Making a Choice to Move Forward

I want to write now about why it is that I think I am/want to be/should be a Wiccan. Sometimes I start to read books and things and start hearing the name Witchcraft, and start thinking about spells and circles and things, and my head begins to spin. So I like to stop and look at why I am looking.

First of all, obviously it's a lot more than rituals and practices. It's a way of life and a spirituality from within. When I look at what it means to be Wiccan, I feel that I already am.

I have always had a sense of consciousness about the earth and nature around me. I have always enjoyed being outdoors because of the feeling I get, and being around plants and animals. Sometimes I wonder if, as a kid, I would have been happier as a trout in a stream because I loved playing in the water and the dirt in the backyard (the ditch became a wonderful 'stream" after big rains!). In fact the only lifestyle change I have felt compelled to make was to begin recycling. It has always bothered me a lot *not* to, and I have not been able to find anywhere locally to take recyclables to. But I decided that it didn't matter - even if it means occasional inconvenience, I was going to start doing it, and afterwards I found a place that has begun taking collections locally! I couldn't be happier.

I had already began to consider alternate possibilities (from those which I was taught originally) such as life returning to the earth upon death, feeding back the knowlege we gained while here and going on to some other purpose. In fact the movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within really made me think about this a lot. I have never seen ghosts or experienced spirits, but others claim they have, and though I'd have to see to know and understand what it was like, I don't discount things of this nature. I don't begin to claim to understand why or how, but I accept that it is true, at least, that spirits exist in this realm, sometimes. I feel there is a lot that we will never know until after our life here ends, and aren't meant to necessarily, though we have our own opinions that probably aren't far from the truth. I do most certaily feel that there is something beyond our life here and now. Life itself is too much of a mirical to be a freak accidental placement by some big boom. Maybe the planets got here in a big boom - who knows how deity would create? I don't think I *need* to know or understand that. But the delicate, intricate, extraordinary creations upon our planet, our very planet itself, and our planet's place in the universe, to me, were unmistakably set into place by something greater than and beyond myself. So, I feel the call to this something, and I call it deity.

It's hard to consider this, when your first place to try and build fundamentals is in a Christian church, but I have felt for quit some time that the Bible is not necessarily the best source for information. I'm sure it was a divinely inspired book, and that it may still hold many truths, but men are prone to corruption, and I am sure that governments, kings, and men over the course of time caused words within this book to become astray. Besides that, times have changed, and it has not. So I think it should be taken with a grain of salt... or several. I don't like the idea that I should base my religion on a writing that man wrote. I feel the truths should come from within, after exploring and experiencing on your own.

Like anything in life, it takes the contrast between various things to come to your own conclusions. Accepting the defalts you are given, without thought or regard to other options, is the result of either not knowing, or not caring. Now that I know other avenues of spirituality, I could not possibly stay upon the same one I used to be on.

I find that, in the things I have been reading, that the basic fundamentals are the closest thus far to how I feel. I still have some things to think over, of course, to find what feels right to me, but I feel as though I have already been on this path for several years and just didn't know I was heading here. But, that's usually the way things happen, isn't it? What matters is to know where you want to be, and to work towards being there.