Dear Genevieve,
A wonderful first name! French, isn't it?
QuoteI am newly on the Wiccan path. I've tried various flavors of Christianity all of my life and never really felt it was to my liking. I like Wicca because we don't rely on others to guide our active life. We make our own decisions but we learn to think for ourselves about what the impact of those decisions will be upon the world.
This was also my experience when I started to go the path of the Wiccan. It was hard to think independently because I was not used to it and to decide itself on my life for me. Does your Coven represent a particular direction of the path or are you work alone?
QuoteI believe we all need to find that place where we find acceptance through self-acceptance. In other words, if we see a religion or philosophy that looks like it will fulfill our needs and yet we do not see aspects of that belief-set that will allow for our existance, then it will be doubtful that we will find self-acceptance there and will probably move on. There are very few large organizational religions where we as T people will see ourselves in a positive context, therefore we keep looking.
I see it also so! I only doubt that there are "Christian" churches/sects/cults which accept us. Most of these churches represent what Arlene Rich mentioned "coercive heterosexuality". Everything which differs from it is watched suspiciously and often sentenced.
QuoteThis is not to say there aren't members of us in all religions. We decide what we are comfortable with and what we accept. You may see yourself as a creation of the Christian God that has been delt challenges so that you can become stronger in your faith for example. I view myself as being one of nature's expressions of both the Goddess and the God and in transition from one to the other, God to Goddess. I'm not saying I am the God or Goddess, but that I am a product of nature and the Earth and that I was made to do this transition in honor of the Goddess.
There is many of us in all possible religions. We often love these churches, too, even if they kick us in our bottom! We would like in our families, friendships and churches are accepted and often experience, that others can or don't want accept us.
All of us are marked by our education and the society in which we live! And so as others see us, we often see ourselves. Somebody then found out that he/she is transsexual, the confusion is great. And the problems then begin. And who wins at the end decides how the life goes on!
I thought at the Mormons I must behave so, the Mormons expected it. I got ill and suicide endangered. Only when the Mormons had excommunicated me because of the TS, I found the courage to live a self certain life.
I don't have as a dianic witch found the entry to gods, but primarily to the goddess. Male energies aren't so important to me (unless at the two sun turning round celebrations). All of us are a product of the earth and everyone comes from something what people call the "divine". It be now one God or a goddess or simple only energy or evolution!
Do you by the way knew, that there are gods and goddesses which unites the two sexes (e.g. Atis or Hel) in herself/himself?
First after my transition when I found the goddess, I understood my feelings to be a woman! I only then understood, for it it was something natural which I felt; and my feelings of guilt disappeared. Live today and I work in honor of the goddess Artemis/Diana and live more consciously than I had ever done it before!
QuoteI guess what I'm saying is, find your own spiritual place in the world. Only you can choose the path upon which you walk.
I also think this but this wasn't the reason for the topic!
With the topic I wanted to ask the question whether we could need and look like it as a TS "group" of an own spirituality. I have found my path long ago!
Here still a little saying:
Every soul has got done their own journey through life, if you liked to follow the way of another person, must you lend you his eyes to see him. (Hazrat Inayat Khan)
Hugs,
WoS
