So I casually brought up witchcraft today in passing, I can’t remember how it came up, and my friend immediately looked worried. I explained that I expressed interest in the community and explained my mama’s past with witchcraft (if I explainde my current history, I’d have to unpack my worship of Noli, and introduce her to fictoreligions, so I went with my mama’s more “vanilla”, for lack of a better word, witchcraft). And she expressed a lot of concern.
Without expaining her personal history on here, it turns out she’s had negative experiences with witchcraft (and religion, hence I haven’t told her about my practice yet) and really does not want me to get “too into it”. So my question ultimately is, how do I coexist with her while respecting both my craft and her apprehension to witchcraft and religion? Because I don’t want to hide any part of me, she’s expressed before that she’d be supportive of anything I do, but I don’t want to bring those bad experiences back up for her.
We’re hanging out tonight so I’ll test the waters a bit with these ideas!
Funnily enough tarot is one of the main components of my craft, and I’ve been interested in exploring dreams! Tarot should be a safe starting point, I’ll update this ^w^
Hmm. Since she said that she’s supportive of you and anything you do, I’d say that gives you free rein to talk about anything, your spiritual path included.
That being said, since she’s your friend you obviously don’t want to say anything that’ll upset her.
If it were me, I would just be straight with her. Tell her that this is your path and it’s deeply important to you so it’s bound to come up in conversation, but also let her know that you want her to feel free to tell you if anything you say ever makes her uncomfortable. I think that’s as close to a win-win as you’ll get.
If she’s expressed a lot of concern and has a bad history around the subject - then I’d be careful for sure. Relationships like this are an act of balance - if you want to keep her as a friend, it’s important to acknowledge her wishes and respect her boundaries as much as yours.
Charging headfirst and being blunt like StarsForever suggests will likely end your relationship, when you consider her background. I wouldn’t do that, personally. It sounds like you don’t want to lose her.
The idea Sedim’s posed is the most tactful and respectful here - there are plenty of topics that are considered safe. Tarot, dream interpretation, crystals, even fantasy and choosing some magic-friendly things to watch. I’ve been re-watching Merlin and honestly that show would be amazing to show someone who has a negative view of magick. - Merlin (2008 TV series) - Wikipedia
There’s a lot of ways you could approach this and still keep her as a friend…
I wouldn’t expect her beliefs to change unless you display to her what a good witch looks like. It’s more pressure on you, but it may be worthwhile if you really value her as a friend!
Welcome to our pack !! Thank-you for opening up to us; we are very, very accepting, and will try to help you out in any way that we are able to.
For dealing with your friend, I would like to suggest some simple pagan acts that most people do already, and explain how it is a pagan “ritual” to begin with. Horseshoes hanging over the doors. Celts and Pre-Christians believed that the crescent shape of the horseshoe was akin to the moon and was lucky. Blowing out candles on a birthday cake was sending your wishes and prayers to the gods. Wind chimes bells are also pagan, the noise keeps the spirits from entering the home. Like throwing salt over your shoulder, it is for protection, purification, and to ward off evil. Maybe if you could explain some of these reasons behind these actions, your friend may be more open to the practice.
So update. I was telling her about how I was looking for a tarot deck but the seller I found was kinda a bum, to test the waters you know, and she just kinda. Ignored it completely. The whole story. So this is going well so far (sarcasm).
She’s babysitting today so I don’t think we’ll get to talk again for a bit, and I don’t wanna push it too much anyway, I’m just worried.
I have faith in potentially getting to this point but yeah…
Oh yeah my dad’s not finding out, my mama used to be a witch and still believes in the craft though. If you’re not fortunate enough to have an ex-witch as a mama I don’t know though hehe. However you go about it I wish you luck <3
I’ll keep this in mind too! Thank you Lady Gene and Freaky Friday to you too <3
Another update! Last night we kept talking about tarot and she seems to be warming up to divination and such at least. It was just a spur of the moment thing that topic was, because I was looking at decks and lost my mind at $60 shipping from someone and she was curious what the frick I was buying lol. But she seemed positive about it and even offered for me to read her tarot once I get my paws on a deck I vibe with.
!! Thank-you for opening up to us; we are very, very accepting, and will try to help you out in any way that we are able to.
