Legacy of a Pagan

(In honor of International Pagan Coming Out Day, I write to you a story about the birth and youth of a modern Pagan.)


Once upon a time, I was a very quiet child. Being very kind, I made friends quite easily. The more I learned of the world, the more I stayed silent, inspecting it from my position. And though I'm still quite an introverted person, there are some things in this sacred world, in my beloved life, which cause passion to flow through so strongly that this mouth opens and a cry is heard.

I was born of magic.
The Pagan Way has been part of my being since before my inception. A ritualistic ceremony was done so that my mother would have a safe delivery, and that I would live. Though much of my family was Catholic, I was never influenced by it. My father would often tell me, "We're a family of Witches!"

At the age of nine, I experienced the world of Santeria, a magnificently gorgeous and sacred religion born first in Africa and adopted by the Caribbean. Though this is not my prime religion, it sits very near my heart, and always shall. (Maferefun Eleggua, baba mi!)

Do you remember a time in your life when you first met a person, a place, or a simple object that changed your life forever? That happened to met at about age twelve.

It was October, the month of ghouls and creatures of the dark, and the topic of the night was witches! Witches in flight, Witches in delight! I remembered my father showing me a book about Witches when I was younger. But back then I was too young to have any interest in reading grown-up books, so I didn't really read it. Big words I could never comprehend were being used. All I remembered were the black and white photos of naked men and women, some in groups, others out in a field. I learned later in life that this book was none other than the famous "A Witch's Bible", by Janet and Stewart Farrar.

I did my research. I read about Witches and their Witchcraft. Not much later, I came to the tradition of Wicca.

I found it odd when people asked, "How long have you been Wiccan?" I never woke up one day and decided, "Hey! I'm gonna be Wiccan! It's decided!" I suppose I'd been Wiccan since I started reading on about it. It had been a subconscious decision. I connected with the concepts of harming none and living in love with Earth and Goddess. I connected with the Horned God of the Witches during a time

when puberty was blooming. When I had just come out of the closet as a Gay teen to a whole body of kids in junior high, harassed by so many people all at once and on a daily basis, I found my comfort in a world where I still felt connected to the land and its many inhabitants, of this world and the next, rather than escape to dangerous places like the world of the suicidal like so many Queer youths now so easily enter.

The Pagan Ways empowered me, made me more whole. Empowered and whole, I was safe.

It brought me into this world safely, and then rocked me in its nourishment.

But my world of the Wicca was shortly lived. I found a deepening in my sexuality as I matured. As a Gay teen, I found myself not being able to connect to the Gods of fertility. Of course I could still impregnate a woman. I was very much male. But in a Tradition where men coupled with women in circle and in sex, I found myself excluded, exiled, and very betrayed. I fell into my own darkness for comfort then. Soon after that, I fell deeper inside myself, into a land without dreams and without belief as I came to meet a stranger called Atheism. And though Atheistic philosophy made much sense, I knew I could not deny the mounting of the Orishas as I experienced them in my youth, or the sporadic rush of energy I once felt walking down the sidewalk as I explained to my best friend who the Goddess was. I saw and felt beings that Atheists could not.

I spent many long hours of research, attempting to find my solace in some new world similar to my old one, yet still holding on to some psychological merging of the belief in the Gods with not believing they really existed. That's when I came to know the concept of archetypes. This will be my new way of thinking from now on, I thought.

But someone had been watching over me. Probably the Gods themselves shaking their fists at me saying, "We are real!"

Like a message sent from the heavens, I fell upon the Anderson Feri Tradition. I read the story of how the Star Goddess came to bear two Divine Twins into the world, and how sometimes, these Twins are both male.

Victor and Cora Anderson

My world changed before me once more.

I have certain lessons from beyond that I am specifically taught in life. My awareness has grown enough to see them when they come. This was one of my lessons. A specific sentence made it perfectly clear that this was another lesson. After days of adopting the concept of the Gods only being archetypes, I then came to the description of a beloved Tradition which educated against just that. "The Gods are very real."

I had read about the Feri Tradition earlier in my Wiccan days. I had been in search of some Wiccan Tradition I could be a part of. Seeing a pattern in my search, I knocked out all the Traditions that were oral. I was young; finding a respectable Tradition, I knew they would not teach someone young like myself for legal reasons. I remembered having read about the Star Goddess and her Twinned children some time ago. I remembered how intrigued I was at the Creation story of the Feri Tradition. But I knocked it aside as another oral tradition, unreachable.

Perhaps I was not ready then. Perhaps I needed something softer as I journeyed alone at twelve. But later being sixteen, going on seventeen, and knowing more, perhaps it was time my life deepened, religion and all.

Now, to no offense to you, Wiccan, but I was born with the help of a wild, ecstatic magic, the same magic that I experienced at nine years old, and the same deep magic that I then sought at sixteen and seventeen. Being Wiccan, I felt I floated on a cloud, always in awe of the natural world, friends with kindred spirits. But suddenly I felt a strong desire to dive off that cloud and make love.

My life called for wild, ecstatic magic. Feri could offer me that.

Reading more about the Tradition, I re-found what I had once come to know some years before -- it was an oral tradition. But this time I didn't care. I fell in love. That's all that mattered. My soul was being fed again, with nutrition that Wicca could no longer offer me. I began practicing the limited amount of Feri material that was offered online and in various books.

Art by Storm Faerywolf

It is my dream to be taught by a Feri Tradition teacher and become initiated into this line of the Craft. Feri practice saved my life some years later when I was close to death. I am eternally grateful for the tradition's work.

As of this post, almost four years have passed since my spiritual crisis and regeneration. Surprisingly, it is only now, after 8 1/2 years of living Pagan that I have become a deeply practicing Pagan and Witch. Before, I lived on the gnosis of the Pagan life, with practice usually more engaged around the Sabbats of the Wheel of the Year. Now, every day is a day of practice for me, with intervals at every moment of my life in which a conscious breath is taken.

As a teen, the only person I really came out of the Pagan closet to was my mother. She freaked out at first, but responsibly did her research and called Wicca "beautiful". I remember the fear and anxiety of asking her if I could erect an altar. I had her blessing since that day. In fact, I believe it was my different religion which began her own seeking, leading her to study things like Buddhist philosophy and Kabbalah.

Later, any friends and strangers who asked, I informed. That's all there was to it! The non-Christian half of my family knows I follow a different tradition than they do, and that is nowhere near problematic for them, least for my "Christo-Witchy" grandmother. I'm sure there would be some objection by a Catholic family member or two. But they would still love me nonetheless, I have no doubt. It isn't that I hide my faith from them; simply, that topic has never come up in the short time that I see them from year to year.

I am thankful to be able to live a life where I am not required by fear of isolation, rejection, or death to have to hide my religion, my spirituality, my faith, my heart, my rock from the world. In honor of today also being National Day of Prayer, and in honor of all our Pagan ancestors who came before us, I pray this sort of freedom for all my Brothers and Sisters of the Earth, for all those (Pagan and otherwise) facing and endangered by persecution, and for all those yet born who will one day reap of our success and continue to fight the good fight we struggle with, just as we do now, and just as our Mighty Dead did before us.

I was a seed watered by African magic, spreading roots in my rich and potted soil of British-born Witchcraft, suddenly uprooted and gasping for nourishment in my maturity and emptiness, and placed back into Iron earth so large and so deep, where my roots have grown and spread in ecstasy, my branches sprouting leaves and flowers that shall be my making for the rest of my lifetime and beyond.

I am Pagan, and I am Proud!

To that, there is no end . . .