On Identifying as Weird

Barbara, fixin’ to record an episode.

Oh, we’ve stepped in it now.

Saturday night, Kendra, Morganna and I recorded our first podcast episode. And Tuesday, we recorded the second episode—though due to unforeseen microphone issues, we may need to re-record it. (Growing pains and learning curves. They suck.)

We’re on schedule to post our first episode as planned October 1.

Oy.

We’re jumping right out of the Weirdo Closet.

It isn’t like I’ve hidden the fact that I’m weird from most anyone, but I have to say, coming out of the closet as bisexual was a lot easier. Members of the LBGTQ continuum have Pride Parades and celebrations. You get rainbow flags, music and cake.

Cake’s good. I like cake.

But weirdos like experiencers or percipients—whatever you want to call people who live in a reality that is just a little bit more strange than the one most people inhabit?

Nah. No parade for us. No flag. No music. No cake.

But lots of rolled eyes, deep sighs, shaken heads and shrugged shoulders.

This shouldn’t be so hard for me—I was thrown out of the Broom Closet as a Neo-Pagan Witch about 29 years ago in a court of law. I had a sleazy lawyer point at me and declare in a hysterical voice, “She’s a Witch! She’s a Witch—even her own mother doesn’t speak to her!” (I half expected him to declare I had turned him into a newt, but he’d gotten better. That at least would have been funny.)

This was during a contentious divorce, when the fact that I was a Neo-Pagan who believed that the Universe was alive and conscious and who worshipped God as both male AND female was used to “prove” that I was an unfit mother. (No, I was not a Satanist or a devil-worshipper, nor did I do malefic magic against other people., though in West Virginia, all of that was instantly assumed as soon as someone said “witch.”)

Things went badly for a while there, but once it was over, I licked my wounds and moved away from my home state to take up residence in Athens, Ohio. There, I intended to finish my BA degree at Ohio University, and rebuild my life.

There, I found that I didn’t have to hide large chunks of who was anymore.

Over a span of several years, I ended up as one of the more visible Witches in a town full of them. Early in my first sojourn here, a native Athenian told me that “You can’t swing a dead cat in Athens without hitting a Witch.” And it was true. Witches, Pagans, Voodoo Practitioners, Shamanic Practitioners, Unitarians, New Agers and Non-Denominational Hippies were all but crawling out of the wilderness and congregating in Athens back in the day.

My husband and I opened a metaphysical bookstore and had discussion groups on topics of interest to the Pagan community. I read tarot cards for the public and taught classes in tarot. I took part in interfaith panel discussions (they always sat me next to the Catholic Catechism instructor—that was fun) and ended up doing a lot of community outreach. My community work included educating the local police on how to tell the difference between Neo-Pagans minding their own business having an outdoor ritual and possibly harmful cultic activity—this is smack dab in the midst of the Satanic Panic years.

I fielded questions from concerned Christians and ended up making friends with a great many of them after they realized that not only did I know the Gospel as well as they did, I wasn’t. a baby eating ogress bent on gathering souls for Satan.

I was just a nice, garden variety heathenish heretic who was really good at reading Tarot cards. (Some of them became clients, even.)

Later, I helped organize the first Pagan Pride Day celebrations in Columbus in the early oughts, And for about a decade, I wrote for national Neo Pagan publications,

It turned out that being out of the broom closet helped others make their way more peacefully in the world. Walking my Pagan path and shining a light on it made it easier for others to walk the their own paths without fear or shame.

But, even as I did all of these things, it was only my fellow Pagans, psychics and experiencers who knew that on top of it all, I saw impossible things like—-fairies—-or whatever they are, and sometimes had experiences with UFO’s or heard what we concluded might have been Bigfoot in our woods.

Because, it’s one thing to worship differently than others. I mean, it’s America—we have a right to practice our religions as we see fit, so long as we’re not abusing and killing people in the name of our God. People might think you’re a little flaky, but generally are tolerant of different religious beliefs, and won’t look down on you for them, at least not outwardly.

Seeing things that most people don’t see, and experiencing things that others do not, however, opens one to charges of being mildly delusional at best to downright psychotic at worst. And having already gone through that mess during the divorce and custody case, I have been cagey about my weirdness ever since.

But you know. This is my lived experience. I have a therapist, and have been going to therapy for well over a decade. She says I’m officially “Not Nuts.” (Yes, I checked with her. Seriously. I came out as an experiencer to my therapist. Talk about scary……)

And if sharing my lived experience helps others who may see something once and are then terrified by having their notions of reality changed by it—-if I can bring a measure of comfort to them by letting them know they aren’t alone—then, fine.

I’m stepping out of my last closet, then, and slamming the door behind me.

Here I am. I’m Weird. This is me. Telling the truth and accepting the consequences.