Subtle Vengeance

Alright, I’ve covered my long religious past. Now you all know roughly where I was at the beginning of this year. It’s certainly not where I am now.

To recap, and addendum: As of the beginning of this year, I was an ex-Christian ex-agnostic lapsed Wiccan. I was a lot like those Christians who never go to church and never really sit down to pray but still believe in the Jesus. Nothing wrong with that, but nother really right with it either.

In the meantime I met my beautiful wife Holly, who agreed to take care of my lazy ass forever. With her I adopted a son who might as well be my own; we’re the same sorts of crazy. Life was pretty good. But there was something missing.

We had some marital difficulties. There’s no need to go into details here, as I’ve put it nicely behind me, and I’m happy to say that things are going great for us now. But it was a tough time for us as a couple. Somewhere in the middle of debating how to work through our issues, it was decided that I should renew my beliefs.

Remembering the words of my first teacher, the late Scott Cunningham, I started incorporating Wicca back into my daily life. I prayed and meditated. I listened to pagan music on paganradio.net. Incidentally, I highly recommend this site for anyone who loves pagan, relaxing, ambient or naturey music.

the Pagan Radio site once had a very active forum. It is less so today, but I decided to get involved in it anyway. From there I moved on to Pagan Forum, which is just an amazing place for anyone to visit, open to all faiths. We have members there who are all flavors of Pagan, as well as Muslim, Agnostic, Atheist, and even some Christians.

After reading a brilliant historical fiction series, I began to feel the draw toward a more structured faith. The characters in the book lived in Britain in a time when men often followed what I call a “patchwork pantheon” – giving tribute to a few Gods from different cultures which had occupied the area, each man worshiping the Deities most suited to him. It made a lot of sense, and seemed fairly noncommittal, so I started shopping for Gods.

I posted on the forum, saying that I was looking for Gods who had certain qualities, listing off my personality traits, and getting some helpful responses. I also read a lot of random information. Holly helped me draw up a short-list of Deities who might accept me. Then I sat down to start researching. But the moment I buckled down and looked at my list, one name just popped off the screen and into my brain.

Sekhmet.

Sekhmet, the Invincible one. Sekhmet, Eye of Ra. Sekhmet the Protector, whose wrath was so terrible that it is said the truly devout once prayed and made offerings to a different statue of Her every day.

It was so obvious to me: this was my Goddess. I made myself keep an open mind, and offered my fealty to a couple other Deities too, but Hephaestus and Nyx both were completely indifferent to me. Sekhmet, however, accepted me completely.

In the weeks since, life has taken on a colour that had been missing for a very long time. I feel that I’ve regained the most important parts of Faith, and I have a solid moral compass to guide me. I’ve even taken a role as a guide, hovering around the newbies’ forum and looking for the lost and seeking so I can help them find the same feeling I’ve found. Again, I’ll talk more on that later.

Next Religion post: All about Sekhmet, her mythology and worship, and what it means to me in the modern world.

And yes, this means I’m completely out of the broom closet. Nothing to hide here.

1. Tozetre says:

   December 11, 2009 at 07:31

   “broom closet,” heh.
2. James says:

   December 11, 2009 at 20:21

   that’s what they call it. I wish I could say I made the term up.