The other day, while I was at work, it came to my attention that an acquaintance was in the hospital receiving psychiatric care. Now, this person had been a very close friend of mine once upon a time, but she burned me, and badly. I won't go into details, because they are irrelevant, and I am a huge proponent of forgiveness, but I will say this: When a person is in my inner circle and abuses mutual trust to the point where it causes harm? Yes, I will forgive, and may even go so far as to forget, but the chances of getting back into my circle are slim to none. I am simply not into setting myself up for further beat downs.
That said, this individual had been talking to a mutual friend that I work with, and frantically tried to get me up there to visit her. She clung to my friend and frantically, tearfully told her that she was afraid for my soul and that she needed to see me; that I was going to burn in hell and that she needed to pray with me. Apparently, this was repeated several times. Needless to say, I did not go visit.
The girls at work wanted to know what she was talking about, and honestly? I wasn't sure, initially.
Then it hit me. Some years back we had a conversation about a club this person belonged to. Among the mainstream members was one line Wiccan who was out of the broom closet. Apparently the other members gave her hell and were very judgmental.
I explained to my then-friend that Wiccans are people, too; no better or worse than anyone else and explained to her what I knew at that time about Wicca.
She asked me how I knew all of this, and I explained to her that while I had been looking for the right spiritual path for myself back in the late 90's, I had a friend who was a Witch and he loaned me some of his books, which I read from cover to cover. We went on to discuss our beliefs, and while I told her that I was still holding onto to my core Christian beliefs, I considered myself to be something of an eclectic hybrid. Apparently she didn't hear much of anything that I told her, but the word, "eclectic" was the only thing that stuck with her.
Fast forward just over a year ago...
Then-friend and I had our falling out, and she had pretty much done everything she could to throw me under the bus. I ended up having lunch with someone who I'd met through then-friend. She'd initially introduced us through Facebook given our family situations were similar. We'd made the date prior to the big blowup, and for whatever reason, she still wanted to have lunch with me when nobody else in that group would give me the time of day, anymore.
My lunch date, Patty, and I had a great time and before we parted ways for the day, she told me I was surprisingly nice for a devil worshipping heathen, or something along those lines.
So, back to the present. Patty and I are still good friends (she is an empath) and is one of the three people at work that know about my broom.
I explained how then-friend would think what she did, based on that one, long ago, conversation. This is when the witch jokes started.
And I mean they went on all day and into the next. Seriously. In fact, one of the managers came to me later the first afternoon and told me he had a list of people he needed me to cast spells on. I KNOW my eyes got as big as dinner plates.
The best (or worst, depending how one looks at it) part was that every “joke” had more than a shred of truth to it, and some of the comments really hit the nail on the head.
“She can do the witch hat-thing right now because Halloween is coming and nobody would be any the wiser.” Check.
“She has a hidden stash of witch-stuff in her studio that only comes out when nobody’s looking.” Partial check. I do have a meditation room that DOES have my witch-stuff in it that nobody sees. I only have a small altar in my studio, and it’s Voodoo in nature, and more decorative than anything. :) (One of my best girls is a Mambo.)
Then they started talking about strange occurences that have gone down after certain things have left my lips. (And these happened long before I stepped back onto this path; before I knew about “The Secret” or “The Law of Attraction,” or “The Power of Positive Thinking.") A supervisor had made me so angry one day, many years ago, that I had muttered that I wished he would simply drop off the face of my earth. I didn’t mean anything by it (I simply wanted him out of my face that day), but within a few hours he was in the cardiac unit of the hospital. OMG, I felt just awful. And something similar happened after a manager ticked me off, and I had simply said I wished that I didn’t have to work with him anymore, and boom…HE went to one of the larger hospitals with heart problems, as well. Again, I didn’t mean anything by it, but lessons learned? Be careful what you put out there, because you never really know what kind of power your words can actually have. At the time, people would joke about it, but they were a little leery of me. And people don't forget. Even though this happened a really long time ago? They still brought it up the other day.
On the day that this happened, I raced home and called my Mambo friend and told her about it. She told me not to worry about a thing, because a) nobody is really going to take the word of a mentally unstable person over mine; and b) I might take this as an opportunity to really share the positive aspects of the whole Wiccan concept.
So, being the Google queen that everyone knows I am, I went to work the following day armed with facts I am already familiar with, but nobody was any the wiser, given I look up and research anything that interests me. I started sharing facts, and do you know what? They actually LISTENED. I explained the Law of Threes and compared it to the Golden Rule, sowing and reaping, and Karma. They got it. I explained, based on that, that Witches generally live by that rule and that if they are powerful enough to send out something dark to harm a person, then they are more than powerful enough to simply protect themselves without harming anyone. I also told them that Witches don’t believe in the devil. THAT raised some eyebrows. Again, they actually listened.
I’m realistic. I know they still believe Witches are going to hell, but I also think that I broadened their minds, and even though it wasn’t by much, I truly believe that every little bit helps.
Blessed be...
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