"Leap and the net will appear" ~ Shakti Gawain

The awakening....

I have started and returned to this path numerous times. It started with the accidental purchase of a Goddess spirituality book back in 1995. This launched a hunger for all things on spirituality - particularly women oriented. I will say I had a distaste already for mainstream religion and practices. I have trauma and hate and fear related to conventional church practices. I was drawn in you could say and fell deeper and deeper the more I read - and practiced.

I developed a friendship with a number of like-minded women and yes, we would dance in circles beneath the moon and celebrating the feminine.

Just when I was really engaged and feeling an awakening, I was moved unwillingly to southern Alberta.

Now south Alberta is the heart of oil country. A partner of that oil mentality are a right wing outlook combined with a staunch belief in Christianity. I will include with that Mormonism too.

In that small town of Okotoks where we settled I would - to my horror - discover a Mormon and pentacostal community. The churches permeated the townsite. Even the small parishes of Catholics and Anglicans had a very distinct evangelical flair. It was awful. Church was what people talked about - at the cafes, the bookstores, the schools, workplaces, gyms, and so on. It was EVERYWHERE. There was a pattern. When introducing one's self the other will first ask, "What Ward do you belong to?" You would point out you were not Mormon. So then the next thing out of their mouths is, "Oh, so you belong to which church?" I soon learned that to say you actually didn't attend church, you would be met with a long gasp and it wasn't surprising if the conversation ended there. It was all very awkward.

A few situations arose which would cement me as 'different' and would ostracise me.

• Halloween. Only a few short months after we moved into the neighbourhood, Halloween rolled around and I erected my annual display. That year the display was a large, quite involved, Harry Potter montage. I got a letter, unsigned, that told me in essence that the writer was upset that I had invited the devil into a god-fearing neighbourhood. I would later come to a conclusion it was from the house just across and down the street. I would continue to put up displays by the way.
• Play date. One of the children from that house briefly came into mine. It was only a brief time but it was long enough for the eight year old to catch a glimpse of some pagan displays and artwork that I had placed around the living room. After that occasion, the child and his siblings never returned to the house. I fact they would avoid the property choosing to walk around the sidewalk to avoid it.
• The Pentecostal Pastor. I would discover the house in question belonged to the local Pentecostal Pastor. Ewwww. For nine years I felt as though I was being scrutinised and watched.
• School. Uh, big breath here. This was truly awful. My son(s) came home from school with their first newsletter. To my deep shock and dismay, I discovered on the backside was printed an invitation to a tent revival meeting! Ack! OMG! The fact that I had been asked to donate reems of paper only worsened the situation. I met with the principal - whom I would become quite acquainted with as time progressed. She saw nothing wrong with it. In fact, she said they always did this sort of thing. i pointed out to her that parents or tax dollars had paid for that - shrug. I pointed out to her that it was a public school. She actually had no idea why having advertised a church meeting in a public school newsletter wasn't appropriate. My response was point out that not every student or family was Christian. She was actually shocked and said, "Why wouldn't it be?" Then she dropped a bombshell of a question...... "Who?" My jaw fell to the ground. I told her she couldn't ask such a question. Well that wouldn't be the last conversation I had with her about exclusivity vs exclusivity. 
• Protest. I would get myself into a difficult situation after participating in an international protest at a G7 Summit. I was called into my manager's office and told it had come to his attention I had been involved. When I told him he wasn't allowed to ask me about my political activities his response was to say it was a career limiting decision - and to be careful. After stepping into the foyer I felt bombarded. The walls had the usual notices and copies of Sunday leaflets. But it was also plastered with 'reminders' of how to be a good Anglican. The tone of the posters was extremely Evangelical. I cried all the way home! I then called my father who himself is an Anglican priest. He consoled me and assured me that what I had seen was not what being Anglican was and that in fact he discouraged that kind of rhetoric. He also told me that he was not surprised as it was that parish from which he had received threats some years prior (yeah a story to tell later).
• 9/11. What a horrible day one which I shed many tears throughout it. That evening, feeling absolutely gutted I sought sanctuary of some kind and chose then to go down to what I had known as a child. I went to the Anglican Church in Okotoks. 
• Remembrance Day. The first Remembrance Day (Nov 11th in Canada) was beyond surprising. It actually hurt. For, it was hosted by the Pentecostal Church and for 2 hours I sat through him hammering it in that WW1 and WW2 had been fights of Christianity Vs the heathen. Oh my gosh. I'm pretty sure that the gurkas who fought for Great Britain weren't Christian. I am pretty sure that the Indigenous peoples who had fought bravely as outstanding scouts and snipers weren't necessarily Christian. What about the Jews, and Muslims? What about me? I was insulted. So I actually went to the Church to put my foot down and complain. The leader I spoke too stared at me in disbelief. This is the way we have always done it and no one has complained before.

Now there are so many more instances I could describe but these are the main ones from what I experienced during the first six months of residing in Okotoks, in the Foothills of Calgary and my initial headbutts with fervent far right wing politics and the Christian foothold in the area. Ugh.

What did this result in? How did this affect me? It would result in me hiding who I was, a pagan in a sea of angry Christianity and Mormonism. I removed everything on display in the house that might lead to someone observing that I might be pagan - a witch. That was early 2002. I have never unpacked those belongings. I have hidden my spiritual thoughts. I have not practised any form of any religion.