Navigation:

Two Goats and a Donkey!

On The 18th Day of Halloween

Sunday, October 18, 2026

Welcome to the 18th day of Halloween! Today, I will recount my own experiences for the 30 years I spent as a Pagan.

My Pagan/spiritual journey began in high school. I think I was 14, or maybe 15. I was raised Southern Baptist, but I had also figured out that I was gay. I was 9 when I made that discovery. I quickly realized that it was not a topic to discuss with my family. The day I realized that I was gay, I told my mother, who then told me I should be ashamed of myself and never to mention that to her ever again. Then, 3 years later when I was 12, my mother told me she and my father would rather see me dead that turn out to be gay. She later swore that never happened, but it did. However, I never held that against her - those were different times back then, and she did change that attitude completely later down the road. But this story isn't about my relationship with my mom, so moving on....

Anyway, I realized that I could never be a child of God while gay (not actually a realization so much as a misconception brought on by others...), so I decided I would just become Pagan! Of course, I had no concept of what being Pagan actually was. Since I was in the deep south and a Southern Baptist to boot, "pagan" only meant "satanic". Nature worship was generally considered satanic, so I started by pretending to worship trees and bushes. I had no clue what I was doing. I only knew I wanted to worship something, feel connected to something, and I had been told repeatedly that faggots were not allowed within the kingdog of God. So I started mocking God.

Before too long, I did some actual research and started learning that Paganism was not what I thought at all. It was a viable, nature-oriented religion, although using that word limits Paganism so much. Paganism is more of a collection of religions with similar beliefs and ideas. Paganism is not organized, and means different things to its different followers. Ask 6 Pagans for a defition, and you'll get 8 different answers. So, I started researching, and the first thing I found was Gavin and Yvonne Frost's School of Wicca. I convinced my mother to let me join the school, and I studied it hungrily. I read the material they provided, I read the books they recommended, and I aced the tests I had. I was doing well in the mail-order class and was learning a great day. I started networking with people, penpals as they were called back then, and was truly finding my niche. Eventually, I realized that the Frosts were a couple of loons, even though I learned so much from them, and I quit the school, focusing instead of teaching myself through a series of Llewellyn books (Llewellyn Publishing was an occult publishing house, and they had hundreds of titles for Wicca, Druidism, and many other paths. My own path was as an Eclectic Pagan, as I borrowed from many other paths and incorporated the beliefs and systems I found myself drawn to into my own path.

I performed rituals of communing in our pasture under the full moon, I practiced trying to communicate with Pan, I practiced divination. I was on my way to becoming a lifelong Pagan - or so it seemed. For about 10 years or so I maintained the religious aspects of my path, fully believing in the Goddess and living life in a way to make her proud, or more precisely, trying to live my life that way. Doesn't always work out the way we'd like!

After those first 10 years, even though I didn't realize it, I was becoming more Pagan in name only. I didn't really believe anymore, but I wouldn't let myself admit that either. For 20 more years, I called myself a Pagan, and that was that. It wasn't until after I met Steve, the man I've spent another 20 years with, that I realized I had no belief system anymore. I was essentially an atheist that called himself a Pagan. For a few years after Steve and I started dating, I still was atheist. It wasn't until after I lost my job and then bought a house that Steve started trying to convince me to give God a try again. After many false starts, I did and I am now a saved Follower of Christ (I dislike calling myself a Christian simply because of how the Christian Nationalists have ruined the name). However, I fully embrace my previous Pagan life, and I have considered expanding my belief system into Christopaganism, combining the best of both worlds. I've yet to implement that as of yet, however.

And there you have it, my little Pagan background for Day Eighteen!

The images below are all AI-generated by me with ChatGPT, Grok, and Google Gemini on my iPhone. Enjoy!

The 31 Days of Halloween! Click on the day number you want! 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31

George