Oh boy...that is a question I have been asking for a while now. It seems as if the answers change often - or perhaps it's just that I change often.

First off, let's settle the 'concrete' facts:

• I am female.
• I am 29.
• I'm an artist.
• I follow a Pagan path - I'm a witch, to be somewhat exact.
• I drive a maroon Mazda B2200 truck.
• At the moment, I am solitary - both in practice and lifestyle. I keep to myself.
• I want a tattoo...perhaps several.
• I am owned by 12 cats.
• I live in a little blue/grey cabin in Tennessee. (Don't ask me why the previous owners painted it blue/grey...I have no idea.)
• I love storms - especially the lightning.
• I have a fascination with tornadoes despite my 1 run-in and 2 close calls with them.

So. Now on to the more nebulous stuff. Don't ask me what the name of my path is - it doesn't have one. I don't believe in giving it name - it's just too limiting. Sometimes even labeling it as 'pagan' or 'witch' is limiting but hey, you gotta explain it somehow. I've always been fascinated by witches (gotta love the fact that we had/have Samantha Stevens (Bewitched) as a role model!), ghosts and all things 'paranormal'. Then again, sometimes I feel as if it was unavoidable - there was always something going on! But that's whole 'nother story...

I have always been a 'wood sprite' - when I was a kid, I couldn't wait to get home from school so that I could go for my daily 2-3 hour walk in the woods. It was, for me, like being among the best friends I'd ever had. Sometimes, the trees would 'speak' to me - telling me about things were on the wind as being in the future. I never even dreamed that other people felt the way I did about nature until I was 17 and I read an article in FATE magazine about the rebirth of witchcraft. Suddenly, I had a religion on my hands! The first book I read on the subject was Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler after it was recommended by a perfect stranger who was also in the 'esoteric' section at the time.

Since then, my path has made many turns. I've studied wicca; shamanism - from native american to celtic to core, creative visualization (oh yeah...that was hard, being an artist and all...:-P), mythology and whatever I could get my hands on. I watched the whole birth of the 'New Age' movement but generally didn't get involved with it - it all just seemed so hokey; saccharine sweet and rose - colored. I read a few Shirley MacLaine books and that was about it. (I did feel sorry for all those crystals that had to put up with the silliness, though. ;->)

Lately, my path has taken me into the shadows. Don't get me wrong - I don't mean 'evil'. I mean dealing with stuff that you don't normally see in the mainstream...if paganism can be called mainstream. You hear until your ears turn blue about the loving, often creative, fluff bunny force of the goddess but hardly ever about the flip side - the tough, sometimes destructive, bitch goddess or the goddess who will introduce you to your shadow side and show you it's strengths as except for a brief "Oh yeah - that happens too."

So, here is the crux of what I believe: Not everything is fluff bunny goodness (thank the gods! I'd die of insulin shock if it were!) There can't be Light without the Darkness to compare it - and vice versa. How would you know otherwise? There can't be life without death. There can't be creativity without some destruction...and there I am, dancing in the mist of it all. So mote it be.

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