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It was 93 degrees Fahrenheit today, and I thought my SKIN was going to melt off.  So, I plopped myself in front of my computer, which happens to be adjacent to my window fan, and decided to undertake my first course at The Firefly Academy, an online pagan classroom, to weather the heat.  I’ve been a self-dedicated eclectic pagan since I was nineteen, I’ve taken three levels of Wicca classes in person, and studied independently for the last six years.

It started raining just now, as an aside.  I shut my fan off, since the breeze is doing a damn good job of coming through my window on its own, and let me tell you…. it feels amazing.  My favorite smell, out of every other smell, is the earthy, clean smell of a hard, cool rain after an unbearably hot summer day.

Anyway, back to what I was saying.  Independent study and practice wasn’t fulfilling me the way it used to, and I thought that a trip back to the beginning was just what I needed.  It took me months of searching for an online pagan classroom that was reasonably priced before I finally gave up.  It was disheartening, but I kept doing what I was doing, because it was better than nothing at all.  The problem with paganism is that it’s hard to find someone willing to teach you for free.  It’s free to go to a Christian church, minus the voluntary donation, because the man or woman teaching you is getting paid to do so…. probably not very much, but religion is a labor of love.  Unfortunately, to learn enough to teach respectably in paganism (as in other religions), it’s customary to practice and learn for quite some time, and with so much time invested it’s only reasonable that the teacher want a little compensation for their efforts.  Most teachers only charge for materials, but others charge an arm and a leg just for the time.  In any case, I’m poor and I was disappointed.

Then, one day, I’m screwing around on YouTube, looking at other people’s altars, tools, dedications, spells, rituals, etc (too private for me to be posting, but I apparently don’t mind being a hypocrite and spying on other people’s random broadcasts), and I ran across videos from The Firefly Academy, narrated by Iris Firemoon.  It led me to their Facebook page, and subsequently, their website, and, as luck would have it, they are an online classroom and community who offers courses for FREE.

Now, I’ve never really cared for the quote “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear” because, frankly, I don’t like waiting.  When I want to do something, I generally kick butt in making it happen as soon as possible… but stumbling on TFA really gave me a new respect for that proverb.

So, today I started back at Wicca I and Paganism I, a place I haven’t been in years, and I have to admit… I feel both refreshed and nostalgic.  Sometimes all you need to renew your love in what you do or how you feel, is revisit what gave you that love in the first place.