Oct 2, 2026 · 57 min · 13 segments
Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I sit down with Ocean, a practicing witch since 2006, author, and dedicated Pagan community builder. With…
I too was adrift at some point, and I think that's how we all end up on this unique path because with paganism or animism in general, the sovereignty aspect of it is what made me feel safe to explore it coming from a restrictive, uh, religious background myself, not as restrictive as Baptists.
You know, the Roman Catholic Church is pretty restrictive, but it's not nearly as bad as Baptists.
Yeah, I felt the same way.
And you know, for my family, I feel like they fell into such a restrictive religion because they were just passing forward generational trauma-
... and channels that let that trauma pass through, you know, without comment, without word.
There were no boundaries about what was acceptable.
And as long as the order that was ordained from on high was kept in the home, then anything goes pretty much.
And you know, I, I think that I chose paganism because it was so open to the idea that you should speak up about anything.
You should speak up about abuse, about trauma.
You should speak up about what brings you joy.
You should speak up about, you know, what needs to change in the world.
Especially as a woman in, uh, the church, I was to be absolutely silent.
Uh, just to give you a little example of that, I was probably about five years old.
So I was, uh, in the floor playing with a toy, and my grandfather literally stopped preaching and came down off the pulpit to spank me, uh, in front of the entire church and put me back in my seat to be silent.
He just went back up and went back to preaching, and everybody, if anything, congratulated him at the end of the, the service f- because I didn't move an inch for the rest of...
I, I don't think I ever moved in church again.
[laughs]
Yeah.
That whole message of comply or else is something that does not sit right with me.
I too was adrift at some point, and I think that's how we all end up on this unique path because with paganism or animism in general, the sovereignty aspect of it is what made me feel safe to explore it coming from a restrictive, uh, religious background myself, not as restrictive as Baptists.
You know, the Roman Catholic Church is pretty restrictive, but it's not nearly as bad as Baptists.
Yeah, I felt the same way.
And you know, for my family, I feel like they fell into such a restrictive religion because they were just passing forward generational trauma-
... and channels that let that trauma pass through, you know, without comment, without word.
There were no boundaries about what was acceptable.
And as long as the order that was ordained from on high was kept in the home, then anything goes pretty much.
And you know, I, I think that I chose paganism because it was so open to the idea that you should speak up about anything.
You should speak up about abuse, about trauma.
You should speak up about what brings you joy.
You should speak up about, you know, what needs to change in the world.
Especially as a woman in, uh, the church, I was to be absolutely silent.
Uh, just to give you a little example of that, I was probably about five years old.
So I was, uh, in the floor playing with a toy, and my grandfather literally stopped preaching and came down off the pulpit to spank me, uh, in front of the entire church and put me back in my seat to be silent.
He just went back up and went back to preaching, and everybody, if anything, congratulated him at the end of the, the service f- because I didn't move an inch for the rest of...
I, I don't think I ever moved in church again.
[laughs]
Yeah.
That whole message of comply or else is something that does not sit right with me.
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