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Broomclosets
and Other Small Spaces
I've run
across a lot of posts from young and/or inexperienced witches/pagans who
are looking to "come out of the broomcloset". They are looking to
express their love of the Goddess/God or just be honest and open with the
world around them as they search to find their place in the cosmos and
in harmony with Mother Earth and Father Sky.
Unfortunately,
the political history of the witch is not one of peace and acceptance.
The Burning Times, the Salem Witch Trials, and modern day persecutions
too numerous to name all serve to remind many of us that it might not be
a bad idea to be selective as to whom we disclose our choice to be a Witch.
It certainly would behoove us to time it right. I would not suggest
bringing it up during High Mass at your local Catholic Church.
Burning
inside many of us, definitely within my heart, is a desire to be completely
free and open and to have my spirituality not be something that is hidden,
but accepted and celebrated, a time and place where I can say Goddess Blessings
in the grocery store and not be looked at askance or have the cross pulled
out or holy water sprinkled on my best new robe. A time and place
where I never have to take my pentagram ring off my finger when I visit
my fundamentalist Christian mother because I just don't want to hear one
more time in my life "You are going to burn in hell." Or a time when
my celebrations of the Sabbats and moons are considered valid holidays
and are respected, and time off work to celebrate these wonderful holidays
is just taken for granted.
As a gay
man I have came out of the sexuality closet years ago. While you'd
think coming out of other closets may be easy after that particular revelation,
it doesn't seem to get any easier for me. I still fear rejection
and that almost unconscious backing away that some people do when I tell
them people (no matter how gently) that I am a witch.
But still
I and many others tear down the closet walls -- over and over and over
again. We explain, we teach, we accept the rejection, and we revel in the
acceptance and love that can come out of the most wonderful and surprising
of places. Why? We go on because we don't want the Burning
Times to ever happen again. We want to insure that our children and
the society that follows us has the freedom to worship, revere and express
their ideas both spiritually and intellectually.
The thing
I try to remember is that we all need to pick our time and space for coming
out. I have learned over the years that there are some people who
hold some part of my life in the precarious palms of the economic and social
scales of life. And I tread carefully. My safety and wellbeing are
important. I need to survive and flourish to educate and teach another
day. This does not mean that I hide my spirituality or my sacred
rage and love (far from it), but sometimes discretion is the better part
of valor, and while recognizing that fact sometimes may feel like failures,
it is necessary.
May there
be a time when we shout from the mountaintops.
"Yes, world,
I'm a witch."
So Mote
It Be.
 
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