I realised life's a bitch, so I became a witch.
At this transitional time in my life when I was questioning so many things, being in that bookshop just felt so good and I knew this was it. I bought a bunch of books and supplies, and I studied Wicca for the recommended 'year and a day', a process by which you show your commitment and initiate yourself into the religion. You also need to perform a self-dedication ritual during this time. An important distinction is that I am a solitary Wiccan, and to this day I still practise alone. I don't belong to a coven or even socialise much with other witches, because I just don't trust anyone in LA. In fact, I have only just met another Wiccan girl here: she's the girl who does my facials.
Once I started practising, I found myself with the best, most powerful feeling I'd ever experienced and I felt completely at peace. Ever since I can remember, I'd always felt different. I'd always felt out of place, like I didn't really belong anywhere. I had no religion growing up, but I was always obsessed with medieval times, connecting it with my identification with the Welsh part of me. I do believe that in a past life I have lived in medieval Wales, and that might well be one explanation for my own practise of Wiccan spirituality. (Perhaps I was previously a Welsh witch?) I have always loved books like The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and anything to do with the story of King Arthur and his fabled Camelot. (Arthur's queen is named Gwenhwyfar, the Welsh spelling of Guinevere.) I collect medieval weaponry and currently own various swords and daggers, even a double-headed mace. (I still need a battleaxe, though. I don't have one of those yet.)
I always get a special charge when I have to play a role that involves dressing up in medieval costumes and riding horses, as occurred when I appeared in an online series called Whorelore (www.whorelore.com), originally based on the popular game Warcraft . My friend Dez made the series and I was the first person he thought to call when he was casting the very first episode back in 2006, in which I was the only female character and played opposite an actor named Christian. Dez had chosen me because he knew I could kick-box, fight and do dialogue well, since he needed all three skills as well as the fucking. Christian and I donned our full-on medieval outfits and shot in blistering 46°C heat in Topanga Canyon around the Chatsworth area.
For the first three weeks after it launched, the server kept crashing because the site had something like 500 million hits, and Dez got sent a massive bandwidth bill. He sold a lot of videos and said he had no idea it was going to be so big. He'd started it as a side-project, and now I'm very proud of my place in its success since I was its very first star. Some critics wrote that the series was successful from the start because I was the female lead in the first episode.
I was delighted when Dez brought me back in April 2008 to shoot another episode. The second time around, I did a scene with my ex-boyfriend Barrett Blade and had to ride a Clydesdale horse while dressed in medieval armour – a custom-made steel bra and skirt, plus gloves and helmet and shin guards. I ran the horse around in circles while I was wielding a sword. We shot it out in Ojai, California, in the middle of a forest. I came home all bruised, my hair full of spiderwebs and sticks, and just flopped into bed, hardly able to walk. That was the best scene I shot for Whorelore – I really loved it. (At the time of writing, the show is in season two and Dez is hoping to do a 12-episode box-set with extra material.)
Part of being different, or feeling like I was different, meant that I was always trying to be everyone else's psychologist but I would somehow not sort out my own problems. I still do that, but now I realise I was born to use my spiritual gift s to help and to heal others. I am very sensitive to other people's energy. It sucks when it's bad energy because I feel like I have to leave the room immediately and I get panic-stricken. I also tend to read people's thoughts a lot – it's not like I hear them or anything but rather I just tend to say what people are thinking even before they say it. It's like I have a strong sense of the way people are feeling, and I'm very aware of other people's emotions. It's not a Wiccan thing, really, but just the way I am. Being spiritual helps me to notice these things and learn how to deal with them.
This isn't an easy thing to explain, of course. Some people who visit me at home are surprised that I have a Wiccan altar in my bedroom, which is where I pray. Every Wiccan should have an altar and mine happens to be in my bedroom, which is my most intimate personal space. The altar should really be where people aren't going to touch it or even look at it, because it's very personal and not many people understand. The general judgement on us Wiccans is that of the Hollywood stereotype, which is why I usually don't like to say the word 'witch'. Most people are still very ignorant when it comes to understanding the Wiccan religion.
My collection of medieval-type things has led some people to say they think my home has a Gothic vibe. I just hope that people are as open to hearing about Wicca as I am in talking about it, knowing that there are thousands of people around the world who believe in such things.
Basically, Wicca is the 'old religion' – a natural, spiritual practice that has nothing to do with most people's notions of what is 'evil'. In fact, we don't even believe in Satan or Heaven and Hell. There is an afterlife, which some call the Summerland, and there are many gods and goddesses, relating to different things. We believe in 'the threefold law', which is similar to the Indian spiritual idea of karma but with a difference – whatever you do will come back to you but it will happen times three. It could be three times bigger or three times longer, depending on the particular deed in question. Another golden rule is 'And it harm none, do as ye will', which means do what you want as long as you are not hurting anyone.
In Wicca, there are spells and rituals you can do, which involve elements from the earth. Different items relate to different things. Such items include crystals (which can be useful for all kinds of healing), candles, herbs, incense and essential oils. Wicca teaches you to use these spells and rituals to heal and help yourself, as well as others. However, another rule of Wicca is 'to remain silent'. To reveal a spell or ritual you have done will ruin it, so you never reveal anything to anyone, ever.
Before performing a spell or ritual, you should create your sacred space and cast 'a perfect circle', cleansing the area in which you are working and calling all the elements – north is earth, south is fire, east is air, west is water and, finally, there is the ubiquitous element of spirit. These five elements are represented on a pentagram, the five-pointed star with a circle around it, which is a perfect circle (and which is, perhaps not coincidentally, the name of one of my favourite rock groups).
No, guys and girls, the pentagram is not evil! An inverted pentagram is for Satan worshippers (a pentagram drawn upside down to resemble goat's horns) and that unfortunate symbol has been a cause of some anxiety in my life. I used to wear a pentagram chain around my neck but I don't any more, because people who saw it tended to associate it with Satanism. I do wear a pentagram ring, though, on my left index finger, because it's less noticeable. I feel protected with my ring, and it is important to me.
The other problem many people have with Wicca is the whole idea of us casting spells, which they only know from things like the three witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth. I personally have never stirred any kind of potion or made a soup in an iron cauldron. It really is regrettable that many people think so badly of us.
A spell, in Wicca, could be considered the equivalent of praying in most other religions, only ours tend to be a little more complex. Sometimes, I'll just sit and pray by my altar, especially when I'm going through a hard time. It makes me feel better. My altar is a wrought-iron and wooden three-tier bookshelf, wrapped in a grapevine. On it lies a pentagram, lots of candles, a god and a goddess figure, sage (for cleansing negative energy), chalices, a cauldron, boxes full of crystals, oils, herbs, an athame (dagger) and many books on Wicca and spells, including my 'Book of Shadows', where I write down all my studies and any spells I have tried.
These days, I don't always cast spells
or perform rituals but I do pray and meditate and I sage myself regularly – that always helps when you are feeling negative energy or just not quite yourself. White sage is a cleansing shrub; you burn it and let the smoke fl oat around you.
Oh, and of course I have my broomstick. No, we do not fl y on them! The sole purpose of the broom is for sweeping away negative energy. Mine is old and traditional, comprising a carved tree-branch handle and black straw. The flying-broomstick thing is just another misconception due to the popular mythologies surrounding witchcraft . Fiona Horne, who is arguably the foremost Wiccan practitioner and educator to come out of Australia, was once asked in an interview if she owned a black cat and a broomstick. She replied that she's allergic to cats but she does keep a broomstick at her front door because the folklore says only people who love you and treat you well will enter your life if you keep it there.
I've never read that myself, and I may try it now, but in my understanding the broomstick is for sweeping away negative energy from any area, especially before a ritual. As for the cat, it neither has to be black nor does it have to be a cat. Seriously. It can be any kind of totem animal. My cat Smokey is grey and white, and is always by my side. He is a little healer. Everyone who crosses his path seems to be enlightened, even if they hate cats or are allergic to them. He has a way about him. Smokey has helped me through many hard times, and a lot of my friends say the same thing. Animals are very spiritual beings and oft en take after their owners. Smokey is very obedient and sits by my side when I am doing a ritual or praying. I live alone now, but a friend of one of my old fl atmates' once asked me if I was a witch – because my cat followed me around everywhere!
I can't blame people for their curiosity, but I will also say that there are people right where I live, in what's supposedly the most open-minded and socially progressive city in the United States, who will baulk or shudder the moment they hear that I'm a real-life witch. Many people will actually say, 'What's that?' or 'Oh, so you're evil!' Or worse, they'll make stupid jokes about it like, 'I'd better be careful around you, then!' It really pisses me off . There's so much ignorance out there. I would like to give these people books to read so they'll understand, but it's a sad fact that most people don't want to know. They live their lives like sheep and just believe what Hollywood or the tabloid press tells them. So I now go by the notion that if people don't take the time to get to know me, they are not worth having in my life.
On the flip side, I have some friends who totally depend on me when they're in need. For instance, an old friend came over to see me last year, someone I hadn't spoken to in about a year. He was going through some really rough times and I was the only person he felt he could turn to for guidance. I believe I helped put his mind at ease. He actually thanked me and I could see that he was happy when he left . You don't need to be Wiccan to do this for someone, of course, but I do believe my own spiritual touch was a great help.
I even have friends who tell people, 'You should hang out with Monica.' They know I will try to help them as I've helped a lot of people overcome a lot of things in their lives. Sadly, most of these people just end up disappearing from my life, without even so much as a thank you. So many people take everything for granted. Well, whatever. At least I feel good about myself for changing a person's life, even if only in a small way or temporarily so.
I know this is true because of what happened with my mother. Despite everything she did to me, I felt sorry for her – so when I heard she was ill I cast a little spell for her health, which had an interesting result. She had been given six months to live but she lived another two and a half years. How much I actually had to do with that I will never know.
As witches, we honour nature and recognise the masculine and feminine principles of divinity. Every day, I thank the gods and goddesses for all that I have and all they are bound to give me. I ask for their strength and guidance to get through each day. I'll also pray for a friend or family member when they're in need.
I find that I can feel the strength of my faith in the simplest of ways sometimes. I love to sit by the ocean and just soak it all in. I feel so energised, particularly if it happens to be raining or if there's a storm. There are some forces of nature that just make me feel so alive. And the full moon is the best time to do any ritual.
That said, it's not an easy spiritual path to explain to the uninitiated if they're not already interested. Wicca, as a pagan religion, should be practised according to the seasonal changes of the land that your physical body is in, so you have to be very attuned to your own physical space. (Fiona Horne rewrote her book Life's a Witch for readers in the northern hemisphere after she moved to Los Angeles.) You should only do rituals when the timing is just right, based on whatever you are trying to achieve. You have to get your planets right, your moons right, your days and hours, and it's actually very hard to put it all together in order to do a successful ritual.
I also tend to have psychic dreams from time to time, one of which was about my ex-husband, back when we were still married. I dreamt that he had a hernia. When he came home, I told him and he flipped out. He said I had put a spell on him, because he had just come back from the doctor's, where he'd been told he had a hernia! He really believed I was evil and didn't understand that it was just a dream, a premonition. The funny thing is, after all his believing that witchcraft is evil, he went and got a huge pentagram tattooed on his arm after we got divorced.
Christians love to email me and try to get me to 'accept Jesus' into my life. That drives me crazy, because as a Wiccan I do not judge others for their beliefs. A devout Wiccan would never try to convert anyone to change what he or she believed in. And why on earth would I want to get involved with a group who tortured and killed so many Wiccans during the witch trials back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? What bothers me the most is that one of my best friends became a bornagain Christian and almost didn't speak to me any more because I am Wiccan. She was told we were evil, and she didn't understand until she discovered that her 12-year-old daughter is just like me! She didn't understand her daughter either, so she needed me to help her out.
If you ask me, there are all those people who like to say 'This is right' or 'This is wrong' or 'This is the way it should be', when all you really need to know is as long as you believe in yourself and have the universe to guide you, then you will be fine, and for all of your mistakes, you will be forgiven, because no one is perfect. The world is not perfect, and humans are not perfect, and that is what makes us special. That is how we live and learn, and hopefully from our mistakes we become better people. My belief is that if you can remember the basic Wiccan truths, that 'What you do comes back to you threefold' and 'And it harm none, do as ye will', then you should have no problems in life.
I actually have a personal shaman, Troy, who is my spirit guide, and even though he lives in another city in another state, we talk a lot by Instant Messenger. He is one of the few people I can say I trust completely. Troy and I first met on 1 October 2007 on MySpace – who says online social networking isn't useful? We were both looking for spiritual people to talk to. We talk as much as my crazy schedule allows, at least two or three times a week. Most of the time, we chat online, but once in a while he'll call or text me just to check in. He's spiritually pagan, and he believes that Wiccans and pagans are the same – it's just a different name – though he is also in tune with his own Native American ancestry.
Troy's main calling as a shaman is that of a healer, and I know that in the course of the past year and more he has already done a lot to heal me. I feel more grounded now, with his guidance, and he has helped me to refocus my energies and reset my priorities in life. I'm also so relieved that I don't have to keep things inside me all the time and it's so reassuring to have someone to talk to who understands me. He has said that I will do well in the future but things will take time. I need to learn a lot more and train myself, to separate myself from my physical essence and move towards another essence. That
's where my music career comes in, and he believes it's a good thing for me. But I have to believe in myself first. 'You are stronger than you even think,' he says.
I have to admit I have a hard time with that, what with all the constant anxiety attacks I get and the kind of self-esteem issues I have. Troy tells me that the most important things I need to focus on are twofold. First, I have to learn to calm down my own mind, because I'm so stressed out and mentally exhausted, and all the things that cause the stress and the exhaustion will not have the same impact on me if I can slow down my mind. The second thing is to cope better with my own eagerness to help out my friends. In this respect, Troy is always advising me about doing 'energy work' – which is his spiritual term for helping others.
'You have the drive and willingness to do such things, but by the same token you have to take precautions and know exactly how to heal, how to balance the energy work,' he has told me. 'You have knowledge of those things, but there is more you need to learn before developing those abilities and using them in helping others.'
It's almost impossible to fully explain the significance of what he has said to me, but I can say for sure that he hit the nail on the head – because those are the two things I have been grappling with my whole life. It's so incredible when you meet someone who can tell you exactly what the very core issues in your life that you need to work on are. Troy has told me that I have a deep hunger and a curious nature about life, that I live for new experiences. We've already had many talks about the people I've associated with and he reinforces my own drive to weed out people from my life who are false friends and don't treat me with respect.
For now, I'm using my spiritual beliefs to help me deal with my daily life. I can do spells and rituals but I definitely don't hex. Real witches who can hex don't ever need to do so. I believe a real witch is a Wiccan, and Wiccan rules say not to hex or do 'black magic', although we are all more than capable of doing so. A long time ago, back when I was new to the craft , I learned my lesson doing a karma spell. I did not know that it was bad to do that, and it did come back to me threefold. The karma spell was basically just a chant saying, 'All the hurt that so-and-so brings upon me shall come back to so-and-so times three.' I thought, 'Hey, as long as this person doesn't keep hurting me, they'll be okay.' But they did keep hurting me, and really bad things kept happening to them.
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