The long promised secular pagan post.

Magic is the art of changing consciousness at will - Dion Fortune

My relationship with religion has always been . . . fraught.  To be more specific, my relationship with systems of belief has always been complicated.  From the beginning, from my nice, Catholic baptism where I, to hear my mother tell it, spent the ceremony happily blowing raspberries at the priest.

Which isn't to say that I haven't tried to believe.  When I was in grade school we went to church.  I went to Sunday school, got my First Communion and First Reconciliation.  I learned my catechism.  And I tried to believe.

I have a vivid memory of kneeling at a pew, during mass trying so hard to pray.  Closing my eyes and picturing my heart with perforations that would break open and let Jesus in.  But I never felt anything.  I can remember, as well, the profound sadness at my failure.  And I can remember looking at the other parishioners, dressed in their Sunday-best, kneeling at their pews, with their eyes closed, praying.  And I wondered if they were just acting.  I knew that I was.

And then, the summer before I started at the local Catholic middle school I found Scott Cunningham's The Truth about Witchcraft Today.  My mother bought it for me, after voicing her concern that it would be too scary for me to read.  (There is a long history of me reading books that my parents knew little about, probably for the best)  And so I became the best approximation of Pagan a 10 year old can be with access to one introductory book, table salt and butter knives.