My friend Trystan has a habit I used to find odd-- when he tapes a television show, he doesn't edit out the commercials. I never comprehended this until one time he pulled out an old Star Trek episode, and we watched it with commercials. What was just a good episode of Star Trek suddenly became a time capsule, as we watched breaking news items of events long past and commercials for new technology (such as that screaming fast Pentium 75MHz chip) and television shows that haven't run in forever. It helps you put the past-- and the present-- in context.

The context of history brought itself home today when I realized that it was the three-year anniversary of the day I was hired to work at an IBM helpdesk in Tampa, Florida. So many parts of my life can be traced back to that day. The skills I learned, the confidence in my professional ability, and even the fact that I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina are a direct result of that event. Even on a personal level, much has changed because of that day. My co-workers suggested a better ISP, which led to me creating "Left Of Center", the homepage that eventually became Catalyst Point. The mass e-mail advising friends of the change in e-mail address went to Fritz Jung, and his reply let me know about his then-new site, The Witches' Voice, without which I'd probably still be a solitary. The new friends I met have also changed me greatly-- in particular Trystan and his wife Aerin who are not only like family to me, but have been invaluable in helping me with editing of this site and indeed are panelists on Multicastings.

Not as much of my life revolves around this site as this might make it sound, though Wicca itself does play a significant role. Thinking about the changes in my life has also caused me to think of how much has changed for Wiccans in the last few years. Especially since is probably my last casting for 1999, I thought it might be a good idea to discuss the past.

Three years ago, the only time we were mentioned on the news was around Samhain or as part of the press surrounding the movie that came out that year, The Craft, and it was usually fairly brief and uninformative. Three years ago, there were indeed pagan resources online, but they were hard to find and not very detailed. Finding locals to work with (or even just hang out it) was a difficult process that involved a lot of luck. Three years ago, nobody really knew much about us at all. Three years ago, we were about as organized as room full of ferrets during an earthquake.

In that time we have seen the rise of organizations like the Witches' Voice, which (among other things) makes it a lot easier to get in touch with local pagans. The news has started covering us on other holidays than Samhain. And we've started banding together. When Bob Barr decided we were a useful political target, we got together, and we acted like adults. The media was able to show the contrast between the stereotypes and the truth, and we were able to assist with facts and legal information. Today we are in the first stages of acting like a community.

What's next? Well, that's up to all of us. But if we've come this far in three years with what little we had to work with, imagine how far we can go in the years to come.

© 1999 by Cather "Catalyst" Steincamp