When I was a very young child, every summer my family would rent a bungalow at the beach, and on Saturday nights we would walk along the boardwalk and watch the fireworks. Well, at least my parents were watching the fireworks. I, on the other hand, had found something much more interesting to watch. I watched the moon.
It may seem strange to you, but I was always aware that the moon was also watching me, and that the moon had a name. Her name was Diana. Looking back, what really amazes me now, although it didn’t seem the least bit strange to me at the time, was that besides Diana watching me, I could also hear her calling to me softly from the distance. Then, when I listened very, very carefully, I was able to understand what she was saying. She was calling my name.
My mother never could understand why I always seemed to be gazing at the moon, and when she finally asked me, I told her that the moon, whose name just happened to be Diana, had been calling to me. My mother had always considered me to be a rather “different” or “strange” child, with way too much imagination and not enough practicality for her taste. She just shrugged off that incident and considered it, in all likelihood, to be nothing more then a childhood fantasy. She never brought it up again, and I came to the conclusion that it would be best if I never mentioned it again as well.
When I turned eight years old my parents sent me to sleep away camp, but I still was drawn to gazing at the moon, as I felt it draw me closer and closer under its magickal spell. It wasn’t until many years later, when I was well into my adulthood, that I realized that the Diana who had been calling to me as a child, had actually been Diana, the Goddess of the Moon.
I spent most of my adulthood lost in the emptiness of agnosticism, occasionally searching for something to fill my spiritual void, but I was never able to find a religion that encompassed many, if not most, of my "unconventional" beliefs.
Then, about ten years ago, the Goddess Bast came into my life, and from that time forward nothing has ever been the same. She asked me if I would follow her, and then told me that she would show me the path I needed to travel, if I truly wanted to learn about myself and about my true religion.
Now that really surprised me, because I had not realized that I had been following any religion at all. In reality, however, I actually had been, albeit unknowingly. In fact, I have been following many aspects of that religion for most of my entire life. That began my introduction to Paganism (or Neo-Paganism) and The Goddess, and the beginning of my spiritual growth.
I then began to explore this new world, reading everything that I could about the Goddess, and I soon found myself completely enthralled by her; so much so that I began to feel her very presence within me. From that point on I continued learning with a passion, finding out as much as I could about her many names, aspects and attributes, and the various ways that different cultures have worshipped her throughout the ages.
As I continue researching and writing, I find myself growing closer and closer to the Goddess, and I find that my work has become something greater, and more profound then it ever had been before. It became a labor of love. They say that the Goddess has ten thousand names and ten thousand faces. If that is the case, then I have a long way to go, and my life’s work has been laid out before me.
Looking back, I realize now that I would never have learned so much about myself, if I had not believed with an open heart when I was just a child on the boardwalk staring at the moon; but most of all, if I had not been listening, when the Goddess called my name.
