Witches, eh? Those strange folk, running around, worshipping Satan, sacrificing goats, listening to heavy metal, drinking the blood of the virgin and killing without mercy. Boils and pustules, warts and flying broomsticks. Death and chaos, killing everything in their path in a selfish need to exist.

I’m a witch.

I look quite nice, actually. I get the occasional spot and occasionally eat blood, in the form of black pudding (also known as blood sausage), but I don’t kill things. I don’t kill goats, sacrifice virgins, nor listen to heavy metal. Okay, I listen to heavy metal. Not for any religious reasons. I like heavy metal. Shoot me.

I worship the earth. Witchcraft is actually about your own interpretation, to a certain extent. I like to think of it as looking after the earth, and in return the earth will protect you, and in return you protect the earth. Vicious circle? Hardly vicious. Benevolent, methinks. It’s a benevolent circle, wherein you protect Mother Earth and the Earth Mother protects you.

The Earth Mother is the one who protects and nurtures Mother Earth. Mother Earth is where we live. Because Mother Earth gives us our home, animals, plants and everything else we need to survive, we call her Mother, funnily enough.

Witches are so very easily persecuted. I think I might just extend this to all religions. No one religion, or person, understands all religions, and not every religion is tolerant of all others. Which is horribly hypocritical.

I’m not saying that one should turn their backs on religion altogether. If it helps you become a better person, then go for it. Everyone should have the freedom to choose what they practice, and how they practice... Within reason.

I’m all for freedom of religion. I’m all for freedom altogether, but... Freedom has constraints. This sounds odd, until you think about it. I can’t think of how to phrase this, so please, bear with me. If I sound unnecessarily harsh, I don’t mean to. I’m trying to figure out how to say it.

Okay, when do you pray? When you need strength. So, why pray at set times? I’ve never understood organised religion. Don’t read me wrong here, Witchcraft (okay, I should call it Wicca, but it’s the same blimmin’ thing) has times when it is said best to pray. Yeah, we pray, we just call it something different. We call them rituals. We say we’re “casting a spell”, but think about this: All a spell is, is expressing a wish. So is a prayer. You just use different focuses and different terminology, bit it is basically the same. Catholics might use a set of Rosary beads, Protestants might just clasp their hands, Muslims may wash their feet and pray on a mat. You know what? It’s the same thing. You’re asking whomever your deity is for strength. Your methods just differ, your methods differ, but your focus is the same: To find your inner strength, and to help others find theirs.

I don’t know about every single religion, but I do know the ones that I have studied. They all have fundamental morals: Be excellent to each other. That’s it. Be excellent to each other. It’s a line from a movie, yes, but it is true, and it’s what I’ve learned from most religions, Satanism being the exception, where the focus is to be excellent to yourself, and nobody else, though, again, no goats or anything else are to be harmed... Anyway, Bill and Ted. They have it right. I love Bill and Ted. Religion can be summed up in that one phrase.

So, no matter what you practice, be good to me, and I’ll be good to you back. I’m not horrible, I don’t kill goats (I think they’re dead cute, and wanna own one, one day), I don’t drink blood and sacrifice virgins. I’m a Witch and I’m proud of it. I love the earth and I try to love my fellow human and all the living things: plants, animals, weird gooey things, which nobody knows from whence they came, on it. If there’s something wrong with that, then I’ll just pack my bags and find somewhere more tolerant. I do hope it doesn’t come to that. I rather like it here.

Kittylove
Andrew =^.^=