Partly that's because wicca is non-evangelical. It matters not a whit to me whether someone else is a witch or not. Partly that's because I'm still in the closet to my family, who I well know would disown me if they found out (not necessarily my parents, but my extended family, who are devoutly and fundamentally Christian). And partly that's because being a witch carries connotations; people are scared of the word. They don't know what it means. And I lose energy for facing down those preconceptions and fears. And partly it's because even people who have some idea of what wicca is often perceive it as a means of teen rebellion more than as a valid faith. I don't want to have to justify myself; it's easier to stay in the closet.

But not very brave.

I've mentioned on many occasions how I grew up a fundamentalist Baptist and am now a witch mostly closely aligned with the reclaiming tradition. Have you found yourself wondering how that happened, exactly? Or did you assume it was a teen rebellion that stuck?

It wasn't--quite the opposite, actually. I rebelled against wicca for a good long time--I didn't choose this; I was dragged to it kicking and screaming.

For all I know, F.E. is the only one who will ever read this, as it's guaranteed to be quite long and possibly not of interest to any of you, so I'll write this the way I would tell her. And try to be honest, and brave.

I had doubts about my faith for a long time growing up; they buzzed faintly in the back of my mind like a fly in a jar. Could evolution really be a conspiracy? What about the dinosaurs? Did it make sense for women to be subservient to men even when they were smarter? What if Jesus's followers lied about him and his life? As I've said before, my church was hardcore. I had three bibles by the time I was 13, and read part of one of them most days.

But over-riding all of those doubts were the voices of my pastors and Sunday School teachers: "Lean not upon your own understanding." Our minds were portrayed as a liability, our reason as a temptation from Satan. We were to resist logic, science and evidence as proof of our faith.

I was not a particularly nice or good person, as a Christian. I had a lot of hate and felt free to judge anyone who was different or who fell outside of my narrow interpretation of biblical law. I tried to drag everyone I knew to church with me, hoping they would be Saved. I was exactly the kind of person you all love to hate--and with good reason, too. I was hateful.

This to set the scene only: I need you to understand that I was Christian in the way some other people are tall, or good at playing the piano. It was a fundamental part of my definition of myself, and I prided myself on my devoutness, on my ability to resist doubt and temptation.

When I turned 12, I began to have a recurring dream. This dream was incredibly detailed and long; I'll try to be brief in describing in, but I make no guarantees:

In real life, I'm tall, fair, and have dark blond/light brown hair. In this dream, I was short and had shoulder-length dark brown hair; I lived with my family as part of a nomadic tribe on the shores of a great River. We lived in skin tents and, despite the River the flowed beside our settlement, the land we lived on was barren. Bone dry. Few trees grew, and they were stunted; some grasses and a few wildflowers grew. Nothing much; it was hard to sustain life.

Even with a river right beside us, we travelled several miles away from it to gather water because the River was contaminated by evil. Evil lived on the other side, in the form of It (what It was wasn't specified); It lived in the House of the Bear and It had a magic room. (Even retelling it now so many years later it's as clear and vivid to me as yesterday, but it also still strikes me as a very strange dream.) And if you even touched the River, It could get you. Then you were lost.

I'm sure the parallels to my religious situation are already presenting themselves to you, but it didn't occur to me for many years. To continue:

One night in my dream, I'd decide to go across the River. I'd been warned, yes, but I wanted to see the House of the Bear and the Magic Room. In some dreams I would take some friends; other times I went alone. But always at midnight I'd go across the River.

Strangely enough, it wasn't wet. It felt more like a storm of fine ice particles or sand. It tingled and stung, but it was dry. I remember scraping my hand on a branch once as I swum across.

The other side of the River was a jungle. A huge, old, gorgeous rainforest, populated with trees so massive I couldn't see their tops, strung between with vines, crowded with flowers the size of dinnerplates, rich and thick with the scents, sounds and sights of life. After a short walk, I (or we, depending) would find the House--a log cabin, massive, with no windows and a single door.

It never mattered if I had friends with me or not at this point; I was the only one who ever went inside.

The inside of the House was empty; all four walls were covered with doors, and there were no windows. Each door was different. Some were like the covers of massive books, some were plain wood, some were leaves, some were gold or silver. If you can imagine a type of door, it was there. I began with the one on my right and worked my way around the room.

Inside each door was something different. I saw slaves' rooms, king's rooms, the bottom of the ocean, the inside of a star, masses of gold and jewels, all kinds of things. But none of them were the magic room--until the very last door, a plain door, right before the one that would lead me back outside.

It was a plain room. A desk, a table, a few shelves, some brooms, a plain wood floor and plain walls. On the shelves were jars filled with emotions and souls--I can't explain how I knew that, but it was obvious looking at them. But as soon as I saw the desk I knew I'd seen what I came for--a huge red leather book, as big as my torso, called The Book of the Dragon.

I'd think--that's it, that's what I want--and I'd go in and get it. And as soon as I picked it up, the house would disappear. I'd be standing about a hundred yards from the river, and a hundred yards from me on the other side, I'd see the Bear. It turns out he was a big man, very big, I'd say seven feet tall and brown all over--brown skin, brown eyes, brown hair--and strong. I knew if I ran to the River I'd be safe, but I also knew I could never run fast enough to reach the River carrying that book. So I'd drop it, and run, and each time I'd reach the River just before the Bear reached me.

Yes, this is the brief version. And it's not done yet either--at that point, I'd wake up. I had that dream almost every night for five years. You'd think that since I'm fairly bright I'd figure out that gee, my unconscious might be trying to tell me something--but no. Or rather, I thought about it from time to time and full well knew that it meant something, but I had no idea what and didn't much trouble myself about it. I've always had very strong, strange and vivid dreams. Someday I'll tell you about the one where the moon turned into a tennis ball and fell to the earth (but not today).

When I was 17, the ending changed. Just once.

That time, everything had been the same until the moment I was standing there with the book thinking about whether or not to drop it and run. That time, I thought--no. I'm not dropping it this time. Instead, I opened the book and began to read (The Spell of the Dragon--it's too bad my unconscious was so melodramatic, don't you think? It reads like a bad fantasy novel. Anyway). When I did, the world disappeared. I was floating in a dark, starless space; and in front of me, the Bear had become a Dragon and was flying straight for me. I could only read the spell by the light of the flames coming from his mouth. He came close enough that I could feel them singeing my hair and my face--until I got to the end.

The world reappeared. I was standing on the ground again, holding the book; the Bear was a man again, and kneeling at my feet, and weeping. My left hand hurt; I looked down at it and saw on the back three parallel scars, somewhat fresh but healed over, like you imagine you might get if you'd been scratched by a large animal (like a bear). I thought--that's it, I can never go home now.

I woke up then, and never had that dream again.

Now I knew it meant something, but I had no idea what. Writing it down now it seems so obvious. How could I ever have been confused? But I didn't have a clue--until one day several months later when I was in the library researching something for school. I saw a book on dream interpretation, and picked it up on a whim.

Houses--souls
doors--choices
rivers--journeys
bears--Diana, or Satan.

Fuck.

Like a bolt from the blue--"Oh no, I'm a witch."

It wasn't even like it felt like one possible interpretation of many. As soon as I saw that, "Diana or Satan," that was just it. More like something I'd known for a long time and didn't want to see.

In retrospect, it's not that much of a surprise. I'd been fascinated by witches for a long time, though in a proper, Christian sort of way. I did a lot of fundamentalist reading on the subject and had done not one, but two separate school papers on why wicca was probably devil worship in disguise. Karma's a bitch, eh?

But this even precipitated the most self-destructive and depressed period of my life. I don't know if it's possible to convey how awful, how terrified I was about losing my faith. And the thing is, I didn't really. I still believed it all, including the part about witches being evil and going to hell. So you can see where the distress came in.

For years I fought to stay in the Church, wrestled with my doubt and my dream and tried to resist it as a temptation. I prayed, I read the Bible, I did all of those good Christian things. It did no good. For the first time in my life, instead of experiencing a sense of communion or connection when I prayed, I felt as if my words were bouncing back to me off a hard glass dome.

I've talked to people who have left the Church over questions of faith and doubt or theology or doctrine, and their stories have been wrenching. But I ask you to believe me when I say that it's worse to be dragged out than it is to leave voluntarily--even if it turns out to be the right thing in the end.

Two years. That's how long it took me before I started to even be able to think that it might not be a bad thing. Two years. For two years, I believed that I was going to hell and there was nothing I could do about it--so I might as well earn it, right? And so I set about earning it with a vengeance. I found myself an entirely new set of friends who were not, shall we say, entirely unfamiliar with the criminal element of society. I didn't actually do anything myself, but I was with them--when they broke into houses or 'borrowed' cars or sold stolen items or bought or did drugs. Oddly, I never did any myself or got drunk, but that had more to do with diabetes and my intense distaste for losing control of myself. Unprotected sex with near-strangers, though, was ok. Walking through dark and deserted streets in skin-tight and revealing clothing too--thinking: JUST. TRY.

What was the worst that could happen? I'd get sick? I'd go to jail? I was already going to hell.

I didn't care about wiccan ethics; I didn't know about wiccan ethics, and if I had, I would have considered it an oxy-moron. Witches don't have ethics; they worship Satan and then they go to hell. So to go along with the considerable relaxation of my regular morals went a complete willingness to try to use magic in any way that seemed convenient at the time. Please note: this is not Bewitched or Charmed; I couldn't wrinkle my nose and turn someone into a jackrabbit, or say a pretty little poem and get an A on my final. It would be nice if that's what magic was; but it's not. It's more a way of focusing yourself and your will on a goal or a transformation you dearly want; you align yourself, your mind and heart, with it and put every bit of energy you have into it and if you're lucky the universe helps out a bit, too.

It's possible that it's coincidence, but there were some spells I cast where I got what I wanted under highly ... unlikely circumstances. Things I wanted, but weren't right, and I knew it. For some of those things, I am still paying the price: As the rule of three says, What you send out comes back to you three times over.

In my first year of University, I was sitting in a darkened class while a professor of mine (also a witch, but I didn't know it at the time) played a video. I can't remember the name; but it was produced by a Canadian government grant and it was about wicca. And I remember sitting in that room with tears running down my face, thinking for the very first time--maybe what I am isn't a bad thing after all.

I was 19. It was seven years since I'd first had that dream, and two years since I'd figured out what it meant. I got Dreaming the Dark out of the library, and that was that. I never looked back again. But a typical teen rebellion against a restrictive religious family upbringing it was not.

There are times since then that I've wondered if maybe I got the interpretation wrong, but not for long. I mean--come on--every night for almost five years dreaming about hunting down something called the magic room? Barren on my side, full of life on the other? A book of spells, for crying out loud. I look back and think I was awfully thick for not figuring it out earlier.

It was a few more years before I'd figure out what I actually believe--but this is long enough. I'll end this here--the story of How I Became a Witch. Sometime soon: Why I Use the Word 'Witch' and What I Actually Believe, Not That Any of You are Interested.