Confessions Of A Daoist Witch - How I Got Here. Part One
Like a lot of people, I left Christianity as a young adult after becoming skeptical of, and disillusioned by, the Catholic Church. That’s not to say I’ve abandoned all the aspects of my early training (I’ll call it that because how else can one describe a Catholic school education which required attendance at a minimum of six masses per week, more if a wedding or funeral happened during the school day?). The Church instilled in me a sense of wonder and an appreciation for the mysteries that surround us. To this day, I still love cathedrals and the swell of energy created by the ritual of the Mass. But Catholicism didn’t allow me access as a lay person or, more importantly, as a girl. My years of private school education left me years ahead of my peers once I entered public school in my teens but as a natural procrastinator and underachiever who had been insulated and protected, I was completely unprepared for the challenges of large classes. I was different, I didn’t fit in with the kids who’d grown up in that environment together. I quickly withdrew and fell behind.
About the same time, I left the church behind as well. My teenage years were rebellious, and my inner heathen began to find her feet. I read everything I could get my hands on about the occult, psychic phenomena, divination and basically anything now considered ‘witchy’ although we didn’t have the benefit of that aesthetic in the late 1970s. Growing up in Central Texas, my options were limited and soon enough I found myself married and raising a family in a conservative environment. After about 15 years as an apathetic agnostic (I couldn’t be bothered to figure out what I believed), relocation to a major city, a divorce and the dawn of the internet-in-your-living-room period, I set off on my first spiritual walkabout.
Just to be sure I hadn’t missed something during my early years, my first stop was Sunday mass at the neighborhood Catholic church. My mistake (or maybe not a mistake at all) was going back during Lent. I don’t remember much about the service, other than the building wasn’t a beautiful cathedral (so what was even the point?) and the sermon included verbiage instructing women to obey men. As it turns out, I hadn’t missed anything at all. I left during communion.
After ticking Catholicism off the list, I dipped my toe into Wicca. Now I appreciate the beauty and dedication of a goddess-centered religion as much at the next heathen, but that wasn’t what I was after. The New Age movement that was gaining momentum around this time certainly didn’t help. There were a lot of people looking for alternatives to the religion or spiritual guidance that no longer fit them, but uninitiated, eclectic Wicca on the internet seemed to attract mostly those who substituted Jesus with the unnamed goddess and went on about their newly enlightened business.
So then, I thought I could be an atheist. That seemed straightforward and easy enough (still clinging to my apathetic nature). Radical, hard-core atheism wasn’t my cup of tea, but the offshoot of secular humanism seemed like it might work. I quickly realized I wasn’t smart enough or motivated enough to keep up with them intellectually or academically. I found all that concrete evidence stuff exhausting. Also, I knew magic and mystery existed. I knew that there was more to (waves hands) all this. I might not be able to prove it, but I could feel it. I began to understand that I operate on a different level. I must be able to feel it.
Along with this spiritual journey, I began my ancestral journey. I know now that these are, to put it in Daoist terms, “not two”, one is incomplete without the other. Ten years prior, my mother had left me an old metal box filled with random papers that contained the names and dates and documents from my parents’ lifetime and some that bore clues to their own parents. I grew up without grandparents or any real connection to their lives before each other, but that’s another story. It’s just the way it was, and I never questioned it. Miraculously, I did remember the few stories they had told while I was growing up and this information became invaluable in my quest for the ancestors I didn’t realize existed.
I began by speaking with my few surviving aunts. Two on my father’s side and one on my mother’s side. My paternal aunts were an absolute fount of information. I spent two entire days listening to stories of their early days in Belfast, the journey to America, and the adjustments they faced as the family settled first in Massachusetts and later in New York City. I wrote furiously, recording every detail and treasure those notes to this day.
My maternal aunt was every bit as lovely but much less helpful. She told me she couldn’t help me because “she didn’t like those people much when she knew them and paid as little attention to them as possible”. She married into a pig and tobacco farming family in North Carolina, adopted a southern accent and changed her name from Alice to Lee. In later years, she was able to help with people in photos and random stories, but she’s forever endeared herself as a favorite ancestor all on her own.
For a solid year, I spent every Wednesday evening and Saturday morning at the Family History Library that belonged to the Latter-Day Saints. I spent hours perusing microfiche, determining which microfilms might hold clues to a place, a date, or a maiden name. This was the time before internet genealogy, was a lot of work and quite an accomplishment for a self-proclaimed intellectually lazy procrastinator, but by the end of the year I had accumulated several generations of ancestors, all meticulously documented and organized in a four-pound binder. I know the weight because I made copies for each of my siblings and mailed them our family history for Christmas that year. This same project in the Ancestry age would take only a fraction of the time, but that’s because I, and others like me, did the work and shared our trees. My ancestors made me work to find them and because I put in the effort, they rewarded me with much more than just their names and dates.
During this time, I grew very close to the people who came before me. They walked with me every step of the way. I immersed myself in every detail I could find and in return, they immersed themselves in my dreams. I would wake in the night ‘knowing’ where to look on my next visit to the library. They corrected names and ages and other details that enabled me to find them. They were Irish, or Scottish or Scots Irish. They were either Catholic or Protestant (my family comes from both Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland although at the time it was one Ireland under English rule). They were farmers (in the south) or Industrial/Military families (in the north). There wasn't a single mention of witches or pagans or healers or any such nonsense. They were people doing their best to survive which is why I’m first-generation Irish American. They had the courage to leave and start over somewhere else because they had to.
I wish I could say that my family brought the ‘magic’ of the Emerald Isle with them to America, but that wasn’t the case. In America they faced discrimination, the Great Depression and war. They became Americans and raised me as such. I didn’t find my Irish until I went looking for it and that’s when I also found the magic and mystery that had previously eluded me. Not in Irish paganism or folklore (although I do love a good story) but through Daoism as a philosophy and from a couple of scientists who made the magic of the cosmos accessible to non-academic types like me. The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra exploded in my brain and led me to Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene, both of which were having a moment in the early 21stcentury. The Elegant Universe showed me where I fit in the scope of the All. My Irish ancestors, as well as my Americanized parents, understood how to follow the way of nature and the universe. They did what they could with what they had and learned to accept and allow life as it came. They understood the unnamed Dao.
From there, I found a group of like-minded witches who let me know that while we were in the minority, we were not alone. This was enough to sustain me while I continued an upward corporate trajectory where my spirituality and career were best compartmentalized. But once you start on the path you must continue, and before long, I did just that and met the person who guided me on the most profound spiritual walkabout of my life. More about this next time.