Expert: Labyrinth - 11/10/2009

Question
i am a student and doing a culture report on wicca/pagans. Iwas just wondering how are your liestyles and eating habits different from those not practicing your belief?  Are there different foods that you eat? and what does your lifestyle consist of as a norm for the day? Ihope these questions aren't to direct or condecending but i am really lost about your culture. Thank you for taking the time to read my questions.

Answer
Your question makes me smile!

For most people, being Wicca is a religious choice.  We have regular jobs.  I am a school teacher.  We have regular lives.  My son and I live in an apartment with our pets and watch TV and play Xbox.  We wear regular clothes.  Blue jeans is my favorite.  And we eat regular food.  We went to McDonalds last night.

The differences are mostly in the way we interact with the world on a spiritual level, a religious level.  We ritual and pray, just in a different way than Christian do.  We meet in groups, just not on Sunday morning in a Christian church.

Generally, we are like everyone else.  Most people don't know we are wiccan, just like you probably can't point to each house on your street and say they are Lutherans and they are baptist and they are Presbyterian.

What we do believe is that we must honor nature and that the spirit of God is best represented by nature.  We believe that the spirit of God is alive and in each little thing we see and do, not sitting far away in heaven.  We believe that we have the power to change our lives by working with the spirit of God through ritual.
Now part of this believe in nature keeps some of us more religious than others.  This is true for all kinds of religion, not just us.
Some examples...you know that some Christians go to Church every Sunday and every Wednesday and every Bible class...while others go less often.
We have people who are stronger in their faith than others also.  For instance, some wiccans choose to be vegetarian for example, out of respect for nature and animals life, but not all of us.  I am a priestess and I am not vegetarian.

Most people only see the witchy-wanna-bes...the people all dressed in black and keeping twenty cats and putting signs on their front door advertising tarot card readings.  Most real wiccans are not like this.  These people are people attracted to wiccan ideas who have read a few books and decided to "be witches".

Also, we have nothing to do with satanists.  They are not part of our group and we don't want them.  We believe that people, and spirits, and magic, should be about health and kindness and generosity.

Hope that helps, feel free to write back.

Labyrinth