A very long time ago, when I was 20 year old, I got out of the military and came home to be a "civilian" again. I was adrift... the military and I had not gotten along well enough for it to be a permanent career. I felt adrift spiritually as well... not comfortable at all in the pentecostal christian church I'd been a member in, or really any christian church. Like most people, I never knew of any other options... it was simply assumed to be a choice of which christian denomination I would join, or atheism.
For months and months, I worked part-time jobs and read books, mostly science fiction, fantasy and urban fantasy. I found this novel on the shelves at the public library, and being a fantasy story and having something to do with a cat and magic, I thought it sounded like a good read.
You see, that story included modern people that called themselves "witches". Normal men and women with jobs, lovers, families. They weren't bad or evil just because they were witches. And their lives were full of interest, mystery... magic.
Now I knew a little bit about authors. They write about things they know... things they've researched. What if... what if these authors had researched REAL people calling themselves witches? I had to know more. And I knew a little bit about researching too, so off to my public library I went.
By 1990, I had not only gotten hired on at the public library, and made friends with a certain librarian, I had devoured every current witchy book I could get my hands on. Between what the library had, and the staff discount for buying books via the library, that was a LOT. By 1991, I had met local pagans and witches (other than the librarian). A local coven offered "Wicca 101" classes, and I took those and any other classes they offered, even going so far as continueing self-taught "classes" with my classmates. By 1994, she had joined that coven as a dedicant, and eventually initiated in that coven.
I learned much about magic, goddess and god, ritual, pagan festivals, coven and group dynamics. My experiences were transcendental, wonderfully positive and some negative as well. My coven had initiatory degrees (initiate, elder and High Priest/ess), and I became elder, considered ordained. The coven was also "out of the broom closet" so I had to grow into the ability to teach others, be willing to "out" myself, even becoming less of an introvert and growing far beyond what I'd ever hoped to be.
As life happens, I married, had a child, changed jobs. When my job schedule began to interfere with the coven schedule, I parted ways with the coven to walk my path on my own for a while. I create my witchy world on my own for now, still making magic, talking to goddess and god, still planning to attend pagan festivals, still finding the Sacred in everything.
Edited to update (9/2013): I have recently become part of a newly formed coven. It's an entirely different sort of coven from the previous, more formal tradition, and good to be part of a group again!
