The Story of an African American Wiccan Priestess
The Story of an African American Wiccan Priestess
Author: LilithSilverKrow
During my 14 years of study of Witchcraft and Wicca, Shamanism and Paganism, I have found that Pagans of Color are hard to come by, or just simply in hiding. For years of my life, I have searched far and wide to create a group based on African American Neo Paganism and Wicca, but to no avail, it’s as if I am the only one who exists. While I know this isn’t true, I often find myself wondering if the traditional stereotypes of our African American Family culture, and the binds that keep families of color separated from other belief systems are true.
Is it true that we must bind our beliefs solely within the Christian Hierarchy of religious followings? Do we tell our families that we hold a close belief in something other than the all-knowing all-mighty God? How do we tell our families that we are not evil, and that we believe in the purity of nature?
Coming from a strict family of Deacons, Pastors and Reverends in the Christian Faith (not to mention the Catholics, and Jehovah’s witnesses) didn’t make my coming out so easy. When I was a young Pagan on my path to understanding the ways of the Goddess, I slowly came out to my family with little subtle hints that their way of religion was not particularly right for me and my spiritual tastes.
I would often deliberately sleep in on Sundays, ditch bible school, and refuse to sing in the choir- (er.. I mean I suddenly lost my voice, of course) . I would spend many hours in silent meditation, out in public spaces (like the living room, or the front porch) , which often lead to a lot of interesting questions. While this was probably not the best way to come out in a family so demanding of living a Christian life, it was a subtle way of letting know that I had a different path to walk. Finally, I was kicked out of my mother’s house for two different reasons. 1. For being a Lesbian Vegan, and 2. For being a Witch.
The very first book I had ever read was True Magick by Amber K. My mother actually found that book while “cleaning my room” and asked me if Christmas was out of the question. I started to explain to her the Pagan holidays, and what it means to be a witch- then she proceeded to tell my great-aunt, the devout Christian from Kansas and head of the family about me and my choice of religion… This caused an absolute riot in the family, and I was thrown out immediately on the spot, with no place to go. After a while of communicating with my mother, and letting her read all the books I deliberately left laying around, she decided to let me back in the house if I promised to stop being a Lesbian, at least eat some chicken and not tell anyone about my choosing to be a witch… At least she let me have my spiritual choice… one down and one and a half to go.
After my mother and I settled are differences about the whole idea of me being a Pagan child, she allowed me to have friends of the same faith and decided that it was time for me to go and be myself. She realized after all the fights and the arguments, that I wasn’t going to change my mind and that if she wanted me not to be who I was authentically, then I would obviously need to find my own place and move away from the house.
At the age of 16, I moved away to continue to lead a group or coven, and study with only those that were serious about Wicca and Witchcraft. I refused to let anyone in our group unless they read at least 5 books pertaining to Witchcraft or Wicca, and knew the basics of what our Spirituality was about. I look back know and realize that I have always been serious about my religion, and have made sure that others around me radiated the same kind of energy that I did. I never let movies influence me and I never bothered to listen to what others said about me. I was once again the only African American of my group.
My group consisted of several different races and ethnicities- Puerto Rican, Vietnamese, Caucasian, Mexican, and well me the black girl and “High Priestess”. I really hated the title of High Priestess, because having read all the books that I took the time to read, I knew that there was no such thing as miraculously becoming a high priestess. I just kept learning and making sure that all of the people in our coven were doing what it took to learn all of the initiatory rights, bound by the law of the Wiccan rede and following the wheel of the year. Sometimes I look back and think that I knew more then than I do now, and other times I wish that I could find more people of color to start a new coven all over again- this time with the right credentials to lead.
To conclude my story, I stuck with Paganism because it was the only source of spirit that allowed me to connect with the feminine energies of the Goddess. It was my only source of love and abundance and understanding and it has brought me nothing but wonderful bliss and has made my life truly centered and enlightened. I have learned how to connect with all sorts of people, to fit in and to allow what comes to me to come.
Although, I am still looking for Pagans of color who have a sense of their own individuality and pride as Pagans, I am happy doing what I do best. I am now running a humanitarian business here in Portland Oregon that focuses on the Pagan community, I own a two Shops, teach workshops and classes in the Pagan community and I do Shamanic Soul coaching and Journey work. This is what I do for a living, serve the Goddess in any way shape or form that I can. I dedicated my life and live in Service of the Goddess, and forever I will always be in service to those that need healing.
May the God and Goddess Bless you,
Love and Blessed Light,
Lilith Silverkrow
Footnotes:
B y Lilith Silverkrow
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7 Comments on “The Story of an African American Wiccan Priestess”
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Hi,
You are not alone. I am also a black Priestess of Wica (Gardnerian), with a mixture of other beliefs. Great blog. I’ve only just started mine.
Blessings, x
Thank you for stopping by. It is nice to meet another witch. I am a practicing Solitary. We only have one coven in our area that I know of. An ex-boyfriend of mine went to it. When it was all said and done, he came back and told me he never wanted to hear the word “witch” again. What happened? I have no idea he would give me no clues whatsoever. I had on one of my very old pentagram and he grabbed it and jerked it off my neck and threw it across the room. Well it was a wonderful relationship while it lasted, lol!
But I am going to bookmark your site. I am curious to see if a coven witch has more comments on her blog than a Solitary. The reason being I have a writer that keeps mentioning with all the material I have here, I should have people commenting. I thought about it then I blamed it on what type of witch I was, my name, I just figure Solitary witches like to remain in the shadows. Then I got to talking about coven witches, that perhaps they are all bonded from the time they join the coven, that maybe that type of witch would have more comments. But after being on the internet for so long and in the groups especially, I have just got use to it. You can tell if you are posting material everyone likes, you don’t hear a word from them, lol!
I talk to much as you will come to see, lol! I hope we can become good friends. If you need any help with your blog or you want to use any material here, feel free to ask or take. Good luck to you and I will be seeing you soon,
Lady A
Hey sweetie! If you have an alert someone was copying and pasting from your sites, it was me. I was copying the titles to your sites. And oh boy, your sites! There are awesome. I know now where I am going to go to nose around now. I have always been captivated by Egyptian mythology, well anything thing Egyptian. So I will be spending time there for sure. But you are to be congratulated on your sites. There are beautiful and awesome. Thank you for sharing your world with me, my friend.
Greetings Lady A.
Thanks for such a quick response and interesting comments. I would not worry whether people comment on your postings or not, as I am sure they are being read by many. I often find that people will not bother comment unless they have something negative to say! Sad, but very true of many of the forums.
I don’t think I could possibly devote as much time as you do to my blog as I also have three websites and I am a member of a couple of Pagan organisations.
My sites are:
http://www.snakespirit.webs.com
http://www.empatherapy.webs.com
http://www.qetesh-iseum.co.uk
Thank you for the offer of material and I will always ask first and credit you as the author. I believe that is important as there is so much work going around without proper credit being given to the author. I write a lot and don’t mind sharing, but like my name credited somewhere, for good or bad!
Thanks for your friendship.
Blessings,
Lady Skydancer x
Hello dear friend! It is great to hear from you. I hope you had a fantastic day. I am sorry it took me so long to write back. But I got carried away changing the look of the blog today. The old blog didn’t pop! It sort of fizzed and was quite boring. I had my eye on one background for some time and today I was just in the mood to goof off. So I got to playing with it and I started learning how to do this and how to do that, Right up my alley, I love doing graphics.
Woman, I couldn’t keep up with you if I tried. What a schedule and all the activities. When I had a group on MSN, I helped I don’t know how many groups. Everytime I turned around someone was making me Asst. Manager were I could work on their group. I guess it was the day I deleted the group, I resigned all my positions and when my merry way. You can burn yourself out if you are not careful. As far as the time goes that I spend on this blog, it is the only thing I am obligated too. Believe it or not, I actually have a time limit set for myself. I just get to typing and found something interesting that I hope will be interested in and I type that up and put it on. Oh, I still have a huge amount of material left from the old group. I had it imported to another site and no one participating so one morning I got tired of busting my butt, I closed the group. But I agree with you no one posted in the group. I even had one tell me he just stopped by every day to read the horoscopes. But the group had over 2000 members and no one posted in it except if there was a fight getting ready to start. But with the blog, I love it. I don’t have to worry about who pissed who off and who sicked a demon on who. The blog is quiet and peaceful, just what I was looking for, lol!
Well I guess I better run for now. I have talked you ear off. I will take you links and put them in my blogroll. When you get a minute write back. We’ll see who can write the longest comment, lol! Till rhen…………
Blessingk, Peace & Comfort,
Lady A
Hi Lady A,
I’m late getting back to you as I have been busy with home & hearth. I have also been putting together a Wicca 101 class for a group named Black Cat Wicca. I did a poll first to see if they wanted a course leading to initiation, or just lessons, and the consensus has been – just lessons. I hope to add tests at the end of lessons but I am now having a feeling that they wont want to take tests to show what they have learnt, and how and if the work has changed them in any way. I don’t know about you but I am getting frustrated by people wanting what I call “Pop Wicca”. The kind of thing they see on ‘Charmed’ and ‘Hogwarts’.
I’ve had time to look through your blog and you have been very busy! You have enough here for a book or your own magazine. Is it something you have thought about before, or is it not of interest to you?
It’s nearly 4am UK time so I must get to bed. bank holiday here today so I hope its sunny and I can go somewhere.
Take Care, Blessings,
Lady S. x
Hey sweetie,
I understand completely. I am the world’s worst penpal you ever seen in your life. I check the comments here but for as hotmail and yahoo go, they are lucky to get checked once a month. In regards to what you were talking about, let’s start at the beginning, lol! I don’t know if I told you or not but when MSN had its groups, I had one on there. We worked our tails off and ended up with 2000 members. Now you would think with that many members it would be an active group. I had the same info here that I had there plus I had puzzles, blog quizzes, games and gave away siggies. I till had only had about a handful to participate. Then I had one of my asst. managers come up with the idea she wanted to teach. I told heck go for it. I knew in about two to three weeks she would be complaining because no one was interested. Heck I knew this bunch the only time they got involved was when a fight or argument was going on. And unfortunately I was right, she gave them the information and then she did the tests. She had one person to return a test to her. She asked me what she should do and I told her not to get discouraged keep trying. It didn’t do any good, in two months time, I was removing that section from the group. Her way and my way were totally different. At the front of the group, I had a statement that the material in the group was for learning. It also stated after reviewing the material, if they had any question please ask one of the asst. managers or myself. Now that worked really good. I have always had a reputation for being laid-back and I wanted to group to reflect that. The atmosphere was very laid back and I believe the newcomers learned better. They knew there was no pressure put on them and if they had questions one of us would help them. I also believe in letting people learn at their own pace. You know you might try putting up a page that is for the guidelines for the school. Tell them what is expected and how long the classes will last and of course there might be a pop test every now and then. Make it fun and light-hearted and you will be surprised how fast they learn.
As far as all the material, I have found a server that is willing to hold all my old group’s info. Well I call myself cleaning it out. Most of my material I type up myself. Then when I get tired of typing I go over to the group and pull info from there. I haven’t even scratched the bottom on it yet. I didn’t realize there was that much info in there. But no, that’s one thing I haven’t never considered. If you need any of the information here for your class, feel free to use it.
I am like you. The sun is shining here and it is suppose to be in the 80′s today. I am hoping to run some errands and then come back and do some yard work. I went to use the lawn mower yesterday and it had a flat tire. I went and got the jack out of the truck and I be darned, by the time I got back to the lawn mower, there was neighbors everywhere. So I knew right then, I wasn’t going to get crap done. They were telling me yesterday, “Oh, we’ll help you do this, we’ll help you do that.” I like doing stuff for myself and by myself. I know I ought to be grateful for them but they could worry a fly on hot (you know what). So I am going to sneak out of the house and pull my weeds and trim my bushes. When we moved out here, we were the first new neighbors they had in years. So they couldn’t do enough for us and its got back that way. I don’t know what’s up with them.
Well dearie, I guess I better get busy or else I would get anything else done today. I hope I was helpful and if you have any more question, feel free to ask. I hope you have a very beautiful and enjoyable day, dear sister. Till I hear from you again……..
May the Goddess Bless You and Keep You,
Lady A