The food, and the witchcraft go hand in hand for me. For as long as I can remember these two things were being cultivated in my tiny child brain without even realizing it. My mother and grandmother, both devout Catholics never felt that the folk remedies, petitions to saints, or the evil eye egg warding were anything else but part of how they grew up.
My sister on the other hand was not so quiet and dabbled in different things. Through her adult life she searched for many ways to commune with God and today I think she’s happy with what she finds to be her spirituality, but does not fall short on her clairvoyance!!. Me? I found her tarot deck and was mesmerized by the images and that, I think, is where the seed was planted, even though I didn’t know it yet.
Fast forward through some childhood drama, Sunday school catechisms and divorced parents. At the tender age of thirteen, still holding on to my Catholic faith, I broke. I shattered into a thousand pieces and the “God” I knew and loved, who had never responded before, left me silently crying myself to sleep for the last time. I found solace in the emptiness of it all and healed my broken self with no faith to hold on to.
I was on the tail end of the ugly duckling stage some girls go through and of course boys started to notice me. Long story short, i reached into my mind and remembered how much I loved mythology and my love for the Gods officially bloomed inside of my heart when I asked Venus for help with a particular boy. With no prior experience, no books or the internet, I prayed. I prayed that she would hear me. That she would take pity on me and make this boy TJ love me!
Not a week later, he passed me the first “note” ( this was before we had cell phones and could text!) and the many notes to follow that I still have, till this day as a keepsake from my youth. We had our moment which lead to heartbreak of course. He liked another girl and didn’t like me anymore. This girl confronted me in the hall of my JHS, as he still must have talked about me, and out right asked me if I was a Wiccan! “A what?” I looked at her like she had three heads. She holds up her silver pentacle on a black string and asks. “Know what this is? Are you a witch?” “Nope” and I kept it moving.
There was some gossip about this girl being a witch who casted a spell so we would break up and it was all surreal to me, but my curiosity was piqued and from that day, I fell down the rabbit hole holding Silver Raven Hawk’s Teen witch and came out on the other side where my faith came back to me again.
I dedicated myself to Venus that year and venerated her for many years to follow. I went through some trial and error, read tons of books, learned about witchcraft and its many forms and traditions. I practiced with different people, attended a few public rituals but kept it mostly quiet and to myself. Life went on…
I had a child, a daughter. My dreams of grandeur as a high profile celebrity chef went on the back burner for the moment, or at least I told myself that, because Isis really did come first now. I landed my first supervisory job at a catering company and this is where I met Natalie. For the second time in my life I was asked, “Are you Wiccan?”.
She and I would go on a different spiritual Journey together but ultimately the Moon and the Goddess called us back to her and so we began practicing Witchcraft together. After some amazing experiences and initiations, we created The Oracular Tradition and run the Deam Lux Coven as it’s High Priestesses.