Irina Tweedie was an amazing and beautiful woman.  I am inspired by her deep, silent relationship to the Beloved.  Read her book, "The Daughter of Fire" and let me know how she affected you.

A Witch's Tale: My Spiritual Life Journey

Her mother-in-law called her Satan because she proclaimed herself to be Wiccan.  A Witch.  The mother-in-law said, “You brought evil into our lives, into my house.  All of the bad things that have happened in our lives are because of you!”  The WitchWoman cried silent tears.  She did not want her mother-in-law to hear.

 It is because of this and similar stories that the WitchWoman has trouble sharing her spiritual journey with others.  She does not want another cross held up in front of her face.  She does not want another person to tell her Jesus will save her.  She does not want another loved one to tell her she will go to hell.  She does not want to be called evil.  She does not want another survey, “Should witches be allowed to have a club on campus?” printed beside her smiling picture.

 But, the WitchWoman is brave.  She is courageous.  Many times she has looked fear in its face and loved it anyway.  So, today, she takes her fear by the hand, holds it close to her heart and begins her story.

 She was born to a fifteen-year-old girl named Karen.  Karen was the daughter of a White man and a Native woman.  When her baby was born she was alone.  She only saw her baby once, nine days after it was born for half an hour.  She learned she had a daughter.  Then, like the mother of Moses, she placed the baby in the reeds and let her go.  But, she did not forget and neither did the baby.

 The child was found by a young couple who thought they could not have children.  They took the little girl home and called her Daughter.  They placed her on the black earth of an onion field and surrounded her with grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  Soon, they also gave her a brother.

 When she was a small child, her parents read stories to her from a hardbound, blue covered children’s Bible.  The daughter loved this book.  She loved the pictures.  Her favorite stories were of mothers and their children. 

 Daughter went to church with her family.  She wore her favorite pink tights and Mary Jane shoes.  She sat in the pew and drew pictures on the back of tithing cards.  Hymnals and Bibles served as her desk.  She looked up at the pulpit and admired not the wooden cross, but the white frosted glass behind it.  The lights made the glass glow and she dreamed of angels, mothers with wings, to hold her tight and love her deep.

 Daughter went to Sunday school and liked the crafts.  She made a well out of a baby food jar, popsicle sticks and tiny blue silk flowers.  She liked the rooms in the church.  Hidden in basements and attics, caves for her imagination.  She liked church then.  She wanted to sing in the choir and dress up in costumes for holiday pageants.

 But, she got older and things changed.  The art became less and the talking became more.  They said, “You have to thank Jesus every night for dying on the cross for your sins or you will go to hell.”  Daughter was scared.  She feared God.  She would lie in her bed at night whispering this prayer in a panic.  Over and over, it became her mantra, until, exhausted with fear, she either fell asleep or ran crying to her parents’ bedroom for comfort.  They did not like being awakened in the middle of the night.  Night after night.  But, she was scared and didn’t know what else to do.  They were supposed to make her feel better.

 Daughter did not want to go to church anymore.  She liked school and reading books.  She liked imagining she was a doctor or teacher or mother.  She played games with her brother and cousins.  She learned she could be anything she wanted to be.  She found out girls could do anything boys could do.  She learned girls were just as smart as boys.  This made her happy, but sometimes got her into trouble.  She reminded her brother and Dad that they should help do the dishes and clean the house.  Dad would say, “But I worked all day!”  And Daughter would say, “So did Mom!”

 Daughter became sassy, but she was also smart.  She grew into a teenager and read Seventeen magazine.  She found an article about witches.  There were girls, only a little bit older than her, who imagined their bodies filled with light, believed plants and rocks could help heal, loved Halloween and the full moon.  Daughter was reminded of all the times she pretended she was a fairy.  She remembered she loved flowers and leaves and would pretend to eat them.  She remembered her fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Martin, collected rose quartz, agates and amethyst.  She remembered full moons big and orange, dragonfly wings shimmering in sunlight.  She remembered the coolness of black mud squishing between her bare toes.  Mostly, she remembered how happy these things made her and she wanted to be a WitchWoman too.

 She told her friends, “Witches are real!”  She told her family, “Witches are good!”  She was beaming, she was happy, she was excited.  She felt in her heart, her bones, her skin, her hair, her teeth, her guts…this was right.  Her family said, “No.”  Her friends said, “Don’t believe it.”  Her family said, “It’s wrong, it’s dark.”  Her friends said, “It’s Satan.”  She loved them.  She didn’t understand how something that felt so good could be so bad, could be so wrong.  She trusted them, she believed them, and so she let it go.  But, the Good Earth would not let go of her.

 Time went on and even though the young woman would not say it out loud, her religion was becoming the wind, the trees, the sunlight, the mountains and the oceans.  Then, one day, as she was settling into her senior year of high school she met a young woman like her.  Victoria.  Who, along with her sister, was publishing a teensy magazine about witches and runes and the Goddess.  The young WitchWoman opened her heart to her new friend and told her everything she knew about the goodness of witches and the goodness of the Earth and that she believed her church was in Nature.  The two friends were in creative writing class together and needed to write a paper.  The young WitchWoman wrote about God as a woman.  Her teacher was happy and told her about a Woman’s Bible.  The young WitchWoman could not believe her ears!  She wrote her paper and received an “A.”

 At Christmas dinner that year, the young WitchWoman’s grandmother asked, “What are you studying in school?”  And our brave, sassy heroine said, “The Goddess.”  The grandmother said, “You don’t believe in a Goddess?”  And the young WitchWoman smiled and nodded, her mouth full of turkey dinner.  Our heroine had been inspired by the knowledge that many people knew about the Goddess.  This gave her courage.  She began praying to “Goddess” instead of “God” and once she got used to the word on her tongue…it felt sooooo good!

 WitchWoman went to college were she met other witchy women.  Teachers and students.  She explored the Goddess in her reading, through her writing and in rituals that honored the moon, the elements, and the Divine.  She began dancing the sensual movements of the Middle East and learned these belly dances were dances by and for women. 

 She prayed and wrote and danced her way to womanhood.  She encountered many, many people who were afraid of her witchiness.  And while their behavior hurt her heart and made her cry, she would not deny this essential part of herself.

 She got married and her husband said her witchiness was fine, but then his family found out and he changed his mind.  Her marriage had not been good.  He lied and stole and was very, very angry.  The WitchWoman had been scared, but one day Pele, the volcano goddess, erupted and she threw a witchy candle at his head.  She missed, but The WitchWoman was victim no more.  She got a divorce.

 Sometime between marriage and divorce, The WitchWoman found a book called “Peace is Every Step.”  It was a small book in pages, but an enormous book in content.  It introduced her to Buddhism.  It sparked an awareness in her that once ignited could not be extinguished.  Sitting meditation became a part of her life.

 By the end of her marriage, WitchWoman realized she needed to add a Buddhist Community to her Community of Witches.  She found Bodhi Path and a lineage of Tibetan Tulkus.  They began to teach and she began to learn. 

 She learned she had the courage to board an airplane alone and fly to the New Mexico desert where she found the Goddess, her pen, her Native family, a meditation cushion and a silence so deep she was able to put all these elements into a cauldron and stir.  She added her pain, her suffering and her courage.  She let the brew sit, until, one day it was ready.  When Cerridwen’s transforming elixir touched her lips she found herself in a Master of Divinity program transforming her life.

 

The First Family.

Thank You America.

We did it!!!!

"Hope over fear, unity over division."  Please vote Barack Obama our next President.  

Covenant

Blessed Mother, Beloved Father, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,

            It is my hope to convey on paper what I feel in my heart are my commitments to my spiritual life, my education and my work.  Currently, my ministry feels small and yet I know there are no small deeds when they manifest in a way that is harmonious and for the good of all beings.

            I am currently in the process of re-constructing my pagan community and am slowly building spiritual bonds with like-minded men and women who wish to come together to honor the Divine Feminine and Masculine and the Divine energy that is alive in the natural world.  Most recently, I was called upon to serve as Priestess for the blessing of a new baby in this community.  I hope to continue to serve my pagan sisters and brothers by writing, facilitating and participating in rituals and ceremonies that affirm our connection to the Divine, each other and the natural world. 

            I am also involved with a Buddhist organization and meditation center.  As part of my work as a spiritual care provider I would like to facilitate group discussion after our weekly meditation sessions.  It is my hope to bring our sangha closer together and deepen our meditation practice and knowledge of basic Buddhist concepts within our tradition.  I would also like to create a newsletter for our particular sangha that can serve as a touchstone for our community; a way for us to feel connected outside of our meditation space.  I would like to extend the reaches of our community by starting a meditation group in a neighboring city.  I imagine this as a sister sangha to the current group and hope that we will come together as one larger group to host Buddhist teachers and serve the greater community.

            Another aspect of my ministry involves my love for and commitment to writing as a spiritual practice.  Creative writing can be a wonderful way to deepen our understanding of ourselves as containers of the Divine.  I am planning to form a small writing group in and around the University community to provide a safe place for interested individuals to deepen and share their unique voices.

            My current theology combines my love for the Divine Feminine and the natural world with my love for the teachings and practices of Buddhism.  When I engage in my spiritual practice I say the following prayer, “May I, due to the merit of practicing the six paramitas such as generosity, accomplish enlightenment for the benefit of sentient beings.”  By practicing the six paramitas (generosity, ethics, patience, joyous effort, concentration or meditation and wisdom) I am working for the benefit of all creation.  I am cultivating bodhicitta or loving-kindness.  By reciting this and other prayers on a daily basis I strive to deepen my understanding of these values thus integrating them into my daily life and into my ministry.

            As a Wiccan priestess, my connection to the Feminine Divine and the natural world is deepened in times of prayer and communion with God the Mother and during rituals that honor the changing seasons and similar changes within our own lives.  My daily spiritual practice incorporates both pagan and Buddhist traditions with the same purpose in mind:  To see that all beings enjoy happiness and cease to suffer. 

            During my time as a student at this University I wish to study and explore a vast array of subjects, however the areas that speak to me most strongly are interfaith dialogue and peacemaking, spiritual writing and writers (both historical and contemporary), and the Divine Feminine.  I am also interested in studying the ways in which women relate to the Divine and how that compares to the spiritual experiences and expressions of men.  It is my hope, during this program, to engage in spiritual pilgrimage to Europe and Asia to more deeply explore both my pagan and Buddhist roots.  I am interested in studying Buddhism from a traditional perspective as well as studying contemporary Western Buddhism.  I am interested in the different ways Buddhism can be explored and practiced.  I would love to have the opportunity to learn both Tibetan and Sanskrit.

            I will continue developing my personal and spiritual life during my time in the program.  I hope to heal spiritual wounds and find some peace between my current belief system and the beliefs of my conservative Christian upbringing.  I have experienced a negative side of the Christian faith and find it difficult to open up in class about my spiritual path because of those experiences.  However, I hope to understand the root of this suffering and, with compassion, mend these broken places within myself.  I will engage in both spiritual direction and personal counseling in order to have the care and guidance needed for this healing process.  It is also important to me, during this time, to deepen my understanding of the Divine and define for myself the nature of the Holy.  For too long I have felt my spiritual life has been separate from my daily life and it is increasingly important to me to integrate these two parts of myself.  The support of the University community is necessary as I venture along this path.

            The world’s religions have long captivated my attention and imagination.  I am interested in the spiritual and cultural expression of different traditions.  I want to learn more about where the world’s spiritual beliefs intersect and are similar, as well as the places where they are different.  It is not possible to be an effective peacemaker unless all views are examined equally and are treated with the same level of care and respect.  Specifically, I would like to deepen my understanding of yogic traditions within Hinduism, the role of the feminine in Christian traditions and Native American spiritual traditions, particularly the Washat tradition, as this is the belief system of my biological family and our ancestors.

            As I previously mentioned, practicing the six paramitas is one of the ways I internalize my own spiritual tradition.  Because my spiritual life consists of two different religions from different parts of the world I have become creative in my daily practice.  The prayers and meditation techniques I use for my spiritual development and devotion come from both Buddhist and Wiccan sources.  My daily practice serves as a reminder to bring the qualities of Spirit into my work, my play, my relationships and my studies.  My meditation and prayer practice, along with my daily writing practice, allow for that integration.   Daily writing helps me cultivate gratitude by showing me where I have been and where I am now.  It reminds me to be grateful for the life that I have and propels me forward to continue creating for the benefit of all beings.

            I hope to continue serving my community by facilitating Dharma discussions with my sangha after weekly meditation practice, by serving as priestess of rituals and rites of passage within my pagan community and by sharing my spiritual writing to help deepen others’ understanding of their own spiritual lives.  There is another way, a new way, in which I also feel pulled.  I feel called to help others heal their spiritual wounds by ministering to the dying.  In my life I have lost many people and I have long struggled with the reality of death, but after sitting with my birth mother as she passed away, my relationship to mortality has changed.  It has helped me more fully appreciate my life and has prompted me to utilize this life to benefit others.

            For the wellness of all sentient beings I commit myself to the Master of Divinity program.  May I grow and evolve in a way that allows me to bring my Buddha Nature into the world for the benefit of all. 

            Blessed Be!