Below is a letter I emailed to friend in the craft and a few others earlier today. My friend had just engaged in a debate with a recently confirmed catholic friend of theirs. The debate was not planned, and stemmed from a little catching up. The insinuation that one must believe in satan if they are Wiccan was made, and there was a little bit of additional dogmatic sparring. Nothing harmful was said, but a pleasant conversation did seem to get a bit uncomfortable. Moreover, it raised a whole series of questions for my friend. Most notably the question of how do we get others to see the world as we see it, and get it? I paraphrased here, but you get the idea. You can tell from my response below that the conversation ran the gamet...

I posted this last year following the passing of my dear friend John Chadwick. We knew him as Chad. It was about this time on November 4th last year that I got off a plane in Detroit to find out he had crossed over into the Summerlands follwoings a courageous battle with cancer. Not a day passes that I do not think of him, or his family. I wrote this in the midst of raw emotion. It's unedited, and I wanted to share it in remembrance of a man who made this crazy world a better place in his own unique way.

Til' next my brother.

“Since when do YOU pray?” was a question posed to me recently on my Facebook wall. It was posted as a comment to my status that evening which was the Serenity Prayer.

I hate to steal a Beatles lyric as the title of this blog entry, but it seems most appropriate. I have been on a journey for the last 7 and a half months, and I have finally gotten to a point where I realize I must share my experience of personal healing and recovery. I do this to help myself, as well as to help anyone who may find a flicker of hope through the bright light that is brutal honesty for me.

I was pretty lucky to have grown up with such a rich family heritage that stretches from the Ukraine back through Western Europe to Wales. With Ostara approaching a very vivid childhood memory has continued to appear over and over in my mind.

As a very young child I was always amazed at the intricate egg decorating that was done by my Grandfather Petre, Great Uncle Joe, and Great Aunt Mildred. They had emigrated to the US from the Ukraine shortly after the Bolshevic (sp) Revolution. The men were Kossacks, and overall I am told lived a very humble life off of the land. Decorating the eggs, or Pysanky, as they are called was a very important ritual for them. It was also a great contradiction because they were Byzantine Catholics, and the practice of any pagan rituals big or small was...well you know the story. Anyway, the eggs or Pysanky were always beautiful, and delicate. Thus, they were always put up out of reach from us children.

While my grandfather passed away 35 years ago, and Uncle Joe and Aunt Mildred shortly thereafter, to this day you can find remnants of their artistry in the family home which is still occupied by my Grandmother. I'd swear many of these Pysanky have not been touched since the day they were strategically placed in their bowl or basket. Yet, they are in perfect condition. Kind of weird, but then again what would you expect from a family tree that gave birth to me.

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Yule is fast approaching, and I for one plan on taking a little of this ancient Pagan holiday back for myself, my family, and my ancestors. This is not an angry rant, as that pagan blogger of old was burned up in a cauldron long ago and sent on his merry way. Rather, these are just some of my thoughts on the coming season, and how it means so much more to me now than it ever did in years past. Yup, even those years when I was an altar boy in the Byzantine Catholic Church.

One of the more interesting events I have experienced as I've walked my path is the heightened awareness of who I am. Not because of the lessons that I have learned, or the books I have read. Rather, I am referring to getting in touch with who I "was". I remember once being told that the answers to the questions I seek were already inside. I needed only to look within.

As time has passed over these last few years I have learned much from looking within myself. Most interesting are the glimpses of where I may have walked before. Meeting friends from other ages. Recognizing as you shake their hand, or hug them for the first time in this life that you've known each other in another time and another place. I believe this is one of the greatest gifts that the Goddess bestows upon us. Not only the ability to carry lessons from past lives into the new, but also the ability to spiritually recognize those you have lived, loved, and laughed with before.

My most profound experience regarding this mystery is in my friendship with John "Chad" Chadwick, and his wife Caileah. I met them, again, at Ceremony Leather. I had recently moved to Arizona, and was having a hard time finding like minded people to associate myself with. It was tough, but when I walked into Ceremony I knew something special had just happened. Chad was behind the counter helping folks. When the place cleared out I introduced myself, and shook his hand. In that very instance I knew an "old" friend and I had found one another again. I felt the same when I met Caileah for the first time, and asked her if I could join her Year and a Day class. You see I was only a seeker at that point in time in this life. As the fates would have it I found my friend, as well as my teacher of old.

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