I have been married since 1981 and a father of a daughter since 1982. My wife is simply amazing; quite easily the smartest and nicest person I have ever known. She has a very successful career as a vice-president at an insurance company and as an actuary, a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries. On top of all this, she is cute. I don't just mean cute in a physical sense (although she is). Cute is as cute does, and she does cute. I sometimes wonder how I ever won her.
My daughter is, of course, equally amazing. As well as being beautiful (not just my and my wife’s opinion, by the way), she is brilliant. She speaks Spanish fluently, and shows an interest in languages in general that makes me very happy. Like her mother, she has a big heart, but like her father she still can accept some of the hard facts of the world without blinking. I hope this will come in handy as she works for her master's degree in Social Work. She's a truly amazing combination of the best of both of us, with her own mysterious nature added.
I myself was born in 1957, in North Tonawanda, NY, and spent my early years in Tonawanda. These two towns, separated by the Erie Canal (they are, in fact, where the canal really ends, despite what the song says), are delightful reminders of a nicer time.
I didn’t live there long, though, since my father was in the Air Force. We lived in a number of places, including Germany.
For college I went to Holy Cross, a good Catholic school, where I met my wife. I received a degree in psychology, with a secondary concentration in Eastern religions, in 1979. The fact that after twenty-five or so years all of my training in psychology is obsolete leaves me with mixed feelings. I am grateful, however, that pyschology majors were required to take a course in statistics. That has stood me in good stead, and I think that everyone should be required to take it, on at least a high school level. We are confronted daily with statistics -- polls, gambling odds, and such -- but few of us really understand them. Many people still believe that if a series of coin flips has come up consistently heads, the odds against the next flip coming up heads are greater than 50%, or that the odds against a shuffled deck of cards being in order by suit and number are greater than those against any other order. Just the other day I read how in a poll the majority of people polled believed in one thing, with the breakdown something like 49/47%, with the rest undecided. A plurality rather than a majority, but it was even worse; the error of measurement was 4%. In other words, statistcally speaking, the question was tied. People should know these things. But I digress.
After college I served in the Air Force myself, as a communications officer, stationed in England. (I had gone to college on a ROTC scholarship.) My wife and I developed a love for England and the English, and have been back a number of times. We have even considered living there after my wife retires.
I served my hitch in the Air Force and got out. I won't say that the Air Force and I parted on the best of terms, but I know that both of us seemed relieved. My wife and I didn’t like the idea of someone else raising our daughter in daycare, so we decided one of us would stay home and take care of her and the house. My wife wanted to try the working world. Fortunately, I was quite eager to take up the househusband role, so that is how we raised our daughter. It was one of the best decisions of our lives; all three of us are happier than we would otherwise have been. As you might guess from the rest of this site, I know quite a lot of rather obscure things, and I made sure that my daughter knew them. To make things worse, she came home one day early in her school career very upset because she already knew the things she was being taught. We promised her that we would only teach her things she wouldn't learn in school. I'm sure you can appreciate how unusual an education she had as a result. Eventually, school caught up with her, and the odd things started to come in handy. One of my proud moments came when her Iranian chemistry teacher in high school started to count in her own language. Realizing what she was doing, she stopped, and asked the students if any of them knew what language she had been speaking. My brilliant daughter said,"Farsi," amazing one and all. But her thought was, "Of course it's Farsi; the teacher's from Iran." Like I said, we taught her some unusual things.
After some time in Stamford, CT, my wife got a job near Boston, so we moved to a town south of there, where we’ve lived ever since.
I became a Wiccan (Neo-Wiccan) in high school, and was one for over fifteen years. When I started to research what we actually know about ancient Paganism, however, I realized that it was the Old Gods that I was attracted to, and that I wanted to worship them in the old ways. I am now an Indo-European Reconstructionist, with, as this site will make abundantly clear, a particular interest in the Proto-Indo-European religion and language.
My first book, The Pagan Family, came about almost by accident. I was talking to a friend on the phone, telling her the ways I practiced Paganism with my family, and she said, "You should write a book." (Beth, if you're out there, e-mail me, or send me a letter; I'm still at the same address.) I laughed, and we continued the conversation on other subjects. A few days later, finding myself with nothing to do, I wrote an outline of chapters. I looked at it and thought, "Man, I could write a book." So I did. And then I wrote another one. Now I’m working on a number of projects, and whether anything gets published or not I expect to be writing for the rest of my life. That’s what writers do.
Publications
Books:
The Pagan Family. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1994. Out of print, alas, but it still comes up sometimes on ebay or half.com, or through out-of-print booksellers.
A Book of Pagan Prayer. York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2002. It's being translated into Portuguese for the Brazilian market. There are four good things about that: 1. The book must be selling pretty well for the Brazilian publisher to want to do that. 2. Someone apparently thinks that Brazilians will like my book. 3. I will have a whole new customer base from which to collect royalties. (Very few writers actually make their livings by writing, but a little extra cash is always nice.) 4. It's pretty cool. I'm looking forward to seeing how my prayers look in Portuguese.
You can buy copies of A Book of Pagan Prayer from me for $17.00, with free shipping. Best, of all, I'll autograph it for you. I prefer Paypal, but checks, money orders, and even cash, would work as well. E-mail me and we'll arrange things.
Articles:
A Family Ritual for Brighid’s Day. Circle Network News, Summer, 1989.
Finding the Third Way: Becoming a Man. EarthSpirit Community Newsletter, Summer, 1991.
To Her. Enchanté 9 (Litha, 1991).
The Charge of the Goddess in Elvish. Enchanté 11 (Oimelc, 1992).
An Elvish Circle Casting. Enchanté 11 (Oimelc, 1992).
The Proto-Indo-European Creation Myth. Enchanté 15 (Midsummer, 1993).
Household Guardians: The Home as Altar. Enchanté 16 (Samhain,1993).
Creation Myth. Enchanté 17 (Spring, 1994).
Practice, not Belief. Moosewood Circle Journal. Beltane, 1994.
The Gundestrup Cauldron: A Response to Taylor. Keltria 22 (Summer, 1994).
Cernunnos: Iconography and Meaning. Keltria 23 (Fall, 1994); 24 (Samhain, 1994).
The Charge of the Goddess: A Source Analysis. Enchanté 21 (Carmentalia, 1996).
Review of Ronald Hutton, The Shamans of Siberia. Enchanté 21 (Carmentalia, 1996).
Proto-Indo-European Cosmology. The Druids’ Progress 13 (1994).
Proto-Indo-European Altars. The Druids’ Progress 15 (1995).
The Hearth in Indo-European Religion and ADF. The Druids’ Progress 16 (1996).
The Triple Demon of Samhain: An Indo-European Tale. Keltria 36 (Winter, 1997).
A Celtic Beltane Ritual. Oak Leaves 6 (April, 1998).
A Celtic Lughnasad Module. Oak Leaves 7 (1998).
Household Shrines: Shrines and Deities in a Roman Home. Enchanté 24 (Scirophoria and Alban Hefin, 1998).
Other People's Myths. Oak Leaves 10 (1999).
A Simplified Version of ADF Ritual. Oak Leaves 10 (1999).
Sacrifice, the Indo-Europeans, and ADF. Oak Leaves 16 (Samhain, 2000 - Imbolc, 2001).
Seeking the Wisdom of the Ancestors: A Form of Indo-European Divination. Oak Leaves 18 (n.d.).
Workshops:
American Paganism
Cernunnos of the Gauls
Indo-European Cosmology
Mithraism
Pagan Family Values
The Pagan Home
Paleo-Pagan Ritual Practice
Proto-Indo-European Religion
Towards a Pagan Wicca
If you are interested in my presenting any of these at a gathering, bookstore, or other event, contact me and maybe we can arrange something.
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