Sorry to have missed this thread the first time around.

Have been singing since I was two, and almost all of it "folk",never as a job though I like to think of myself as an artist.

On a spiritual search since a young teen, I discovered Wicca and Paganism in 1982 (I'm 54 now, so...). There are as one person said, many different kinds, I consider myself the "live in the woods, talk with the spirits, grow my own food and medicine, study metaphysics, do rituals from time to time" kind of witch...Not New-Agey, not white-light airy fairy, BUT I still take the spirit world seriously.

I have to say I've seen some (pagan/metaphysics/spirituality) bashing here from time to time that didn't please me much, and some pretty cool folks have stopped posting to threads like this because they got tired of it. I think some of the nay sayers do it to piss people off and kill these threads. (This is aimed of course at some of the older posts)

Frankly my opinion is if you don't care for this kind of topic, go away. Some of us like to hang out together and get to know others of like mind, compare notes etc. I love folk music esp Celtic/Nordic (PARTLY) because there is a lot of the Old Religion to be found in it.

One of my Norwegian Hardanger fiddle cds says that the old fiddlers used to go out in the woods and play for days till the wood spirits came to them and gave them a new tune. Makes sense to me.

Don't suppose Wuzzle is around, but just want to say I liked that piece the Swan, and if you are around, did you write it?

OH yeah and Heathen with a capital H is a term used by a lot of people in the Norse tradition to describe their brand of (Neo)Paganism

Bekki