I know that God laughs. I have heard her. I provide her with great entertainment on a very regular basis. It is not really that I am a born comedian, although I have at times, managed to entertain friends with stories that have reduced them to tearful mirth. No God prefers her comedy to be more subtle. Not that I am subtle either. Far from it. But for the last 8 years or so, I have been attempting to find myself and nirvana and inner peace. I have had some success… but I have crashed and burned many, many times. And this is when I hear God laugh. Big loud guffaws from heaven.

My journey towards my original goal of inner peace, more or less began when I gave birth to my middle daughter. She was born on Halloween (which was always one of my very favourite times of year) 31st October 1998. By complete accident I managed to have a natural childbirth and thank God, she was a healthy specimen. All was well in the world. Oldest daughter was delighted with her new sibling and me and him were well pleased too. Without the drugs to take the edge off reality, the post delivery elation was very keenly felt. I was not just clever, I was the co creator with God of new life. (OK so I know my husband had some input too… but male input is not exactly in the miracle realm is it?). It was then, in the immediate aftermath of this wonderful experience of delivery and birth, that I knew that God was not a male God. How could God be male when it is we women who give birth. Oh no.. I knew without one shadow of a doubt that God certainly had a female face.

This was a major revelation. God as a woman made it much easier for me, a woman, to identify with her. The old school idea of God, as I was taught in good repressed Catholic Ireland of the 60’s and 70’s, was of a grandfather figure who was prone to getting pretty cross about stuff and from whom I had to constantly seek forgiveness.

No siree…this new God who visited me after Roisin was born was far more to my liking.
So having discovered that God was not some old grumpy guy in heaven but in fact a universal mother, as well as a father, was a great relevation for me. Suddenly God became much more real. And she became much more connected to creation. (I will refer to God a she because this is how I ‘see’ her. I don’t think that God is either male or female but rather has all the best qualities of both.)

Up until this point I was a relaxed (not quite lapsed – but fairly lax) Catholic. Sure I wasn’t happy about all the scandals etc. that were beginning to rock the church at this time. In Ireland we had bishops exposed as having fathers and ‘charismatic’ priests whose charisma knew no bounds certainly where celibacy was concerned! Things got a lot worse some time later with child abuse scandals. So I felt very disconnected from the church into which I had been baptized. What to do?

During my maternity leave I spent a lot of time in bookshops and one day a book, quite literally fell onto the floor at my feet. It was written by Laurie Cabot, well known American White Witch.

I had my ‘Eureka’ moment…. I WAS A WITCH. A wise woman. Connected to Mother Earth and all of nature. I must have been a witch in a past life. It all made perfect sense. I love ritual. I love rites of passage. I was Barbara, White Witch, Wiccan Priestess, Wise Woman.

Perfect….. or was it? Who knows?

Over the coming weeks, months or years I want to use this blog to weave tales of my journey. I sometimes go forwards, making great leaps of understanding and in the process healing elements of myself that needed sorting (even though sometimes I was not aware that I had a ‘problem’). And then I go backwards… or into the cave as my beloved teacher would say. And I sit in the darkness of the cave trying to work out what’s going on and then pulling myself back out into the light!

It’s all great craic if you keep a sense of balance and more importantly a sense of humour! So check in often. Leave a comment. Share your thoughts, as I attempt to share what I have learned and what has worked for me, along the path to healing!