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Witches & Pagans -
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Written by Angie Skelhorn
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 In the spring of 1996 an elderly friend (who happened to be a witch) and I exchanged words back and forth in our favorite Middle Eastern restaurant. We’d had our meal, paid up, and were talking as friends do, over a final cup of tea. I was complaining about life: I was tired of working seven days a week in a job that I was completely burned out on. Life had another plan for the man I desired, and the man I didn’t desire wouldn’t go away!
My friend, a very wise woman, sat there for a while and listened to me rant before she interrupted. “What is your part in all this?” she inquired gently. I sat there, defenses up, but speechless, so she continued. “Your circumstances may seem out of control, but they are all connected to the past. If you see your part in the past and resolve your issues, things will change for you.”
“What?” I replied, startled.
“Life doesn't just happen to you,” she said with a warm smile. “Job changes, relationship endings, death and relocation affects all our lives without warning. In life there is an element of trial and error. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t. It is your reaction that decides your outcome.”
I shivered in my chair as goose bumps appeared on my skin. She kept talking.
“Think about what you want in life, write your desires down, writing each one in the simplest form possible. Don't worry so much about how to achieve your goals, just write them down and recite your list out loud a few times. Never fear, often the most worthwhile goals are the ones that seem out of reach. Magic is all about changing the mind at will, and if you can see something in your mind, you can bring it to physical form.”
After a short pause she continued, “Living within your means is responsible, but prove you can also be creative. Act on what you’ve learned.” She looked at her watch and stood up. “Just think about what I said, it’s all I ask of you.”
I followed her out on to the sidewalk.
“Until we meet again,” she said, waving and smiling brightly, and then walked around the corner.
I walked across the park to my apartment and thought about what my friend had said. Her support, and her inspiring words, led me to take action.
On the next Full Moon, at eleven-thirty p.m. I sat comfortably with a lit candle, a clean piece of paper and a pen. I looked back at my history: what choices led me to where I was now? It was my choice to leave the safety of the family farm at fourteen without completing my education; my choice of a mate because I couldn’t be honest, my choice to join a crowd of strangers just to belong somewhere. This list wasn’t adding up well: my choices were not helpful, in fact many of them were exactly opposite to what I now desired. No wonder I was dissatisfied, but instead of seeing the sources of my difficulties outside of me, I could now clearly see how my choices had manifested these circumstances.
Now the time had come to leave the past behind and call the future I desired into being. I focused on the dancing flame, and visions appeared. I saw myself in California visiting my sister, and on a beach in Mexico. The image of a large brick fireplace came, and one of me twirling outdoors in a summer hay field. I wrote all of them — my hopes and desires, no matter how outrageous — down on the clean piece of paper.
This exercise brought home to me my own responsibility for my life, and that changed everything. From then on, I focused on solutions to my current problems rather simply applying a band aid to conceal my pain. Now I wanted to accept my past choices and move on.
Next, I took my ideas and put them into action. I dropped everything and moved home to the family farm to rebuild my relationships my family: the people I cared for, and who cared for me. That decision led to others; in the years that followed I read literature concerning the history of witchcraft and discovered my own heritage. I also made domestic and career moves, and repeated the candle magic ritual many times, writing page after page describing the life I experienced (and bore responsibility for) this help me to heal myself and become at peace with my choices.
None of this — the ritual, the magic, the self-reflection, the changes in lifestyle — were easy. It took time to be able to stand in front of the mirror and be all right with who I saw in my reflection. But now the “dramas” and upsets in my life are short-lived. I can truthfully say that my wish list came true. I’ve flown to California to visit my sister; tanned on the beaches in Mexico; live in home with a very large brick fireplace, and I am a published writer and some day, Higher Powers willing, a published author.
Learning the basics of witchcraft provided me with a firmer foundation to my life.Today I am okay with myself and my choices: I don't get caught up in image, but concentrate on what is real.
Not sure what to do with your life? Stuck in a situation you find troubling, repugnant, or just unsatisfying? Might I suggest that on the next Full Moon you take a few minutes and rest yourself before a lit candle. Take a few deep breaths; mediate on your past, and then your future, while studying the flame. Don't just look at the fire; look for the arrangement of shapes that appear. Allow the candle to burn down, and write down everything you saw and heard.
Remember, no one has to be “average” as we are all unique individuals. Freedom of expression means personal responsibility: your choices, your life.
Author Bio: Angie Skelhorn is the fifth child born into a farming family located south of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. Her website is www.witchskel.com
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