Halloween is just over a week from now. It’s odd, to not be making preparations for coven feast, and decorating the covenstead, but those activities have been in abeyance for the last few years.

Life happens, as they say. As our coven has aged, so too, have our members, and some have moved on – some to other pursuits, some to other places, and some to other realms.

This Hallows, I am remembering in particular an old acquaintance, Corby Ingold, who was an Elder in the Seattle Pagan Community. Corby passed over a year ago, on his 66th birthday, much as I believe he knew he would, for in the months prior he had made comments that indicated he knew his time here was short.

Corby had studied with many of the early pioneers of the American Craft movement, from Joseph Wilson to Bonnie Sherlock, and I have no idea how many others, from so many paths, druidic, wiccan, witch, shaman, native.

Just over a year ago, Corby suffered a stroke at his place of employment, and he never recovered. This was doubly saddening for me, as our friendship had been bitterly strained several years earlier, and I had resolved to attempt to mend it before Hallows last year – before I heard of his stroke, which had taken place a week before I learned of it. There was then no way of mending it.

If there is a moral to this tale, it is simple: don’t wait.

Goodbye, Old Crow. Maybe we’ll meet the next time around.