If you were to meet me, you’d think I was the sweetest gal you’d ever met. Deep down, I am angry, very angry. An angry southerner, gasp, NO! While the rest of my state is in preparation for the end of days because Billy Graham is near death, here I am…blogging. My soul is surely damned. I would like to interject here that anything I say about my home state is more about our screwed up government and brainwashed inhabitants than the beauty that is NC. I have visited or driven through half of the country, it is one of the most beautiful states in the union. That being said, I am not a Republican(or Democrat), I am not a Baptist(or even Christian), and I am not an ignorant redneck hick. I have a mind of my own, I am an outcast, that has been life long and shared with me by my sisters. I don’t listen to country music, just dropped a bomb there, I don’t go “muddin” those kids on MTV needed to be handed some books, and I don’t believe Billy Graham is a prophet and that his death will bring Armageddon. Yes, they really believe that here, insert sigh and gratuitous eye roll.
I am a woman, learning the old ways(old as in Stonehenge), trying to raise children that aren’t brainwashed by religion, but enlightened spiritually. My 7 year old was recently called crazy at school(they have the pledge of allegiance to the bible posted in the cafeteria) for saying a chant to the Goddess. I’m pissed. In this, the land of the free, we are NOT free. While everyone was up in arms over Phil Robertson’s religious views(he had a right to voice them and A&E had a right to suspend him, I’m sure there was a contract) I was telling my loving, innocent, hurt, babe,”you can’t tell anyone what we believe, it is so special they won’t understand.” I’ve had to tell my child that she can’t practice her beliefs as we practice them here at home. I am so angry, I deactivated my Facebook nearly 3 months ago. Being a southern pagan, seeing all the trees, wreaths, colors, all the meme’s telling me to “Keep Christ in Christmas” that plagued my news feed, made me sick. Not because it is all stolen, it is all stolen for the record, but because I felt I couldn’t share what I believe. I celebrate the turn of the wheel. The solstices, equinoxes, and the moon in all her glorious phases. The Winter Solstice, Yule, fell on a weekend, so I packed her off to her father’s for the weekend without saying a word. Forgive me if I feel that a multi millionaire with a reality show’s religious views don’t affect me in the least and I could give a rat’s ass. I can’t celebrate in the open, with my family, what I believe. What other religious practice would be called crazy?! Please, dear reader, do tell me. No one would tell anyone who follows any of the Abrahamic religions they were crazy, if you aren’t aware, Judaism, Catholicism, and Islam are Abrahamic. Holy shit, the Muslims are in the same category as the Baptists? Yes dear one, they are. I know, I am so sorry. Not really. I am still in my studies of my new found spirituality, I’m learning to think, speak, and act positively in every facet of my life. To protect the earth, to celebrate every season, to use what I’m learning to bring some sort of peace to this crazy world. But my child is deemed crazy for saying a beautiful chant to the Goddess before she eats her lunch, provided by the Goddess, the great mother, the earth.
At the end of my week of silence I am going on a retreat with my husband to the most tolerant city in NC, Asheville. No TV, cell phone service, internet. Just the beauty of the NC mountains in winter, an energy healing package, and a spa!! I am releasing this anger, these feelings of disdain and disgust over being lied to for the better part of my life, to continue to teach my child my ways, but to also expose her to all faiths with the knowledge that her mother will love her no matter her religious views. And to keep them secret, at least until we move. We are planning to move to Asheville in the spring, it is the most progressive, open minded city in NC. I’m not going to move far away from her father or grandparents. But I am going to relocate to a city where we don’t have to hide our religious views, where there are actually like minded individuals, where her sponge like mind won’t soak up all the racist, ignorant bigotry she is faced with on a daily basis here in this simple, narrow minded town. How my sisters and I made it to adult hood with our sanity and our own set of religious views, I have no idea. We were spoon fed the Southern Baptist doctrine from birth. Higher education is the only explanation I can fathom. That and the fact that they left, one sister is in Colorado(save the weed jokes, I moved her there and there was no weed) the other is in Korea, soaking up the gorgeous temples and the peaceful chanting of the monks. I want that state of peace. I want to be free to be a glorious Goddess and to teach my daughter that she is one too, we all are. In my practice, we are all one with the divine. WE are divine, we are not terrible sinners that must grovel at the feet of an angry, jealous God(that’s in the bible, FYI) we are as cherished and special as any deity. We have power to work with the energy around us to exact the change we want in our lives, we are healers, seers of the future, we love with no restriction or shame. We are loved, always.
Pardon me if I have trampled on toes. I thought this was a country of religious freedom? Here in my home town, if it got out that I was a practicing Pagan, they’d burn a cross in our yard. The Klan is alive and well and they are more organized than ever! Obama being president has had them organizing like mad. I don’t know what their goal is, but type IKA into your Google search engine and you will see first hand how organized they are. If there are ever laws passed to start taking guns, they will meet their match at the Mason Dixon line and we will be in a civil war, know it, trust it, believe it!! The black powder flows here just like the moonshine. Except the moonshine is illegal. I can’t help but wonder if I’m the only person with any common sense? I’m certain I am here in this podunk town.
Enough ranting, journaling, blogging….I’m going to take a walk with my dogs & my husband, in silence, around our gorgeous property. I will miss the simple beauty of this area, but that is all I will miss. Sad when the manner of people can make a place absolutely hideous in spite of it’s wondrous beauty.
Until next time, I’m thinking it is time for some home remedies!! Look out Martha!!
A phone camera quality pic of a summer storm rolling in.
The Lunar Apothecary 