I was born into a Italian Roman Catholic family in the late 1970s. I am the youngest of three children, the only girl, and my two older brothers are 13 and 11 years older than me, respectively. I say this because my parents were older when they had me, and as such I had a slightly different experience with the church than my brothers, one of which is an Athiest and the other Catholic Christian. By the time I was born my parents no longer went to church regularly, however, they were still believers and donated money to the church. They also sent all three of us to Catholic school, and it is here that my rise and fall occurred.

I was a strong believer as a child. I really felt God was listening to me and that there was a heaven and a hell, and a purgatory, which I always imagined as a white room, where you waited alone for all eternity. Because my parents were less enthousiastic Catholics, and my brother liked to sleep in most Sundays, I often went to church with my school friends and their families, and I saw church as a spiritual and social place where I was accepted unconditionally.

If it was truly such a place, I would be there still.

When I began highschool I became a member of the Pro Life Cell, went to church every week and Believed. But as I became older, my inquisitive nature often lead me to question the unquestionable, and more oten than not, the pat replies I received to my inquires were insufficient.

I began to be interested in feminist theory, I wanted a life outside of being a mother (the only role I was lead to believe I would own). I began to see truth in the Pro Choice Movement, to feel sympathy for homosexuals (later I would understand this was empathy) and to see the limitations of a patriarchal religion in which I was a junior member.

The last thread of my Christianity broke during my grade 11 Catechism class, in which the premise for the course was to discuss the existence of God. I was exited at the idea of an intellectual debate, but I was disappointed to find out that the class consisted of pat replies to "why God exists" with no debate or room for interpretation.

The last mass I attended was my graduation mass, and I never looked back.

During University I discovered my homosexuality and resolved that Christianity was a religion based on hatred, exclusion, forbidding, rules and ignorance. The only part I still believed in was Jesus' original message of "love one another," which I found in other religions, and was not enough, in light of how much they did not love, to keep me in the faith. I became an athiest.

After university I discovered Starhawk and Goddess-centered spirituality through friends and co-workers. I felt a part of myself I considered dead reawakened. It contained all the elements of Catholicism I admired: ritual, community, peace, love; and none of the elements I found repulsive: ridgid rules, hatred, discrimination, forced conversion, patriarchy.

I met my partner shortly after "meeting" the Goddess, which I consider no coincidence, and we were married in a Wiccan Handfasting ceremony in May of 2005. Legally married, here in Canada, despite Christian opposition. My partner considers herself Pagan, following Wicca, buddism and humanist/athiest streams.

We plan on having children next year, and we want to raise them in the Goddess tradition.

My fall from Christianity was a sad one, but my rise to the Goddess showed me that spirituality and meaning can be experienced in ways that respect women, the earth and can be free-form, without dogma.

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