So I’m gonna jump right in and bare my soul a little and tell you all about what brought me here. It might be long winded and kinda dramatic, so just be warned.
My journey into magic has been, shall we say, tumultuous. . . I spent most of my life feeling conflicted and guilty, which finally led to a feeling of my soul being ripped in half. Like, literally, I remember one night when I was sick with a fever, waking up from a nightmare and feeling like a part of me was dead and I couldn’t get it back. This happened when I was a teenager. After that, I went about life with a lot of anxiety, depression and a feeling of never being fully present or alive.
To give a little background context, I grew up in a Christian family and had some intense childhood trauma experiences. My parents fought and I would find myself in the middle of it. They were still influenced by their own immaturities and shadows, and trying to raise me to be a “good Christian”, which was the only way they knew at the time. All of this left me with disturbed thoughts and constant feelings of shame. I was always drawn to magic and the idea of pre-christian ways, but was brought up believing that even just harboring such thoughts would contaminate me. This is part of what led to a feeling of a split in my innermost being.
So when a “respectable” Christian boy came a’ courtin’ in my early 20s, I was unprepared to recognize the signs of the kind of hell he’d put me through for the next three years.
I spent those next few years with an increasingly narcissistic husband, trying to fit in with a religious system while denying a fundamental part of myself - my love of nature, animals, art, folk tradition and magic. That constant feeling of denial was steadily draining the life out of me until I could deny it no longer. I finally left him this past January after a very intense fight. In the months leading up to the end, I worked on healing myself and learning all I could, and my family also wised up about spiritual abuse during that time. They are now much more opened minded, thankfully, are disillusioned with the church as a whole and support me in my “weirdness”.
So, bringing things up towards the present time since my divorce, I’ve been essentially rebuilding my identity. Not entirely rewriting it, but returning to the intrinsic nature I had in early childhood and for once making space for it to exist without fear or guilt, and building up from there, discovering the true nature of the Universe and finding my path and purpose in it.
Along the way I discovered pagan folk music, particularly Faun, which really helped me heal. I’ve always connected to the Divine very strongly through music, and their songs have a special kind of vibe that resonates with something deep down in my being.
This is what led up to an experience I can only describe as mystical. This is where I feel I run the risk of sounding crazy, but the experience I’m about to relate very much moved me and even had me a bit shaken up, and has me thoroughly convinced that magic is indeed real and that I am meant to follow this path.
On the night of March 29-30th, 3 days before the Full Moon, I dreamed of being in a misty forest clearing, where a ceremony was to take place surrounded by a broken stone wall and old, worn out long wooden benches. It appeared to have once been a church or temple, now mostly gone and claimed by the forest. I was rehearsing to be handfasted to the Faun band leader, Oliver Satyr. I stood apart from everyone after rehearsal, next to a canvas tent, looking at my right hand, still wrapped in the handfasting cord, rough natural twine pricking against my skin. Then the dream ended during the actual ceremony, surrounded by all the other band members, as a Druid clasped our bound hands and began to speak, and I awoke.
I later looked up the meaning of marrying celebrities in dreams, and it usually indicates integrating some quality in yourself that they represent, which made a lot of sense in the context of things. But what happened in the days that followed is what made all of this seem exceptionally magical. The very next day I went to help my friend set up her tent for a historical reenactment event, which happened to be at a historic site well known for supernatural activity. As I stood near the canvas tent and held one of the tie-down ropes, I noticed it was very similar to the twine handfasting cord in my dream, and I felt my right hand pricking exactly as it had in the dream.
A couple days later, on the morning of the Full Moon, I did a rune cast asking about the meaning of the dream. The five runes were Kaunan, Othala, Rhaido, Dagaz and Wyrd, essentially meaning enlightenment, inheritance and belonging, alignment and new beginnings and awakenings. A week later, I was really startled to realize that those runes spelled the word Cord.
So to sum up, the timing of the dream, being in the waxing and full moon phases, along with the signs and symbols present, overall indicated to me that this was a dream representing a sort of soul retrieval after having felt split for so long, getting back in touch with who I really am and the gifts I possess, and finally embracing magic without fear. Later on at coffee with my friends, I also met a witch who did a card reading for me (I hadn’t asked her for one), and when she looked at the cards that turned up for me, she said “you’ve got a lot going on, girl!” The reading described everything I’d been through with the abuse and breaking away, and told me I was receiving divine messages letting me know I was now on the right path.
So since all of this, I have felt more complete and confident, loving life and ready to forge ahead and embrace all that this journey has to offer.
I could go on longer about things that have happened since, but it could easily turn into a book.
I’ll just finish this by saying that I am a fledgling witch looking to understand my gifts and find where I fit, but reluctant to use too many labels and put myself in another spiritual box. But I will say that I have long felt a pull towards Germanic paganism, and that when invited the spirits or gods who were calling me to show themselves, I had an encounter with Frigg, the Allmother and her son, Hermod I believe. I might have to elaborate more on this in another post.
But besides all of this, two of my motivators for practicing magic are for healing, and spiritual sight and travel to understand the mysteries.
Anyway, my name is Emily and I am an artist who loves history, Germanic culture, dancing and classical oil painting. I love horses and birds and I have a mustang mare and three white ducks who are my beloved babies. so glad to have found this forum, blessings to you all and thank you for staying with me through this long winded tale.
!! Your story is similar to so many of us here. Many of us are “returning, after life got in the way”. No stupid questions either, and wow, all of that going on sounds like more than a “ko-inky-dink” (coincidence). Sounds like someone has gotten your attention!
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. For my altar cloth I have a hand-stitched/embroidered washcloth that fits perfectly atop my dresser. Many, many different ways to go “on the cheap” with your goodies.
