Does the internet really need another pagan blog? Probably not, but this is not a blog about pagan news (we already have some awesome ones Wild Hunt, Patheos, Inciting a Riot). Nor will I be writing about the specifics of my rituals, spells, and rites (plenty of blogs have that information and well my rituals, spells, etc ate just that mine).

So what will I be writing about? Well about my path back to paganism and what I discovered along the way.

I have been a pagan and practicing (I’ll use practicing loosely) witch for about 16 years. Like so many of us when I first discovered the path, I was excited and jumped in whole-heartedly. I specifically found Wicca first (and really who didn’t?). I had run across the name and basics through urban fantasy novels. I didn’t know much beyond, "hey I really like the character in these books and the magic stuff is pretty cool." About that time, I was also in college. I was taking a cultural anthropology class and had to research/write an essay about a minority group. I decided it was a good opportunity to learn about Wicca. As this was back in the olden days, pre-internet as we know it now, I logged on to prodigy and spent some time chatting on the various Wicca message boards. The one book all of those helpful and very kind people recommended was Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon.

I read it and was hooked. Essay aside, I kept reading and I kept learning. It wasn’t long before I started practicing. Within about six months, I was signed up for a Wicca 101 class at the local metaphysical store. I enjoyed what I learned, but never really felt comfortable with the dogma of Wicca. I was also concerned about the group teaching the class. While the teachers were awesome, the off-handed comment from one of them about not being allowed to read Marion Zimmer Bradley’sMists of Avalon until her High Priestess gave her permission just didn’t sit well with me.

Before you start thinking this is some rant about Wicca being for fluffy bunnies or any of that, it isn’t. Wicca and it’s binary concept of deity, instance (at least at the time) on clinging to factual (historical) errors, and Eurocentrism just didn’t fit for me.

Anyway, I digress. I continued my practice alone. Some years it was just remembering to sit outside and watch the sunset/rise on the solstices or equinoxes. Sometimes it was my own rituals (mostly taken straight from a book, but more on that later). Eventually, I really became a Pagan in Name Only (PINO). Sure, I identified as pagan or a witch, and had a weak definition of what those terms meant to me. But I didn’t really do anything. An occasional parking spot spell, or reading the occasional book, checking out message boards sporadically, and reading tarot cards.

Then, about three years ago, my husband and I moved into a house. I had a yard and lots of space. It’s funny how lots of space has turned into barely enough space in the span of three years. I started hosting equinox and solstice parties for my friends (only one of whom is any sort of pagan). Mostly they were barbeques and an excuse to get together. On Yule, a friend whose former in-laws are Wiccan, made a Yule Log and four us performed a brief rite and invited everyone to cast their wishes for the coming year into the fire.

Yup that was my whole practice.

Last year (2010), I decided that wasn’t what I wanted. I was looking for more than that. Also during that year, I’d discovered Pagan Podcasts. Listening to Fire Lyte (Inciting a Riot), Velma Nightshade (Witches Brewhaha), The Pagan Hooligans, Corey and Laine (New World Witchery), and others really made me start thinking about what my faith actually meant. I didn’t want to be a PINO anymore. I wanted to find out what I really believed and what I wanted out of religion.

So I took Velma Nightshade’s declaration of “Do the stuff” to heart, and made a plan. I was going to make the time to celebrate/observe _every_ sabbat and every full and dark moon for one year. I would decide what rituals I wanted to be part of, and what I wanted to accomplish in my rituals. I would update my sadly small and long neglected Book of Shadows (or as I think of it, my ritual book). I would start to study again.

I think I’ve learned a lot and discovered a lot over the past eight months, and I’m sure I will learn more as I work toward finishing the year. My husband prompted me to consider writing about my experiences and what I’ve learned in a more public forum, after all, no one is reading my witchy-journal on the book shelf… or are you?

So this is my journey back to my pagan path. It wasn’t an easy road and ultimately I discovered far more than I expected.