“Blessed Be”

Like so many of my “born again pagan” friends, I was raised in the Christian church.  Very early on, I realized that I needed a place to put my spirituality, and church was the only place I knew. I became very involved, attending on Wednesday evenings and Sundays to sing in the youth choir and participate in the youth groups there. I was fully invested, and at one point I remember crying my eyes out to my beloved grandparents because I was afraid they were going to hell. They didn’t go to church. I begged them to get saved. They tried to reassure me that their Masonic Lodge and Eastern Star groups were their ‘church’.

By the age of nine, I was already causing pastors to run in the opposite direction down the halls when they saw me coming.  Spiral notebook in hand, I would approach them with questions like, “Why are we supposed to fear a loving God? Why would a loving God send us to burn in hell for eternity for making a mistake? Isn’t gender more of a human thing? Why would something as great as God *have* a gender, and just be male?”  They would answer with, “That’s for God to know”. Or “We aren’t supposed to question God.” So many things just didn’t make sense to me. 

When I was older, I studied other religions that crossed my path, mostly through books. Reading Shirley MacLaine’s “Out on a Limb” was life-changing. I bought every Edgar Cayce paperback I could find at used book stores.  Early Stuart Wilde shifted my paradigms dramatically. I took what felt like ‘truth’ to me, from everything I studied, and I created what I call  “Millardian Philosophy”. 

I had my twins, Tabber and Taylor, on July 11, 1982. Their father and I obviously signed up for each other just to get those two humans onto the planet, but we were not supposed to stay together. Over the years my musical partner and close friend, Ginger Doss and I would have them with us in Austin, or their dad and his wife would have them in south Houston. We allowed them to live with whichever one of us they wanted to. Often, they would choose to live with me one year and their dad the next.

Tabber and Taylor were about the same age I had been when I was so completely absorbed in the church.  They were living with their dad and their stepmom this particular year, and they were due for a visit to Austin to see me and Ginger. 

Tabber was excited.  Taylor was suddenly afraid.

Unbeknownst to us, the stepmother and her father had put the fear of God into her with their Thursday evening bible studies, telling the kids that their mother was a witch and would burn in hell; and that I (and Ginger, and all of our sisters in music – their ‘Aunties’) would sacrifice them if they came to visit. 

Tabber spoke up to them and defended us. He told them they were just wrong. 

But they had really gotten to Taylor, and she was afraid to come.

Even though we had been performing at pagan festivals for years, I had never been able to share that with my kids. I knew that until they turned eighteen, I couldn’t take them to a festival, out of fear that their dad and stepmom would try to get full custody. We had always verbally had joint custody, but a pagan festival would have been just the thing to take me to court for. 

They knew I had crystals all over the house, and that I was into ‘New Age’ stuff. Ginger and Tabber both had an interest in Native American spirituality, and they would do prayers together. I knew that the kids would probably go back and tell their dad and stepmom about these things, so anything we did was fairly generic. 

The weekend they were supposed to come, I couldn’t even get Taylor to talk to me on the phone. I had to communicate through my ex-mother-in-law, whom I had never gotten along with anyway. Now, she’s telling me on the phone that my daughter doesn’t want to come visit, that she’s scared of me, of us.

I spent that weekend in bed, in the fetal position, in so much pain. I thought back to what the church had meant to me when I was a true believer. I knew all about the fear they instilled, and what that fear felt like. That my own daughter now had that same fear, of *me*, was unbearable. She had been brainwashed with lies by people who parented her, people she trusted.  

I’m not sure how I had the wherewithal, but I wrote the song “Blessed Be” in bed that weekend. I remember going downstairs to sit on the couch and find the chords I wanted on the guitar, in DADGAD tuning.  

Your interpretations seem so cold
Fear
a loving God
I have been
told so many times
Thank God
I can read
between the lines

In your hallowed halls
I learned your word
it’s the only way
my spirit heard this
different song
It’s all right
no one is wrong

(Chorus)
But you’re telling me I cannot learn
and don’t ask why the witches burned
and surely Pan’s the devil
those with horns are not of God
How odd
You’re telling me the Goddess tales
must all be lies, for God is male
Somewhere down the line
the role of Mother became odd
some of what you have been taught
you wouldn’t believe
how much I believe in
Blessed Be

You prefer to keep me in a box
with someone you call Satan
Well, I don’t have his mark
If you don’t believe
I’m of the Light, friend
you’re in the dark

I will pray my prayers
the way I please
Don’t try so hard to save me
just keep your beliefs
and I’ll keep mine
That is my religious right
out there

(Repeat chorus)
… and you judge me just as hard
When I love
and you don’t love me
but Blessed Be
Anyway

“Blessed Be“, music and lyrics (c) Lynda Millard, 1997

In conclusion, things ended up on a more positive note as the years went by. There were times that both sides of the family came together for holidays. At one point, the stepmother even got into meditation and asked me for advice. There were a few magical years that both Tabber and Taylor, no longer minors, were on the road with us at festivals, with Velvet Hammer or Dreamtrybe.

Taylor really got into spinning fire (very well!) and Tabber was our percussionist (and eventually our kit drummer) in Dreamtrybe. It took a long time, but a lot of healing occurred throughout the years. And a song was born during a very painful weekend; a song that ended up being more relatable to my ‘born again pagan’ friends than I ever could have imagined.  

Blessed Be.

For more information about Lynda Millard, including her collected articles here on Pagan Song, her bio, and links to Lynda’s sites on the web, check out Lynda Millard’s author page on Pagan Song.

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