Creating Your Own Reality - Help with Insomnia

For years, I had almost nightly insomnia. I still have occasional bouts where, as I've heard many people describe it, my brain “simply won't shut up!” On these nights, I have developed a mental exercise that has helped me. I thought it would be a good idea to share it, since I know many people have this problem. It has come to my attention that when you have a brain that is overactive, training it to “chew” on something else is the key. So, I created this bit of “mental bubblegum” and it works really well!

Visualize yourself at the top of a very tall staircase. It is three flights big, each flight comprised of 100 stairs. There are two mid-point landings between the stairs where the stairs themselves take a 90 degree turn from the last flight. The stairs themselves can be made out of any type of wood, stone or metal of your choosing. Mine are marble with lovely hand carved wooden railings beside them. Around the stairs, is a combination art museum and library and as you walk down the stairs, you're going between floors. Usually about 2-3 floors per flight of 100 stairs.

Counting backward from 100, slowly take the stairs and upon each stair, pause a moment to look around at the beautiful artwork and amazing volumes of knowledge that are placed artistically all around you. See what kind of wood or metal or stone the book shelves are made of and what color the frames on the artwork are or who created the sculptures in your museum. Notice the color of the walls, any windows that exist. Are the windows plain or stained glass? Are they tinted or is your museum and library enclosed completely?

Here is the key though – and a sometimes frustrating part of the game:

You have to keep count of which stair you're on and on which flight of stairs you're on at any given moment. If you lose track, you have to go back to the beginning at the top of the staircase and start again.

What you're doing is giving both sides of your brain something to do.  The left brain is busy counting while the right brain is busy looking at art!  This exercise is not only a game for your brain, but it is also a great self-examination exercise. You'll find that depending on your mood, the décor will change. The artwork will shift and the books will change topic and volume. You'll learn to tell a great deal about yourself by the colors of your walls and windows, the materials of your staircase, etc. These are all little keys to self-knowledge that are really helpful.  

I found in keeping track of my meditations of this sort, that several things became true for me. 1) It was rare that I actually made it down all three flights of 100 stairs before I fell asleep. 2) What type of activity my brain was focused on would be largely determined to change the museum pieces and library portions would often increase and decrease in number of layers if my mind was particularly cluttered. 3) On the rare occasion I didn't fall asleep by the bottom flight, I generally was asleep by the second run of the stairs.

One other key is to pause – but keep your count – with each stair. The pause is yourself taking a breath, a moment to observe the world around you and not just “run the stairs” as you would for basic cardio-exercise. This also translates in the conscious world to “stopping to smell the roses” and if you find that a greenhouse or garden works better for you than an art museum and library, go for it. But the point is to give your mind several different things to “chew” on instead of itself or your day to day problems.

Let me know how it goes for you! I always love hearing other people's stories! Good luck and better rest!   

Supporting Clergy in 21st Century Wicca

I have been active Wiccan Clergy for more than 25 years now. I have watched as the role of Wicca in society has experienced its metamorphosis from the hidden, secretive Coven style practices of the post-Burning Times into the beautiful, government-recognized and supported mainstream Church-based faith it is today. I have also watched the role of Clergy develop and some fairly logical things that are missing from the equation absolutely amaze me. We never stop to think about what we can do for our Clergy rather than what they can do for us and we still can't seem to learn from other mainstream faiths what it is to support our Clergy appropriately to their role in our lives.

Let's look at what Clergy does for us. They are on call to their community, congregations, students and Initiates and their families 24/7. They are educators of the public – even when the public is hostile. They are advocates and network with other organizations in the community. They are counselors on mental, physical, emotional and spiritual fronts. They provide education in the Craft and often in day to day functions of living that many simply do not learn in their own lives. They go to bat for us legally when our rights are threatened or infringed upon at work, at school, in hospitals, court or general society. They are our leaders, protectors and even our healers when we are sick in mind, body or spirit or all three. They are there from birth through every facet and change of our lives clear to the grave and beyond to assist us in whatever way they may be of service. Generally speaking, they do this more than full time – especially if they have a congregation of 10 or more people to serve. They do this whether they themselves are stressed in any way, ill or dealing with their own personal lives and they do it without complaint. They even do all these things, many times, at the sacrifice of their personal time with their spouse or children, their own personal magickal practice, as well as their basic sleep and living patterns.

However, they are also have needs to be met of an everyday nature. They need food, gas for their vehicles to get from place to place to handle life and our needs as their congregants and community members, supplies to support their lives and their Craft – as well as those of the Church. They have rent or mortgages, electrical bills, phone bills (which we often run up for them in counseling sessions) and everything we ourselves struggle with every single day. They even occasionally have their own “emergencies” like car repairs, home repairs and hospital bills to pay! Opps, that's right – their human!

Magick is a wonderful thing, but the idea that they can twinkle their noses and ritual supplies appear or that there is some secret squirrely way they simply pull financial backing out of their backsides is ludicrous. The idea that they can serve multiple people on a multitude of levels and somehow find the resources to support or build an actual Church without assistance and support of all kinds is illogical. Further, its tremendously selfish of us, as congregants and Initiates, not to take into consideration that they should have time to get well themselves if they are ill or to grieve if they lose a loved one close to them, but should instead, be at our beck and call to answer our needs instead.

I have seen people coming to us perfectly willing to pay for books written by us, take classes for which there are charges involved, go to events we suggest they attend that can cost them sometimes hundreds of dollars to go to when all the financial requirements are said and done. But to spend the equivalent of their monthly junk food or coffee habit bill – say $20/month or a bit more, when they can – on the general support of the Church's needs itself is seen as “too Christian” to be supported or somehow insulting to The Craft itself. This kind of thinking is utterly uneducated to my mind.

If you are willing to spend $20/month on foods or habits that harm your body, why would you not be willing to spend that same money on the very body and people that give you balance, comfort and guidance in every facet of your life – not simply the spiritual or magickal ones? Where do you think the rent/mortgage on a Church building or Circle space, the bills for such like electricity and water and the supplies provided for rituals are supposed to come from? It isn't like we're demanding a 10% tithe of your total income here. We are simply asking that there be some form of reliable support coming in so that we can afford to remain on call doing the full time (and more) job of supporting our congregants, students and initiates without also having to hold down one or two other full time jobs (which often impinge on our ability to do full time Clergy support due to attendance regulations of that outside job) to pay those Church-related expenses. Would we truly prefer, as congregants, to have to try to put something like a birth or death in our family on hold until our Clergy gets off work to serve us? No, of course not.

So, the next time you think that your problems in paying the bills on your life and yours alone, think about your Clergy, please. Understand that they do all the things we struggle with in life for themselves AND every single person in their congregation and the overall community which they serve. Please truly see the gift that our Clergy and Elders are to your Community, not just as Wiccans or Pagans but as people and perhaps stretch yourself a bit to give a little something extra back for those gifts. Whether it be a dish you've cooked for their freezer, picking up an extra set of quarter or altar candles when you're getting some for yourself that you then donate to the Church or Circle, handing them an extra $10 or $20 on payday – or even just paying monthly church dues on time – remember your gifts are what make the entire Church and Circle stronger and help it to function reliably every single day. As Clergy, we are more than happy to serve. It would be a beautiful bit of personal growth in our community to see those that consider regular monetary support as “too Christian” would gain the understanding that it isn't “Christian” to support your Clergy and your Church – it is correct balance for the needs of the Pastoral staff and the group as a whole. It is human.

Healing, the Shamanic Way - Self- Diagnosis

There is an old axim in Shamanic Healing.  When illness hits the physical, mental or emotional bodies, a good Shaman will ask "When did you stop dancing?  When did you stop singing?"  In other words, when did you stop doing the things that lighten your heart and get you outside your own experience into the one the whole world enjoys together?  When did you become so self-absorbed that you forgot you're connected to the world around you and to other beings?

In Shamanic healing, illness of all kinds - whether physical, mental or emotional in its manifestation, begins in the spiritual realm.  So when we begin to look at illnesses, chronic or acute, as well as injuries we may give ourselves on a regular basis, we have to look at what they're connected to outside our bodies that is trying to get our attention.  Shamans believe that if illness or dis-ease (look at that carefully) can't get your attention in the spiritual realm, it will manifest in the mental.  If it can't get your attention there, it will move into the emotional.  And if it still can't get your attention, then a physical illness will manifest.

We must look at what the illness or injury does for us.  Does it keep others feeling sorry for us?  Does it give us a false sense of support when others are drawn in by our dis-ease to try to comfort us?  Is it connected to anger, to fear, to self-loathing or simply a lack of healthy self-love?  Are we denying ourselves something or giving ourselves an over abundance of something that's bad for us?  Are we covering up the real problem with temporary symptoms to try to distract ourselves from the appropriate actions that would alleviate the problem for good?  Do we just have really bad self-control?  Or do we have overall problems with a sense of control by other's expectations of us?  Where does the problem REALLY lie?

Further - are you strong enough to be truthful with yourself and DO something about it that will last?

If you deal with feeling stressed out all the time and find yourself having migraines, for instance,  you might want to take a bit more time to think about what's really bothering you.  Likewise, if you have a "stress gut" or ulcers, think about what's "eating you alive" and what you're "not digesting" about yourself or your life.  IBS is directly connected to having things in one's self or life that they are not "digesting" properly and often is directly connected to ego problems.  Likewise, migraines, high blood pressure and a lot of stress related illnesses have to do with areas in your life where lack of acceptance is the problem.

So, when you're trying to see why you keep getting every cold that walks through the door at work or why allergies kick your seasonal butt or why you keep having pain in an old injury, look at it a bit more closely - with a Shamanic eye and an open heart.  LISTEN to your body!

Look at part of the body is it effecting?  Is it a once in a lifetime injury or is this something that plagues you regularly?  Is it seasonal?  Does it happen when you're getting ready to do something specific - like going to visit certain family members?

Then look at what the body part its effecting does for you.  Your head is about your thought processes.  Its also about how you're accepting (or IF you're accepting) help from above - from the Divine, the Universe and the Higher Selves of those around you.  Do you have problems thinking you're worthy of Divine help?

If it is in your throat, what are you having trouble communicating or swallowing in life just then?  Are you stifling ideas or thoughts you've had?  Are you silently screaming and feel no one hears you?

If its your chest, your breathing - are you accepting Love?  Are you giving Love?  Is the Love that is flowing from you pure or is it tainted with expectations?  Are your thoughts, inspirations and "air" related components flowing through you - to and from you - or are you squelching them and denying yourself the right to "breathe"?  Is someone around you impairing your ability to "breathe"?

If it is your stomach, look first at the foods you're eating.  Are you loving yourself with the right foods or are you feeding yourself crap and expecting good performance anyway?  Are you "digesting" what life is throwing at you or are you rebelling against it?  Are you seeing clearly any issues with your ego or are you denying what is right in front of you because it doesn't mesh with pre-conceived notions about the outcome you might be harboring?

If it is in the intestines, look a deep seated needs, wants and desires.  Are they being fulfilled or are you stuck?  Are you feeling like you're on the right path or are you backed up to old patterns again?  Are you clearing the way of your own bullshit?  Or are you still fooling yourself in some way?

If it is in your legs, knees, ankles or feet, generally it has to do with the path you're on.  Again, are you content on your path?  Are you fighting it?  Are you sticking to old patterns and tripping over old problems?  Are you watching where you're walking, what you're saying and doing?  Or are you just blithely going along and falling on your face regularly?

When healing from the inside out, we must first be ready to look at ourselves honestly.  Then, we must be willing to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for both the mistakes and their resulting injuries to ourselves.  Then, we must LOVE OURSELVES enough to correct those mistakes and make the commitment to ourselves not to make the same mistakes again.

I heard it said once by a wise counselor I know who was counseling someone that was making the same mistakes in their life over and over and over again, "Why," asked the Counselor, "do you do the same things over and over again if you know the results aren't what you're seeking?"

"I don't know." said the person being counseled.

"Well, that's just stupidity then.  I can't fix stupidity.  But, you can." said the Counselor, smiling with encouragement.

The point here is, folks, don't consign yourself to misery.  Be honest.  Be forgiving with yourself.  We're all human and we make mistakes.  But have the strength and fortitude to NOT make the same mistakes repeatedly.  The answers don't change, just for trying the mistake again!

Also, in the name of appropriate self care -- DO NOT USE THESE GUIDELINES INSTEAD OF SEEING A PHYSICIAN if you're truly ill.  They are designed to help you increase wellness and your own sense of well-being, but they are never meant to take the place of appropriate medical care.  If you need assistance, whether it be mental, emotional or physical, seek the appropriate assistance immediately.

Love & Light to your Spirit! :)

The Magick of Thought - Dealing with Depression

I have suffered from depression most of my life.  In my family, it is a genetic pre-disposition, as well as a product of what foods are ingested, what medications are taken for other physical or mental issues and how much exercise is engaged in.  For generations, we have suffered and even died from this chemistry-based problem.  I've recently come to realize this is far more of a life-choice than I was taught to think of it as I grew up.  Until well into my adulthood, I was taught by society and my family's experience to think this was a condition to which I'd been consigned and there was "no hope" other than seeking the assistance of the medical profession to give me "corrective medication."  How wrong I, my grandmother's generation of family and society were when it came to how much control I had over how I think and feel!

The hypothalamus, our brain's pharmacy, is responsible for all chemical cascades through whose filters we look at our lives.  From happiness and contentment, even bliss and ecstasy to depression, suicidal ideology, fear and anxiety are all experienced by us thanks to the chemical cascades produced by this one little organ in the brain.  Furthermore, it is our body's nature that when certain chemical cascades are produced more than others - whether they be positive or negative ones - our body's cells literally become addicted to those particular cascades!  If we pump through it the foods, lack of exercise and thought processes that give us nothing but depression, anxiety, fear and anger, that is what we become addicted to until we start believing we cannot change it!  WRONG!

The secret here to understand is - the hypothalamus, our own personal little pharmacopoeia, is fully programmable and completely able to be changed for the better!  Even if you feel like it when you begin, you are not out of control!  You are fully in control of every cascade your brain produces that tricks your body into thinking that you are consigned to negative thinking and feelings for the rest of your days!  The question becomes, are you ready to take responsibility for how you think and feel on a day to day, sometimes hour to hour basis until the correct chemistry is truly in place?  Or are you going to feed the negative chemistry addictions by being lazy about your self-care?

When we eat junk food, high fat, high sugar, low nutrient foods, we pump in very little of the physical chemistry that our brain requires to give us the "happy" feelings.  Yes, things like chocolate, certain fungi, some herbs, and even some proteins can give us a very temporary "fix" for these feelings.  But over all, they do not carry enough of the actual high potency nutrient content required to sustain happiness and contentment as a lifestyle.  Likewise, when we refuse to exercise, the breakdown of our body's own fat doesn't happen nor is it cleansed from our muscles and connective tissues.  Thus, we are literally sitting in our own toxic garbage and wondering why we feel "like shit."  Well, simply put - what goes in is what comes out.
As we work to create our own reality, we must begin to realize that "loving ourselves" means eating a salad when we want a whole ice cream cake to ourselves.  Loving ourselves means taking our vitamins, as well as the medications our doctor prescribes.  Loving ourselves means meditation and/or prayer for at least 30 minutes to an hour a day instead of watching that favorite soap opera.  Loving ourselves means drinking 42-60 ounces of water a day instead of a case of "diet" pop.  Loving ourselves means getting up off our backsides and walking, breathing, consciously smiling - even when it hurts, at first.  Change often hurts, until the new and more healthy pattern is in place.  However, the end results don't hurt - they are ecstatic, wonderful and beautiful to behold!

Here is something to consider -- It takes about 4-6 weeks and sometimes as long as 12 weeks for any new change in our lives to truly take hold and begin to make us feel better for the long term.  So if you're one of those people that tries something new for a week and then loses your focus and stops or gets erratic about it, you can't really expect the changes you're seeking, can you?  What you should do in those circumstances is look at the fact that you're failing yourself when you stop and actually feeding the cascades of disappointment in yourself that lead to other cascades of depressive thinking and feeling.  In other words, you're feeding your old addiction instead of creating a new one that will truly make you feel better.

Addiction is a word we've become programmed to think of as a negative.  But if you're creating an addiction to happiness, is it really all bad?  No.  The products of negative thinking addictions are definitely self-destructive in all the worst ways - body, mind and soul.   However, creating positive cascades that our body can then become attached to is a process that, although a bit time-consuming, is so very worthwhile that you really can't come up with good enough excuses not to do it!  Consigning yourself to misery every day is a CHOICE!  I truly pray for you that you choose to love yourself enough to begin the positive changes TODAY -- and keep going for the rest of your life!

Please understand, I'm not advocating that you quite any corrective medication that you may be on to try simply thinking and eating better as your personal solution!  ALWAYS do any strong life changes with your doctor's knowledge and approval.  But I don't know a single physician that disagrees with what I've written here.  In fact, many of you will have heard these things from them already for years.  "Eat right, exercise, meditate - they're good for you!"  Well, frustrating as it may be, they're right!  Remember, what goes in is what comes out.  So, if you want to feel better, put DOWN  the bag of potato chips and container of dip and go have some berries, cherries or other power packed super food!  If you need it sweet, have honey and cinnamon on it (a natural pain relief compound!)  If you want to stop thinking negatively, SNAP OUT OF IT - you are your mind's controller, not the other way around!  Watch a funny video, have someone tell you a joke, write a silly poem!  It is in the practices of allowing ourselves out of the shackles of "restraint" to the negative that we begin to grow!

Know this, my readers - you can change your lives.  In a single season of one year, you can change more than 30 years of suffering.  I know because I've done it!  I did it by eating right, putting down soda and picking up water, mowing my lawn and gardening (3 acres of it!) for exercise and taking up daily meditation for at least one hour a day (sometimes split in two or three 20-30 min sessions, but still!)  The changes are happening for me, dear readers!  They can happen for you too!

I Love you, my readers - even those of you I've never met!  I hope you will love you too!  I wish you ecstasy every day for the rest of your lives!  Start gifting yourself with happiness today!

Magick is about Change!

It is believed in the Wiccan world that we create our own reality.  Yet, for many, the concept of doing that - HOW we go about creating our better reality through correct thought followed up by correct action to manifest reality different than it might have been without our influence - often eludes people.  In doing a great deal of research on concepts of Quantum Physics and how those concepts are applied to the practice of Magick, I have found some key points that have become life changing for me on this note.  I hope, in sharing them, they will likewise help you!

I have made a weekly meditation of watching the movie "What the Bleep?! - Down the Rabbit Hole."  In this movie, it is clearly illustrated how the realities created by thought patterns influence our lives.  There is a segment in this movie regarding the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto, a Japanese gentleman who has done an amazing study on the influence of thought energy on water molecules.  In his study, he takes a small amount of water as it comes, without anything added to it.  Then takes the same water and has a thought projected into it and retakes the photographs of the frozen molecules.  The absolute beauty of thoughts like Love, Joy and Peace are irrefutable.  Likewise, the ugliness of thoughts like Hatred, Killing and other negative thought patterns defuse the molecules into unorganized globules that, by far, hold less beauty and even less cohesion than positive thoughts.  If you haven't seen Dr. Emoto's work before, here is the link to his website where you can do your own research. http://www.masaru-emoto.net/english/water-crystal.html

Now, here is the key that brought this set of lessons truly home for me. 

Our bodies down to the cellular level are over 80% water.  So, if the thoughts we concentrate on most every day are illness, pain, guilt, hatred, hardship, blockages and other negative aspects of our lives, what are we doing to ourselves??  How can we remain positive and cohesively moving forward in our lives while we allow ourselves the addiction to these negative emotions?!  Frankly, we can't.   Brain chemistry is just as addictive as any other form of chemical addiction.  So, in keeping to these thought patterns, we consign ourselves to misery.  Yet, for many, these thought pattern addictions are just as hard to fight off as an addiction to cigarettes, alcohol or drugs - sometimes harder, because we are, at first, unaware of them as addictions.  However, just because a task is difficult, doesn't mean its impossible.  You DO have the power to change it!  You simply have to be brave enough to try and keep trying, over and over and over again.

If you find that you are too stuck in the ruts of your own thought patterns, examine what it is those thought patterns are doing for you. What other responses in your life are they justifying? Does your pain justify you being angry with the world? Does your anger with the world, your body or others keep you feeling somehow "right" in carrying forward that negativity to the point of self-detriment? What is that guilt feeding? What is that blame feeding? Why is it necessary to continue with these negative thoughts? Do you find you feel safer there somehow? 

After some long self-study, I realized I had many negative thought patterns that I had allowed myself to wallow in daily, sometimes hourly, that desperately needed to be broken.  So, after doing my movie-meditation one day, I decided to give myself a test.  For 30 days, I made a habit of getting into my bathtub and soaking on a nightly basis before bed, while meditating and chanting to myself "I Love Myself!  I Love My Life, My Home and My Path!  I Love Myself!  I am filled with Joy and I am at Peace!!!"  During this meditation/chant, I envisioned my bathwater being infused with these feelings down to the molecular level and my own cells, organs and body aligning with those same feelings, thus immersing myself in this loving, positive cocoon of Love, Joy and Peace.  Likewise, for that same 30 days, I made a habit of taking a 64 oz. glass of water and infusing it with these same thoughts, envisioning the water glowing a vital, life-giving blue green color.  If I had time outside of work to accomplish it, I did the water charging and drinking more than once a day. 

I can vouch for the fact that by the time that 30 days of these combined exercises in infusing myself, inside and outside, with these positive thoughts, I DID begin to feel a positive change!  I, who has suffered with depression, generalized anxiety disorder, chronic pain issues and more which I had allowed to keep me in a cycle of suffering began to see the world differently!  I began to wake up smiling.  Even on days I was in serious pain, I still smiled!  I felt happy, productive and able to cope far better.  I haven't had an anxiety attack in 3 months now and on days when I still feel depressed, I realize I have control!  I CAN change my reality!

You can do it too!  YOU ARE THE MAGICK!!!!  If you find that your path isn't going as you wish it to go, change it for the better!  It takes work and focus, but that doesn't mean you aren't able to do it and it doesn't mean you're not worth it!  You ARE worth making an effort for the better in your every day life!  You ARE Worthy!!!  I BELIEVE IN YOU!!! You CAN do this! You CAN have a better reality every single day of your life than you've had up to this point!

Try my little experiment and see if it doesn't help you!

Bright Blessings for your ever-present Success!!

Lessons Taught by a Two-Year Old Angell

Mother Goddess, Father God... today you have reclaimed a gift you loaned our lives.  Ryver returns to your hands today.  We look forward to the day when we will see her smiling face again and thank you for the blessing of her presence and its many lessons.  My granddaughter, Ryver KayLynn Ryelie Angell is once more a star in your fermament.  May her shining memory remind us all daily how important love truly is.

This is for the sweetest Ryverbug the world ever was blessed to hold…with all my love, Nana.

Lessons Taught by a Two-Year Old Angell

A gentle touch gets a gentle touch,

So does Love multiply times Love times infinity in return…
Problems and weights of the world shared by love…
Are less than half what they are on their own.

 

A blessing is the smile your loved one gives
Just because you walked into the room
Comfort is Mother’s Touch, Father’s Arms and Sissy kisses…
Relief is relying on Family’s good heart and strong tunes...

 

Tears cried for good reasons are good to cry
Tears cried for strife are good too
Hugs given “just cus” are the best ones, go on, give ‘em a try!
Kisses are luvins sweeter still, especially the ones ‘tween you and i

 

Naps are good and so are nuggets, no matter the kind of day
Love best, Love true, Love always in every way
Compassion for those that hurt us, even in the name of care
Especially the ones that don’t mean to, wouldn’t by choice, no never

 

Sisters are blessings and curses, best friends, when not stealing your stuff
Nests and breakfasts and secrets and dressup are important, not those “hard” answers
Through all the hellish, my family’s love made me tough
They called me a warrior, but in the mirror… I’m a little dancer!

 

Remember me with smiles and song, remember me dancing in sunlight

Remember me as growing up with you, strong, straight, upright
Remember that I hear you and see you and love you all the while
Remember I haven’t gone far away, I’m as close as your next smile

 

Give love, even when it hurts, give it all the time
Give when you’re angry and when you’re in pain, give it no matter the price
Give sweetness, not poison, not assumptions or pity
Give all the best of you there is, nothing less shall suffice

 

Dance into darkness and face your fears smiling
If you can’t baffle them with bullshit, win them with beguiling
Dance like a dervish, until you feel happy
Don’t forget where you came from, shine on even when life’s crappy

 

And Love first, Love last, Love every moment in between
Love is the greatest healer, the greatest comfort, greatest reason
Love is the brightest lesson for everyone I’ve touched
Never forget Love is most precious in every season.

 

 

...... did you get it?  No matter the question....Love *is* the best answer......

Breaking out of the Broom Closet

I have been in the Craft for nearly 30 years now and been a High Priestess for 22 of those years.  As a part of my advocacy for this faith, I did a television talk show back in the early 1990's.  "Kestryl & Company," the first talk show on the topic of Wicca, Paganism and earth-based religions, was an effort to go past the news articles that ran every Hallows - which was about the only time of year we ever got positive press and get into the more mainstream media coverage on what it was that Wiccans and Pagans truly believe and practice.  There have always been brave souls out there, like Pete Pathfinder, Bob Clarke, Laurie Cabot, Selena Fox and more who have stepped out into the modern world to help us, in this generation be brave enough to openly discuss our faith and to help the mainstream world come to its relatively new-found acceptance of our paths.  But, there is still much work to be done, both inside and outside our own communities!

When we did "Kestryl & Company", we showed rituals on that show, interviewed people from multiple paths under the Pagan umbrella and even covered "buzz" topics like addiction treatment on the show.  We were proud of our work, but we were far from popular for it, inside or outside of our Pagan community.  I am, however, completely gratified to see that - as the old song says - "Times, they are a-changin!"

Thanks to people like Belladonna Laveau - the Arch Priestess of the ATC, Terry and Amanda Riley from Southern Delta Church of Wicca-ATC, Tim and Edwina Rickman of Apple Oak Grove-ATC, Sonya Hill-Miller and Brian Miller from Temple of the Sacred Gift-ATC, Alfred Willowhawk & Willo Wellspring of Wite Rayvn Metaphysical Church of KS & MO - ATC and so many more around the world who have bravely stepped out of the broom closet and into the limelight.  Thanks to them, we have outlets available now that were not available to us, even just those 20 years ago.  We have beautiful, wise and strong leaders to help us to share the difficult, but positive steps taken by previous generations which now allow us to work even harder toward our faith's goals.  Along with others who have grown along side me, I look with hope toward one day being able to look across the veil to see future generations walking their Wiccan path shoulder to shoulder with other faiths without blinking an eye or having a thought for the dangers so many have faced about practicing their faith openly in previous generations. 

In that same 20 year time frame, this faith has grown by leaps and bounds on so many levels.  I remember interviewing Grandmother Elspeth on our show back in 1991 before there were Crone's Councils firmly in place across the country as we find them now and talked about how desperately the collective wisdom of Elders, Sages and Crones was needed across the country.  Now, just this weekend, I witnessed yet another Sage brought into the fold of Wiccan Sages & Crones - my second witnessing of such in a year's time- and it was with great joy and honor that we witnessed this rite. I am told I can also look forward to seeing more Crones recognized soon as well!  This development is so refreshing and so has been so very needed!  Especially for those whose calling is to seek to do more than just the localized, Coven/Covenstead path, but to work in the greater overall national community!  Finally, there are places to seek advice, to find wise counsel with those of greater experience and to seek the knowledge required of both our faith and the laws of the land through which they have fought to gain us this stronger ground.  Unlike much of society who seems to throw away its Elders, Wiccans and Pagans revere the blessing of Wisdom we have within them and I, for one, am proud to be under their care! 

We have seen the battle fought and won to see the US government recognize our faith as holding its own legal standing alongside other mainstream faiths. We have seen our Wiccan and Pagan veterans recognized under their faith for their service and to gain them rights for appropriate burial symbols as they are laid to rest.  We have seen people across the country gain new and previously unheard of support from their employers regarding taking their faith holidays off from work and toward receiving benefits that other faiths have enjoyed for decades now.  Yet, even among our own communities, there is still much work to be done to come up to the standards of proper community living set before us by the living example of our Wiccan and Pagan Elders, Sages & Crones of today.

I have seen it said as recently as the last six months that to have things like community service contracts with mainstream businesses in place so that we can better serve our greater community's elderly and handicapped needs being touted as "selling out our faith to "The Man"!" and I am aghast.  The work done by our faith's Elders to gain those sorts of agreements is AMAZING and without them, so many would still be struggling and afraid to even speak to their communities - much less to serve those needs outright as their group's Charity effort!  Resources of all kinds are to be shared!  SERVICE is the basis of our entire Clergy calling in the Wiccan path!  Caring for our community is the heart of Wiccan belief.  So, how can it be a bad thing when we are seeing a single Wiccan church in the most conservative part of our country makes such undeniably positive steps toward those awesome community goals?! 

ALL forms of service are not only valid, but worthwhile and needful in our communities across this country!  We cannot afford to nay-say others simply because they chose a different way to accomplish a goal for the greater good than we may have chosen.  If you do not believe in that sort of service, OK - don't do that particular path yourself!  The needs are many and the resources are out there, so find and do for yourself whichever path makes *you* happiest, but also cheer on your brothers and sisters of other paths in finding theirs!  THAT is what Wiccans and Pagans are all about, according to our faith!  Tearing each other's practices, beliefs and community offerings down isn't the way to build our bonds or to teach others around us how to work together - inside our faith or outside our path.  We are long past the era when separatism was considered desirable and necessary, so to perpetuate it with judgments like this one is counter-productive to the work so hard won by our Elders and does them no honor.  Wiccans and Pagans offer Tolerance where others offer judgments - so, shake your brother's and sister's hands when they make strides of this magnitude!  We are a faith of growth, beauty and LOVE - so LOVE what others do for the greater good, not just the ones you'd do yourself if you'd thought of it first!

My deepest gratitude to previous generations for all your hard work, for the sacrifices you have made so that I may walk in the Light and raise my children and grandchildren in this faith in the open!  Thank you, to those modern Leaders making so many positive steps and bringing in so much positive press!  Thank you all for allowing me to observe and participate in this growth in our individual communities and in our overall country's larger Wiccan and Pagan community!  I am deeply honored to walk beside you, to learn from your wisdom and to be counted, by some of you, among your friends and family.