My family was technically Methodist but we only ever attended church for the usual three functions (birth, marriage and death). When I was 12 my parents were talked in to sending me to Sunday School for three years at the Church of Christ.

I sat there and listened to what was said, and it all fell flat -- the barren promises of a patriarchal jealous God. I listened to it and did not recognise myself as a person that was included in the sermons. And what was said was not consistent. At high school I'd argue in the religious class with the lay minister who taught it. But he wasn't on the same level. Apart from the bible, I was more widely read than he.

In my teens I learnt Astrology and can do a natal chart. But my time spent doing so showed me that Astrology by itself was worthless, like being able to read the weather and, not knowing any geography, being unable to predict where it would apply to. In my teens I had a burning ambition, to be a magician, to appear on the stage and on the street and amaze people with slight of hand and other feats.

I read and read and read. It was a way of escaping an otherwise intolerable life at high school, one in which I was subjected to all sorts of misunderstandings and (being treated as the wrong gender) impossible responses. I hide in the library and read all about freaks, witches, sorcerers, myths, religions, sexuality -- everything.

And what made it worse was that I was and am empathic. I can "pick up" on what people are feeling (not thinking). Interpreting that was another thing however. My own fears clouded things over. I was afraid to be me, because deep down I was afraid of that person; afraid that in being me, I would lose all my family or friends, and be treated as something of disgust or pity, or be "put away" in an institution.

My readings showed me how time and again people were killed and repressed for just being different. And the people who killed and repressed them though nothing of it. So I kept quiet for a long long time. And oddly enough my first contact with real pagans came thru Star trek.

I'm a life member of a Star trek club in Western Australia. I'm friends with two other life members, known them for over 20 years (I was at their wedding). And they're both pagan. And it seems that I also knew others, though it wasn't obvious at the time, who were pagan also. Pagan, and not just "witches".

Relationships

But the first real encounter with paganism was with my last girlfriend.

She was a didiki, a part gypsy, transsexual, and searching for her routes. In the previous generation, her family had converted to Baptists and her father was very authoritarian. When she started transition, her church sent a lay minister around to "exorcise" her!

But she lost her Christian faith. Her problems were not solved by remaining Christian, they were made worse, because she became a "2nd class" Christian. She was told to sit at the back of the church so that others wouldn't see, or come but wearing male clothes. Once she went to a Christian counsellor with another TS Christian friend. They were both told the same thing -- that their friend would "pass", but that they wouldn't. And her family disowned her.

I knew a lot about this because it was more real for me than she knew.

That's because I was transsexual too, but was "living my life" through hers. It wasn't until the end of the relationship that I came out about that. In the meantime I saw her suffer. Eventually she tore up her bible (literally, I saw her rip it to shreds and stuff it in a rubbish bin) and started to follow her own heart.

She started following the Goddess. And things changed. She had her reassignment surgery and while on the operating table had a dream of a huge towering golden version of herself carrying her in her arms. It was the Goddess, as much a part of her as me and all people, whether they acknowledge her or not. And we tried magic. She started believing in herself a bit more and showing extra talents like clairaudience and clairvoyance. Once I came home to find her talking Romney in her sleep while holding a crystal ball. She dreamt of where I'd just been and what I'd just been doing. Other things happened that just couldn't be explained in any other way.

And through all this was yet another personal tragedy. Her surgery failed. She had complicated medical problems that couldn't be fixed. And yet, in the long run this was for the best for both of us. I'd financed the op, and felt immense guilt because it hadn't gone well. I took on all the responsibility of it. She cracked several times, got suicidal and ended up in psych wards. Because I was acting in such a co-dependent manner, I felt it twice as much. She was in pain and I couldn't be there for her.

Eventually we broke up and I started my own gender transition. Initially I was no more pagan than anyone else. But I read. I spent a good deal of time in the libraries reading all sorts of things. And I read books on religion too. I came across spell books and they seemed to hint at a religious framework behind it all. And I read a book called "Goddesses in Every Woman". It used six Greek Goddesses (Hera, Demeter, Persephone, Artemis, Athena & Aphrodite) to represent six types of women. I'd read a lot of Greek mythology back in high school and felt it stir a chord in me.

And I was now living close to my pagan friends. I came to rely on them more. As I spent time with them I could see how for them being pagan wasn't about making spells (though that was included) but about a way of life. It turned out that individually I knew all but one person of the circle that they went to! More and more I was seeing paganism as a way of life, and one that appealed to me. Not because of some divine edict, that said "do this or else!", but as a personal response to natural cycles and tides, of emotion, of change, of life.

But the big crunch came when I couldn't stay in the public service any more. I'd been in it for 18 years. And with my gender transition, came changes in other things as well. I reasoned that just "changing sex" was pointless without genuine and lasting change within myself for the better. Otherwise, it was little better than drag, a false image that I didn't want. I realised that to make the transition work, I had to follow where it took me, no matter how unexpected that might be.

And there came a breaking point for me at work, when they wanted to turn me into a tele-marketing clerk. The thought of answering calls all day, and having my voice and gender questioned repeatedly, was not one I relished. And other things happened too -- I was accosted coming home from the Star trek club by idiots in a 4 wheel drive, who shouted death threats as they drove past several times.

I felt emotionally and spiritually bankrupt. Nothing worked for me, or not often anyway. I was looking for new ways of doing things, of a new way of being. I knew that it was time to move on.

Vision Quest

I decided to try a trip to Sydney, to do a geographical, to sort myself out. Just before I went east, I attended the Summer Solstice held by my friend's circle. I looked up at the sky and vowed to look for Hecate (Wisdom) while in the east. And I found her too.

I went on a vision quest.