Background on our Path- How we got here

this is written by Kym Lambert and yes, it IS copyrighted and you cannot use it on your site, email list or other fora...stop copying my pages!!! See notice at bottom.

Entry

Gaelic Heathenry index

Our Gaelic Heathen Path

Warrior and Celtic Workshops

Essays on seasons, Picts, and more

Booklist

Links

I had been drawn to Goddesses in grade school, Greek, Roman and Egyptian ones because those were the ones we were taught about in school so They were the ones I knew. When I was about 12 I discovered Sybil Leek's books and found others worshiped Goddesses, or at least A Goddess, and were called "Witches." This appealed to me on many levels. In High School I started finding various books on Witchcraft and Wicca of various quality and eventually found Starhawk's The Spiral Dance and Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon. Starhawk appealed to me at the time, as it also spoke to the politics I was getting deeply into. I danced around NeoPaganism of a Wiccan sort for several years, then in the late '80s I finally found a Wiccan coven where I liked the people, even though it was an offshoot of British Traditional Wicca and that hadn't been my likely path. I was initiated finally.

I very quickly after that realized that An Morrígan laid claim to me. I was back in college by this time, studying ecofeminism and social ecology; soon after I ended up switching my focus to Celtic and women's studies. I began realizing that Wicca wasn't working for me, that it clashed with the things I was learning and the things I was picking up from An Morrígan and other Deities. It got even worse in 1990 when I went to Scotland for most of the summer.

On Samhuinn 1991 I formally ended my practice of Wicca. By 1992 I started using the term "Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism" which, as far as I can find out, no one else was using to describe a spiritual path although "reconstructionist" was used to describe such religions as Asatrua and other historically based Heathen and Pagan religions. I liked the term because it was AWFUL. This was during a time when there were rabid fights in various Pagan 'zines over who could call themselves and who could define names like "Witch" and "Druid" which were far more pleasant and romantic terms. I figured I found a term no one else wanted. This, of course, turned out to be wrong.

I worked with a couple of ADF groups, looking for community and both had Celtic Reconstructionist practices (this varies in ADF). I continued to develop my ideas and my training as a warrior. Despite my ending up in Scotland when I went across The Pond, my cultural focus was primarily Ireland at that point. Then in 1994 I was a bit sideswiped by a God taking an interest in me. Even more so that that the God was Odin. At this point I began some thoughts to syncretism and started to feel more drawn to Scottish culture once again, especially when I later parted ways with ADF. I had also by then met and married Aaron, who became dedicated to Thor. And so the exploration of syncretism really began.

We ran a group for a few years, due to that we still focused almost exclusively on the Gaelic aspects which were more of a focus for the others. Shortly after we moved north the group disbanded and now it's just us. We therefore have been going more with the flow of what we feel our Gods, Ancestors and the Spirits of these woods wish, with no other people to answer to.

Line from Celtic Web Art