In her early youth she was a powerful one, new to the Old Ways. She bowed her head to the Goddess, clothed in nothing but the sky. With her soft hands bound and her eyes shielded, she made a promise to the heavens to learn her Craft well. She vowed to teach others with good intentions, and kindly teach protesters that their truths were myths. All paths lead to God...that she believed wholeheartedly. She was given the tools she would carry for a lifetime...an athame, a cauldron, a chalice. Maidens and Crones alike adorned her with precious stones, and gave her gifts for a life's journey. She could bleed, therefore she was a woman with the power to connect with the Moon and the Source of life. She felt strong willed and determined that her journey would be smooth, and that she would fare well. Somewhat naive, she was sure her days would be filled with loving people, using herbs and oils to heal the ailments of others, helping those distressed, and learning what the Goddess held in store for her in this life and beyond.

She was kissed on the forehead by her High Priestess. That kiss marked a milestone in her life. Her world would never be the same.

She went on to live between two worlds...the magickal and the mundane. Everything looked brighter, stronger, more magnificent, more beautiful...more painful. She felt the pain from everything, and everyone. She noticed things she had otherwise taken for granted since her birth. She could not only simply know...but feel and hear plants growing, birds making nests, and heartbeats...hearts beating in harmony. Auras glowing, people whispering kind words to each other.

She also noticed life's dark side. Homeless women and children, people dying in hate and in the name of a God who judged others. The horrible name calling, swearing, rapes, murders, hunger....hate, hate hate. She covered her ears, but the voices and the sights did not go away. She wasn't immune anymore. She couldn't accept it as normal. She didn't want to live in this world, a world of hatred and fear.

She took solace in her studies, and sharing her love and kindness with others. She learned her joy was in helping. She carved amulets and talismans, made teas and tinctures for the woes in life. Maybe they didn't go away. But if she could help one person, then another, and another, she had a purpose. Each night she weaved a spell for Mother Earth, and that someday there would be peace, and that her love could reach farther and farther away, and into the heavens and back again. Like a boomerang, it returned to her.

As the years drifted by, she met people who challenged her beliefs, who tested the patience of her love and understanding. She was pulled in all directions, from the church to her altar. She struggled to keep the Old Ways alive, and to pass them on...to keep the fire alive in her heart. More and more she was asked for help, more and more spells were weaved, more and more energy she spent to live her days in Perfect Love and Perfect Trust.

"Will you please make him obsessed with me", the housekeeper asked. She cried and begged. "I just want to be loved".

"I'll see what I can do", she'd say. She wanted to help, and she wanted the result to be for the good of all. She tried to make people happy. After days of pleading, she rounded up the ingredients of a perfect spell. With shaking hands, she gathered a red votive candle and a ruby for passion, homemade rose incense, and a bind rune for love and partnership. She wrote a simple rhyming incantation with Dove's Blood Ink ("made only of herbs", she assured others) on parchment paper. When the ingredients were ready, she put them in a large manilla envelope along with a note. "Please use this in good faith. Pray only for love, and it will come to you. Pray for obsession and you will need 911". With a blessing and a kiss she set the envelope beside her door.

The housekeeper is now married with two sons.

Many times she did spells like these for herself and others. Sometimes her intentions were not clear enough, and she learned that the hard way many times. Still, she took joy from her magickal life...even got lost there at times. There were times when she realized she was not as powerful and conscientious in her mundane life...

She herself ached for love. She herself wanted to be healed by a touch. She still needed money to pay her bills, she still needed to work to get paid. She still dealt with crisis, and watched people die. She was powerful to a point. But she couldn't stop life and the laws of nature from taking place. There was only so much white light she could shed on the world without interfering with the workings of the Lord and Lady. Deity was in her heart, but she could not play that higher power.

Wearing her sacred pentacle was a pride and a power for her, but she watched it cause hatred in others. She wore it inside her cloak or her everyday clothes, hiding a part of herself. As time went by, she grew tired of hiding, and her magick lost the touch it once had. Her spells wouldn't work, and she succombed to misfortune over and over again. Tired and at a loss, she packed her altar and her tools. She occassionally sat watching the moon with a candle burning in her room, and a crystal on the sill of her window. The smell of lavender oil burning helped her fall asleep, and her Monthly Mystery tea warmed her belly and helped her womanly aches and pains. She was no longer attuned to the moon, as her menstration was out of sink with its Fullness. Seldom she would make dream pillows as gifts, grinding herbs to heal a friend from physical or emotional pain.

She continues her life mostly in the mundane, teaching others the Old Ways, but she hopes they will remind her of her early youth. When she was clothed in nothing but sky, and made a promise to the Goddess. She watches young children reading their horoscopes on the floor of the New Age section of Lauriats. She hopes they are aware. She smiles like a mother, hoping her children don't play with matches. She throws a quick glance upwards and silently mutters

"Take care of them, would you?"

She walks the beach in the evening, in her magickal cloak once more, her pentacle silently thumping her chest. Taking in the sky, and the beauty of nature...the sand, the surf, nature at its finest and most pure in this ill world. A happy, giggling child runs up to her....

"You look spooky...are you a Witch?"

She bends down, looking the young girl in the eye. Feeling her soft, auburn hair blowing with the breeze, she smiles a gentle smile. She winks, and continues onward, feeling the Goddess with her in every step.