Introduction


Hello.

My name is _______. I have been a practitioner of magic and a member of the neo-Pagan community since I was sixteen years old; astronomical Samhain marked my twenty-ninth birthday. I have identified as a witch, specifically, for about three years now, during which time (between moving from St. Louis to Kansas City, starting a new job, attending college for the first time ever, and getting involved in a romantic relationship that is quickly approaching the one-year mark) I have been rediscovering the basics. I am looking for ways in which to give back to the community that has sheltered me for almost half my life.

I am a bisexual hedonist witch. I am a writer of fiction and a student of history – and, as such, I would like to see both better prose and better scholarship coming out of the neo-Pagan world. I am a jeweler and craftsman, and I believe that this makes me a better witch that I would otherwise be: that fire, metal, clay, and the blank page have taught me Mysteries that can be learned no other way. I have been involved with working groups for most of the last decade – most notably the WPA, now the KU Cauldron, as well as several smaller, private groups but I have always been a solitary practitioner. (Although, recently, my working group started has asking, “Have we turned into a coven?”) Out at Heartland Pagan Festival, I am known as “that guy who hangs out with Camp Taco and the Big Damn Heroes” and “that guy who always carries around a bottle of massage oil”.

Drawing on my research into and growing experience with Wiccan ritual and neo-shamanic practice, I am developing a Tradition of my own: the Obsidian Dream, named after the Void that has been my experience of the astral and inner planes. Dionysus and Hephaestus are my patron gods; I am still searching for my goddesses.

If you follow beyond this, my introduction post (Yes, the introduction post! That inteweb font of self-aggrandizement and self-mutilation!), this weblog will be a place for me to explore and share my experiences and musings, exercises and rituals, hopefully to the benefit and amusement of those who stumble across it. The primary focus will be just what the subtitle says: jewelry, hedonism, and witchcraft. But, because these things also fascinate me, there will also be some politics, history, feminism, and good, old fashioned, sex, drugs, and rock&roll. As such, while this will never become an “adult blog”, there will certainly be some discussions that are not for the immature.

Welcome, then, to this space. Thank you for joining me on my journey.