Meeting God in a Cornfield

Meeting God in a Cornfield...and finding out She's a Wytch!

            As I child I was confused by the disparity between my personal world of a dysfunctional, often drunk, and wild single mother and my public world of Mormonism with its often boring, stilted, and conservative structure. Mom would drop me off to church, but never stay. I think she wanted to defer parenting to a more stable structure, or maybe she just wanted three hours of rest. Either way, I was not allowed to opt out, ditch, or hide from church.

            Within the children’s program called ‘primary’, I was continually messaged with

‘Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in Heaven is’…and if I slipped up – well I could always wash my sins clean the next Sunday with the sacrament – but, and this was a big but – if I committed the sin again – all the previous ones would return and I would be burned at the second coming. This juxtaposition of wild inside, controlled outside left me so bewildered; I didn’t know what to do.

            Patty Miller (name changed) was my best friend in elementary school. We always went to primary together. Patty lived just on the other side of a large cornfield between our houses. We spent long summer nights stretching the moonlight to play outside. She had long red hair and a face covered with freckles and shared her most personal secrets with me. Patty’s mom wasn’t at all like mine. My mother was a ‘looker’ and everywhere she went, she turned heads. She was always bringing her boyfriends home as liquor bottles scattered the coffee table. Patty’s Mom was a strong well built but plain Mormon farmers wife. I loved to watch her work in her kitchen. She usually had a calico apron on which she would cup up over her hands to take out dishes from the oven or dry her wet hands with. I admired her so much and secretly wished my mom was more like her. Patty’s mom made the best jams and preserves. Breakfast at Patty’s home was a slice of perfection. Fresh milk and churned butter on hot homemade bread... eggs from the chickens and home cured bacon. I would wrap myself in this bliss and felt Patty’s family was the model of a perfect Mormon family.

            Patty’s bedroom was upstairs and away from the rest of the family. She was a precocious girl immensely curious about her body. She gave me my first lesson in how to tap the water in a tub and let it squirt down my legs. It gave me this strange wonderful feeling that I didn't understand or have a name for. I was instantly hooked and my baths would become infinitely more enjoyable but tinged with a growing guilt that I couldn't put a name to...but knew I shouldn’t share.

            One night Patty shared another secret with me. She told me her dad put his thing inside her mom and that all moms and dads did that. I was disgusted and so sure my mom would never let any man do any such thing. I remember screaming “Patty, you are such a nasty girl” and running home to my Mom for reassurance. As I shared this terrible thing Patty had said, I remember my mom just sitting quietly on the end of the bed with her face cupped in her hands

            “Mom, tell me you don't do this.”

            My mom looked at me and said, "Sometimes men climb on, but it doesn't last long and you'll get used to it."

            “How could this be?” The questions swirled in my mind.

            My curiosity reached a crescendo at Patty’s house later that summer. I often slept over with Patty, but her mom never allowed Patty to stay at my house. Most of the Mormon families in the small rural Utah town I grew up in knew about my mother’s drinking and sleeping around. Although her beauty would turn heads, she was known as the town whore among gossipy neighbors. They would never let their children stay the night at my house.

            That night, Patty and I spent the evening talking, giggling and playing with make-up. Just before midnight, we could hear a voice coming from downstairs.

“It’s time for bed girls…lights out! “

            We turned the bedroom light off, but we knew that this only meant we had to be more quiet and not give our wakefulness away. Patty had a double bed covered with quilts her mother had made. It was comfortable and smelled like wildflowers. As I lay next to Patty, she wanted to touch my body. She was already growing breasts and I was fascinated with them. Mine weren't even pimples yet. As we lay next to each other I felt a warmness grow in my body…a kind of aching and wetness that baffled me. It felt good but a nagging guilt played out in my mind. The battle between pleasure and guilt grew so loud I could no longer stand it.

            "Patty, you’re such a dirty girl and I can't stand it "

            I bolted up and said, "I'm going home, right now."

            Patty responded, “but it's so dark outside and it’s cold.”

            "I don't care, I'm a good girl and I don't do these things." And with that I stormed out.

            I left through a back door and started the night journey across the cornfield. There I was in the middle of a cornfield. It was close to midnight and it was so dark. It was a moonless August night and I had a hard time seeing my way through the tall stalks. I told myself “its ok just keep your head down and walk, you'll be home soon and you can slip in the basement door without Mom seeing. Mom will never know I left Patty’s house in the middle of the night and there won't be any questions.”

             Suddenly there was a flash of light so bright that the night sky lit up brighter than noonday. I had never seen such a bright light before. I could see every blade of grass below and the corn stalks took on a strange yellow glow. How could midnight suddenly become noon? I knew it had to be God. I fell to my knees instinctively and pleaded,

            "Jesus I'm not ready...don't come yet, I've done bad things."

            My body shook to the core as I knelt trembling. I had been warned in Sunday school over and over again, Jesus would come as a thief in the night and you better be ready and never do anything wrong or you will be left behind.

            I knew I was meeting my own judgment day. The weight of body guilt pressed in in me with crushing condemnation. Why hadn’t I listen more in Sunday school.

            “Oh, Jesus, give me another chance.”

            Suddenly I was surrounded with the blackness again. I could no longer see the corn or even my feet. I crawled along between the rows inching my way towards home. A dim porch light in the distance became my beacon. I slipped quietly through the basement door into my bedroom so afraid my world of salvation had ended and never played with Patty again.

            It would take me another thirty years to open that Pandora's box and begin the journey of cutting the spirit cords that bound me in a prison of body-denial. This lasted through my adolescence into marriage, through the birth of four children. It was a never-ending endurance test of body hatred. At times I would cut my flesh hoping to bleed out my unworthiness. But of course these just added layers of more secret sins I couldn’t seem to repent of. Eventually the darkness of my life fully encased me. I felt if I studied hard I could figure out how this Mormon puzzle called ‘Man’s search for happiness’ worked and how I could then make it work for me. It was like taking a clock apart piece by piece to see the inner workings of gears, levers, and wheels. If I could just see the bigger blueprint, then I could find my place in my Mormon world.

            After studying and praying often in rituals of self-flagellation, I could sense some light, but it never lasted. Each concept fell apart on deeper questioning. It became a never-ending search for a workable truth …trying to make sense of the clockwork Mormonism – which only boon-doggled my body and spirit even more. Mormonism scripted my life as a young girl, an adolescent, a wife, and a mother. I was taught that obedience to Priesthood laws and ordinances was the only way to heaven’s perfection. I was taught that only Priesthood men had God’s authority to speak. I was never to question the wisdom of the priesthood. To do so would risk apostasy and banishment.

            This power to speak in God’s name was embodied in what was called a priesthood blessing ritual. I remember if I had a question or a need I could seek out a priesthood holder, especially my husband to answer as the mouthpiece of God. It was actually kind of a cool process – sort of like fortune telling or a tarot reading. I would sit in a chair, and a priesthood holder would anoint my head with olive oil (consecrated of course) and lay his hands on my head speaking the words…

            “I (whatever their name was) having been commissioned by God through the holy Melchezidek priesthood do lay my hands on your head to give you a blessing and an admonition from God”…and then seemingly like magic the priesthood holder would speak as if channeling God himself. I remember the anticipation and buzz I felt… wondering what God had to say to me. I paid close attention because I didn’t want to forget anything. At the end of the blessing, the priesthood holder would seal all the words as coming to pass based on my faith and obedience. It was like learning to follow the Priesthood magic!

            Every priesthood holder carried a ‘line of authority card’ they kept in their suit pockets or wallets. It traced their priesthood genealogy of authority all the way back to Jesus –through Joseph Smith of course. This was really convenient because they didn’t have to deal with the messiness of antiquity or contested historical truth. Joseph Smith called himself a ‘restorationist’ not a ‘reformist’ and claimed Jesus and God the Father had conveniently visited him directly in a sacred grove in upstate New York to restore God’s authority after centuries of ‘world apostasy’. How could members question this card-carrying authority directly from God?

            This structure was so normalized in my life that I wondered why anyone would not want to have access to the magick of the Mormon priesthood, and wondered how the outside world could live without this power. The magic was as close as my brother, my uncle, my husband, my bishop…any male over the age of 18 who was considered ‘worthy’ carried this authority card. I learned again and again to defer to this authority because I evidently didn’t have the authority to know or practice the magic for myself.

            Then one day when I was near thirty, I sought a priesthood blessing from my husband to answer what I should do about all the questions swirling around in my mind. I was a mother with four young children totally overwhelmed with all that was required of me and I wanted to know what to do. I remember him saying I would know what to do through discernment. But I wanted magical answers. After the blessing, I asked him “why didn’t you just tell me what God wants me to do?” I’ll never forget his response…

            “How am I supposed to know that, Liz?”

            OMG – a crack

            “Liz, we only speak for ourselves or from vague feelings – or say what we think makes sense, or what people want to hear.”

            A second OMG! …It’s a scam

            I asked my husband, “Why do you keep this a secret?”

            “Because none of us want to admit to each other that we might not hear the voice of God.”

            “You mean I can know things…all by myself?”

            That was the beginning of my real Mormon apostasy. I became a holy heretic on a heroine’s quest. My journey out of Mormonism was a long one, but it began where the prison started, my body. I started to play with tarot cards, secretly of course. The imagery spoke directly to my spirit and body. I could actually divine for myself. I paired my growing divination with books from the library. I read anything that caught my interest. I remember the first book I checked out was Arnheim’s The Psychology of Visual Perception. I couldn’t read it without a dictionary next to me, but it taught me the magic of visual perception. I went on to study mysticism and the works of great philosophers. I entered the world of mystery, phenomenology, depth psychology, Carl Jung, and Joseph Campbell. I read the forbidden scriptures of the Apocrypha and Nag Hammadi manuscripts – the Gospel of Marry Magdalene, the Gospel of Thomas, and even the Gospel of Judas. Wow, who knew Mary was an apostle and had kissed Jesus.

            I entered the mystery writings of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Hermeticism. The more I read, the more I wanted to know. I started imaginary conversations with the authors. At first only in the margins of books, where I would ask questions, muse, and make comments. I would stop and reflect on many passages. Mystery scaffolded on top of mystery, but I began to see the patterns – the web of life - moments of “I see it…I get it…OMG, I get it” followed.

            For the next 35 years, I went to school quietly while I raised my children. I didn’t share what I was doing and did it around the edges of my life…but oddly I stayed within my Mormon Culture. By now my quiet rebellion went underground. Although I put forth the facade of belief, I no longer believed the Priesthood had any more magical answers or powers than I did. I think priesthood holders sensed this because I was pushed farther and farther to the margins where I couldn’t influence other members. This often found expression in snide comments.

            One Bishop told me when I was first beginning my college education, “My wife cleans toilets to help out with the budget, that should be good enough for you! Stop trying to be better than your husband; what are you trying to prove?”

            As an older student A Mormon Institute director told me to “Stop asking so many questions and go home and bake a pie for your husband. Education should only make you a better wife and mother…you’re educated enough.”

            The women would scorn me too with quips like:

            “No success can compensate for your failure in your home.”

            “If you rebel, your husband will wander and it will be your fault.”

            “When the brethren have spoken, the questioning is done. We must support the priesthood.”

            “Women don’t need to hold the priesthood…you can hold the priesthood at night honey in your bed.”

            But I didn’t listen. I knew I had my own magic. My spirituality began to celebrate my body as immanence. To my surprise, it felt cool and refreshing. Nature became my teacher...a path of intuition through the labyrinth of my own life experiences. I will always carry the memories of my Mormon past, they cannot be killed; but my world has merged into a syncretic performance of my own dance - strong enough to embrace Pandora's box of paradox, difference, and contradiction.

            How many women have grown up in fundamentalist belief systems that co-opted their bodies, agency, voice, and power? I think the paradox of my own Mormon beginnings is that it gave me a great ability for magical thinking...it fostered on an individual level a way to muse through the esoteric questions of existence...to ponder great mysteries of the cosmos. What it did not allow me to do was share my insights in any public way. Its focus on control through behaviorism was pretty tight under the umbrella of total Patriarchy. I remember thinking that this was a puzzle, I hadn't yet figured out - that there must be a good kind of patriarchy - that righteous dominion stuff - that would be ok for me to submit to.

            For brief moments the internal worldview of Mormonism made sense, and I would vow not to question again...and then my need for independent thinking would rise up and say...”none of this makes sense.” I spent most of my life in this battle until the rage build up to a point I could no longer endure. It was like a choking grip that propelled me out of the Mormon chapels into the fresh air where I felt I could breathe.

            It's hard for women to leave Mormonism. Often the cost is a broken marriage, estranged family, lost jobs, and a type of judgmental banishment that propels one into a shattered faith syndrome. Women are taught that nothing but unhappiness and wickedness lies outside the boundaries of Mormonism. We're taught to put on a shining face of happiness to the world while never forgetting our assigned jobs to proselytize bodies.

            But here's the paradox. Mormonism made me a wiser, more powerful Wytch. When I walked away it was a great, messy, public relations nightmare. All my internal quiet questioning had propelled me to educate myself... years of asking, reading, questioning, and writing about how does this world really work, and how can I make it a better place. I studied all the taboo subjects that the Mormon priesthood told me to stay away from...anthropology...critical theory...sociology...war...gender...history...and religion. I couldn't get enough. My exit out of Mormonism led me straight into becoming a Women's Studies Professor. Feminists to me were such badass women. They had a raw hunger for truth and a willingness to stand in the fire for it. I had never seen such peeling back of how the world really works and for whom and under what conditions.

            If it hadn't been for the puzzle of a Mormon worldview imposed upon me from birth along with my insatiable desire to solve puzzles, I would never have found my way to the power I now embody. Being a Wytch is not only about owning my own power, but also about taking deep responsibility for how it plays out in the real world. All the magical thinking from my youth gave me a strong connection to my own intuition, spirit, and psychic imagination. Being able to own an identity that was so stereotyped and degraded in the world felt like taking back my voice and power. I literally felt like the saying 'we are the daughters of the wytches you weren't able to burn.' I realized that much of the anger I felt was really about grief...the lost years...the endless subordination...the shame...and the shunning. But this grief turned into anger was the fuel for my emerging voice. It was a willingness to stand in the fire for all the wytches of history that have been burned. It was a willingness to face the world with a radical love of all humanity that said, never again, not in my name will I judge, subordinate, or go along with your games.

            I am a Wytch...I’m willing to own it, declare it, and embrace all the power of it. I'm still guided by 'making a better world', but now I want to fully be the 'Word Wytch' that unwraps the social conditioning, toxic cultural messages, and control systems that diminishes women's and men's ability to embody their own authentic voice and power. If we are still trying to practice our craft under old paradigms we gathered from toxic childhoods, then we cannot fully embrace our own liminal power. It isn't all about candles, and spells, and fetishes of witchcraft...all these can be very important to layer meaning and increase our concentration; but the real power is within each of us. I will always see myself as an eclectic solitary Wytch because no organizational power will have my will ever again. I know there are many like me out there in the world: women who want an authentic spiritual connection to self and the larger cosmos; women who refuse to be controlled or tamed; men who don't want to fit into the bro-codes of toxic masculinity; and gender benders that want to gloriously embrace their own performances of self and connectedness.

            My awakened consciousness is the magic that folds my life's story into my soul. I realize I have the heart of a lion - beautiful, strong, different, and free. My body is worthy on its own terms - messy, wild, immanent, and filled with its own light. I no longer try to overcome my body. I have learned to trust its stirrings and lean into its aches. Now I embrace the dark. I am no longer afraid to stand fully naked in the midnight cornfield knowing my body is the manifestation of my soul like a meteor that burns bright in the night sky.

Blessed Be!