How the Wage Mage Became Pagan

How did I become Pagan? Well, sit down and Auntie Wage Mage will tell you. It all started a long time ago…

(Cue Wayne’s World style flashback here.)

I remember when I was young, I used to take an old vanity in my room,put a sheet over it, plus a few cool things I had, and make a little altar. I would make up little rituals and stuff. I also had a LOT of invisible friends. I loved writing little fantasy stories. I loved digging in the dirt and climbing trees. My family was of the opinion that I was normal, just a little creative and weird. The doctor told them to keep me away from red dye and bananas and I’d be okay. I love bananas.

You’d never guess it to look at me, but when I was younger I wanted to be a priest. I have always had a calling to serve a higher power. One goal of mine is to win the Powerball and start a Pagan monastery and seminary for people to come and get some peace and quiet and learn how to serve their Gods and Goddesses and the Pagan community. If I could make a living like that, I would do it. In a cold second.

I am happiest and at the most peace when I am meditating on my knees in communion with the All. It’s a complete and perfect submission where I just let the energies of the All pass through me. (Closes eyes, happy feeling, opens eyes. At work. Damn.)

Am I digressing? Yep.

I was raised Greek Orthodox. Shock, surprise on that one, huh? I was baptized, went to Sunday School, went to church. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Greek Orthodox mass. After a while, I realized I loved it for the wrong reasons. I didn’t love it for the doctrine or the beliefs. I loved it for the ritual, for the candles, for the incense, for the priest’s cool robes.

But, even if I loved the doctrine, I could never be a part of it. Women can’t be ordained in the Greek Orthodox Church. We can’t even dive for the cross on Epiphany. The fact that I have my period makes me dirty in their eyes.

Sometime in high school, when my faith started to wane, I looked around Christianity for another flavor which might suit me. I went to a Baptist church, I went to a couple other places, to see if I could find what I lost. I figured that it wasn’t God and Jesus; it was how I was interfacing with them. Maybe I needed to find another church, not another religion. I prayed alone and with groups, read and studied. After all that, I still felt nothing.

(Faith: That issue takes up a whole FLOOR in the Issues Library of Congress)

I was introduced to energy work in high school and college by a few people, although I did not take it seriously. Kind of a cool party trick rather than a cosmology. Yeah, there were a couple things I saw which seriously messed with my definition of reality, but I was 18, and not at all thinking about that sort of thing.

In college, during my “Witchcraft and Paganism” class, I was fortunate to get involved with UPAN, the University Pagan Allied Network. It was with those people I learned about Paganism, really learned about it, for the first time. These were real Pagans, people that were serious about their beliefs and willing to share. There were a lot of people there with a lot of different faiths. I felt very comfortable in that group. I ended up getting a Religious Studies degree. It was the biggest contributor to my Pagan faith. It gave me the opportunity to learn as much as possible about many different religions, and gave me some insight into the truth that is inherent in many religions. I started to form a belief system and get an idea of what I was doing.

Then I graduated and moved to New Port Richey. From there, I started hanging at a shop called “So Mote It Be”. I met two members of the Phoenix Council at that store, plus the man who would later become my husband a few years from then. I started to get into regular practice. From there, I met the Pasco Pagans and the Freaks in the Corner, and here I am.