I thought it might by nice to share a little more about this person I am now with you. I took the name Beltane for my witch’s name because one it is my birthday and two it is one of my favorite Sabbats. My most favorite is Samhain which allows me to set aside a day for remembering my ancestors in a ritual and the fact that it starts a new year. The “Lady” part was bestow on me when my coven broke into hive covens, I did not just one day decide to give myself that title..
As a young maiden I found happiness in everything around me. At the time I was being raised in a Christian faith of my father and mother’s. I had carefree days of playing with friends and cousins, fishing and hunting with my dad, playing sports and learning an instrument or two along with school work. Part of my carefree days ended with my father’s untimely death in 1970 at the age of thirty-six years and five days old. My world became very different after that being an only child and having my mother devastated by my father’s lost and her trying to take her own life about a year after his crossing to the spirit plain I had to grow up quickly.
For many years I was bitter towards my mother for things she did to me and the fact that the last words I heard my parents speak to each were in anger. I went through a very rebellious period that included doing alcohol and drugs. It took me twenty years to come to terms with my father’s death and if not for finding Wicca and a feeling of a spirituality I could rely on and fit in with I can honestly say I might have held on to the anger and bitterness a lot longer.
As I aged and began having children I moved into the Mother phases at seventeen years old with my first born, a son, by my first husband. For a period of time went back to the Christian church I had grew up in at his insistent because he wanted to raise our children in this faith. While he found peace in the faith I could not. After our second child was born a year later I began practicing Wicca again as a Solitary Witch behind his back. When he found out I was doing this along with other problems in the marriage we divorced. I was still pretty young at eighteen and a half so he being six years older, he got custody of our two children after a bitter court battle. I was lucky I received very liberal visitation rights but as they live in another state I did not spend as much time with them as I and they would have liked.
I remarried a few years later again to a man who wanted our children, we had three, brought up in the Christian faith he was raised in. While I went along with the church wedding and baptizing our children in his faith, I stayed true to my own Wiccan beliefs and started once again attending a coven. This is the coven a few years later I became High Priestess of. We too for various reason divorced one of which again was religion. I was a young mother of twenty-six having to raise three children on my own, he did not take advantage of his visitation rights hardly at all or pay his child support as he should have. This I feel now was his lost as our children grew into wonderful young men and a woman. My middle son’s father came into the picture when he turned 9 years old. He also became a surrogate father for my youngest son and daughter, for they and I are eternally grateful for.
At this time my mother was single after divorcing my step-father, their divorce was because of my step-father’s fondness for beer. My mother, myself and my children remained close to him in different degrees until his crossing to the spirit plain in the late 1990’s was felt as a deep loss for all of us. So because I was struggling to combine work, the kids schooling and all the other things that go with raising three active children I asked my mother to move in with us to help me out. Little did I know at that time that I would again have trouble with alcohol and drugs and would be asking my mother to take on the responsibility of being guardian to my three young children, two in grammar/grade school and one in junior high school, and basically raising them on her own for five years while I bounced in and out of psych hospitals. My mother had dealt with her past anger and bitterness from my father death, which made her a better parent then I at the time. I was lucky enough to be able to tell my mother how much I appreciated what she had done for my children and I, how much I loved her and forgave her for things she did to me in my early teen years and she forgave me for all the wrong I had done to her before she crossed into the Spirit plain.
My life in the Mother phases was wrought with many mistakes, wildly bouncing emotions and the way I handle them. If not for my mother I would never had made it through that phase of this life time and my children probably would have wound up in the foster care system. Words can not describe my deep feeling of thankfulness to my mother for what she did for my children and I.
When my youngest child turned eighteen I declared myself a Crone, as I had no more children to raise, my womanly monthly cycle had stopped years before that and I think I grew wiser over the years. I am lucky all five of my children and I have reconciled our differences and we now have a good relationships. Two of them are still Christian, one is a Buddhist, one follows Lakota Native American traditions and the youngest no type of spirituality that he is willing to talk about. I have been blessed with eight grandchildren, whom I try to spend as much time with as is possible but with five of them living over two hundred miles away and me not driving I do not get to have as much time with them as I want to. The other three I see weekly as they are a ten minute train ride away. With and without parents knowledge I have done a Wiccianing for all my grandchildren to make sure our ancestors welcome them to our family, I have also asked our ancestors to watch over and guide them through out their lives.
I left a true Wiccan path many years ago as I did not feel all my spiritual needs were being met. I am now a Solitary practitioner whose spirituality includes influences from Wicca, Celtic, Native American and Ancient Egyptian traditions. Even though I consider myself a somewhat wise woman I am still learning more every day about my spiritual path and life in general. I have happily started mentoring novice witches and have an online coven that meets on the Witch’s Sabbats. They were both started through a website I was talked into starting by a now dear spirit sister and friend. I also became a legally ordained pagan minster a few years ago so when I perform a Handfasting the couple maybe legally married by me or if doing a crossing over into the spirit plain ritual or Wiccaning and a state requires them to be done by a legal minster I can cover that..
I had a life changing event happen on August 24th this year when my mother crossed into the Spirit Plain. I was a very lucky person to be able to tell her all the things I wanted to from childhood onward before she went into a coma and then crossed. My only regret is not saving at least one voice mail she left me so I could hear her voice again. That is what I miss most about both parents is hearing their voice and wonderful, loving hugs. While my parents, ancestors and other spirits speak to me it in a type of generic voice and if I try to concentrate to hard on how the messages sounds I do not hear everything they are trying to tell me.
All in all I have had a good life and see that continuing. I have a husband whom I have been with for over fourteen years, a warm/cool home, a yard I can even do rituals in without freaking out the neighbors, wonderful children and grandchildren, love my jobs (one more then the other), am in good health, have two dogs that are my familiars, enough food to feel full each day, clothes that are clean and nice looking plus a spiritual path that fits who I am and what I need.
I enjoyed most of my Maiden years and have fond memories. My Mother years were spent some what in turmoil because of bitterness and anger I choose to hang on to. I do have many, many fond memories of my children growing up and doing things with them. But, I see my Crone years as being the best years of this life time. This is because I have learned from my mistakes mostly with my children and have no plans on messing up my life and theirs big time ever again. Some of the days have not been so good as a Crone but again I have many fond memories and look forward to many more.
Enchanted Circle of Witches® 