40 Questions Round 1

written July 20th

I found a list of “40 Questions Witchy Tag” on YouTube, so I figure I will start answering a handful of those as well.  I need to go and see what is the next round of journaling questions in the 2016 Grimoire Challenge, but I kind of want something a bit more light-hearted today.  So I will answer a handful of the 40 Questions until I reach the 500 word mark.  I should be able to finish these by the end of the month.

Question #1 – What kind of witch are you?  You know, I am not really one for labels.  They are just way too limiting, and people just want a sound-bite size to sum you up with.  I guess it’s a hold-over from Christianity – you have Baptists, Southern Baptists, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Methodists, etc, etc.  And it’s easy to pigeon-hole people and have a good understanding of what their beliefs and rituals are.  It’s much harder with Pagans.  Less so with the established lineages – Gardernian, Alexandrian, Dianic, etc – those are fairly set in their traditions.  But the rest of us?  We are as varied and colorful as the flowers that populate this planet.

So all of that to say, I am a shamanistic, animistic, witch dedicated to Sekhmet, but who is not Kemetic (orthodox Egyptian paganism – though, I am interested in learning more about the Kemetic religion).  I am similar to the Dianics, as male deities play little to no role in my religion.  I am not Wiccan.  I much more Earth-based in my beliefs, but I still eat meat.  ::chuckles::  I am eclectic in the greatest sense.  If it works for me, I’ll use it, but I will typically tweak it to fit myself better. 

Question #2 – How did you discover your path?  There’s the standard rote answer of “I always knew I was a witch, I just didn’t know it had a name” which is fairly accurate.  But I found the name to what my soul knew when I stumbled across the book Diary of a Witch by Sybil Leek in my maternal grandmother’s personal library.  And then I got my step-mother to buy me Witchcraft: From the Inside by Raymond Buckland and I was hooked at that point.  It all clicked, it all made sense.  And I haven’t looked back since – and that was back in late 1995.  Before that, I was always fascinated with the customs, rituals, and beliefs of indigenous people.  Hell, I ended up specializing in that with my bachelor’s degree.  ::chuckles::

Question #3 – How long have you been practicing?  I kind of answered that in Question #2.  I have been actively practicing (meaning, actually doing rituals) since 1996.

Question #4 – What tradition do you follow?  This was covered in Question # 1 when I was explaining what type of witch I am.  So to recap – I don’t follow any “Tradition”.  I follow my own Path, of mine and the Divine’s making.

Question #5 – Are you solitary or do you have a coven?  I typically say I’m a solitary that dabbles in covens.  Even when I am a part of a coven or a group, I still do my own solitary rituals.  So while I enjoy being a part of a group for rituals, I do like doing my own thing as well.