You want to know about me? *whines* I'll try to make this as interesting as possible, but I'm not promising anything!

You may know me by several different names. Online I've gone by pkabyssinian and yshphael; in "real life" I'm known as Phaedra, PK, or just P; and witch wise I’ve used Nya and Hara as Craft Names. Various nick-names over the years have included KatGee, Phang Kitty (thanks to my college room-mate), Pookie, and I’m sure that there are others I've missed or deliberately forgotten. After trying to find a name that 'fits' I've given up and am sticking with Phaedra or the shorter PK.

Personal stuff about me: I was born on Dec. 6th making me a Sagittarius by the Western zodiac but also a Rat by the Eastern one. I'm the oldest of three children and the only girl. Every since I was very young I have felt drawn towards a paganish lifestyle, I grew up in the middle of the woods, near a creek, running wild and barefoot. And generally nekkid to boot... yeah, I was an exhibitionist until about age 5 or so. By then my mother had managed to make me stay in my clothes for more than the five minutes it took me to get outside. How embarrassing. Or bare assing. Heh, it's a joke.

I am an amateur writer and I used to ply my hand at fanfiction, mainly Weiss Kreuz with some other fandoms randomly mixed in. It's a horrible, horrible habit... one I hope my mother never learns about. I also work on original fiction, but that seems to wax and wane according to my schedule. I am hoping to one day get some of the original stuff typed up to share online but I'm fearfully self conscious about my work. I tend to think it all sucks.

Currently I'm playing at being a housewife, thanks to our recent move. I’ve also been a Nationally Certified Pharmacy Technician, an assistant at Suncoast/FYE, owned a comic store, done tailoring, and run a consignment shop. For a while in college I read Tarot, mostly in trade but a few people were kind enough to actually pay me. I constantly toy with going back to school and getting a degree in something that I’ll actually use… but I can never make up my mind. So, I’m stuck where I am. I do want to take classes to help me become fluent in Japanese – currently I can carry on a semi-lucid conversation with an eight year old.

I love reading and have many venues which I pursue. In traditional print my favorite authors are: Guy Gavriel Kay, Anne McCaffrey, Robin Wood, Anne Bishop, Jacqueline Carey, Laurel K. Hamilton, and Jane Yolen to name a few. I am also a great lover of comics... my favorite titles are Lucifer (of course), Sandman, Skelebunnies, Strangers in Paradise, and A Distant Soil. Favorite manga (Japanese comics) are anything by CLAMP, but also titles such as Mars, Gravitation, Peach Girl, Bastard!, Hana Yori Dango, Yami no Matsuei, and Saiyuki. Favorite pagan authors are Isaac Bonewitz, Margot Adler, Janet & Stewart Ferrar, and Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki.

How did I get into this whole pagan gig? Talk to my mother. I began reading at the tender age of one and a half and my mother never thought that I should stick just with “children’s books”. I was allowed to read Greek and Egyptian myths as well as J.R.R. Tolkien and Shakespeare. I won’t pretend that I understood it all, but I enjoyed the myths, especially reading the Odyssey. I was constantly delving into what seemed like other worlds populated with Gods and Goddesses that hadn't forgotten their worshippers yet, divine beings that seemed to ache for interaction with mortals who used the both the dark and the light of their Gods to try and shape their lives into something better. As a child I yearned for that divine touch, to know that the Divinity hadn't left the world and her population like a discarded toy. When I was alone I began talking to shadowy God/desses that were part mythological and part imaginary friend. As I grew older and invisible friends passed into more 'adult' avenues of thought I began to feel a decided lack of spirituality.

My mother and grandmother were determined that I would choose my own path to spirituality. My grandmother had been crushed when the Emperor of Japan was forced to admit that he wasn't the Son of the Sun, he wasn't the divine child of the Goddess. To her religion had become akin to brainwashing meant to keep the masses placated and to keep them from searching for the divine on their own. My own mother had been scarred by Christianity, not for reasons dealing with worship, but due to a language barrier. As she learned English she was forced to pray, to say the Our Father prayer. No one explained to her that the Christian God takes the guise of Father to his followers; she thought it meant her own father. Imagine a six year old being told to worship her father who was in heaven...

My first bit of magic stemmed (hah! pun) from our herbal walks, my mother had early on taught me that some plants could harm and some could heal. The healing herbs or the more gentle ones were allowed to dry in our sunny kitchen window; the ones that were a little more questionable went high into the rafters of our upstairs sun-room. One day my huge black tom cat Simon came home with a painful gash across his muzzle. Now, you have to understand I was probably all of eight years old and I loved this cat more than anything and while he was a nasty bastard to everyone else he adored me. He was probably close to eighteen pounds and all muscle - the veteran champion of our neck of the woods. But with me he was a baby, when I was sad I would rest my head on his belly and cry. Back to the story - he's hurt, I'm distraught (to say the least!), and I instinctively grabbed a few of the freshly dried herbs and mixed them together with some olive oil to make a paste all the while panicking and hoping to fix him. I slapped that, along with a slip of waxed paper over the gash and allowed my not-so-happy-hunter to go his way. In a few hours when the herbs had dried and flaked off his nose was healed without even a scar to show for his heroics. My mother was impressed and began to share more of herb lore with me from that day on.

The year I turned twelve, I begged to join a book club. I wanted the thrill of coming home and finding a book waiting for me. In the winter of that year my mother asked me if I would order one of the books in the catalog for her, she would pay for it and another one for me. Being a greedy child I jumped at the chance, quickly made my selection, and never even peeked at the book she ordered. When they arrived I quickly handed hers over and dove into my long awaited book. Within a month her book silently found its way into my room and I ignored it. The title was 'Witches' and I was sure it was nothing but paintings with some nonsense thrown in.

It sat on my shelf until spring. Gathering dust and only being moved so I could better search for a different book. What changed my mind? Dunno, probably the Goddess had thrown up Her hands in exasperation with my amazing ability to see what I want but not have the brains to realize what I was looking for. At that point, bereft of any fore-knowledge or divine guidance, I decided to read the damn book.

It was a mish mash of fantasy and truth, something that caught my eye and breath, and made me wish I was a witch. I spent months sitting in the weak spring sunlight soaking up the glory that was witch, Wicca, Goddess. I read how history was written by the conquerors, who would often rewrite the works of women, of witches, to suit men and patriarchy. It caught at something in me and took root, grew until I was choked with it. I vowed to train myself to think 'goddess; instead of 'god'. To see divine feminine instead of masculine. To reclaim my heritage as a woman and a witch.

To begin with I studied in silence, I began to pay sharp attention to my mother when we went herbaling. This practice was also turned on my grandmother, who was even more tight lipped about her past and religion, but would squeak out gems of wisdom regarding women, their place, and their powers. None of this is half as mysterious and witchy and magical as it sounds... but looking back on that time it seems that way to me. In reality that book probably simply opened my mind to the possibility of paganism and allowed me to look at their words in a different light.

My mother did teach me what she knew of herb-craft. My grandmother taught me to believe in my dreams, to read their portents, and to know when they spoke of the future in truth and when they were simply my subconscious offering me fodder to worry over. My mother taught me to be myself, to believe in myself, and how to be a strong woman. My grandmother gave me hints and warning on how to deal with etheric creatures and spirits, mainly in how to ward off the nasty one and how to draw the beneficial ones.

As spring bled into summer I decided to self dedicate myself, something I did in our bathroom right around the Summer Solstice. It was hot and musty, the salt I used to cast my Circle was gritty under my feet, and I was heady with the knowledge of what I was doing and with the stolen wine I was using to anoint myself with. The candles were flickering off the mirrors, creating an appropriately magical atmosphere, and with solemnity I offered myself to the Goddess. I felt wrapped in Her embrace and actually cried by the end.

My friend Raine was my first teacher, we would learn side by side bits and pieces; neither of us really delving into the truth of Wicca or paganism. We practiced a hodge-podge of things; I think that at this point she did more actual studying than I did. I went away to college with the knowledge of ‘Witches’ and bits ‘The Spiral Dance’ swirling within me. I was rather excited to learn that one of the courses that Wilson College offered was on witchcraft and I hastily signed up for it. Excitement bubbled in me again... here I would learn what it was to be a witch, I would be taught in one short semester all the myth, majesty, and magic of witchcraft. Boy was I wrong! I learned the history of witches (the ones with warts on their noses), of the Knights Templars, of the Burning Times. No mention of Wiccans, no spells, no learning how to have ritual. This course opened my eyes to the reality of what I was facing and with stubborn fortitude I did my best to ignore the truth of it.

During this time I continued to practice my half-truths as a way of spirituality. It wasn't until I met my husband that I began to try to teach myself more about the actual religion of Wicca. I read any book that had the ‘Wicca’ in the title or was published by Llewellyn, it took years before I was willing to accept the truth about Wicca – it wasn’t an ancient religion at all, it was a mere fifty years old.

After I got married, I reestablished contact with my old friend Raine from high school, who had stuck with her studies and I began attending Circles with her, another friend, and Raine’s husband. These blew away the rituals I had been doing on my own… the energy and power that we raised was amazing and I knew that I was on the right track.

This first, unnamed group lasted until my husband and I moved to Altoona for him to start his career. I struggled for about a year, frustrated by my new solitary status, fretting that I had no connection with other witches other than through the internet. I used this time to learn from others by taking numerous online classes. After a time, I felt ready to take on students. I kept reading "that when the witch was ready, the teacher would appear" but never reversed that sentence to help me understand my own plight. "When the teacher is ready, the student(s) will appear."

Finally, I was ready. My husband introduced me to my first student - Maia. We became fast friends almost immediately and eventually she asked me to teach her. I, of course, accepted. She was an amazing first student, patient and understanding, quietly pushing me to where I needed to be nudged to realize that I had to constantly motivate myself to be a good teacher. Eventually, I moved back to my home town and I was terrified that Maia and I would lose touch.

By this point I was burning to work with more people than just Maia, while that was rewarding I missed dynamics that had been a part of Raine’s group and I searched for others in the area who might be willing to try working together. Maia made the amazing sacrifice of traveling from one city to another to help me build a small group that grew into Cat's Moon. Cat's Moon taught me that a group needs a head; it needs a leader to make decisions to keep the group moving forward. Our experiment of a 'non-hierarchical' group was, in a word, a failure. But it was an important one that allowed me to asses my strengths and weaknesses so that I could move on and build on it until we had another healthy group.

In 1999, my husband’s company uprooted us and moved us to the eastern side of Pennsylvania. Once again, I was forced to be a solitary. Maia worked for the same company and as luck would have it she was moved out our way as well. We had our trials and tribulations but eventually we got a group of people together. First was the group Dragons of the Sacred Circle, which I ran with my good friend Winterwolf. Dragons lasted until 2002. Eventually Winterwolf, Maia, and Mark moved away and the group dissolved.

Over time I have continued to study and enlarge my base of knowledge. In 2000 I earned my Master degree in Reiki, in Traditional Usui, Seischiem, and Fusion traditions. In 2002 I embarked on a formal study program with a talented teacher and began learning Dragon Magic. I have always been drawn towards the draconic and have been finding it a rewarding practice. Because I like to learn the why behind things I finally started to become disillusioned with the rote answers I was receiving from Wicca. I struggled with it for a long time, terrified to let go of it because I was certain that I would be getting rid of my spirituality.

I had started an online school for Wicca in 2001, it was a mish-mash of what I had learned and I had structured into a Tradition. While writing the lessons I really searched for answers and was constantly displeased with what I found. The school was another reason that I didn’t want to leave Wicca, I had so much invested in the school both monetarily and emotionally. My time there has managed to bring a wonderful woman into my life – Centaury. I will be forever thankful for her! Because of my own changing spirituality, real life, and the need to spend as much time with ailing family members as possible; I finally let the school go. There was so much there that was good and good for me, but I couldn't handle the stress and the massive amount of time it consumed. I had to let it go, just walk away and not look back, otherwise I would still be doing it. Emotionally and physically I just couldn't do that and everything else as well and, for me, family always comes first.

In 2006, I finally decided to stop clinging to what I knew wasn't working for me and move ahead. I started to study with the ADF in June 2006 as a way to open up my path and get some training with more scholarly meat under my belt. However, I couldn't reconcile myself to being only Indo-European with my worship. Due to that and irreconcilably differing views I realized that I needed something a little more witchy. However, there were several parts of ADF druidry that really did strike home for me, and I'm glad that I was able to take some time to study with them.

In 2007, I was blessed with a new Patroness – the Morrighan. I’m slightly terrified of her and was very worried that having a war goddess would inflame my already unstable temper. I have been pleasantly surprised to find that she doesn’t instigate me needlessly; I won’t allow anyone to ‘walk all over’ me but I’m not so volatile that I can’t control my temper. With this blessed addition to my personal pantheon, I was given the edict that I need to start at the beginning. And while I’m there I can work on getting some lessons done. While I’m not sure I’ll continue using the blanket term ‘Wicca’ for what I do religiously, I do know that it will still be witchcraft.