November 16, 2007

• I had a Calling

  When I was little, I didn’t really relate well to other children my age. Even my mother would make me feel low by calling me grandma when I’d act concerned because she was late getting home. The one good thing she did for me though, was teach me to read in first grade. Sure kids start learning to read in first grade, but my mother read The Hobbit to me every night before bed and by the end of the school year, I took it from her because she was reading it too slowly. What I lacked in friends and confidantes, I made up for with books. I would be hard pressed to name one person that I was truly close to in school, and once I started reading on my own, my mother stopped spending that little bit of time with me. If not for my ability to immerse myself in a story, I think my childhood would have been one of extreme neglect. I can remember being four years old and entertaining myself by “exploring” the area around my home… and we lived in one of the worst parts of the city at that time. Sure I was well fed, clothed, and had a bed to sleep in, but the little time that my parents did not spend working, they spent on… other pursuits.

  When I turned five and my sister was four, we moved into a more suburban setting because my mother didn’t want us to go to a school in the city (also because my stepfather was sent to prison at that time… long story). School made me happy because there were more books there. I read the whole rainbow of fairy books several times over (this was actually a series of twelve fairytale books edited by Andrew Lang, I would not mind owning them today!), Hans Christian Anderson, the original Brothers Grimm, and many other fairytale collections, and when I had read those stories so many times I could practically recite them, I started reading the ancient myths of every culture I could find.

  My grandmother was Lutheran, and I am the only child that was baptized in the family, which is ironic since I am definitely not Christian. My mother didn’t really care about religion at that time, and had me baptized mainly to placate my grandmother. I went to Sunday school, and enjoyed reading the stories about the same as the fairytales I could read in the school library. I didn’t have any religious feeling though. That’s important for the sake of this story…. I mainly went to Church to make my grandmother happy too.

  You know how you hear about Christian priests or nuns having a “calling?” Well, by the time I was eleven, I’d read the major myths of so many religions, from Christianity to old Sumerian, that it just struck me that I believed in the old gods a whole heck of a lot more than the Christian one. Not that I disbelieve in the Christian God, but He didn’t seem to be a very charming fellow, going postal at the drop of a hat. The old gods were a lot more personable, and while they had their failings too, they were still approachable and understandable. Call it an epiphany if you like, but it just came to me that I could be a Pagan even if there weren’t any more. At that time, I didn’t know that there were other Pagans or even that people still practiced witchcraft. I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing when I realized I was a Pagan… I was sitting at a table in the school library, reading a book of Greek mythology. And it just made me so happy to finally know what I had been missing.

  I was actually probably a Pagan from age nine, but it wasn’t till I was eleven that I made a conscious decision that a Pagan was what I would be. But for two years after that, I operated in a vacuum… creating my own traditions and rituals. I didn’t talk to anyone about my feelings because it seemed to me that it would probably not be a good idea considering what had happened to the last Pagans.

  I think it’s safe to say that I have a “rich inner world,” not only because I was so thoroughly neglected by my family and peers, but because I felt it necessary to internalize so much of my beliefs just to be safe. Obviously, I’d read all about the Witch trials and the forced conversions of Pagans when the Christianized Romans tried and mostly succeeded in taking over the world. True they eventually fell to the Goths, but much of our culture today is derived from old Rome. And the Church likes to make big of the Christian martyrs who were killed by the Pagan emperors in Rome, but not much is said of the Pagan martyrs. In fact, they usually try to insist that there weren’t any. (But I hope all my readers are smart enough to realize that history is written by the winners. From my own past life memories, I can tell you that I was martyred at least twice.) It was like living a weird conglomeration of the story of the ugly duckling with a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and I felt sure that if anyone ever discovered I wasn’t a good little Christian child, I’d get burned at the stake for sure.

  It wasn’t until I was thirteen and discovered my first book on Witchcraft by a fellow named Dr Martello that I learned that there were other Pagans and witches and that I was not, in fact, alone. I came out to my mom, and it was no big deal. I almost wish she had pitched a fit or reacted in some way, but… nothing. She wasn’t overly religious at the time, though she could probably pass for a Buddhist now. My parents… did a lot of drugs when I was a kid, and they weren’t really emotionally available most of the time.

  To assume that I have always been asexual, is to assume that I never went through puberty. Like all young people, I eventually matured… late. I was fourteen. Up until then, I’d been worried, though honestly, the only reason I was anxious  was because it was something that people expected to happen and it hadn’t yet. I never went through a phase where I thought boys were icky, but I never went through a phase where I was much attracted to them either. I thought I should like boys because I was a girl, but no boy ever showed any interest in me and after a while I just let it go.

  Well…….. it was actually lot more traumatic than that… I was questioning my selfworth… wondering why none of the boys liked me and what was wrong with me, but at the same time, I wasn’t particularly interested in anyone so I couldn’t blame them for not being interested in me. Sometimes other girls would make snarky remarks about my hair or clothes or lack of makeup, but none of those things were me and if it came to the point where I would be (boy)friendless forever or change and be the center vapid of attention, I’d rather be alone. And stepping back from myself and my situation, I observed how boys and girls acted and the emotions involved (or the lack thereof) and decided it just wasn’t for me. There wasn’t any love in it at all, and I couldn’t imagine being physical with someone and not feeling anything but a physical response. This was years before I knew what an empath was.

  But it was just so empty and meaningless. I really, literally despised my peers at that point because they didn’t even realize how repulsive they were to me. They treated me so very badly (in junior highschool, they “lynched” me), and all because I was a non-conformist. I shopped in thriftstores because it was cheap and my family was poor. My sister was always demanding the latest fashions, but I was happy enough to wear second-hand clothes, even if the other kids picked on me for it. I have always had very long, naturally curly hair, but I had people telling me if I got a perm or styled it, I’d be more popular. (This was the era of BIG hair) Why? I couldn’t see the point. I have very lovely hair; why destroy it for the latest trend. And makeup… that’s my sister’s shtick. Makeup makes me break out.

  No, puberty was a very confusing time for me. It probably would have been better if I was gay. Then at least I would have been attracted to someone, and people would have seen I was at least a little bit like them. As it stands, they just assumed I was a snob because I wouldn’t join in their hedonistic ways. I’ve never thought sex equated with love, and I can’t wrap my mind around having sex with someone that I do not love.

  So to get to the point of this post… I was asked in a previous post, how do I reconcile being an asexual with being Pagan when “many” Pagan rites focus on reproduction and fertility. Well, for one thing, I am not Wiccan and therefore my belief system does not center around reconciling the Goddess and God to one another with Great Rites and such. I’m a Pantheist which means I worship many gods, male and female both. Some of them are virgins, and therefore what interest would the great rite hold for them? My gods are gods of intellect and creativity, but not reproduction. They are tricksters, teachers, warriors, and peacemakers. Their needs are not generic and cannot be met with a simple sexually themed ritual, just as my needs are not sexual in nature. So there really is nothing to reconcile. There might be some conflict if I were Wiccan, but since my beliefs are much more broad than that, the question of my sexuality is moot.

  • 8:52 pm
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