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You never know who you might meet at a writers’ conference. Sure, you’re gonna meet some weirdoes … but there’s also the off chance you might meet someone super cool and interesting, like Ashleen O’Gaea. And who better to do an interview in the month of October?

O’Gaea (pronounce oh-jee-uh) is a Wiccan priestess and author of several books about the religion; now she’s breaking into fiction.  She is also a wife, a mother, and a camper.  O’Gaea lives in Tucson, where there’s a long-established and active Pagan community.  She fancies herself sort of artistic, wishes she could actually dance, and takes her single-malt whisky (preferably without an e) neat. Check out her website at http://www.ashleenogaea.com/.

An H and Five Ws with Wiccan Priestess Ashleen O’Gaea

How did you become a Wiccan Priestess?
Can I blame my mom?  She was a very active volunteer for the Unitarian Church in Portland, and that rubbed off on me.  I was active in the UU Church here for several years, and when we discovered Wicca, it was just natural that I’d start volunteering . . . only there wasn’t a group to volunteer for!  I began to read with the zeal of a convert and started writing about Wicca almost immediately, and probably because of articles in several small ‘zines, many of which are gone now, I was recruited by a local priestess, Delia Morgan, to help found the Tucson Area Wiccan-Pagan Network in 1988.

My HHp (Husband and High Priest) Canyondancer and I formed our first group in ’89 after initiating each other to First Degree at Samhain, and that group became Campsight Coven in 1991.   I was elevated to Third at Litha of 1991 by two eclectic priestesses in the community here; and in June of 2004 I was ordained by the Aquarian Tabernacle Church.  Basically, within a year of finding out that Wicca existed, I felt like I’d always been part of it, and priestessing was never exactly a conscious decision—it was just finding a name for what already felt natural to do.  (And by the way, being a Wiccan priest/ess means for Canyondancer and me what it means to ministers of other religions: we “marry ‘em and bury ‘em” and take care of everything else in between—including, of course, observing the holy days on our faith’s liturgical calendar.)

Who first got you interested in Wicca?
Short answer: our good friend Faerie Moon.

Longer answer: When I was in high school and college, “the occult” was a very popular diversion.  I read Tarot cards and had psychic dreams and all, but I didn’t have any context for any of that other than B-movie stereotypes, and that wasn’t anything I could take seriously.  The TV show “Bewitched” was cute enough, but Samantha still occasionally referred to “the man downstairs,” and that just didn’t light my candles.  People always saw something a little fey about me, and one friend meant to ask if I was superstitious and instead asked if I was supernatural, but it was all kind of jokey and being a little bit psychic was just amusingly weird for a long time.

When ‘dancer and I got married, we chose traditional music for the ceremony—the bridal chorus from Lohengrin—and the organist at the UU Church said it was “too Pagan” for his taste!  And we were celebrating Solstices and Equinoxes and “Mayday” and “Halloween”—so I guess it was pretty predictable that when Faerie Moon showed me Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon and Starhawk’s Spiral Dance,

In yet another unprecedented scoop, The Indubitable Dweeb has obtained a copy of Christine O’Donnell’s high school diary. Fascinating reading, especially the passages that prove the senate nominee did indeed “dabble in witchcraft.” Rather than politicize this, we’d like to simply present the diary in its unedited form and let the voters decide:

February 7, 1988

The Winter Wonderland dance was completely rad. There was this guy named Kyle who was standing in the corner being a total bummer, and when I asked him why he wasn’t dancing, he told me that “Dungeon Masters do not partake in the rituals of human slaves.” Dungeon Master? My brain was going back and forth between: Creepy? Kinky? Creepy? Kinky?…Cute? Definitely cute. That’s what I thought as soon as he showed me this medallion he wears. It was the sweetest little upside-down star! I asked him if he was into Disney and he licked the star and said, “The Dark Lord animates my black heart.” Cute and mysterious!

February 14, 1988

Valentines Day and my first date with Kyle = Double my pleasure! We went to see Gwar, which was…interesting. Kyle told me to wear something that I didn’t mind getting blood on, and I was like, “Whoa George Michael, slow down! I’m not that ready for that yet.” Now I understand what he meant. O well, I’ll have to throw out the leggings, but now I have an excuse to get a perm! Kyle said he’s going to make me a “Best of Gwar” mixtape. I wonder if they have any ballads. I realize they’re “heavy” and all that, but Danger Danger is also heavy and they had “I Still Think About You” and that song just melts me.

March 1, 1988

I finally got to meet Kyle’s friends. There’s Dozer, and he’s the only guy I’ve ever met who carries a mace. You know, like with the spiky ball and the wooden handle? Then there’s the guy in the black trench-coat who refers to himself “The Shroud.” I don’t have much in common with The Shroud, except we both love Starburst. He let me eat all his red ones! Finally, there’s his Ex. Zoe. Zoe’s a white witch, which means she practices white magic, but all she seems to practice is bad fashion. I know, low blow, but can the girl drape more fake silk on herself? I can’t believe the two of them used to make out in freshly dug graves together.

March 18, 1988

Movie night. Lost Boys! This was my choice. Kyle was begging for yet another Faces of Death marathon, but how many times can a girl watch a parachutist get eaten by an alligator? I thought he’d like Lost Boys cause it has vampires in it and they’re kind of satany. But I didn’t tell him I wanted to see it cause it also has Jason Patric in it! Our little secret, diary? Anyway, he said the movie “sucked donkey nads” and I asked him why and all he did was take a gas can and pour gas on the lawn of a local nunnery and set the grass on fire. I have to say, for a spontaneous flaming pentagram, it was a pretty good flaming pe

By Anatoly Liberman

Although we have long since become unisex in everything we do, most witches are still women. It is therefore a great comfort to know that the earliest recorded form of witch is Old Engl. wicca (masculine) “man practicing witchcraft”; it first occurred in the Laws of Alfric (890). The feminine wicce surfaced in the year 1000. This chronology does not mean that witches arose after wizards. Words, especially such words, may exist long before they find their way into a manuscript or onto a printed page, but, as far as Anglo-Saxon England is concerned, men have some precedence when it comes to pursuing magic, at least in terms of their names’ attestation. All of it is interesting and even intriguing, but, like so many other interesting things, quite irrelevant, because in Middle English, endings were leveled and the difference between wicca and wicce disappeared—antiquity or our time, nature always triumphs over nurture and unisex will have its way. (more…)

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