May Eve, 1973: I’m standing at the edge of the Circle, bound and blinfolded, and I feel a sword touch my body. I involuntarily startle, even though I knew it was coming.

I hear the questions, and make my responses. I enter the Circle.

And nothing has ever been the same. 🙂

Thus began my “formal” studies in Witchcraft, through the Church of Wicca of Bakersfield. I was an initiate of the second of what would become numerous covens of the Georgian Tradition. That Tradition is still ongoing, although the founder, George Patterson, has long since passed on, as has my Initiator, “Lady Aphrodite”.

By 1975, I was already changing the focus of my personal practice towards that of Lady Gwen Thompson and her New England Covens of Traditionalist Witches, a process that would continue slowly until 1993, when I was elevated into the High Priesthood of that line.