It's a big question isn't it? Why did you choose the path you are on? Why do you believe what you believe? I certainly don't intend for any reader to think that this is the fabled 'IT', the answer to life, the universe and everything, to coin a phrase. I just want to share my personal experience.
I was brought up in a Christian household. My dad was a member of the Salvation Army and I attended Sunday school every weekend. I guess it says a lot that the one thing I remember about those Sunday mornings is not understanding something. I remember being deeply confused by Jesus being born at Christmas and then dying at Easter as a grown man. Of course, now, I realise that there were 30 some years between the Nativity and the Crucifixion but back then I just couldn't get a handle on how that could happen! Perhaps that was the beginning of my questioning the path my faith was taking. As I grew older, reached my teens, I found myself constantly asking how there could be this amazing God, a God of Love, a protective God when my life was Hell on Earth. My childhood was, shall we say, difficult. An absent father and an abusive mother combined to make me wonder if there was a God at all and if there was, why he didn't care about me. Christianity became a series of events, about as far away from belief as it could be. The festivals marked points in the year, nothing more. Christmas was about the cynical collecting of presents, Easter was about how many eggs I got. Christianity had failed me and I began looking for something more.
Through my early teens I looked into spirituality, into Buddhism, Catholicism, Wicca and nothing at all grabbed me. I think I was beginning to give up when a book saved me. Not for the first time either, but that's another story. I've always been a rabid reader, reading everything I can and I picked up a book called The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer-Bradley. Why? Because the front cover appealed and it involved my favourite myth/legend of all time, that of King Arthur. I also liked the idea of how it was told from the point of view of three women in his life, his mother, his sister and his wife. Anyone who knows anything about paganism will perhaps see the Triple Goddess in that trio but I didn't know much about that at the time. From the first page I couldn't put the book down. I read it through and then read it again straight away because I had found my personal 'IT', my answer. Morgaine was exactly where I wanted to be, believing everything that I felt and held close to my heart. Here was a woman who was strong and guided by a woman!
I couldn't deal with the whole male dominated religion thing and was deeply resentful of women being pushed into the background, being blamed for the Original Sin and here was a belief system that was led by a Goddess and that venerated nature in all its forms. In all honesty, the whole magic side of it did little more than intrigue me. I had never seen magic work (I know better now) but the strength of the Goddess as she guided Morgaine through the trials of her life just made my heart sing.
Of course, I set out to find out everything I could about Paganism.... and fell into a confused world where answers were almost impossible to find! No two people seemed to believe the same thing about the same subject. Confused? My head was spinning and I very nearly gave up again... until one night that I shall never forget. I went to sleep as usual but that night I had the first of the most vivid dreams I have ever had in my life. It is a very personal moment and I hope you will forgive me if I do not share every single detail but that night I received a visit from my Goddess. This was none of your airy fairy nonsense, with white lights and ethereal figures. This was a forest, damp and windy, a stream flowing rapidly close by where she stood. She was every woman and no woman at all. She didn't glow and speak in Galadriel tones. She simply spoke to me as one woman to another, standing under a pine tree. What did she say? Again, it is personal but I am willing to share one thing and it is the main reason I am a Pagan. She asked me a question, "Why do you want me to find the answers for you?" That question stopped me in my tracks and made me realise where I had been going wrong.
You see, there is no book, no set of rules; no thou must credo to follow along my path. I realised that I had been looking for someone else to give me the answers to my questions simply because that was how I had been taught religion should be. That there is someone better than you, more knowledgeable than you, who will know what you should do. Why was i taught to believe that? It is my life and who should know better about how to find my spiritual path than me? No one else can live my life for me. I had to learn to make my own decisions and find my own answers and I have never looked back from that day. I am not a 'joiner'. I don't need to have other people around me to guide me, although I am always open to talking about the path with anyone and I am certainly not made to follow other people's rules. I read a lot and gradually I built up my own set of beliefs, my personal set of guidelines to follow and finally found peace in my spiritual heart. I'm not a Wiccan, I'm not a Druid or a New Ager. I'm just me and if I must be labelled I prefer to be thought of as a Hedgewitch, one of those who were once known as Wise Women.
What do I believe? Once again, it is personal, my path alone but I will share what I can. First, above all else, I believe in respect. Respect for nature, for this beautiful planet that we live upon and for all of humanity. And yes, I mean ALL. People who know me will tell you that I do not judge anyone. I have been repeatedly abused, verbally, for my writing to Death Row prisoners and it becomes wearying to repeat the same reasoning over and over but I can use it here as an example. One particular prisoner that I correspond with is a serial killer, a multiple rapist and murderer. Why did I choose to write to him? Because he is a human being living in terrible conditions and carrying the burden of being hated by virtually every person who hears his name and I wanted to reach out to him and tell him that I wished to know him as a person, not a statistic or for that 'brush with the infamous'. Trust does not come easily for these inmates but I have kept my word meticulously and the trust is building slowly. We are friends and for that I pay the price of abuse and total incomprehension on the part of friends and family that know who I write to. I pay that price willingly because I know I am doing what feels right to me and that which ties in with my non-judgemental respect for every human life.
I also believe that any and every path to your god/dess is valid. Just because I am under the banner of Paganism does not mean that I think anyone else is wrong in their choice of religion, their spiritual path. Equally, I would never seek to impose my belief system on another person. We each have the right to walk our own path and I would never want to be responsible for another persons spiritual choices. I do not have the right unless I can do the impossible and walk in their shoes, become them.
Does that answer the title? It does for me. I became a Pagan because it was right, for me personally and I can understand a feminine guiding light better than a male on. Because I don't lend myself to mass belief and rules that no longer make sense. As a pagan I can adapt my life, my rules to my changing world, secure in the knowledge that my Goddess is watching and will be there to lend me the strength I need to find my answers and will be waiting for me when I have done all I can and I am ready to move on to my next life. I truly have a Pagan Heart.