There was once a time I would have told you you could not be both Christian, and witch. Pick a path, choose a lane. I would have told you there was a right choice.
That was once upon a time.
Now? Come sit with me here, at the intersection, the boundary place between two things that might seem diametrically opposed, uniting them as one.
Rest easy, there are no boundaries.
*
In the intervening years between now and then, life teaches me many things. It dismantles me, for a start. Illness comes and holds me in its clutches for nigh on a decade.
Suddenly no choices are as clear-cut as they once seemed. Life is not the simple path of following rules I once thought it to be. Every identity that belonged to me falls away.
Trusting, bewildered, believing in that which I cannot see, I open a palm long clenched and slide into the darkness.
Moments pass that are years.
I fight every demon which comes to call, exhausting myself trying to hold onto the light. It takes unmeasured time to learn there is nothing to fight.
*
Darkness holds me, both beauty and truth. I meditate, I pray, I sink into the holding of the earth. More time passes.
I want to heal, both my body and the places within me that feel as if they are broken. God puts up neon signs, pointing me in strange directions. I begin exploring consciousness, laying myself down daily into the practice of yoga nidra (yogic sleep), opening into hitherto unknown parts of the self. Something is here I didn't know before, a luminous wholeness.
I play in unseen realms of energy and a part of me who has long lain quiet sparks back online, a part that whispers, hopefully, witch… This child self plays joyfully, effortlessly, in bright fields of energy. She knows the power of ritual, and the very narrow line between prayer and spell. She whispers her prayers into water, gives water back to earth.
This child knows that intention creates reality.
“To enter heaven, you must become like little children”, Jesus whispers gently in my ear, patient as he always is.
Still, for a long time, I swing backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, trying to make peace between identities I have decided are disparate.
Christian? Witch. Christian. Witch?
I cling onto both, as if each identity is more concrete than I am. Often confused, sometimes hopeless, always stubborn.
Open to guidance. Over and over and over again, I surrender everything into the darkness.
I cannot tell you of things that happen here, deep in inner midnight. Seismic shifts that move with the melting pace of tectonic plates, sometimes bursting starlight at the surface, love as lava.
These secrets are mine and mine alone, held down – up, around – in the dark.
But slowly, so slowly, I come to see that it is me who is concrete. I do not need to unify these identities. They are shapeless as smoke, united, brought to body, in the being that is me.
I come to believe, in me.
*
And so here I am, slow blinking my way back into the light, holding every identity as lightly as an angel's wing. Christian, witch. Explorer of consciousness. Dancer in energy. Creatrix. All of them. None of them.
Resting at the intersection between seemingly opposing things, uniting everything as one. Oh, the joy that can be found in this place! When you stop carving reality into boxes, suddenly you get a very big view.
My friend, there are no boundaries. Go down into the dark, bring up secrets of your own. Be everything you are called to be.
And if you like, come and play here with me. We’ll dance as walking stardust under the love-lit moon and sing songs of hope and belonging to every face of the Divine you can name.
And we’ll fall backwards together, once more into the darkness.
For my granny, Anne Beesley, friend-of-Jesus, woman of extraordinary magic. She knew everything as love.
And for my child self, who believed you could not be Christian and witch, yet knew herself to be both. Rest easy, my little love.