Pagan Blog Challenge ~ Week 1 ~ Ancestors

Merry Meet,

Well, I made it into 2012!!! yay!!!

So far, we are 7 days into 2012 and I can honestly say that my life is FANTASTIC!!! Yes, it really is!

I'm really happy and content right now, I have good friends and family around me and of course the Goddess is guiding me from within which in turn is giving me strength, happiness and the courage to go for my dreams!

As you'll know, my connection to Wicca has been strengthened of late with various issues in my life presenting perfect opportunties for growth, so I decided to focus a lot of this year on finding, embracing and developing the Goddess within. Before 2011 ended, I signed up for a couple of blog projects, one is the Pagan Reading challenge.. and the other is the Pagan Blog Project 2012, where each week we blog about something *magickally wiccan/pagan related*. When I first read this from the lovely Rowan Pendragon before new year, I knew that the Goddess had guided me to a task that would help me keep my strength and build upon what I already know about *The Witch Inside* of me. So I was pondering all week what I could write about, and as a writer, I'm normally very good at chosing a topic, but of late when I've sat to write with an intention of topic, the Goddess has guided me down a different pathway. When I finally look up to see what I've written, I find that the words come from somewhere deep within me and speak in a loving and powerful way. Needless to say that Friday came and went and I didn't even realise i'd missed my blog prompt time... well I did but it was past midnight and I was ready to slip into my dreamtime slumber with the spiritual realms to guide me.

So here we are, Saturday 7th January 2012, and I am sat faced with the letter "A" as inspiration. I can feel the Goddess with me, and ready to write with me. Here goes;

**Pagan Blog Challenge ~ A is for Ancestors**

I've been guided by the known 13 ways of the witch of late and find them to be a strong support for me in achieving my goal of balance within my life. The first way of the witch is; "To know yourself". This has been the guiding principle for me over the past month and indeed present throughout my life. At some point in our lives we all go through the stage of needing to *find the Self*, for some it will be a brief time in their lives, but for others, like me, it will be a lifelong process. In fact I prefer to know that I will find my Self throughout my lifetime as we all grown, just like the roots of a tree, we take hold in the ground, and we twist, turn and travel in various directions to get to the Earth's core (Our true self).
My journey has taken me on a lot of different pathways, all of which has made me who I am today, but what about the genetics of who I am? I've always known that my Grandmother was a Spiritual Medium, Healer, Psychic and Hedgewitch, as was her mother, and her mother before that and so forth. But I knew deep within me there was more to the *witch* label within our family. I'm not one that cares for labels, but living in the world and society we do today, sometimes labels are necessary. In my study of psychology I've learnt that labels help us to process things within our lives, in the one way in which our mind weighs up situations by checking them off in the "Audit Room" of our psyche. My family history, my ancestry has always fascinated me and still does as I learn all about my family, new pieces of the jigsaw get placed. It's a magickal way to find out *who you are*.
I've recently looked into my Father's side and already knowing that a relative of my Father's was once the Archbishop of Canterbury ( I know... the irony of having a a family of witches marry into such a family!), and having a famous Racing Car Driver as my Father's Second Cousin...well, I wanted to know about my Mother's side. So I began the search on a somewhat difficult name to trace...what with it's Polish heritage. We've since learnt that my Maternal Grandfather's Grandfather was a priest...(I see the Religious pattern here!) and in fact during the Second World War were taken to concentration camps and tortured! Now for any witch to have such a horrible and downright inhumane act to be commited upon her family... well it chills the bones doesn't it? But it did get worse... much worse :(
Switching to my Maternal Grandmother and recalling the long lineage of Witches I thought I would find that it went back a few generations at the most, imagine my shock and euphoric suprise when in fact I found that I had a relative in my family, female, who had moved from England to USA, to live in SALEM in the 1600s!!!!! Yes, the lineage went straight back to Salem, Mass. in the 1600s! and yes, she was a WITCH!!! Well I am not only truly blessed and honoured...but I'm incredibly thankful to her and her descendants. Luckily there were no records of her being tried for Witchcraft in Salem but during those dark times, every witch knows just how hard it must have been for her to stay true to who she was and to keep the magick alive by passing on the wisdom by word of mouth.

Indeed, word of mouth is very much how the magick has been passed on in our family, right down to me. I have toyed with the idea of creating the OFFICIAL Book of Shadows to be past down from me to my children and continuing for many more generations, but whether it is the karmic fear or simply being a lover of tradition, something has held me back from doing so.

Whether or not I decide to create a Book of Shadows remains to be told, but what I do know is that I am always and will always be grateful and thankful to all of my ancestors be they Archbishop, celebrity or even Witch. All of them make up *Who I am* and I intend on making them proud of their Witchy descendant.