40 Days

One of the Catholic Church’s favorite things to play is the waiting game…we have Advent, the four weeks prior to Christmas, and then we have Lent, the 6 weeks before Easter.

We.  I still, automatically, type the word “we.” I mentioned to Mark this morning that Catholicism is very much still a part of me even though I have shirked the religious aspect. I suppose I am still a cultural Catholic in many ways, all due to my indoctrination into the church at a very young age. For instance, during Lent one is supposed to observe abstinence from meat on Friday’s. Even now, more than a decade after leaving the church, I feel guilty eating a pepperoni pizza on a Friday in March. The whole shebang starts with Ash Wednesday, which was yesterday, wherein the faithful get a cross made of ashes upon their forehead. From dust you come, to dust you shall return. It is a symbol of repentance and belief as well as mortality. It is to symbolize beginning of the 40 days Jesus spent wandering the desert.
The ashes are made from burnt Palms from the previous years Palm Sunday, and you are not supposed to wipe them away. So it was completely normal, you see, for me to be in a school full of children with dirt on their foreheads one day a year.

And oh! Then there’s the activity of Lent, and not just of the food variety. During Lent, one is asked to give up a pleasure or a vice as a sacrifice and act of repentance. So, every year we all had to give something up. I remember one year when a schoolmate of mine’s mother moved their television set out to garage for the entire 40 days, forcing her kids to give up TV. I routinely gave up candy, which was simple because I wasn’t allowed candy in the first place. I don’t think my mother ever took this into consideration, she was always just happy that I was “working on my weight.” When I was in high school, there was a girl who gave up Lent for Lent, as she was Pentecostal and attending a Catholic School. I recall her getting some heat for this comment, which I found to be brave and bold and intriguing. When I left school though, I stopped giving things up. I stopped eating fish on Friday’s, and I stopped getting ashes on my forehead.

Obviously, if you are a regular reader, you know that I am a bit of a pagan nowadays. So, it probably surprises you none at all that I am going to tell you that the Christian’s stole Easter from the pagan’s Spring Equinox festival. Much like the feast of Saint Brigid, which I recently wrote about, Easter was appropriated from the pagans.  Shocking turn of events, am I right?

This morning Carey asked me about Ash Wednesday. She thinks she noticed more crosses on people’s foreheads this year than ever before. Myself, I didn’t see a single one. But that’s probably a good thing because I was still triggered all damn day.

As soon as I realize it was Ash Wednesday, I thought of years of arguments with my mother, starting from when I was 16 and taking confirmation class. Her and I were so close, finally, to seeing eye to eye spiritually, but I knew I would never truly take her away from her home, which was the Church. When we had her funeral, it was a great big Catholic Mass at a great big Catholic Church, attended by girls who went to Catholic School with her, and many Catholic nuns who knew her well.  When Father Bill, a former priest at my elementary school, invited everyone up for communion, my father rose and accepted it. I looked behind me and I realized no one else got up. Not me or my sister; certainly not my husband or kids, none of whom were eligible to receive it anyway. I don’t even think I saw any of my friends move, and it reminded me of an article I read once about a spiritual awakening supposed to occur on planet Earth in the early to mid 2000s. I made a note in my phone to write a blog about this observation, but of course that was in between the funeral Mass and breakfast, so the note kind of got lost in the shuffle. But the article expressly said that we would throw off the shackles of religion. We would learn to live spiritually and harmoniously without it. Future generations would be taught that it was a general mistake, which only brought about greater division, and kept us as humans from reaching our greatest potential. Geez,  do I wish I could cite this article for you, but I got it off MySpace in 2004. Anyway, I think that’s happening now.

This blog is kind of all over the place today, huh? It’s because I’m all messed up in the brain over the Catholicism, and while I quit the church in my twenties, it has taken until my late 30s to really start my deconstruction. And honestly, with my mother’s passing, I feel very little guilt regarding my spiritual path. All of that washed away when I stepped out of that church, knowing that I would never have to set foot in one again if I didn’t want to. Of course, I will attend a wedding or funeral, but no one is ever going to force me to go to church again. This brings us to a bittersweet silver lining, but I truly feel in my gut that when mom died, her soul looked around and said “oh, Brig was right,” because I have more freedom spiritually since her passing then I have ever felt, and I do believe she gave that to me.

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Notes on Deconstruction

When I was a child, I had a few favorite little games. One was making stews. I would get a bowl and fill it with outdoor things and imagine I was feeding my creations to animal folk or faries or whatnot.  Another game I played was ‘”hospital,” where I’d create medicines and bandages from plants and mud and patch up my sick dolls. And then there were the damn rocks. I collected rocks like a starving child in an apple orchard. I hoarded them like money. They were….my precious.

And then at age 4, I watched The Worst Witch on free Disney weekend, which became my favorite flick for many years, despite its terrifying first impression of Tim Curry, kicking off a lifelong hate-affair with the man. Still, I watched that and was like “oh hey, I’m a witch!”  Then they marched me through the front doors of a religious institution that not only prohibited but villianized witchcraft, and I was all “oh hey, I’m screwed!”

Enter then 20+ years of indoctrination into a manufactured monotheistic reality, and what you spit out at age 30 is a very confused, very much religiously traumatized individual who then eschews all religions and Judeo-Christian beliefs structures and develops a fascination with cults and paganism. That’s what you get, Catholic school.

Fast forward. I know now I was doing all that weird witchy play stuff before I started school. I also know I was talking to spirits of some sort at the same age. I also know I always have KNOWN things, starting at age 4 when I found my parent’s stolen car.  I have also been lectured by seers more than once about wasting my inherent ability. And still, it took until damn near 40 for me to once again think “oh hey, I’m a witch!”

So, Bernadette and I went to the Psychic Fair over the weekend. I bought a book, and I got some gemstones that took me back to a simpler time…the time of my rock collections. I bought a rose quartz, which is often used for love both between others and also self- but all I remember is that it was my favorite as a small child. I liked quartz in general, and we had tons lining the edge of our pool, but none were the smoky pink of a rose quartz. I also got a little protection wreath for my altar, and found some cool candles I want in the future. It was a nice little morning, and it triggered all those aforementioned early year’s memories. That little rock sent me reeling back in time, to before the introduction of my small self to “the one true God,” when all was still visible to me. I am trying to harness that feeling, and live with that intention, as opposed to the one forced on me by a generational curse.

The moral of the story is that religious deconstruction is not for the faint of heart, and I completely understand why some folk just say screw it and go with God.  I got home from the fair and felt very peaceful after, and very much like I was on the right path, which is a foreign feeling I’ve only been receiving since the Salem trip. But I don’t often feel that way, spiritually. I try to, but mono-god is still up there, stuck in my brain like slime.  And all I want is my pretty rocks. 

Botched Assignments

Since I was Catholic for 25 years, I acquired a couple of goddaughters. One being my sister Bernadette, of whom I was not technically godmother, because I was not old enough in the church’s eyes at the time. But they made an exception for me, giving my good standing in the church and in school. I really was quite the exceptional Catholic at age 13 . So when she was a couple months old and I was nearly 14, I dressed up and went to church and we had a ceremony initiating her into Catholicism, and making me promise in front of God and the congregation that I would raise her in the Catholic Church as a spiritual guide. A couple of years later, D was born and we went through the whole thing again, with me promising much more reluctantly to make sure she stayed a good Catholic. Well, she turned 21 the other day. She is the legal full adult now…although I still wouldn’t rent her a car. I started to think about the fact that I left the Church, and sort of stopped guiding those I was supposed to be guiding. I wondered where she stood spiritually, because I know my sister didn’t pan out the way my parents had planned. Both of their daughters left the church, and became flaming pagans. So naturally, I had to check in with D to see where she was. Turns out, exact same story.
Forced when she was younger, bailed as soon as she could, took up an interest in Wicca. Not practicing, but definitely investigating. So in the end, I didn’t so much end up raising a couple of good Catholics soldiers, so much as a couple of heathens…just like their godmother.
[  ] I remember being young and thinking about the possibility of having children. This was never forefront in my brain, but was more of an implied future that I, at the time, didn’t really think I had much say in. But still, I picked out names, considered what colors I would paint bedrooms, and mentally considered godparents. As time went on however, my options dwindled. People who I would have chosen left the church, and it made me consider why. I mean, I had my first problem when I was about 8 with Catholicism. That would be the day that I learned I could never be a priest. See, in school we were taught about the sacraments- we were told that when you got older, you were called to one of two sacraments: Marriage, or the Holy Order. The Holy Order seemed pretty cool, mainly because my aunt was a Sister of Mercy and I saw the way she lived. She got to share a house with her best friend, go on lots of trips, and spent her time working with the church- which, again, as an 8-year-old who had been Catholics since the day she was baptized, this sounded rad. The thing is, however, I was a preformer. I was not interested in the second-banana role of the nun. I wanted to be in the spotlight. I wanted to say Mass. And then my very loving Aunt Ka very gently told me that was not an option, as I was a woman, and thus the first seed of doubt that I was in the wrong game was planted. But I held off on expressing my contrary reviews even as they grew with age. What would have happened? Would my mother have disowned me for wanting to give up the Church and turn from God? Would I have had to leave my friends and switch schools? Would I have had to give up teaching the littles at Religious Education, something I really did love doing? So, I kept my mouth shut. I was very happy to be asked to be Bernadette’s godmother, and at the time that really meant something to me, religiously. It was a little different when D came along. Her mother, Beth, was not quite simpatico with the church at the time, but *her* mother was….and is…hugely involved. When D  was about two or so, it was agreed that she would be baptized at our church. Beth chose me and her brother Tom as the godparents. I remember asking her why, with my doubts, did she choose me? She replied something about how we were best friends, and she was a single mother, and if there was anyone that was going to take care of her baby should something happen, it was going to be me. The Church describes godparents as the leaders of a child’s spiritual upbringing. Some people define godparents as a sort of backup, just in case. My own parents did that in two ways for me. Ka was my godmother, and while she would never be able to take me in should the worst happen, my godfather Uncle Terry and his wife Sue, certainly would. And so, I became both those things to a baby D. Beth knew I wasn’t going to make her Catholic, but she also knew I would always have that child’s back. I think my parents felt similarly, because while I am Bernadette’s godmother, one of the best Catholics I know is her godfather. He is a humble man, so he probably doesn’t feel the same way I do about it, but him and his family exemplify what good Christianity is, and that has always given me hope.
[  ] So no, I don’t go to church anymore. And neither do my godchildren, mostly for the exact same reasons that I left, and it would appear we all found the same answers in the same place. So maybe, in the end, I did exactly what I set out to do

Wells of Power

If you didn’t read Monday’s blog, please do.  Anyhoo…

The tarot card reader told me I needed to change my perspective.  She told me I was looking at it all wrong, and that if I would just tap into the well of power that I already knew existed, things would be fine. She was not the first to say this to me. 

I went to Lilydale many years ago, a Spiritualist community in south western New York.  The medium I saw told me I was psychic.  At first, I thought maybe this was a gimmick she used on folks, after all, I’d never had a reading before.  But then she asked me if I just knew things.  I do, all the time.  She told me there were spirits there wanting to speak through me, not just to me, but I couldn’t hear them because I wasn’t quite in tune enough to their frequency.  She told me I was the most psychically in-tune person In the group I was visiting with, and I should consider studying…maybe even there at Lilydale someday.  I assumed, still, this was a ruse of some sort…a way to drum up money for the community.  But at the end of the day, no one else in my party was told they had a gift; just me.

Then, Salem last week.  The reader was on the money about everything, so I’m going to assume she’s right about perspective, too.  I wrote a piece in my Patreon about how the Salem Witch Trials affected me when I was young, and how it was difficult for me to understand why I was so deeply saddened over something that happened hundreds of years before I was born.  And not like how I was over learning about a war, or even learning about the Irish potato famine with which at least my heritage identified.  No, it was the Salem Witch Trials in 3^rd grade that made me cry unexplained tears.  A couple of years later, my parents and I took a vacation to New England and went to Salem, and I remember my excitement and joy and how I gobbled up every morsel of information presented to me.  I wanted to see and do everything, but we were only there for a couple of hours.  I do recall a live reenactment of Bridget Bishop’s trial…which leads me into my name.

I was named after St. Brigid of Kildare. I knew no Brigid’s other than myself, though a couple of “T’s” (that’s what I call the “Bridget’s,’) crossed my path.  When small, I loved that my name was similar to one of the “witches,” so when my parents suggested we go to the reenactment I was delighted.  Then, in high school, I read a book one day, on Celtic folklore…just for funsies.  What a rabbit hole that turned out to be!  I discovered that there was not just a masculine god, but a feminine goddess…many of them in fact…but the main one, the goddess of the country of my ancestors?  BRIGID.  With a damn “D!” 

Naturally, I needed all the information on that immediately, so off I went to the library where I learned all the things as a child.  It was right around this time that I learned that St. Brigid of Kildare may have been a real person, but it is far more likely she is someone that the early church in Ireland used to appropriate the goddess form Celtic belief structures to lure folks to Catholicism, which is of course exactly something the Church would do.  So, from that point on, I started the practice of remembering who shares my name when I am feeling powerless: a might powerful goddess. 

Anyway,

The tarot card reader told me I needed to change my perspective, and I have.  I won’t lie, I have felt a complete shift in my perception of the world in the last few days, which has made me question many things. Part of me, the part that is trained to silence myself, says these are all silly thoughts and to pay them no mind.  But the part of me that knows, the way I knew where our car was parked that time it was stolen, or how I knew that there was a spirit talking to me when I was five, or how I knew that my best friend was throwing me a surprise party for my 16^th birthday, or how I knew Mark was going to propose….in that way, I know-there is indeed a greater power within, and perhaps it is time to cultivate it.