by Dorean Malandra-Dara

Created on: October 26, 2008   Last Updated: November 05, 2008

Faith has always been tantamount to my spirituality. Coming from a Roman Catholic background, my parents instilled in me a faith in a higher power. But over time that faith expressed itself in different ways. For instance while both my parents were Roman Catholic, the divine expressed itself through various phenomena. To my mother it was the stars, and to my father, the thunderstorm. I was fourteen when I left Catholicism, searching for my own path. And for the last 12 years of my life, have walked a Pagan path. Approaching Paganism with warmed-over Christian views isn't entirely counterintuitive. At first I couldn't see it. I was blinded by the ideology that Wicca was somehow the antithesis of Christianity. After a very long time of coming to terms with the similarities I came to realize that Paganism and Christianity actually had a good deal in common. But that initial angst made it easy to despise monotheists for spiritual discrimination. But in reality discrimination exists in many forms, and is not uni-directional.

Growing up and facing the usual forms of discrimination is difficult enough, without also having to face scrutiny from peers and adults because you've chosen a religious path that others do not understand. If that hadn't made matters difficult enough, some of that discrimination and ignorance came from my own family. But how could I hate my own flesh and blood? I found myself in a situation where I learned to gauge other people's levels of tolerance before dropping the religious bombshell.

So also faced discrimination from other Pagans who believe that the only way to live is 'out and proud'. Also picked up discrimination from Pagans who practiced differently. Talk about irony. I was always very proud that I marched to the beat of a different drum, but at the same time I recognized that to each his own. That this choice was a deeply personal one. Remaining in the closet was always done for the best reasons.

Studying Wicca, I had a lot of successes. Although failure sometimes produced doubts with my faith. I often wondered if this was the way I should go. I began studying other areas of Paganism, and trusted enough in myself that I would listen to my heart to direct me. That trust led me to other forms of Paganism Witchcraft, chaos, sigils, elementalism, natural magic. I struggled with death and loss. The same as everyone else does from time to time. And relied on that faith to pull me through. I began to look at those situations differently, as

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