Both of my parents were brought up religious, some flavor of Catholic.

My dad started questioning his beliefs when he realized that his parents had lied to him about Santa and that to him meant that if they lied about that, what else might they have lied about. And his search for “truth” deepened with the death of his father after a battle with a brain tumor.

By the time I was born, they had both become disillusioned with their respective churches, and while my dad’s extended family was more accepting, my mother’s family was very “pushy” about religion. They still are, on both accounts.

All through school my sister and I were kind of ostracized by our classmates because our family would pull us out of school 3 or 4 times a year outside of the limited holidays that were recognized by the department of education at the time. It started in elementary school and continued through high school. Our dad would write a letter to the principal and our teacher (each of our teachers once we moved on to middle school and high school) explaining X date was X holiday and that we celebrate by removing ourselves from human doings for the day in an effort to observe nature. He would then request that we be excused from school for the identified date and it not count against our attendance record and that we be able to get our assignments for the day in advance so we would not fall behind.

I think most of my friends got it by the time we were in middle school, as they had come along on some of these celebrations during the summer when we were already out of school. Those outings generally consisted of a day spent canoeing and kayaking, and they loved it as much as we did.

But by the time high school rolled around, and social hierarchies being what they are, I was getting bullied with accusations of getting time off school to “go dance naked in the woods” and of being a “witch”. I’ve never been the witchy type, I studied the traditional significance of observing the seasons and how that tied into the ancient Pagan practices so I could better understand how that tied into my life and my connection with nature and the world. But spells and rituals were never my thing. Some of that changed, but manifested more in terms of cleansing meditations. Pagan imagery isn’t widely understood by the general public. The pentagram is generally identified as a symbol of witchcraft, or when misidentified, a symbol of Satanism or Satanic worship. In reality, the pentagram is a symbol of protection, much like an amulet against the Evil Eye.

But my interest in the occult fostered my interest in homeopathic medicine, and is a big reason that I’m now learning herbalism.

When my dad was in the hospital after he had collapsed in 2023, my other uncle (the one married to my mother’s sister) showed up at my father’s hospital room with a stranger. This other uncle is a preacher, I still don’t know who the man was that he had in tow. My mother was there, when they showed up. We had told the nurses that we didn’t want any visitors to the room because at that point we still didn’t know how bad the prognosis was, but when they tried to stop him he was like “Its okay, I’m a priest!” and barged in anyhow. He and my atheist father had many disagreements over the years regarding religion, and now he was invading my fathers privacy and dignity while laying hands on him in prayer. My father would have been livid. My mother tried to get them to leave, and eventually called me. I was on my way to the hospital and either had my sister in tow or she was also on her way. Some parts of the memory are distorted by the cloud of rage I was steeped in at the time. She told me what was going on and I told her I was on my way. He evidently made his exit shortly after, because when I flew into that room full of rage and ready to eject him from the 4th story window, there was no sign of him.

After my father passed, my mother went to Florida to visit her widowed brother for a few weeks in the winter. He tried talking religion with her saying how he was “worried for her soul” and wanted her to “find salvation”, even resorting to tears in an effort to convince her to see his point of view. She said that her only consolation is that wherever she ends up, my father will be there too.

We’ve always been treated like the black sheep of the family by them. Even to this day, they have this weird misconception that because we don’t practice their same religion, we are somehow less than.

My dad used to call us Seekers of the Truth. He also used to say that truth is the lie that best describes the situation at the time and is subject to change based on future evidence. This was kind of a comical jab at science since things that are held as scientific truths often change when we learn more about the universe we live in. I feel similarly about religion. I’ve read enough religious texts to see the similarities between them, the underlying current that ties them together. But I also struggle with the idea of putting blind faith in someone else’s interpretations, especially since most personal accounts I’ve heard point toward asking questions being heavily frowned upon in an organized religious setting.

So I put my faith in my experiences and observations. And while that is not enough for most who subscribe to organized religion, and they insist that I will surely be damned; If being a good person isn’t enough to grant me admittance into their advertised afterlife… maybe I don’t want to spend eternity with those people anyhow.

About the Author

I am Sarah, a late blooming queer individual exploring my past experiences through introspection and internal work as well as talking to others and having conversations that lead to further thought experiments. This is an evolution of being in real time.

I’ve written heavily on the grief of losing my father suddenly and how that has resulted in my transformation, and the grief of losing my friend and brother to cancer. I’m writing more recently on my experiences and realizations and incorporating some DIY and hobby content where I can.

Thank you for reading 🙂

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