Many call me Turtle Woman.  I have a odd path that I follow. I was raised up Catholic - not very strictly, but I did attend Catechism classes, and made my confirmation at age 12.  I really hated the nuns back then.

Although I attended public school all my life, for High School I went to a local Catholic High School called Bishop Feehan.  I loved my high school years - going to Feehan gave me some wonderful tools and gifts for life that I do not believe I would have gotten anywhere else - I even learned that nuns are real people and some of them were actually nice. 

Meanwhile I always was a swamp Yankee, growing up in the wild, and in the woods around my neighborhood. I even had an idea of what plants I could eat - and berries...  Oh how I miss the wild strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and mostly the blackberries that grew around everywhere back then!  Many times I never went home for lunch, but I was never hungry.

One of my favorite pastimes was lying on my back on a hill, and feeling the Earth Mother move... I didn't know then what she was called, and I had no clue what I was doing.   I just knew the gentle ecstasy and peace of such activity.  

In my teens I read many metaphysical books, occult books, and anything that had to do with "other realms". I experienced astral travel, spontaneous past live memories, was empathic to a fault, devoured Carlos Castaneda's books since they explained my inner journeys.  I dreamed and learned the meanings of dreams, I was connected to other people, and could hear their thoughts. I was young and foolishly sought "psychic power" to have power.  All this time I was still Christian and many of these things made sense to me in that context. Jesus himself said "these things I do so shall you do and more so" when he talked about healing, raising the dead and other psychic phenomena, so it all made sense to me.  Also, I read that Jesus was educated in the way of the Chaldeans, who I was told in their time were consider "witches" - and it made sense to me because of what I was experiencing and learning. 

I also used drugs and drank during this time in my life, which is why Castaneda's books made more and more sense. His books often mirror my actual spiritual walk.  At some point I began to believe I was demonically possessed because of the drugs.  My definition at the time of possession was to put something of this earth above all else, especially above the spirit.   Funny - what I believe brought me to sobriety and back to God (in my thinking/speaking I was still monotheist although I believed deeply in many other spirit beings)  was what now I would consider a "pagan" offering.  Out of my bedroom widow I took some of my pot, I held it to the sky and said "What you have given to me and to the world freely, what grows abundantly on your land, I give back to you and ask your help to be free from this obsession that is ruining my life". From that day until my first AA meeting the Powers that be detoxed me, and I became a sober and free person.

In my sobriety I went back to Church, but could not go to a Catholic Church. I attended many other local denominations, and as I had once heard a friend say "I visited church's like I used to visit bars".   I learned many, many things, and learned to reconcile what I experienced with what the church teaches in it's reading and essence, instead of it's many times closed minded and bigoted members, particularly board members. 

 I was very involved in an Edgar Cayce study/meditation and research group. It was the first time that I worked magick with others and was one of the best experiences of my life.  It was a time of deep happiness, learning and joy in finding like-minded individuals, who seemed to walk the middle road of open-mindedness. I went to a powwow, joined a local council and traced my roots, I started to learn my native spirit path, and that fulfilled things that the Christian way didn't, or at least allowed me to actively include them in my life and spirit journey.  I learned the ceremonies, I danced the spirits, I sang the drum, I kissed the Earth Mother as I had as a child, I welcomed Father Sky, Grandfather Sun, Grandmother Moon, the Giant Glooskabe, I learned the creation stories of my people, joined the Algonkian Medicine Society and walked the Red Road, and still do .  All still not conflicting with my Christian teachings except in the minds of others who controlled the church.  We did not agree about the soul of animals, we did not agree about Indians being savages and what "church" had done to them.   It was around this time that I knew I needed to reconcile my elders, my heritage,   my blood.

I had a friend who was Wiccan solitary for many years, she used to say "as within, so without" and this made absolute sense to me, and especially when it came to my ancestors and the many different abuses that they practiced on each other.  At this time I was locally being called "The Christian Witch" as well as Turtle Woman.   I realized that I was English, French, and Native American.  That I had to find a way to make peace within my own blood inheritance before there could be peace on the outside. How could I pray for world peace and peace amount all men/women on Earth Mother, how could I pray for her healing until I fulfilled my own healing needs because of the wars my ancestors had had with each other.  It was this desire that led me to a druid path.   Also, my friend desired a change in her path - she wished to be with a group of people to celebrate and worship, and through her desire and commitment I was blessed to meet many Druid folk, whose lives and being sang to my heart and soul.   Many who also have mixed blood, some who actually understand my needs and desires on this part of the journey. 

I have a hard time calling myself a druid as many conservatives define "Druid", but no problem being called a druid defined as a "seeker of truth" through knowledge/scholarship and life experience.  Some would judge me more "new age", I prefer not to use labels at all - they are so faulty, and only scratch the surface of a person, never touching the person's true nature - the soul and it's thirst for truth is deeper than words, and can often times only be experienced, not define - words are like cages and the soul is free from all bonds.

 There are always questions, pieces of the puzzle that do not seem to fit, that occasionally reconcile only for new pieces to need placement.  I love the journey of my heart and soul and I have been blessed with many wonderful,  brilliant friendships along the way. I have been blessed with kindness, I have learned from betrayal, I have been nursed by a Goddess, danced with a demon, walked with Jesus in the Garden and been told he is a spirit guide, bitten by power animals and watched them doing healing when I have asked, I have danced the heavens into a storm and invoked a rainbow, I have felt another's touch and heard their voice when I was physically all alone. I have seen God and was ashamed to look upon his face for I was not ready to die.  I have been swallowed by Kali and born again unto this spiral of life.  I have walked naked and danced to the drums that play all night long in my heart.  I have even beenblessed with the vision of the past, dancing the bonfire with the present as the portal of time opened it's doors and the worlds of immortality touched. 

I am grateful for every experience, inner and outer, and for every person, place and thing that I have touched or been touched by.  I no longer label myself, nor others as best I can, and my faith is actually more of a belief in principles over personalities, over dogma.  These principles have served me well and taken me into many holy places.

This is what came of my thinking recently:

i wonder is there nothing sacred???

which caused me to look deeper.

this is my sacred list which is the next step in my inner journey of the present

Life/abundance
Honesty
Openmindedness
Willingness
Individuals/ity
The Present
Abundance/Growth/change/learning/expansion/progress/evolution Communion/fellowship/love/unity/omens
Balance

and a statement

What is sacred is Faith(belief).

some words were not simple, and I was trying to make it as simple as possible, a simple set of principles of my faith.

some of the concepts explained to me why I could be Wiccan, Christian, druid, what ever monotheist, polytheist or duotheist

communion, individuality and balance hold with in them these concepts and therefore because I hold these concepts sacred I see the sacredness within the other words that people sometimes use to divide, it is the principles that help me unify

Life itself is abundance and all things , therefore its nature is monotheist, polytheist and duotheist, even atheist, it's nature is inclusively. I embrace Life as sacred.

And there I am - in many ways exposed to you now.  Walk gently please when you disagree, and well you shall, for my path is not yours, my learnings not yours, my purpose not yours. I ask only that you leave me the dignity of respect of my ways, and I will offer you the same.