Changes in practice over the Years

Before starting writing this, I made some rooibos tea, waited for it to steep and then shared the cup with all five of my current resident deities. If you said that to me three years ago, I don't think I would've believed it. I didn't think I'd ever get to deity work or start it in any way, and now it is the main point.

Around three and a half years ago I started my journey into witchcraft. A lot of my research was very wicca-based and that's what I kind of first thought of becoming, though I still really held on to my atheistic beliefs. I didn't think there was a god, the christian god at least, so the pressure of wicca having their own God and Goddess archetypes felt weird. I was at that point only a witch who didn't believe in any gods, but learned from wiccan sources and books, thought the three-fold law was real, scoffed at baneful magick and the like. Also thankfully pretty quickly unlearned all of that, and realized that wicca with its dualistic thinking, strict rules and rituals was not the path for me. 

Interestingly before I started all of that and was still an atheist, I wondered if something like wicca would do good for me since religions often bring people hope and possible even help. This was when my friend was in the wicca rabbithole, and I didn't know that witchcraft was even a thing. Glad that I was able to Read and realize why it was not the redligion for me, but still interesting to think about that I have clearly craved something to believe in for a while. Even apparently thought about being a satanist, researched about the Morrighan of all deities... It's been a wild ride.

Wicca aside, while a lot of my early learning relied on it, a lot also came from WitchTok, which, while absolutely a terrible source for anything, introduced me to a few good practitioners of different paths and beliefs, many of which I still watch. I also did the newbie thing of doing way too much at once always, thinking that I needed to do that much to be a witch. Thankfully slowly I was able to let go of that notion and started doing way less per day, per week etc. 

While I researched some religions and some deities on and off, it was only around a year and a half ago that I sterted to do something to my interest. Though I had called myself a pagan already at that point, I don't really know what exactly I believed to be called pagan. But through wicca, to researching a "triple" (not really) goddess like the Morrighan, to researching others and ending up on Hekate. She is the goddess of witchcraft after all and has a lot of of information of her, so she would be fitting right? My practice was still all about witchcraft and deity work was never meant to become a large part of it, as I preferred to do more things like spell jars (very influenced by WitchTok). I worshipped Hekate for a while, but it didn't seem quite right, so I switched to a similar deity, my wonderful patron goddess, Nyx. And even then my practive was very witchy and not really on the theistic side, the worshipping of Nyx was more of a "side thing" (even if I did it every night...), and my main occult identity then was a "witch". 

Well it's been a year since I got contact with Nyx, and many deities have since gone and went. After Nyx came his two sons, Hypnos and Thanatos (though mainly Hypnos), then Phanes came and went, after him joined Gaia to stay for a while, after her came Hades, now joined by Circe and Vesperos. My core three are Nyx, Hypnos and Hades, the others might come and go, Nyx being the only one that I know will stay for forever. And my practice and everything is fully surrounded by them. I rarely do spells that don't involve them in one way or another, if I do, they're often for someone else. And it's been really comfortable like this, it's like someone is always there for me to help me out and give me the highest change of success. 

I no longer think of "witch" as my main identity, though I don't really know what my main identity would be. Occultist, practicioner, pagan? It's an interesting thing to think about, and one I haven't got an answer to at the moment. I've called myself a chaote and a pagan, but is there something that would combine the two? Maybe.