Spirituality

I was raised Christian... sort of.

My mom is Christian, and we went to church every Sunday, but it wasn't what you think of when you think of "church". I mean, it did have a pastor back in those days (although it doesn't anymore), and we sang songs and went to Sunday school and all that. But a lot of churches seem to come from a place of "this is how it is" and this church seemed to come from a place of "let's explore our Christianity together".

My dad used to be Christian, but is now an atheist and has been for a while. We didn't know that growing up, though; he didn't talk about it.

So we were raised Christian. It's true, and I'm not sure why exactly I feel the need to add "sort of" to that, but I do. Because yes, my mom's Christian, but when non-Christian friends of hers find out, they tend to go "you don't seem like a Christian." And yes, we went to church, but it's the sort of church that welcomes everyone, and I mean everyone. Which is what all churches should be, isn't it? But most aren't like that at all.

Anyway. I'm not Christian. It came about gradually (as most things do, at least in my life); I got to that age where I started considering what I really believed, instead of just assuming everything I was told was the truth.

And I found out I love spirituality. I love learning about spirituality, connecting to the divine, thinking about my own beliefs, talking about spirituality; I love it all. It's become an important part of my identity, one of my favourite and defining traits: I'm a spiritual person.

And it's always a bit sad to me when people are religious, and lose all touch with spirituality. Religion should be a vessel, a framework to explore and connect with spirituality. But hey, what do I know? Everyone's different and maybe it's better for those people to approach it like that.

But my dad's always trying to tell me how alike we are, how he was just like me at my age, and I give him a raised eyebrow and say, "I don't know about that." One of the most important things to me is my spirituality, and he's all "Science! Facts! Evidence!" which tends to rub me the wrong way. But he tells me he was spiritual too at my age.

And that just makes me think, how sad. Your disillusionment with Christianity, the framework you used to define your spirituality, made you lose that spirituality altogether.

And maybe I'm completely wrong, but that's how it seems to me.

Nowadays I would say I'm a witch (don't tell my grandparents; they don't even allow the Harry Potter books inside their house, because they're possessed by the Devil or something?) And the problem with being a witch is that no one knows what I mean when I say that.

Witchcraft, occultism, the esoteric... they're incredibly broad categories and that's what's so great about them. In reading about witchcraft, I've felt a connection to it that I never felt learning about other religions or belief systems. Buddhism is super interesting and I love learning about it, but it doesn't click inside me in the same way. When I learned about witchcraft, though, it just felt like yes. This is me.

I suppose the first bit of witchiness I came across was tarot. I had always had sort of a vague idea that tarot was a thing that seemed cool, and then I read a novel that featured tarot cards, I read online about how tarot reading works, I learned that the final T is not actually pronounced, and I went and bought myself a tarot deck.

And wow. My vague idea was right; tarot is so cool. It's not some vague concept that supposedly helps you in your life but doesn't really actually do anything... it's practical. It's relevant. It's had immediate positive effects in my life.

And a big part of witchcraft for me is about taking back my own power. Turns out spirituality isn't just something I can think about—it's something I can actually do. It can be so much more than just cerebral; it can be embodied.

I've also learned so much about myself through learning about spirituality. I've always loved introspection, self awareness and personal growth are very important to me, and I love things like the enneagram and MBTI and gender and sexuality for how they help me explore myself. Adding in things like tarot, ideas of the divine feminine and masculine, astrology, or magick (spelled with a k to differentiate from fairy tale, make-believe, fantasy magic) adds more lenses with which to view my Self.

When I look up "spirituality" the definition is "the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things." But that's not quite right. Spirituality is also concerned with the way the spirit or soul connects to material and physical things.

Everything is connected, interconnected, because everything is one. We're all manifestations of the Universe, of the Everything. Everything we do is an exchange of energy. Energy and divinity run through all of us, through everything, and we live in the illusion of separateness but nothing is ever separate.

Spirituality for me is connection, expansion. It's Everything.