It took me a really long time to feel comfortable writing about this. Strangely enough, coming to terms with the fact that I resonated with the Occult felt a lot like coming out of the closet.

My whole life I always gravitated toward things that were more “magical” and “whimsical”. I loved things like old books, crystals, stories of witches and wizards, and honestly anything else that I could get my hands on that would yank me out of the mundane world that I lived in and into a world of magic and wonder. I remember holding on to the idea that Santa was real until I was in 6th grade; that’s 12 years old everyone, 12. As I was getting older the scientist in me was setting in and I was beginning to get explanations for the things that I had previously just thought of as mystical wonders of the world. I remember when I finally got up the courage to ask my mom about whether or not Santa Claus was real. I think I’d let it go on so long without asking because I knew in my heart what her answer would be and I wanted to continue feeling the magic in the season for a little while longer. When she finally gave me her answer of “I believe in the spirit of Santa Claus.” I just started crying and I remember saying, “It’s not fair, there has to be some magic in the world.”

My family was never particularly religious, but there were some “old Christian fears” that had been instilled in me from a young age that stayed with me longer than I’d like to admit. For example, being taught to be uncomfortable around pentagrams, around the idea of witchcraft, and around things that fell under the category of “occult”. I also have a memory of being in middle school and telling my mom that I didn’t feel like I was a Methodist. I told her that I wanted to do research on other potential religions and about halfway through I realized that she, and my family in general would be pretty uncomfortable if I chose something that was outside of the umbrella religion of Christianity. So I settled on Lutheran.

When I got into college, I stuck with the new subset of Christianity that I’d chosen for a while but not too long after I began to feel like going to church was a chore and that I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of the whole deal. I stopped going to church my Sophomore year of college, which caused some tension between me and my sister. She is extremely religious and though we have since reconciled and gotten to a place where we are close again, there was a time where I know that she was disappointed in me for my rift with the church and my “good Christian morals”.

Hopping around in the timeline, skipping the whole abusive ex-husband bit (a story for another time I’m afraid), I started to get over my fear of proximity to the occult and did what any science loving person searching for meaning in life would do. Go to the bookstore. And go to the bookstore I did. I ravenously devoured any bit of information I could get my hands on and realized very quickly that I’d been practicing witchcraft my entire life; and not only that but a lot of these “witchy tendencies” that I had, had been instilled in me by my good Christian family.

Growing up, I was always taught natural remedies as a first stop for any type of ailment. Upset stomach? Peppermint tea. Sore throat? Lemon water with honey. Headache? Heat, aromatherapy, water, sleep, and then potentially ibuprofen. On top of that there were a few things that I didn’t realize were outside the ordinary until I started reading my books on witchcraft and noticed that some of the chapters on visualization and intention were the exact same things that my mother would use for me when I was sick. As a child, if I was sick my mother would sit down next to me and tell me to envision a white light surrounding me, healing me from the inside out. She would tell me to picture little men painting soothing green paint on the surface of whatever was causing me pain and to imagine that as they did that the pain went away. She would tell me to remember that my body was built to heal itself and I just had to believe that it could.

Witchcraft at the core is believing in the power of your intention and its ability to help you manifest what you want in your life. My boyfriend lovingly calls it “positive thinking with extra steps” and in a way he’s right; there are plenty of misconceptions surrounding witchcraft and the occult that I’m not going to put down here because I will go off on another tangent and that is another article entirely I think. But at the core, that’s all it is.

The first step I had to take was admitting to myself that I wanted to fill my house with candle, incense, pentagrams, and runes, sit cross-legged on the floor in the moonlight, and wear and participate in the things that made me feel powerful. Then I decided that I wanted to start calling myself a witch. I first had to say it to myself a lot, over and over again until it felt at home there. Then I decided to test it out with my close friends and boyfriend; turns out one of my best friend is also a witch and we created our own little coven together once we figured it out. My boyfriend on the other hand is an atheistic nihilist and doesn’t quite understand what I see in the whole concept but he’s been very supportive from the start and I appreciate him more than I can say.

Once I was actively participating in witchcraft and had become comfortable talking about it in my daily life, I decided it was time to tell my family. My mom was confused at first and worried, as moms do, but once I explained to her what it actually was, her fears mostly faded to the background. I don’t think my dad really cares one way or another, which is not what I was expecting but I was pleasantly surprised. My sister took some convincing, and while she still has reservations about certain things and doesn’t quite understand the difference between the misconceptions and the truth of what it is, I think we are making strides and that’s all that really matters.

I’m not sure why I decided to write about this as my first blog post. Perhaps because its been a more recent development in my life, or maybe because I’m honestly curious how people are going to react. But mostly I think because I’m at a point in my life where I want to live my life genuinely and get back to that place I was at before high school where I didn’t give a shit what anybody thought about me. Where I was confident enough to stand in the middle of the playground “controlling the wind” or believing in Santa Claus long after everyone else around me had grown out of it.

I think for a very long time I put way too much pressure on myself to live the kind of life that was expected of me, even putting myself into boxes and relationships that didn’t fit because they followed the narrative that I’d created for myself. Regardless of the reason, I’m ready to start living genuinely again, to everyone around me and most importantly to myself. I’m not sure how many of you got to the end of this piece but for those who did, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the content I’m going to be putting out, because I certainly hope to.