Happy Happy!

Beltane is almost upon us again! An excuse for us neglectful bloggers to start fresh. It's actually starting to feel moderately springy here in the Midwest, and if you can ignore fuel prices, long commutes, the crash of the housing market, and the tenuous grip on solvency that the Airline has got, it's a pretty good day!

I'm setting up a new Wicca 101 class with my friend E. We're the public faces of our respective covens, and we've been inundated with requests from seekers who find our listing on The Witches' Voice. Since there's really nothing in this area for newbies, we decided to put our witchy heads together and create a class. E. knows the owner of a local New Age/Metaphysical shop, and they've very generously offered to let us use their classroom space.

We're tremendously excited and also quite nervous, since this is the first real classes we'll have taught. We've got an absolute metric ton of information we want to cover but we don't want to overwhelm the students.

My personal view of Wicca is a little more traditional than E's (who is much, much more eclectic than I). He's also tremendously crafty and has mad skills when it comes to blending oils, incenses, sewing, weaving, and creating ritual robes from twigs and bits of fluff. I will depend on him to keep everyone's attention while I am droning on about Proto-Indo-European religion and Gerald Gardner.

I met a lovely Alexandrian High Priestess after we posted the class announcement, and she has graciously agreed to take a look at the class outlines and offer feedback. I met with her once for coffee and spent three hours discussing teaching approaches, British Traditional Wicca, the Chicago pagan community, and people we (mutually) knew. When I was living in CO, I hooked up with an Alexandrian HPs but had to drop out of the (fairly intense) training due to my work schedule. I've not lost interest in that particular path, so it was fun to meet another Alexandrian, especially since the BTW community here is so underground as to be practically invisible (yes, unless you know where to look, I can hear my former HP saying).

Anyway, I tried not to flatter her too much and bug her to take me as a student. Well, I did, a little. I couldn't help it. This is a path that I've always wanted to get back onto, and I promised myself that if I got another opportunity, I would not pass it up. I hope it works out.

Now go light a candle and get all Barry White on someone. It's mandatory for Beltane.