I grew up in a community without a lot of resources to explore different spiritual paths. I was always reading, always imagining, always "in the clouds." I wanted to know about things that no one really wanted to talk about except within the bounds of traditional religion.
It went something like this in my head:
Going to Heaven to walk on streets of gold seems pretty boring, and why would we have mansions there if we aren't supposed to have wealth or we're just spirits that don't eat or sleep or have a living room, and do kids in countries who have never heard about Jesus go to Hell, and I read about reincarnation, that sounds really neat, I wonder if I lived in Australia or Egypt in another life, or maybe Scotland, or maybe I was a horse, and do you think there are ghosts hanging around the graveyard behind our house, and do you think they want to be friends, maybe if I play my flute for them while sitting on the hill next to their tombstone, and I wonder if dream catchers actually work, and Raven and Coyote seem really interesting even if science says things happened this other way, and maybe I could get a Tarot deck and try out divination, do you think that's ok?
By the time I made it to my teens, I was able to drive to the coffee shop in town next to the college with friends. There were a lot of smokers, but I survived it to hang out with my queer, religiously questioning friends. I dabbled in Buckland's Big Blue Book, and I got my first set of Rider-Waite-Smithe Tarot cards. I opened myself up to the world of spirits and deities and mystical experiences, especially after some crows made me slow down on the way to school one day and I missed hitting a deer head-on by a split second. Thanks, Crows!
College was an amazing time of psychology, anthropology, sociology, archaeology and writing. I finally found my place in a Unitarian Universalist congregation. Later, my interests led me to the pagan group--the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPs)--and expanded. I became a co-coordinator, learned to lead ritual, studied. I trained through the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, during which I was called to An Morrigan. Then the crows made more sense.
I traveled to Mystic South in Atlanta, GA, every summer with friends, and I met pagans, diviners, witches, druids, heathens, hoodoo practitioners, priestesses of Oshun, and a gamut of amazingly eclectic folks on every conceivable earth-centered path. Polytheists, animists, chaos magicians, atheopagans... And I adore the community, and I am so grateful to all those who have taught me, granted me a look through their own spiritual windows into the world. I want to make more space for us to grow and lean into our strengths and to share with others. I'm following the Light, and Star & Stone is my next step into broadening our community, our resources, and our ability to learn from each other.
Hail, and WELCOME!