I have always lived among you, residing in your small hometowns and in your bustling cities. In quaint, New England cottages by salty seashores, up on rolling hilltops and across the flatlands of the mid-west. On any given day we pass one another, walking on busy Manhattan streets or down the shaded lanes of breezy, Kentucky hollows.
At times, you look right past me as you struggle to navigate through the complexities of daily life. At times, smiling, you open doors for me…, tip hats and nod your acknowledgments. Blissfully unaware of whom it is that smiles back at you.
No need to skim through dusty volumes of fairy stories, or watch horror movies on late night television. You don't have to study Celtic lore to find the likes of me. I am indeed, everywhere. Look for me on subway trains and in taxi cabs. You will find me sipping a mocha latte just across the table at your favorite internet café. I've taken your blood pressure. I designed your wedding dress. I sold you your home and have even baby-sat your children.
I was the nice lady on the tar mat who handed you a tissue and patted your shoulder as your son or lover went off to war. I labor beside you. Proudly donning BDU's in the heat of the Iraqi desert and punching time clocks in your factories. I am the matronly secretary typing letters and spreadsheets in the cubicle adjacent to yours. I am the elderly shop keeper you wave to as you jog through the streets of California. I am the young mother, strolling her infant down the quiet sidewalks of your gated Connecticut communities.
All these years, you've paid me clean your house, teach your children and represent you at trial. I fill your prescriptions, handle your bank accounts and call your meetings to order. I am the bubbly waitress who serves brunch at your favorite restaurant. Your hair stylist. Your sister. You rely upon my knowledge and expertise…You present me with awards and shower me with accolades for my hard work and dedication to the company. You look to me for advice. Come to me for aid in your time of need. Hold my arm as you cross the street.
Even so, I remain the target of your ignorance and persecution.
For years, I have hidden myself in plain sight. I do this so that I will not have to suffer the sting of your hateful remarks. I do this to protect my children from those who might taunt or tease them for the “sin” of being mine. I am gentle, peaceful, a naturalist, I am an environmentalist, an activist and an artist.
I am any number of people who make your world a brighter place,
and still you paint me as the spawn of hell.
You call me Satan's concubine.
You accuse me of manufacturing poisons and speaking curses over sleeping children in the dark of night. You hold up signs and banners at my gathering places, shouting cat calls of “murderer” and “whore”. You whisper hurtful accusations of animal dismemberment and infanticide behind my back.
I've watched as you've shouted enthusiastic "Amen's" at fat-faced, television ministers who denounce me from the pulpit of intolerance. I veil my sorrow as you flock to secure your place in a heaven manufactured by the angry, and wrought with disdain and exclusion.
How blindly you follow them... Men clad in four thousand dollar Armani suits... lifting hands and spouting the praises of a deity that you honestly believe would renounce his own beautiful children. Just for being gay. Or Muslim. Or Hindu.
How can that be? Could the Creator of the Universe have made so many millions of people who simply should not be here? Are we not created just as we are meant to be?
I watch as you clasp hands with usurers, “Church leaders” who wear diamond
encrusted pinkie rings and hand cobbled leather shoes... while your children go
to bed hungry or cold and without the hope of a happy birthday.
I cringe, as you are artfully manipulated out of your hard-earned finances with promises of miracles and increases that never manifest. I pray for your “salvation” at my healing altar. Yet still, you go. Like sheep to the slaughter.
They speak to you of an abyss of steaming hellfire and brimstone, waiting to swallow me up at my demise. You applaud the cruelty that seeps from their greedy, lying mouths, unaware that it is you and not I, who the wolves have led astray.
I cry for you.
Will the servant of the Most High share his millions with his struggling flock? Will he invite you into his posh mansion, feed you and give you shelter when you lose your job? Will he still reign triumphantly over his worship center once his extra-marital affair or his mismanagement of church funds is discovered?
Why is it that you fail to taste that which you are being fed? Are you so desperate for love, that you can't feel the putrid acidity of prejudice as it trickles down your throats and into your hungry bellies?
Why is it that you fail to hear what's being said? Are you so eager to believe in something larger than you are, that you no longer feel compelled to read, to learn or to think freely?
How is it that you are so easily persuaded? Greed is still greed. And hate is hate, even when cloaked in the guise of purity and piety.
I watch you from the shadows, wishing I could share my gifts with you. I straddle the precarious fence between fear and hope, wondering if I will live to see the day when you are no longer afraid of me.
There are still those among you who would have me arrested, seize my property or fight to take my children from me. There are still those who would burn me out of my home or beat me in the streets. There are even those who would kill me, just because I follow a different path.
But I am an American, too. And I vow to do all that I can to assure that the atrocities of centuries past are never again revisited.
I am a child of the Universe.
I am the physical embodiment of the God... and the Goddess.
I am a witch.
I am beautiful.
I am here to stay.
