Nicole D. is a 2003 graduate of the Mystery School and a member of the Temple community since its inception. Raised in a fairly progressive household, Nicole began her spiritual shift away from the Catholicism of her youth in her early 20s, starting with a correspondence course in Wicca. (This was in the infancy of the Internet and before beginner witchcraft books were so easily found in your local Barnes & Noble.) During this year-long course, Nicole read assigned books about magic and the history of the craft, learned elementary Tarot, and studied Buddhism as a class assignment. She wrote in her journal at the time: “Wicca is such a realistic religion – God is in nature, what you do comes back to you in one form or another, heaven is here on earth, everything that happens is natural.”

After five years of solitary practice and learning by doing, Nicole saw a flyer in a New Age store in central New Hampshire advertising a class with Christopher Penczak. Excited to finally find a local pagan community, she began to attend a variety of workshops and public Wiccan rituals, and eventually enrolled in Witchcraft I. Nicole self-initiated as a witch at the conclusion of this course and continued on through Witchcraft V, meeting the members of her first two covens among her classmates.

Nicole’s witchcraft practice is now a combination of solitary and group work, typically marking the Sabbats by attending the public Temple rituals. She is a Reiki master and High Priestess, and, although she has studied Witchcraft at many levels, she resonates most with the simplest forms of magick and spell work: candles, chants, and working with stones and minerals. Over the last few years she has also informally studied Buddhism and just this year re-dedicated her daily meditation practice using a combination of Buddhist and Wiccan styles. Nicole served as the Temple’s Libra lead minister for many years.

Nicole strives to embody the qualities of balance, insight, and diplomacy in her life using the spiritual tools of Witchcraft.