I just read through a very touching blog post at My Wiccan Story.  It was a sweet story of how she prayed to the Goddess in a time of need and how the Goddess helped.  I kind of touched on it in my last post, but I have been spending so much time trying to not appear Pagan, that I have lost a lot of my Pagan-ness. 

I’m a teacher.  While I believe firmly in the separation between church and state, I also believe in freedom of religion.  I have never once preached about Paganism to my students.  I have never even taught them about it.  At my first teaching job, however, I did wear a ring with a pentacle on it.  One of my students made a big deal out of me being “a witch”.  His mother started a “witch hunt” and complained about me constantly.  She even snuck into the school to observe my class to find things to further complain about.  I was asked not to return because I was “a bad fit with the district.”. 

At my next job, I left my overtly religious jewelry at home.  I had a necklace that looked like mother earth and I often wore that or necklaces made of gemstones.  I was asked to return for a second year.  The school had open tennis on their tennis courts certain days after school.  Since I was trying to get into better shape, I would often go out there to play.  I made the mistake of wearing my Pagan Pride Day t-shirt one day.  It was seen by a board member.  I wasn’t even given a reason for being fired.  My principal and superintendent tried to back me up, but the board of education voted me out. 

After that, I was pretty butthurt.  I refused to mention my religion at work.  I was careful where I work my Pagan t-shirts, in case someone saw me.  I made sure not to become close to anyone at work in case they found out and made it public.  Nonetheless, I went through three more schools in three years.  After a time when I couldn’t get a job, I found a job in the most unlikely place — Catholic school.  I applied for a job, not realizing that the name of the school referred to something that was Catholic.  An even bigger surprise, was that I got the job!  I doubled down in my efforts to hide my religion.  My boss knew I wasn’t Catholic, but she definitely didn’t know that I was Pagan.  I had to attend Mass and teach my students Catholic hymns.  Hey, it was a job and I did it well for three years.  They were three miserable years where I worried constantly about being fired if they ever found out I was Pagan.

I found another public school job and was happy to get out.  Unfortunately, that one didn’t work out either and I got my job where I am now.  I work in a small town.  I am again afraid that people will find out and I will lose my job.  Tenure has been raised to four years, so my son is going to be entering Pre-K before I get tenure.  I can teach him absolutely nothing about our beliefs to save my job, but that makes me sad inside.  I want to be able to share my religion with my son. 

I realized that while my religion absolutely needs to stay out of my work, it can absolutely become part of my home life.  The problem is that I spent so long trying to appear normal, to fit in, that I really stuffed all of my Pagan-ness deep down.  I want to start doing some things daily to reaffirm my Pagan-ness and create a culture of Paganism at home, but I don’t know what to do or where to start.  When I’m grateful for something good, I want to remember to thank the Gods.  When things are not going well, I want to think to ask the Gods for help.  My son is 15 months old and my husband is vaguely Pagan-ish who will go along with things so long as they’re not too “out there”. I actually set up my altar again and even decorated it for Samhain.  I don’t know what steps to take next.  How do I start creating a Pagan culture at home?