Caz
June 10
What brought you to the pagan path? Do you feel that you were always on it, even before you knew what it was? Were you raised as a pagan? Did you know any pagans growing up? At what age did you finally consider yourself to be a pagan? What religion were you raised?


This prompt was posted by Mrs. B and, well, it prompted me to write this ;)

I was not raised pagan unfortunately. I think I might have been a less depressed, more happy person if I had been . I was raised loosely Southern Baptist. By loosely, I mean that my parents *never* attended church…but the religions values were generally expected to be ours and they took us once or twice a year to church. I think that’s partly because I was raised in the deep southern US where church is a HUGE part of the local landscape. There are OVER 100 churches in the town I grew up in (which had about 130k residents before several large employers left and people started moving away) and the ‘what church do you go to’ was often the first or second thing a new acquaintance would ask.  

When I was a preteen I started going to vacation bible school and the like, mainly because it was what all the other kids were doing, and as a young teen I joined a small local church. It had a nice youth group, and some of the kids I went to school with were members so it seemed like the thing to do. When I got pregnant (out of wedlock no less *gasp*) at 16, the church I had been attending backed away from me as if I had the plague. I walked away and never looked back.

The father of my child & I married and moved away. His mother & I got along great, and she happened to be pagan at that time (she’s now born again Christian, go figure on that ;) .. At some point she passed along to me a copy of a Scott Cunningham book. I never really thought twice about it. We moved numerous times over the next few years thanks to the US military, and I don’t remember seeing that particular book. But I guess it moved with us for some 5yrs or more. One day I was bored and went searching for a good read, and somehow that book fell to hand as I browsed my shelves. I had hundreds of books, how on earth THAT one happened to be on the front row (they were 2 books deep) on an eye level shelf, I’ll never know. It took me a little while to even remember where it CAME from, and then I sat down and devoured the entire thing in a few hours or less. That would be going on 15 years ago now… I’m not quite as Wiccan as Scott Cunningham writes, but it was a start to my journey.

Think I need to drop my former MIL a note and thank her again for that. ;)
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1 Response
  1. Todd Says:

    I was raised "loosely" like you describe, only as Pentecostal. Never felt I was part of it or any other faith really. Only Pagan, I've decided, because I live in the country and pagan means 'country dweller'. *shrug*