Finding My Religion
We're a podcast that asks the question, "What do you believe?" We talk with people to find out how they grew up, what they think about today, and where they think they'll be in the future. Faith, religion, and spirituality are all such personal journeys. We're honored to be able to tell people's stories, no matter the belief.
Finding My Religion
Becky Malke: "Embracing Wicca"
When Becky stepped away from her Catholic upbringing, she didn't just step into the unknown; she danced into the embrace of Wicca with a spirit of curiosity and a thirst for understanding. This episode takes you on a journey through her transformation into a Wiccan priestess, a tale that's as enlightening as it is unexpected. With her background in comparative religious studies, Becky unravels the often misunderstood threads of her chosen faith, revealing a belief system rooted in the sacredness of nature and the cycle of reincarnation.
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Welcome to Finding my Religion. My name is Miles Stelps. In this next episode, we're going to be talking with somebody who's studying to become a Wiccan priestess. Now, if you're like me and you have no idea what that means, you are not alone. Before I had this conversation, I had zero clue. The cool thing about this podcast is that I get to talk with people like Becky who are involved with the religion that I've had zero interaction with. If you know any other people that are maybe outside of some of the more religious norms that we have in our society, I'd love to talk to them. Send them my way and with that, let's get into the show. All right, we are back.
Speaker 1:I have a really special guest with me this week Her, and I feel like I've gone back at least 20 times trying to get this thing set up. A lot of sickness involved in the Midwest right now, which I was caught up in, but really excited to be talking with you, becky, malkie joining me how are you? Oh, pretty good. Good, we don't know each other, we just met about 30 seconds ago.
Speaker 1:We got set up with a a couple of people that I've met. We got set up with a mutual acquaintance and this person said that you would be an amazing guest for this podcast. So I'm really excited to get to know you a little bit over the next 45 minutes to an hour. But what should we know about you before we start off? Like, what do you do? Where do you live? All that good stuff?
Speaker 2:Well, I live in Madison. I'm from near the UP, but I am living in Madison with my husband and two kids and two cats. I work for a Christian organization, but I'm currently in a ministry training program to become a patron.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was. My next question is what's your faith and religion right now? So I, when I heard that you were going through this program and that you were a part of Wicca, I admittedly had zero clue what that meant, and I think I have a better understanding through some quick Google searches. But what is for you? What does that mean? What would be your elevator pitch to somebody? What the hell is this?
Speaker 2:So I will be speaking for myself. One thing to point out is, when you think about Christianity, people will say you know, you don't think to go up to someone and just say explain Christianity to me if you're a Christian, because they know that they may be Lutheran or Methodist or Catholic.
Speaker 2:So in nature spirituality or the pagan faith traditions there's you know that's the umbrella term and then majority of them are Wicca practice, wicca witchcraft. And then you have other heathens or druids, other nature spiritual beliefs. So I fall under that nature spirituality umbrella and Wicca is the one that I felt most aligned to. And for me, no, I do not believe in Satan. That is a Christian concept and my belief system predates Christianity. So if that is in someone's spiritual faith tradition, fine, it's just not found in mine.
Speaker 2:I believe and have always, ever since I was a kid, believed in reincarnation. So for me, you know, you don't do a good job in this life, you're reincarnated so you can continue to learn more. So I don't believe that there's a hell because you're reincarnated, not sent somewhere for eternity, but basically it's. I know the movies make it really exciting and you know, flying around on broomsticks, that kind of stuff, I drive a jet off. I believe in a higher being and I believe that all nature is nature sacred. Just being a decent human being, it's really not too dramatic of a, you know, faith tradition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's super interesting. We'd love to hear about how we got to this point. How did you grow up? Did you grow up in a religious household and, if so, what was the belief system?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think my parents were always trying to instill religion in our lives. We were a family that always talked about religion and politics. I didn't realize that was taboo until, honestly, maybe 10 years ago or so.
Speaker 2:I really just assumed everybody talked about it. Grew up in a straight ticket Democrat household, blue collar Catholic, strong Catholic traditions on both sides. My mother had gone through Catholic school and had some, had an aunt and a cousin who were of the priestly order, nuns, so you know went to Sunday school, went to Catechism and I think I would say it was a pretty devout Catholic. I had the belief, not that it came from my parents, but that I had this belief that the Catholic faith tradition was the right way. Everybody else was going to hell, of course that I had it figured out and I took the Bible very literally. And again, it wasn't so much that it was from my Sunday school teaching or my Catechism or my parents, that was just something that was in me. Religion has always been really important to me. As a kid I used to pretend that I was a priest giving communion out, would be trying to read the Bible and understand it, was always praying. So it was. It's always been important to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. So and you mentioned when we before we started recording. It sounds like that interest carried into into school when you were in college and you mentioned that you did your undergrad I think was in religious studies. Is that what you had mentioned?
Speaker 2:It wasn't until the final year and then I switched and made it my major. So I have a major in comparative studies in world religions and a minor in journalism. In print.
Speaker 1:Got it, yeah, so when you were growing up so you start like devout, you know kids are going to do whatever environment that they're raised into, but sounds like sometimes, like I've talked with people where religion like just really hits you as a kid and you're really into it. Was that the case, like all throughout grade school, high school, and then you want to learn more? Or how did you get to the point where you were wanting to major in world religions after being, you know, so devout as a kid?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it would be for someone who thought that all the other religions were evil. Right, it is interesting. Yeah, actually it was completely by accident. Senior year in high school teacher, I was taking a college prep English course and we had to do a 15 page paper on any topic and I had my topic planned. My father's side of the family were bootleggers and I enjoyed hearing these stories about how great grandpa got chased by the feds and stuff like that. So I thought that I would study part of that and the prohibition of the 1920s. So that was my set topic.
Speaker 2:And then one night my mom went to the video store about home of VHS tape of a new movie that had come out called the Craft, and I watched it and there was just something about it that I found very fascinating. And I just suddenly decided, like within a few days, that I was going to switch my topic and I was going to do it on witchcraft, and I started trying to grab anything I could from my small town library, you know, and this was 1996. So I wasn't. I don't even think I had a, no, we didn't even have a computer at home. So I was trying to find what I could. And what I read, I thought oh, they believe in reincarnation. Now, my family just always accepted it as a fact, even though we were Catholic.
Speaker 1:Reincarnation.
Speaker 2:Reincarnation. I thought everybody believed in reincarnation. It wasn't until gosh, maybe after high school, that I was talking to someone and she said you believe in reincarnation? And I was like, well, yeah, you don't. You know, I thought everybody did. No, we just did. It was just of course there's psychics, of course you could do a tarot card reading, of course there's aliens and ghosts. It was all just.
Speaker 2:So here is a faith tradition that doesn't judge people for believing that they accept it. The nature aspect I was always very much into the environment and believe in that, the higher being, which I'll say sometimes God, goddess, or the one that the goddess is in everything. So we respect animals, respect nature, trees, plants. All of that was when I was very little. It was important to me, and so here again was a faith tradition that was like, hey, maybe there's fairies out there, maybe there are gnomes, who knows? And I'm not saying that there are or there isn't. Just here was a belief system that wasn't shutting it down. I was very much drawn to the idea that it was okay if I wasn't a pagan, that nobody was saying you have to be this or you're headed somewhere.
Speaker 2:No one was saying well, I don't know, you don't want to make the goddess mad. If you don't believe in her, you're going to be reincarnated. No one was saying that. So I was actually also at that time. As I'm studying this for my paper, I was going through confirmation too.
Speaker 2:So here I'm really comparing and contrasting these two faith traditions. And I remember going on a confirmation retreat and I was in Green Bay and it was an overnight retreat and we're sitting around, lights were shut down, they were lowered and candles were lit and we were praying and chanting and there was incense going and I remember thinking how is this any different than what I'm doing in my bedroom? And then I started reading more about the various gods and goddesses oh well, this is. We call these people saints. You know many of these are, you know, crossed over and then started to study the you know, easter and Christmas and the solstice, and seeing that a lot of them matched and a lot of these things were the same and that what a lot of people were doing during Halloween or Christmas time were pagan traditions. So eventually I started to make that crossover. It wasn't immediate, but it was maybe a year and a half of really studying, when I was in college too, before I made that that statement of I am pagan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just, I had a hard time with this idea of that I would have to give up Jesus. But I met a I had a professor in college who was a Unitarian Universalist and he said you know, we view Jesus as someone who's he's a human being, he's a human rights activist. He had a lot of great things to say and he did a lot of great things, and so you don't have to give him up. And then I learned that there are what are called a crystal pagans, so there's Christians and pagans together that practice the faith tradition. So, you know, on Easter I celebrate not the, not that Jesus has risen, but that his message is born again. Try to live by the, that belief of helping the poor. It crosses over to the pagan faith tradition and also being raised Catholic. You know, there's a lot of talk of the Virgin Mary, there's statues of her, and I was always praying to Mary anyway, because as a kid I always thought well, what does Jesus know? He's a guy, you know. If I have girl problems. I'm praying to Mary too.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm going through.
Speaker 2:you know, I didn't get asked on a date, like Mary's going to understand, and so that was my thinking. So that kind of it wasn't hard is what I'm trying to say to go from being a Catholic to a Wiccan.
Speaker 1:It sounds. You know, maybe your family was Catholic in name only or maybe in in like, like culturally Catholic somehow, where it's like they needed the community of it. But a lot of what maybe your family believed in was counterintuitive to what Catholics believe. You know, for example, the reincarnation thing. Do you feel like that was the case or do you feel like there it was just like a blending of different, you know belief systems into one?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's a really good point. I grew up with just my dad. In particular. He used to say that he didn't understand why people had an issue with the LGBTQ plus community, and I remember there was a time I don't know if this was in the mid 90s or so it was about adoption. We can't adopt a, you know. And my dad was like I don't, what's the problem, you know, watching the, he watched the news all the time, so we'd have these discussions yeah, a woman's right to choose that something. That was like of course, they have a right to choose.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I would say a lot of that does go against. I don't want to say it was a big middle finger to the Catholic church, but it's different, you know yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Cause my dad will say sometimes I feel like hell is just that's where we are now, that there's not an actual place, and I'm always like that's not really cat like dad, but it sounds like you grew up in a really awesome progressive household that was at least open to new ideas, whether or not they run counter to what you grew up being taught or not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it was something that I thought was very normal until I started meeting people in college. And oh, we're not. Oh, I guess not everybody's discussing politics around the table when they're five years old, right, yeah, yeah, I remember.
Speaker 1:For us it was like you, just didn't talk like you. We all know what we believe, so let's just, you know, not talk about it at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, my dad was always saying to us kids we'd watch the news as a family and then he'd say what do you think about that?
Speaker 1:And then you oh interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. That kind of gives it like probably makes you feel like you're on a level playing field as a kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I try to do that with my own boys too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really awesome. I think that's important. So what did it look like going like officially, when you say, okay, I am no longer Catholic, I am pagan? What did that look like in practice? Was there like a church that you went to? Was there like a membership thing that you signed up for, Like how does that? How does?
Speaker 2:it work. It was. I was in Eau Claire. I went to UW Eau Claire and I went online, found some other women and we had, I guess you could say a little coven and so we would do the holidays together. I had joined a and became an active member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation because I felt like I was accepted there, because the UUs draw on various faith traditions.
Speaker 2:So they have their principles and then they have these faiths that they draw inspiration from, and Earth centered religions is one of them. So I felt very welcome there and there were other people who identified as pagan in the congregation. So I did the eight different pagan holidays with my little coven and then, you know, still celebrated the other religious holidays that other people do. But I was familiar with an organization called Circle Sanctuary and that is about 30 minutes from my house right now, but it was a three-hour drive and it was difficult for me as a college student to get out there. So I subscribed to the magazine and read about it and they're a 200-acre nature preserve and they are a pagan resource center. So it's a nature, spirituality church and resource center for all different types of pagans out there are welcome to come, and I started to learn more about the high priestess there, Reverend Selena Fox, and saw how vocal she was and how she was putting herself out there. She's been doing this since the 70s, so that's the thing. That's shocking is that you have the satanic panic of the 80s and she was just blazing that trail and unfortunately I wasn't able to get out there while I was in college, so a lot of it was me practicing in my dorm room or late at night, going out of the dorm, sneaking out into the woods, doing rituals out there or going to another person's house where it was welcomed by her family. But it wasn't really until I moved to Madison and I was close to the circle that I was able to go out there.
Speaker 2:But by that time then I started working for a Unitarian Universalist congregation and I was there for about eight, nine years and then started working for a Christian organization. I've been there for nine years, so I felt like I was not practicing my faith for a very long time. You know, part of it was because I was in a place that I wasn't able to get to, where I could be part of a community, and then coming here and almost immediately working for a church, that was that held my beliefs. But I feel like my core has always been pagan. So and then, especially then, going to a Christian organization that's open and liberal and very welcoming of my belief system, but again, it's not mine. So it hasn't been, I would say, the last maybe year and a half that I started going from being a solitary practitioner to practicing. You know, calling the corners doing worship with a group of people, and that's been life-changing for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can only imagine. I mean that, like I mentioned earlier, the sense of community has got to be huge. When it's not, you're not seeing a Wiccan church on every corner like you do with Christianity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, this had been solitary for so long that I didn't realize just how much I needed, and I'm an introvert. So I'm like, eh, people, yeah, but I definitely practicing my faith, I need that. Going up to circle sanctuary and worshiping with a great group of people who are just, you know, they think like I do. You know it's oh, I'm having this issue with my throat. Well, have you hand your chakras cleared? Oh yeah, I guess I hadn't thought about that.
Speaker 2:You know that's not a response that you would get from the average person, so I could just be myself out there and talk about things that I've had to keep hidden for so long. You know I can't. I wear my pentacle out, but I am careful. You know, if I have to think about where I'm going for the day, am I in a place that I should be careful? Do I not wear it? Do I just tuck it under my sweater? But when I'm out at circle sanctuary I can just wear it proudly. I can wear my ritual robes if I want to.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter, I could just be me. Yeah, that's really awesome. Do you feel like you, you know, especially when you were first deciding that this was the right path for you? Do you feel like you were hiding that part of you in front of friends, or maybe still were, until you were able to become more comfortable?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in high school, after my, after the book report was done, I kept still reading books on witchcraft. So whenever my parents would be like what's this book? And I'd be like, oh, it's for my book report, you know, even though the book report is done. And then in college, just I guess, having people tell me I'm going to hell, whatever, I don't believe in it, so it's. But it's that belief that people feel like they're better than me, I'm wrong, they're right, I'm evil, I'm satanic, I practice black magic, all those things.
Speaker 2:It really upset me that I felt like I had an understanding of the truth of the faith, and it was frustrating knowing that there were a lot of people out there who didn't. So I really then decided I'm going to go out and I'm going to not hide who I am anymore. This is who I am. And I had people say they wish they could wear their pentacle out, but they were just going to hide it. But I thought, no, I'm not going to hide these things anymore. I'm going to try to normalize my faith as much as I can. So if there was a discussion about faith and what people believed in, I would actively take part in that. I didn't want to hide it, and that's still my goal. I want to just normalize the faith tradition and just really being inspired by Reverend Fox to see how much she has put herself out there that I think I can do that too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really cool. What's the biggest misconception that you found? Or maybe what's the most frustrating thing that you hear or did hear, that it just isn't accurate. Or if you had more time, you could talk to them about why a thing is a thing.
Speaker 2:I think it's still them and maybe because I'm in my 40s that I still remember the satanic panic I've had people say that they don't think that's the case today, but definitely that idea that we worship Satan, practice black magic, whatever that is yeah, because for me that is just. It's so evil and gross. And to think that we're associated with something when I view my religion as so beautiful and so pure.
Speaker 2:We're just this loving group of people out there just wanting to respect nature and human beings and then to associate us with that. I believe that whatever you send out will come back. So we don't believe that in doing spells or hexes or anything like that, because if I do that to someone, it's just going to come back onto me worse. So strong ethics and morals yeah, I think that's the big one for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. What was so? I would assume that as you were practicing, you know in solitary, as you said, compared to now, where you have this sense of community, you have a leader, someone that has been doing this for a long time. What are the biggest things that you've learned about your religion after having this like a community around you? Now? Was there anything that was like oh wow, I didn't know. This or this makes a lot more sense to me now, clarifies whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the first time I was in a group ritual and the energy I felt they were raising energy and you know, I know that you can raise energy and you know, and it's like I tell people, it's if you've ever been in a really good mood and you walked into a room and there's someone who's just been a jerk and then all of a sudden you feel bad and you're like you know that negative energy. So we all can put out different types and we were in a big circle maybe there was like 20 of us and we were calling the elements and, having done that earth, air, fire and water, having done that by myself, and then to being a group where they're doing it, and then you could just feel it.
Speaker 2:That was just brought tears to my eyes because I thought, oh my gosh, I'm in this place and there's people who are just like me and I can be me, and we're calling upon the goddess and we're calling these nature elements, and I can feel their positive energy. And that's when I realized that I needed people for religion. I can't do it alone anymore.
Speaker 2:There's nothing wrong with people who are doing it alone, and some people have to do it alone. But for me again, as an introvert, to realize that if I'm gonna call up energy, do ritual really commune with the goddess. I need people to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I gotta imagine that's important, like even if you just compare it to any other religion, it doing Christianity or being Muslim by yourself. That would be hard because there's questions like religion. It just leads itself to having questions and wanting to be part of something bigger, even if it's just a community of other like-minded individuals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, and, like you just said, having questions, I remember I took part in a ritual and then I'm someone who just feels energy and if it's a little too much, I twitch. And I just kept finding myself twitching and I said, oh, I'm trying to block, it's too much energy that I'm sensing from people. And this woman who was a minister at Circle said, oh, and she told me a trick to get rid of that. She's don't block it, accept it, but here's a way to disperse it. And that's made doing rituals easier for me now. And it was like, oh, wow, all of these things that I had been questioning or wondering about, I can just turn to someone next to me and ask them and get their thoughts and advice. And yeah, that's been. I've just been growing through that, learning from other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really cool. What does it look like to practice? You've mentioned a couple of times of like things, like bringing energy and having, you know, a minister or I don't forget the phrase that you use a priestess, and that's like talking to you. Can you talk about what it looks like? What are people wearing? Is there a service? Is there a sermon? I'm trying to compare it to my Christian upbringing, you know, being a kid Like how is it different?
Speaker 2:So rituals are different, you know, I guess I could just mention one and not to say that all of them are like this, but they're similar in that you know, you get in a circle and we're outside. Try to have everything outside as much as we can so you can really commune with nature. I personally like to really make sure that my shoes are off and my bare feet are touching the ground so I can really ground myself, so we all ground ourselves, deep breath, and then there are. You can either have one person calling the direction, so calling north, south, east, west, earth, air, fire, water, and or you can have different people.
Speaker 2:So I was at the parliament of the world's religions we're familiar with that in Chicago this summer and we took part in. I Got to Be West, which is my element, which is water, symbolizes emotion. So in this international setting, I got to invoke that and call it to us. So that was amazing for me. So doing that's my favorite part of ritual, and then at that point, you know, we might have some announcements that are going on for the day, because it'll be a festival, it's. You know, we're not at least at circle, we're not meeting every Sunday or anything like that we're meeting during the eight holidays.
Speaker 2:So this last one was Solon, over the Halloween weekend, and that was a three day festival. The next one coming up will be Yule, and that'll be in December, and that's just a one day, but again we'll have the circle, will be cast elements called, you know, some announcements, meditation, some prayer, and then we leave the circle open and we do our workshops or activities, various programs that are going on throughout the day, and then at the end there's a closing ritual where we close the circle, thank the elements and send them off and then we go off.
Speaker 1:So it's a, like you said, a full day thing. You're not just like going for a couple hours and then, you know, trying to get back to watch the the Packer game and the Bears game.
Speaker 2:No, I try to stay. A lot of times I end up having, if it's like, if it's not, if the circle isn't going to be closed until nine o'clock or something at night and I'm like, oh, I gotta get home. It's dark. You know, I'm old, I can't drive at night. That's when I do my own little personal thinking of the elements, you know, thinking the directions and then rocketing back home.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it can be a long thing, and for the three day festivals there are people who camp, so sometimes they're up at nighttime still, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's really how many? How many people are usually a part of these. It's got to depend on the holiday and what the availability people are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think COVID has changed a lot of that. When I'm there, it's can be anywhere from 30 to 50 people. You know, over the course there's a community that's it's the same people that will come, and then a lot of people are coming because Circle is an international organization, so we have people that are coming in from Chicago, Missouri, north Dakota, ohio, and then when there's an online worship service or an online workshop that's being held, then that is something where people are commenting that you know, hi, I'm in England, you know I'm in Canada, I'm in Brazil. So it can be a lot of people, but a smaller group of consistent people who go to these.
Speaker 1:Sure. So you mentioned at the top that you're actually going in training to be a Wiccan priestess. Talk to me about what that well first of all like. How did you get to the point where you wanted to pursue that?
Speaker 2:I had been wanting to go into ministry for a long time. I always thought that it would be. As a Unitarian Universalist minister, I work with children and youth, so I thought maybe, like family ministry would be something. But it just didn't seem right and I wasn't sure and I thought, maybe interfaith. And I happened to be on Circle's website checking out what was coming up next and there was a little thing that I had never noticed before. That said they had a ministry training program and I read about it and thought that's who I am. That's who I am in my core. If I'm talking to some people who are maybe more conservative Christian, I might say I'm a Unitarian Universalist. It's a soft blow. But if you really dug deep, I'm going to say I'm Wiccan. And so I looked at the program and I thought, yeah, this is what I want to do. So we have classes, spiritual care, design and worship, how to minister online ministry a whole variety that you would see in the seminary, and it's a three year program and oh wow yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, it's like the time commitment for something like that.
Speaker 2:Let's see I have about. The classes are about. We have pre-work, an hour and a half class. It's online because I'm the only one that's in Wisconsin in the class. You know we meet online for close to two hours and you know we have homework, so it's good. It doesn't take me a lot of work during the week but since I live close to Circle, I volunteer a lot. So there was a transgender day of remembrance interfaith service. That was on Monday night.
Speaker 2:And I went there as a representative of Circle, took pictures and some video things like that. So that's all part of it. I helped out with a green burial, so it's doable. It's definitely doable in my schedule because I work part-time, full-time, mom you know that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's it like working at a church and also being a part of this other organization?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. The thing. Is that the faith tradition that I work for.
Speaker 2:I believe in it, you know, I believe that they are doing good in the world. They align with my principles. They're open and affirming. They have, you know, fried flag out. They are recently declared a green sanctuary church or creation justice church, so they're committed to helping the environment. They made the planet a member of the congregation. So we need to treat all people, all of our members, kindly.
Speaker 2:The belief that Jesus stood good in the world and that we should try to be like that. You know people there's some people there who would say I'm a Christian, agnostic. Some are like ah, I think I'm atheist and people are that's okay, it's very just open. Not hell talk, not a lot of God talk, a lot of Jesus talk. But again, it's a faith tradition where I feel comfortable that if other, because I don't care what you believe, as long as you're putting good into the world. So if you were like I'm, you know I'm Buddhist and this is how I'm going to do good in the world and hey, more power to you.
Speaker 2:I'm Hindu and I believe that we should be taking care of each other and I'm going to do good in the world. You know, because my path works for me and how I view God works for me. That doesn't mean it's going to work for everybody else. So this particular faith I feel or this particular tradition, I believe in it. I'm comfortable teaching the kids about it and the youth and the adults on how to develop that more because it's a good faith tradition. But it gets hard because I do make sure that I always have to say I'm not talking about my beliefs. Some people will ask me well, what do you think of this? And I would say I got my own unit. Hire me to tell you what.
Speaker 2:I write, and so it's very much. These are your beliefs. You want to read about mine? Look on Wikipedia or something like. I just really have a strong boundary with that.
Speaker 1:It just occurred to me that if Wicca had its own Wikipedia, it could just be Wikipedia.
Speaker 2:Well, I was one time I was going through the drive-thru to get some coffee and I Get it, but they were the burst. Us were telling jokes and one of them said what do witches use to do research? Wicked pedia.
Speaker 2:And when they asked to me, I was like, well, I'm a witch and I guess I mainly use Google. And they were taken aback and apologized and I just it wasn't. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but I thought if you were bashing Christianity In the car line, you think people are gonna allow you to do that. So I was just like yeah.
Speaker 1:That is interesting. Yeah, for sure it's. Yeah, I can't imagine that I would be any different, because I, you know, it's all about people that you know that's when you're the most affected by something. Right, you're like, yeah, just, I grew up in a really you know Just the whitest town in America, it felt like at times, and so we didn't have like people of color that I grew up for the most part, like. There was, you know a few, but you know, I didn't realize people's struggles that weren't white until I was, you know, an adult and it's, you are the environment that you were raised into and it's just fascinating that the more I grow up, the more Things you learn like this, like it's just wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I, you know, I married to an Indian immigrant who's Catholic and Hindu. We have biracial, two biracial children, one's an atheist, one's agnostic. Oh my god, how did that happen? My husband and I are strong theists, you know right.
Speaker 2:We get two boys that are like you know, um, but I learned so much from them all the time, things that I just, you know, I've known my husband for 20 years now and All the time there's stuff that you'll say things, and I'm thinking, oh gosh, I'm so dumb that I didn't realize that, or, you know. Right yeah, I didn't grow up that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, the older I get, the more I just realize how dumb I am, and there's just too much information out there for me to try to digest. So so you mentioned that your, your husband, is Hindu and then Catholic. Yeah, so have you known him the entire time that you've been involved with wicca, or? I guess what I'm getting to is like what are the? What was that conversation like when he found out that you were either going through that transition or that you were, you know, practicing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we met in 2003. I was doing volunteer work for school for former child laborers. He was my translator and as we got closer I thought I just need to tell him. You know, I'm not gonna hide this from him and you know, in india there are a lot more open about religion and accepting, so he heard that from a couple of people, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I was at the Hindu temple, I went Hindu temple nearby and they had just put up a church and I said what do you think about this church right next to you, know the temple? And the priest said and I don't care, I just don't like their hymns. And A friend of mine who I met at the school, she was a nun and I said during a big festival they're blaring Hindu mantras through the streets. And I said sister, what do you think of this? And she's not mine Hinduism, I just don't like their hymns.
Speaker 2:And there's just uh, this sort of you believe what you want to believe. Um, that's cool. So he was just like huh. And I said I don't believe in satan, hell or anything. And he was just like Okay, you know, he makes this is all a joke, this is all a joke. But he will say things to me like oh man, you know, when you're headed to hell, I will, I'll give you water from my heavenly cloud. And I'll say to him well, when I'm free from the cycle of rebirth, I will wait for you patiently because you clearly have more lives to go through, and once you have completed your life lessons, then I'll talk to you again. But yeah, he's always when I go to work I'll say okay, I'm going to church, you going with me. No, oh, okay, center, it's your soul, you know, and Very open.
Speaker 1:That's yeah. I like that. So you mentioned going through these life cycles. Is that what reincarnation? So in my again dumb brain, reincarnation I know that, like you, can come back as something else. But so you're saying that there is a point where you learn enough in life, where then you're done, and what does that look like?
Speaker 2:Well, so that's where I'm open to different types of views on this. My husband does believe in reincarnation, but that it could go from people to animals to people, I'm not of the. I'm more people to people, maybe animals, I don't know. I just that's not, I'm not jiving with that. But uh.
Speaker 2:I think there can be two things one, that you could keep being reborn as much as you want, and then you can choose if you're gonna come back or not. I'm more of the you're going to. This is earth, is school, and Once you graduate from this life, you will go to the next grade. So I don't know what it's like to be a man in this life. I don't know what it's like to be a person of color, so maybe in my next life I'll be a man Of a different race, just to learn what that's. I'm just trying to think of other. I guess for me it's when something bad happens to people. They often get angry with God, and I just never think to blame God. I feel like the life that I have chosen, this was preplanned. I have free will.
Speaker 2:But that there are things that are set for me and I have lessons to learn. Hopefully I learn the main theme that I have for myself in this life. Hopefully I learn that. So then when I die, I graduate on to another theme, another life that I'll need to learn from, and then eventually I've just completely graduated from school, from earth, and I am Reunited with God's energy. That's always in me, god's always around me, but that I get absorbed into that light again when I'm done. But then I have friends who are psychics and Communicate with those who have passed, who have said I'm not coming back. I chose not to come back. You know I'm done with my life cycle. So I'm always like, oh, you get a choice. So I don't know, I haven't, yeah, decided yet, but all I know is that when something bad happens, it's meant to happen, it's a growth situation. It's a growth situation. There's a lesson behind it and that it's not. I'm not going to blame God or get Ingrate with God for that.
Speaker 1:Sure, that makes sense. How? So you mentioned that you believe in free will, but then things are pre planned. How? How do those things you know exist with one another?
Speaker 2:Um. Do you watch dr who?
Speaker 1:No, I don't actually.
Speaker 2:You know I actually have a dr who in theology group that I started, where we watch.
Speaker 1:No I do who?
Speaker 2:and then I also have one of the golden girls too.
Speaker 1:All the golden girls, big golden girls fan.
Speaker 2:Yes, if you go to first unitarian Society in Madison, we do it the third Tuesday of the month. Um, we watch an episode and have a discussion. Amazing with the it it. It's a lot fun and last night we had cheesecake. Oh wait, that's that's that's the way to do it, yeah yeah, someone was like can I bring cheesecake?
Speaker 1:and like yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 2:So with dr who though you know he's this time lord, he can travel through time and space, and there are situations that he can go to, and if it doesn't work out, he can go back into time to fix them. And then there's somewhere, something terrible will happen and one of his companions will say can't you just go back into time?
Speaker 2:and he'll say certain things are fixed, certain things have to happen in order for, you know things to move forward. So I think that there are things in life that we can Change our paths or say I'm supposed to, in my life, go off and be a teacher and I'm on that path and then suddenly something happens and I decide that I'm going to take a corporate job instead. Well, that's fine, but probably my next life I'll have to do that Path again. So, you have that free will and hopefully I'm in the path that I need to be on Um.
Speaker 1:So life is just one big choose your own adventure book where some stuff is written, but then you get to choose what the the next jumping point would be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I like that. Those were. Folks are amazing, as I love them, oh yeah except I would always cheat and I would.
Speaker 1:I'd be like all right, go to page 27. You like go, like, don't, don't like that one, don't like that one, come back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm someone who reads the last page of a book before I said yeah.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you just got to know what's gonna happen. I'm trying to think there was a question I was just gonna ask. You lost my train of thought. Um Shoot, well, I guess I. I do have another question I can go to. So in a lot of Religions there is a Believe or something else is gonna happen. It's not always like as dramatic as christianity says if you don't believe you're going to hell, like in Judaism. If you don't believe, then you don't believe there's no hell, but like there's something better that you could get to. Is there anything like that in your religion where it's if you don't believe, then this thing could happen to you? Or if you believe, you are elevated to a higher level of Enlightenment or whatever it is. What's like the? Is there a sticker carrot that is this happening?
Speaker 2:You know I can't speak for other pagan traditions, but in my own you don't believe, you don't. If you're not, if this isn't the path that you know, if you're searching for god there's different ways up the mountain to meet god. If this path isn't the one that is Working for you and that, in the chanting, isn't how you feel to get there, you feel like you need to do it in a different way, then that's fine. I think we're all reincarnated, regardless. But I don't think. But none is a punishment, it's purely a learning experience.
Speaker 2:Sure but the question reminds me of a time when I was in college and I was taking a Hebrew Bible class and this girl in the class really had a hard time with me being pagan and she kept slipping these little books in my backpack when I wasn't looking. So I'd get back home and they'd be these books about how I was going to hell and I just recycle, recycle Right and then at the end of the class, end of the semester, I'm taking my final exam.
Speaker 2:She finishes before me because we sat at the same table. She slams down this folder filled with all of this information, incorrectly, about witchcraft and again. I'm going to hell and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I'm lady, I'm trying to take a final exam here. You know, I'm trying to convert me in the middle of this exam.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I just dismissed it. And then afterward she was waiting for me and she said I'm just so worried about your soul, I'm just so worried. And I'm not saying I'm proud of this moment, but I was trying to make a point and I said well, I'm just worried for yours because I feel like you're going to be reincarnated. And she goes well, I don't believe in that. You're going to hell. And I said I don't believe in hell. You're going to be reincarnated. And she said well, god doesn't want you to do that. And I said ugh, you're making the goddess mad right now. She doesn't like you doing this right now. And I was just trying to make the point that you know, what I'm saying means nothing to you. Just what you're saying means nothing to me.
Speaker 2:Telling me, I'm going to go to hell. You know what does that mean? Anything. Just if I go up to someone who believes in hell and I say you're going to be reincarnated, the goddess has said so, you're going to dismiss me. She didn't get what I was trying to do, but her friends came up to me after and they said we get it now and we're sorry, and we're not going to do this again to you. And I was like thank you, so at least they got that. Because this one said I didn't realize that your beliefs were that strong and they're as strong as mine and nothing I say to you is going to change, just like nothing you say to me is going to change. And I was like yes, that's exactly the point I'm trying to make here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point of just for as much as you care about your thing, I care that much about my thing, or don't care about your thing, you don't care about my thing by service. That's a really good story. I think the last question I have for you is well, so usually my wife says we know what didn't I ask, that you wanted to share, that we didn't talk about. So I want to ask you that. And also, what would you leave somebody? Like, if you were able to have a couple of minutes with somebody and tell them about Wicca, what were the things that you would want them to take away? So the two questions there.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, I just again probably all that you've heard of the faith throughout out the window. Make sure that you're getting your information from reputable sources. You know Circlesycstoryorg is a great one. You're getting information from a pagan resource center that I have full trust in, as well as thousands of other people, because there's a lot of misinformation out there, and it's not just Hollywood. There's other people putting books out that I'm like but we're just regular people, we're just regular. I can't tell you how many times I have gone to Circle and I see people and I'm like they look like it's somebody at the church I go to. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like we're just regular people. Could you run across somebody in a full druid robe? Absolutely. Could you run into somebody with horns on their head? Absolutely. But a lot of times it's just somebody wearing some lands and clothes, with a robe, and we're just. We pray. We believe in a higher being. That higher being is in all that dwells around us. So we need to be respectful of each other and of our environments, respectful of other races and cultures, the LGBTQ plus community. We're just like regular people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I want to make it sound like we're super exciting, but it's. You know, if I'm going to do a spell, I'm going to light a candle, meditate, maybe light some incense and I'm going to pray, but I'm not, like you know, stirring my cold during with frog legs or anything, Right? You know if there are people who are doing it.
Speaker 2:we're fine, but I that's you know, my mom will say things and I'm like that was a spell, mom. I think there's a lot of times people are doing spells and they don't realize that they are.
Speaker 1:So it's you know, that's so interesting.
Speaker 1:It's just so fascinating to learn about something that, like I just don't. I have zero connection or like just no frame of reference to know about this stuff. So I appreciate you sharing it because I think it is important. You know, just like that story you talked about with the people that were in your class, about just learning what else is going on. You don't have to buy into it or go home and, you know, renounce what you're currently believing, but I just think it's really cool and I appreciate you being so open. Oh well, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:So much, just to give me a voice to do this, and that you have interest in it, that you are on board, so I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I so appreciate it and just obviously being so respectful and listening to me because so many times there are people who are.
Speaker 2:They say to me you know great people and they're say they're open-minded, and then I start talking you know, okay, you want to hear what I believe, and then you just see this kind of known out or they're just like oh, I'm going to be like. Oh, I'm going to be like oh, there are so many people out there. They're just like oh, or an eye roll, and I appreciate that you didn't do that.
Speaker 1:You were very respectful. No, it's, yep, you're very welcome. I come from a background where my dad was a pastor and I've grown out of just religion in general, and so it all just sounds fantastical to me. There's no, there's nothing like if you were described Catholicism to me, having never heard about it before. It would sound ridiculous. You know, and that's what I've come to realize as an adult is, it doesn't matter like it's, as long as what you've described is way better than a lot of what you hear about other religions in terms of just the acceptance part. So I think it was awesome.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you you bet.
Speaker 1:Well, cool Becky. Thank you so much again for the time. I know this is a time investment, so I appreciate it and wish y'all the best, and hopefully we'll see you around Madison.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thanks again to Becky for coming on. I really enjoyed that conversation. Next week, we'll be talking with retired minister Phil Haslinger. In that conversation, we talk about where he stands today with his own faith, identity and what the role of religion is moving forward in our society. Thanks again for listening to Finding my Religion. Make sure to follow us on Instagram, facebook, tiktok, youtube, wherever you're doing the socials, and we'll see you next week.
