It’s all Stewart’s fault.

Of all the married men I’ve been involved with, he’s the one I worried about the most. Part of his job involved going over to “the sandbox” - i.e., the Middle East, on a routine basis. While he was gone, it was rare indeed for me to hear from him. They just don’t have that many internet cafes in Afghanistan.

Anyone who knows me, know how I worry. If I care about you, I’m going to worry about you - that’s just how it is. I talked with Stewart for two years online before I met him; even then, I still worried about him while he was gone.

And me worrying about him, used to drive him absolutely batshit. “Don’t worry about me! I can take care of myself!” Well I knew he could take care of himself; I knew he wouldn’t be taking any stupid chances; it was the pure chaos of war that I worried about.

What do pagans do when they’re worried about the safety of someone? that’s right. They drum out ye ol protection spells. One problem there, tho. Stewart was Catholic, or at least I thought so. We really never discussed it; however, I did see a picture of him holding a small gold statue of the Virgin Mary at a market, thinking about buying it. A Protestant never would have even picked her up.

So in my crooked way of thinking, no pagan spell would help. If I wanted to do something besides worry all the time, do something pro-active, I’d have to venture back over to the Christian pantheon and enlist their help. Besides, I figured St. Michael would know the terrain in the Middle East a bit better than my Celtic gods and goddesses.

(more…)

Old habits die hard, and when you’re an ex-pro-Dominatrix, recently turned Christian, one has a lot of thinking to do, when it comes to what one can, and can not, do any longer.

A friend of mine is such a critter, and she and I have some….. interesting….. conversations. We’ll call her Joy. Because, well, besides for the fact she likes to kick men in the balls, she is a joy.

The other day Joy says to me: ” ‘K’ wants to come over for some ball-busting.”

I blink. I blink again. Commence rapid eyelid blinking.

“He wants you to kick him in the balls?” I ask, almost afraid of the answer.

“Yup.”

“And just how many times do you kick him in the balls?”

“Oh, that depends, fifty, sometimes a hundred or more.” My jaw drops. “But you know? I just don’t know if I’m supposed to be doing that anymore, since I’m a practicing Christian and all now,” says Joy. “It’s not like we’re going to have sex or nothin, all I’m gonna do is kick him in the nuts.”

“I see your delimma,” I reply, nodding somberly. “But you know Joy, I don’t recall anything taught in Sunday School that says a woman can’t kick a man in the balls, especially if he wants her to.”

“Yeah, I know,” sighs Joy. “I probably won’t tell my preacher, though.”

“Naw, that probably wouldn’t be a good idea,” says I.

See what I mean, when I say it’s tough trying to figure stuff out about what we can and can’t do, now? There’s your perfect example. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in the Bible about ball-busting, nor do I think the Pope is going to come out with any proclamation on the matter anytime soon, either.

(more…)

If coming “out” as a Christian to my pagan friends was a shocker, coming “out” as a Christian to my Christian friends who knew I was pagan, was a bit of an anti-climax. Most of them took it in stride, with ne’er a word spoken. They just noted “that’s a nice cross you’re wearing, Janet” or some such, and just nod, and go on their merry way.

My family was a different matter. The hardest person to tell was my daughter, actually.

Bless her heart. It had to have been hard for her, growing up with a pagan momma. I’d come home from work, and she would have taken down all my pagan stuffs and shoved them in a box, because she had friends coming over and she didn’t want them to know. And really, how can a teenager go through her rebel stage, if her mom’s dancing naked around a bonfire?

She found a way of course, and that was going the opposite direction - by becoming more conservative. I thought I’d have to hire an intervention team when she went to work for Republican lobbyists in her first year of college.

So I hemmed and hawed a bit, trying to figure out the best way to go about telling her that I was converting back to Christianity. I finally nailed down the perfect solution.

(more…)

It’s the night before my mother died, and I’m in her hospital room, sitting with her. She’s very restless and demanding - close the shades! no, no, open them; no, open them a little. Fix my pillow for me, will you? I smile a little, jumping up to do everything she asks. I know it won’t be long before she won’t be asking me to do anything, anymore.

I also know she’s worried about me. Worried about me being pagan, worried about me being a single mom, worried about me not having a husband to “take care of me,” worried about my weight, the list goes on. I know that part of the reason why she’s hung on as long as she has, is because of her worry for me. She wants to know I’m going to be ok, before she passes on.

And so, I told a little fib. I told her about the new man in my life, “Tom,” who’s very handsome, Catholic, loves me and takes good care of me, and that we’ve been hitting the gym together. Well, most of it was true. I left out the part about him being married.

She smiled weakly and nodded her head, eyelids droopy from the pain medication she was on.

My mom was always unique. She was a Navy brat growing up, and traveled the world with my grandparents. At one point she was living in Guatemala, and there was an earthquake. Her maid, fearing for mom’s life, baptised her Catholic. She never told my grandmother, and it was never followed up with a priest, so it never was “official.” But I think it “took” with my mother, anyway.

Protestants really don’t “do” angels, or Mary. But when we were little, and we’d be scared of the boogie man, she’d draw us pictures of our “Guardian Angel” and tape them to the wall next to our bed, so we’d know we were protected. In her later years, she had a very personal relationship with her Guardian Angel, whom she called “Sing.” And all through her life, she had a natural affection for Mary. She used to tell me she would be sitting in Church and all of a sudden, get a whiff of roses, even when no one would be sitting near her, and no roses were on the altar. Roses are associated with Mary (hence, the Rosary), and mom just assumed that Mary came and made a little visit.

When mom got very ill, and all her blood levels went out of whack, she’d get very confused, and start calling for her. “Maaaaaary, Mary?” she’d call out, eyes shut tight. My siblings thought she was calling for our younger sister, but I knew she was calling for her Mother.

Who else do you want, when you’re sick?

(more…)

…and I’m about four years old. My dad’s bringing me back from Sunday School; I’m not old enough to go to the “Big Church” yet.

Banging my bobby socked/Mary Jane’d feet on the car cushions, I ask my dad “Jesus sounds really nice. When do I get to meet him?”

Dad laughed and laughed. “Honey, Jesus died about 2,000 years ago!” And the expression on my face made him laugh even harder.

“Sheesh, Dad! You’re getting me up early on a Sunday morning to go learn about some dead guy??”

When he stopped laughing long enough, I’m sure he explained in some foreign four-year-old language, how he died, but was risen from the dead, blah blah blah. I’m sure you know the story. I didn’t get it, wouldn’t get it for sometime, but that didn’t mean they stopped taking me to Sunday school to learn about some dead guy.

Think about it. We teach our kids to sing “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so” LONG before they can read, or understand the concept of “being dead.” “Being dead” -to me, at four years old - meant those doodle bugs in my back yard curled up into a little ball and stopped moving. But you know, sometimes they uncurled and scooted off once they thought I’d gone away, so maybe that’s all Jesus did, too. What did I know? I was just a kid.

(more…)

Current Mood: Happy

My dear friend and craft sister, Broceliand, had to have a little chat with me about this whole conversion thing. “You could be a Christian Witch, you know, Selch. I have a student who is such,” and proceeded to give me the reasons why I could still practice magic.

Eh, I ain’t buying it.

The Bible is pretty clear on this point: sorcery is a no-no. Most of the verses condeming witchcraft are from the Old Testament not the New, this is true, but I’m pretty sure the Priests would frown on it anyway.

I can’t deny, I do have some psychic ability that I was born with. I can’t help that anymore than the fact that I was born with brown eyes, or have freckles. And that fact alone, to some Christians, would label me as a witch. I can’t help ignorant people who choose to remain ignorant.

I can choose not to actively participate in prognostication and magic. But why would I NOT choose to do these things, you ask, if I know how to do them?

(more…)

The process of converting back to Christianity from being a pagan, is often a slow and tedious one. Fortunately, I’ve had the help from a few friends, to guide me along the way. There’s my friend Joy, who converted back to Christianity about the same time I did. There’s Jen, who converted awhile back now, and whose experiences I’ve quietly learned from through her journal. And about a month after my conversion, the Lord saw fit to send me a good man to chat with, whom we’ll call Larry, who is smart, handsome, funny, and a very devout Catholic, besides being sexy as hell. They’ve all played a big part in pointing out potential stumbling blocks in my path.

Regardless, there are still some decisions that one must make on their own. There’s a lot of purging that goes on during the conversion process, and you have to make the decisions on what to keep, what to give away, and what to toss into the fire. Can you say, “Do these fairy wings make me look too fat too pagan?” Sure, I knew you could.

Take books, for example. Boy, do pagans love to collect books. Deciding which ones to keep is a bit like going through your clothes during spring cleaning. Does this “fit” anymore? does it have sentimental value? Have I even looked at it in the past year? Most of them, just didn’t fit anymore, so I found homes for them. A buck a book - quite a few people took me up on the offer, and the couple of dozen or so I had left over, I gave to my “other daughter” - one of my daughter’s friends who was pagan - with my own little comments written in them. “This one is a piece of shit, read for entertainment purposes only.” “This author is pretty good, but check sources.”

But there are somethings which are not things, but practices, and which take a bit more thought in deciding whether or not to keep them. It’s like putting them on a scale - just where IS that line that seperates a thing from being a “pagan practice” as opposed to “folkloric practice” or “traditional” or “human.”

For instance: Is reading erotica permitted? What about Beltaine? Can I still celebrate May Day without putting my soul in jeopardy? How about masterbation, is that still allowed? If not and I’ll go blind, can I do it until I need glasses?

Do I have to reign back my men in kilts fetish? oh Lord, and what about all this kinky BDSM stuff. Am I not allowed to spank anyone/ be spanked anymore?

(more…)

So, you’re probably wondering, why I was so stupid to get involved with married men to begin with.

It’s simple. I love sex. Kinky sex, vanilla sex, it doesn’t matter, I think sex is one of the most sacred gifts God gave us, right after life itself. And I enjoy the hell out of it. Not in a “sexual addiction” way, kinda way, by the way. I can give it up when the need arises; heck I was celibate for two years after my divorce, and haven’t had sex this time around since the beginning of July.

I never intended to date married men. In fact I was quite vocal about not ever becoming involved with married men right after my divorce. Marraige was the hardest relationship I had ever been involved with, and I sure did not want to take any part in making anyone’s marraige any more difficult than it already was. And I didn’t become involved with any married men, for many years.

But a couple of the men I became involved with, who were “seperated,” lied to me, and as it turned out - they weren’t seperated at all, but still lived with their wives, fully married. And then I had a couple of very good, single prospects who drove me absolutely batshit crazy with their indecisiveness and assholey-ness. The last one got me so pissed off that I decided - ok - next man who contacts me, I’ll take on as a lover, just to treat HIM like crap.

Welcome to MM#1 - tom. But ya know, scheduling is a bear when you’re trying to meet up with a married man, and he knew my seeing him once every three months or so, just wasn’t going to do it for me, so he encouraged me to find another lover. Enter, MM#2. But even with MM#2, I still wasn’t getting sex any more frequently than every 6 weeks or so, so - enter MM#3. At least he was single when I first started chatting with him. He didn’t bother to tell me he’d gotten married before he slept with me, though.

I was finally getting enough sex, but it wasn’t deep down, emotionally satisfying sex.

Even so, even with the bad experiences I’ve had with the married men, and even tho I’ve converted back to Christianity, doesn’t mean that I’m still not tempted. And whoo boy, was I ever tempted.

(more…)

Current Mood: Sad

…. and sinned, and sinned, and sinned some more. Ya’ll just don’t know how good I am at sinning. Not yet, anyway.

Today has been a bad, bad day, a very emotionally draining day, and it’s all Dennis’ fault.

Dennis is my anam cara, and has been for sometime now - ever since I first started down the road to paganism, really. In addition to being a very gifted shaman, Dennis *almost* became a priest, after he graduated from a Jesuit college waaaay back when. He told them he wouldn’t be able to handle the celibacy, so didn’t take the vows.

After Dennis got my email announcement about my new weblog, he decided it’d be a good idea to call me yesterday and check up on me, making sure I thought I was doing The Right Thang, and to cackle over the prospect of me going to confession, since he knows everything about me. Something which, if it was someone else with my background, I’d find quite amusing, too, but since it’s ME we’re talking about, I’m near bout terrified.

See, I know what you’re thinking, ahhh priests they’ve heard it all before, but I can guarantee you that NO, they have NOT. You want to know who really hears it all? Mistresses, do. I know for a fact, some of my paramours have told me things they wouldn’t dare tell a priest, they haven’t told a priest, nor will they ever tell a priest. They sure told me, though.

And Lawd, Sweet Jesus, do I have some nasty stuff to confess. I hope I can find a priest with a healthy heart. It’s a good thing I know CPR.
(more…)

Discovery Channel has crack for commercials, I swear. Look at this latest commercial “The World is Just Awesome” - and fall in love!

Now that song will be in your head for the rest of the day. You can thank me later. Pagans aren’t the only ones who love the earth, you know. I’m pretty sure almost every person on the planet does, except for maybe Dick Cheney. Hell we’ve got Newt Gingrinch and Nancy Pelosi doing commercials together to combat global climate change.

Even the Vatican is going green. Yup! The Pope preached green at the UN, the Vatican itself is going carbon neutral, has installed solar panels, and at one point, there were reports in the media that pollution would be one of the new sins replacing the seven deadly ones, but that turned out to be a rumor. Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, in an interview with the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano, did say we need to face up to that it is a “new form of sin” - but he’s not the Pope, nor does he speak for the Vatican. So don’t toss the Seven Deadlies away, just yet. (more…)