Working the Temple Store at Ostara this year I rang up the purchase of one of our Temple members. As I looked down into the box of paper bags I realized that we were on our last bag. I remember thinking when I first purchased them it seemed like we would never be able to use them all. I bought them for the store so long ago I had no idea what website I bought them from. It made me think about milestones.

I recently went through a milestone this year. I graduated from Witchcraft Five. This is the Mystery School first class that has gone all the way through all five years and all five levels with the support of the temple. Five years of doing the five hundred exercises required to graduate. Christopher said it was interesting how the graduates seemed to focus on the Temple and the Pagan communities they work with more than they focused on Christopher continuing to teach them (like the “secret witchcraft six” we joke about). Everyone in the circle of people sharing their projects and where they were going to go with their work and their paths made me proud to be among them!

This year’s Templefest will be the fifth that the Temple has put on. I didn’t realize it until Steve pointed it out this year. I love how the symbol for this year’s Templefest is a pentagram drawn by our very talented Leo lead minister Mark—a symbol with five points! This year we are doing things a bit differently for Templefest by moving it to Lammas instead of Litha—offering an early registration price and other changes that come with experience of doing this five years running.

This weekend we also finally have our Temple Open House here in Salem, NH. We will open our doors to the public for this free event. We went through a lot of work to raise money so we could build a parking lot. We had to deal with getting an occupancy permit and put in all the things the town required us to have to be a open to the public as a religious institution in our area. There was a lot of work behind the scenes to get us ready. We as a Temple have come so far!

So as we pass into the renewal of Spring I take a moment to honor the milestones of our past and those awaiting us in the future. I offer up a breath in prayer to the spirits of the Temple—both in body and beyond—in gratitude for all we have accomplished, and all that we will accomplish together. Thanks to a generous member of the Temple community, we’ve already got more bags!!

Blessings of the gods on you all.

Adam Sartwell is a Founder and Virgo lead minister of the Temple of Witchcraft. Adam’s psychic and intuitive gifts led him to study Witchcraft in his teens and he is a teacher, healer, and professional Tarot reader. He spends time hand-crafting products for the Temple store (which he manages) and has written essays for The Green Lovers and Ancestors of the Craft anthologies from Copper Cauldron Publishing. He can be reached at [email protected].