it off?"  So I said, "religious reasons."  She said, "religious reasons?  What sort of religious reasons?"  So I told her, "I have to go to church."  This is where I miscalculated, telling a truly good Catholic that I needed to go to church on a non-Christian holiday.  I'm used to people who do not attend church regularly, so they take my surface answers as they are.  That was not the case with this co-worker.  She said, "church?  What kind of church do you belong to that requires you to go on Halloween?"  I knew I was in trouble at this point, so I said, "a spiritual one?"  And then she asked the question I dread getting at work and have avoided for most of my working life.  "Are you a witch? Do you practice witchcraft?"  I didn't say anything.  So then she said, "you do, don't you?  So I said, "I don't really talk about it at work.  I don't want people to judge me."  And then something surprising happened, she said, "yeah I understand that.  I would keep it on the down low too.  People do judge.  I'm not judging you, I believe in all that stuff, I go to psychics and get my cards read.  Oh my god do you read tarot cards?"  So I said, "no I'm not very good at cards.  I'm learning to read stones (referring to my witches' runes).  I'm just learning though, I'm not like a professional or anything."  So then she asked if I would read for her.  We talked a little more, and then we went about the work day.

I fully expected to come into work, the next day, to whispers about me being a witch.  I prepared myself for the whispers and dirty looks that can accompany being outed.  Surprisingly, that was not the case at all.  There were no whispers... no looks... it was a totally normal day at work.  My co-worker asked if I brought my runes with me and I had honestly forgotten them and offered to bring them the next day.  She expressed concern that everyone would be around and that I wanted to keep my religion quiet.  I was so surprised that she didn't tell anyone.  I work in a bank and to be honest, bank tellers are the biggest gossips you will every meet.  I thought waitresses were bad, when I was still waitressing, but I've come to the conclusion that bank tellers are FAR worse.  The fact that she kept things quiet touched my heart.  I've been able to continue to work without any trouble and enjoy my job.

Today, our manager must have been struggling with some personal issues and this co-worker must have mentioned that I read runes and asked me to bring them to work again.  I was a little nervous when this came up, I won't lie.  My co-worker assured me that she didn't say much beyond the runes.  I don't know what was said, so I approached the situation carefully.  There were no comments made and it seemed like my manager got some answers that she needed.  My co-worker asked how my Halloween was and she seemed to take an interest in what I was saying.  The point is, people can surprise you.  There was no judgement, only appreciation.  I don't know if this experience will bring me out of the broom closet entirely.  I think I will always hold my religious beliefs close to my chest, but this whole experience has given me a renewed sense of hope.

Love and Baking

Fall is a strange time for me.  I hit the seasonal change (which for some reason the summer to fall change is the worst) and I have found myself in a funk on more than one occasion.  At the same time, I enjoy the fall, especially now that I am out of school and have my own home.  My boyfriend and I have created traditions that I look forward to every year.  

I have found that one of the things I look forward to is baking.  It's too hot to bake in the late spring through early fall.  In fact, I don't even want to cook in the hot and sticky New England summers.  If I could afford it and it was healthy, I would probably eat out or get take out every meal of every day.  But in the fall, there is something that just feels so magical about baking.  I light a candle and usually play music and the constant internal chatter of my head shuts off.  I find myself focusing on love as I work the ingredients and beyond that my brain just seems to flow.  My hands know what they have to do and the only disruption in this flow is to check the details of the recipe.  Even after I check the recipe, I go back to the flow of working through the recipe.  

I've only noticed recently that I do this, but as I look back on my baking season, last year, I did the exact same thing.  Now that I realize I do this, what do I do with it?  I have a hard time with normal meditation, since my head doesn't normally turn off, so perhaps this could become my form of meditation and communication with deity.

Restlessness and Longing

I find myself restless, this time of year.  I can't really say why, but it's always in September, just after my birthday that I begin to feel like something is off.  I can't say that I feel like I'm in a funk, this year, like I did last year.  It's far from that.  I find myself happier at this point in my life.  I have a job that I can be happy at, I am initiated, I am at a good place in my relationship, and I see my family fairly regularly, finances aren't great, but they'll get to where they need to be.  Just the same, something feels like it's missing and I can't say what.  I feel a longing for something, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is that I feel is missing.  I'm a firm believer that if you don't find it within yourself that you won't find it outside yourself, so I have to ask myself what part of me is feels separate from the rest of me?  What have I sectioned off for whatever reason?  I know that I have learned to survive in this life by compartmentalizing different aspects and not allowing them to mix.  But until recently, I haven't felt as restless as I do now.

The more I think about when I start to feel this restless feeling each year, the more I realize that I've always felt this way, but it's been magnified over the past two years since I've been out of school.  Is it the routine I miss?  I have a different routine that has replaced the school routine, so is that really my issue?  Is 20 years of some sort of school routine and then the loss of that what's really throwing me off?  Living in a city, I've lost that slow transition that comes from living in a rural farming area.  I find these strange seasons a bit jarring.  They don't transition quite the same here as they do in a farm town.  You don't see the plowing, planting, nurturing of said plants, harvesting, dying off, and repeating of the cycle, in the city.  Instead you wake up and it's spring, and then you wake up and it's summer, and then you wake up and it's fall, and then you wake up and it's winter.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  The seasons almost have a sterile quality to them.  It's not something that I ever thought I might miss since I guess you could say it was always something I took for granted.  It was the farming that drove me crazy, living there, but it was also how I subconsciously marked time, I suppose.  Is my sense of time disrupted?  I don't know if that's where my sense of restlessness and longing comes from.

Sometimes I feel like maybe I'm missing out on something.  There's something I'm not doing that I should be doing.  I don't want to say that there's something I don't have that I should have since I'm not big on material possessions if it's not something I don't have already.  I'll admit I'm a bit of a pack rat and have a hard time letting go of current possessions, but at the same time I'm practical when it comes to acquiring new things.  I know this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but work with me here.  So what's missing?  What am I not doing?  Is there something non-material that I feel like I'm missing?  I can't quite figure it out.

A Crossroads

I've been on hiatus for a while.  I don't really know why I've been gone.  I hit that fall funk last year, and haven't had a whole lot to say.  I was feeling lost and alone for quite some time.  I tend to isolate myself and stop talking or writing when I feel this way, which for me, is completely counter-productive.  I find that I do my best decision making by writing my feelings down and talking to people.  Knowing this about myself, I don't know why I shut down like this.  I think sometimes I feel like people stop listening, which I know is most likely me projecting.

That fall funk progressed to full on crisis.  I don't know what exactly started it, because it started slow and eventually moved from feeling kind of off to crying daily, if not several times a day for hours.  It was completely unreasonable and I couldn't control it.  I did my best not to cry in public, but the tears were always just below the surface and they would occasionally bubble over without warning.  I think it had a lot to do with my initiation into my coven.  I had heard that you go through a sort of purification prior to initiation.  Old things that are no longer of service find a way out of your life, leaving room for the new things that you are ready to manifest.

I thought I was prepared for this purification since I had already experienced an awakening of spirit (see  previous entry).  I went through a sort of purification and transformation, that time, with my friendships.  I lost some friends that I thought were good friends that were no longer good for me and I gained a stronger relationship with a friend who became one of my dearest friends.  It was a painful process, but nowhere near the amount of pain and anxiety that I went through for my coven initiation.  That process was significantly more painful.

Cricketsong predicted that my purification would be job-related.  I assumed it would be in relation to my current job at the time, which was extremely toxic.  What I didn't know is that my purification would cause me to question my entire career path and the direction of my entire life.  I found myself confused and eventually at a crossroads.  I have a degree in photography, I spent seven years working on that degree.  I love photography.  I love the life and emotion that it captures and is able to inspire in viewers.  I loved the idea of telling stories visually; stories of those without a voice that needed to be heard.  I wanted to travel the world doing this and work for big name award-winning magazines.  I didn't mind working strange hours and two jobs to do this.  I wanted to be world-famous.

I graduated from college and began to look for an entry level job that would eventually lead down the path toward the dream job.  Here I am two years after graduation, many applications submitted, and only 3 or 4 interviews, 1 job that didn't work out due to the gallery owner misrepresenting the job duties and requiring less experience than the job really required.  I've found myself reconsidering my path not only because of the difficulty finding employment, but also because I think that what I want out of life has changed dramatically.

Who I am at almost 27 is very different than who I was at 19, when I started school.  I don't want to live out of a suitcase in hotel rooms anymore.  I don't want the fame or be a "household name."  I don't care for the terrible hours and working two jobs anymore.  I want a quiet life with my friends and family.  I want to be married and have a family of my own.  I still want to help people, but I think the way that I want to nurture and help people has changed.  I want to get involved in my community, not just tell someone's story and then never return after the story has been told.  I want to consistently have an effect on people's lives.  I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do this just yet, and the process was anxiety-producing prior to initiation.

Finally my initiation came, and while I cannot disclose what happened that night, I can tell you that something within me changed.  It was as if someone opened a window and all of the anxiety, stress, and negativity flew out.  It was one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I still don't know exactly where my career is headed, but right now it's ok to not know.  It's ok to explore.  It's ok to take care of myself first and allow the rest to just fall into place.  And that's what I've been working on ever since my initiation.  I'm finding myself and my happy all over again.