How did you find "The Path"

[Raven_Darkstorm]

I will never forget it , I was about..17 I guess (long time ago heh) and I had met this girl on one of those BBS systems (way in the way back) her screen name was Somna I think. And well we started talking off and on - nothing about religion mind you , just random bs. And then we decided to meet , was a wonderfull day that I will always treasure, we started dating immediately after that. And the more I got to know her the more she let me in to her life and her spirituality and slowely but surely she introduced me to what would be my life path , Wicca - in the service of the Goddess Bast. I will never forget that girl I think, and I always think about her when fall comes round.

So how did you find your path?

P.S. Thank you Somna.

[LadyTrinity]

I found my path at a young age. I was 8 when I started to have odd dreams when I was awake. I would go to the library to study them. At 8 I was very mature for my age. My mom would have me do the grocery shopping by my self 10 blocks from home where should would be. Anyway.. I looked up the dreams and it said it was clarivoyant images. From there I looked up divination.. which I came across Quija and Tarot and it blossomed from there. Voila Im a witch hehe. Going on 13 years! My fav number. :thumbsup:

[~SleepyWillow~]

At aroun 9 my Mom started telling me that I had a gift...it was mostly dreaming at that time..being able to dream future events..nothing really big, I think the biggest was telling my sister not to ride my bike because she was going to get hurt and then that day she ended up in the hospital with a wired jaw and a mouth full of smashed teeth because she went face first off the handle bars of my bike into the pavement. When I was 14 I met a girl who was a witch. We would have sleepovers at her house and that is where her Mom first did my Tarot cards. Her Mom also said that I had a gift but that I need to learn how to make it work..thats when I started...reading books, learning Tarot, using the ouija board..etc..I never really got SERIOUSE about it until I was 19 or so when I met my ex and his mother..Mother in law was from Spain and she dabbled in Santeria magic..saint worship stuff like that...she taught me how to burn candles for specific reason and to color breath etc...I guess my path ( Whatever it is) which I cannot define has always been right under my feet

[Raven Reed]

As a young person, I didn't understand why in (since I was raised as a Catholic) if there was a male god, why there wasn't a female one, since we are supposedly created in god's image and half of us are female.... When I was thirteen I had a series of clairvoyant "spells." When I was sixteen I ran across, "The God Of The Withches," in a library, and suddenly understood what I was, religously. That book lead to further study. For years I was a solitaire and finally joined a coven that I have attended on and off for twelve years. All in all, I have been a pagan for eighteen years.

[argento_occhi]

i was 15, got bored with church and stopped going. when i was 16, a pagan friend of mine suggested that since i love Ancient Egypt so much, why shouldn't i worship those Gods? I started out with Wicca, and about a year ago, dropped in favour of a more kemetic pagan path, with other strange things thrown in as well.

bright blessings,
argent

[-Sky-]

For as long as I can remember myself I was trying to escape from Christianism because I was attracted to the supernatural and magic.
But I was first introduced to Wicca 1,5 years ago.I accidentally found a book called "Wicca" by Cate Tiernan in my local bookshop will browsing.It was like the book screamed to me "Buy me!" so I did,I actually bought all the 12 books of the series at once.The book talked about a girl introduced to Wicca so intrigued by this I searched the web and there I was...
Now,I hold this book in my hands and I feel endless love!

~Anna

[Atheleisia]

I found out about Asatru about 15 years ago.

When I was 11 or so, I started to be interested in who my ancestors were. My grandmother mentioned that we were supposedly related to Mary, Queen of Scots and it blossomed from there. But what grabbed me most was that I had Swedish and Norwegian in me, and the idea of (possibly) being related to Vikings struck me as being really cool.

So one day, I went to the library to find out about Vikings. (I was one dorky little kid. Come to think of it, I'm still pretty dweeby now, too.) Somebody walked in front of me, and when I backed up to give them room, I bumped the shelf behind me. A book fell and thwacked me on the head, and when it landed, was open to an appendix about runes. I looked through it, thought runes sounded nifty and started poking around a little more.

As I started reading about Norse myth and runes and such, I was surprised that there were other gods running around! I decided that I liked the Norse gods better than the Christian god; things that didn't quite "fit" with Christianity started to make sense and eventually, I started praying to the Aesir and Vanir instead.

A year or so later, I came across A Book of Troth by Edred Thorsson; I had this weird sort of comfort that other people believed the same as I did, and that book sort of set me on the way to honoring the gods in a more... robust way. And that was the beginning of that.

[Lady Jessi]

That is a really good question. Did I find it or did it actually find me ? I have had "dreams" since I was very small, and I "saw and heard" things no one else seemed to . When I would try to talk about it, my mother would tell me to stop living in my fantacy world or" that that isn't of the lord, it's the devil whispering in your ears". I bagan to feel that something was terribly wrong with me, even so far as to question if I was really evil inside. I chose to tune it all out and my life was misserable from there on.As an adult I made many mistakes, and tried all kinds of things to "get happy" and feel normal, religion being the main route since family is ultra christian, I thought I should be too.
WRONG, I am who I am, and nothing can change that, I can only grow or become stagneant and die. So, about 4 plus years agoI began to really search for answers. I came acroos a book by Eileen Holand, "THe Wicca Handbook" and decided, " I am an adult, I can read this if I want too" (that was my inner child being rebelious), so I bought it and boy did it help! I realized that I know so much, just don't know how I know it. It helped me understand that in my heart and soul (if you will) I have always been pagan, It also explained t a point why I do some of the things that I did and still do.
I laughed I cried, I giggled, and sat with my mouth open for almost a week while reading this book. I had to re- read things to make sure I was really reading it. My girlfriend kept asking me what is so funny or why are you crying now.....(I was visiting her at the time) and so I began to read her paragraphs and before long she was picking up the book everytime I put it down, then said "you just have to leave that when you go home!" I did, and we have since found our journey constantly evolving, moving away from one another and again coming together. Many things we have in common, but our veiws vary, and we think on different levels. you would think that would be a conflict, but it has actually strengthened our friendship, and helps us to see things from a different angle. Sometimes we agree, sometimes we agree to disagree.
Well, I continue to walk this learning path, I claim no set in stone path or religion, save that of pagan, and that , I am finding is a fairly large umbrella in it's self.
Lady Jessi

ps: we are still passing that book back and forth, along with many others we have aquired :)

[-Ember]

I loved mythology from a very early age. As I began to run out of availible books on ancient mythologies, I began researching modern religions and discovered parapsychology. Eventually (at about 12/13) I picked up a copy of "Power of the Witch" (Laurie Cabott). It had some problems, but the idea that there were religions which more closely resembled my spiritual impulses and metaphysical beliefs stuck with me.

Unfortunately I then met the children at my jr high who claimed to be "witches"... shock-goth eyeball-licking fluffy freaks. I was not impressed. Although I didn't realize it at the time, I basically became a soltary. I continued reseaching my interests, made a few friends in high school who played with similar things, and in college started to explore local groups (an easier feat, now being of age). I wanted things I wasn't getting from books. Eventually I found a group I respected and took their classes. A few years later I initiated. It just fit right.

[turtlerain46]

I started questioning the things I was being told in church when I was thirteen. Actually I remember the night, my uncle brought in a guy from the theology class he was going to and he started talking about how all these different religous groups go to hell, i.e. the catholics, the jews, the buddists ect. It didn't make any sense to me because the catholics worshipped christ, and the jews were the chosen people. So why would god choose to send them to eternal fire. Then a few months later, I met a girl who was into wicca, and could read palms ect, and it just seemed so right to me. This was about the time the craft came out, so a few of my other friends started getting into wicca. So it was easy for me to start my "Pagan discovery". While some of them quickly fell out of the practice because they realized they couldn't bind their parents so they could do what ever they wanted to, and the girl who first introduced me to moved away, me and one other girl stayed with it and are still best friends today.