I was going through my jewelry box this morning, and came across a heavily tarnished piece of circular silver with an open work star in the center, and a small deep blue sapphire. It was the pentacle I bought back in Atlanta when I dedicated myself to the Goddess & the God. It is my favorite piece. I used to wear it everyday, but when I moved down here, I had to stop wearing it. And that felt like I was removing a piece of myself.
Even though Atlanta is still within the Bible Belt, it was more liberal, more open to differences in beliefs than what Houston is. Then, to add on top of it, my husband's family are die hard Christians. His dad's side of the family are devout Catholics. Anything other than Christian beliefs are just wrong in their eyes, and I have been told by the patriarch of their family, Papi (my husband's grandfather), that unless I bring my children up in the church, preferably the Catholic church, that they will be lost forever. You can imagine how I felt about that. I was pissed. Hurt. Ready to tell the old man and the rest of the family to kiss my round, brown, PAGAN ass. But I didn't. I just tucked my silver crescent moon into my shirt, and went out side on the verge of tears but more pissed than anything else, and proceeded to rip my husband a new one for that bit of bull shit that happened.
How do you handle something like that? How can you look at yourself and your spirituality with the same respect and love, and peace after a situation like that. Because of that situation and the constant badgering from my mother about my "going to hell", or my children's "souls" being in jeopardy because of my beliefs, I have questioned everything about myself. My core beliefs are so fractured from all of this negativity, that I feel I have to hide who I am. Not only from my family, my co-workers, and my friends, but also from myself.
I lost my crescent moon...the one I had since my 21st birthday, back in October before I went to NYC for a friend's wedding (a whole other story I will have to blog about later). Even if things change and I feel that I can freely wear the pentacle I have had for 10 years now, the negative memories that are now attached to it have made it impossible for me to wear. "I am witch," as a dear friend of mine would say (who might I add, is also a witch). I can cleanse it, clear it, and re-consecrate it...but, the memories that are associated with it will always still be there. I have gotten other jewelry that have expressed my spirituality, but none of them held the same power and significance to me as my crescent moon and silver & sapphire pentacle. But then again, I haven't had the same trials and triumphs with these other pieces that I had with the aforementioned.
2010 is a new start for me, which means I need to start to let go of the past. Like I said on the previous post, I will be doing a spell of Release on the upcoming full moon. And I think...I think I will be letting go of my pentacle as well. I need to move on. It may hurt a bit to let it go, but it will be healthier for me to do that than to hold onto something that while it brings a lot of good memories, it also has a lot of bad ones too. Who knows. Maybe after all is said and done, I will finally feel comfortable enough to wear a pentacle. I saw one that I really like, and it fits into my studies right now (I am studying Stregheria). I also picked up a book on my legal rights being Pagan, just in case I have problems from co-workers or my supervisors about rights to reasonable religious expression.
New beginnings...Why do they have to be so scary?
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