I am many things and people tend to classify me by how I was introduced to
them. I am a Witch. I am a Priest in the Chthonioi-Alexandrian Tradition of
Wicca. I am a Stregone Mago in a Tradition of Sicilian-American Craft. I am a
devotee of Hermes and Hecate. I am a gay man. I am the owner of one of the
oldest occult stores in New England. I lecture on the Craft at local events and
Pagan Festival like Starwood. I am a big science fiction and fantasy fan. I am
Sicilian/Italian-American. I am a husband. I am a brother. I am an Uncle. I am a
teacher. I am a student.
I am Vinnie. Yes, that Vinnie.
I was always a strange and unusual child. My father’s side of the family was from Melilli, Sicily. My mother’s family was from Northern Italy. On my father’s side, I was a 2nd generation Sicilian-American and on my mother’s side I was a 3rd generation Italian-American. I was raised in a good Roman-Catholic lower-middle class household. The concepts of ethics, love of God, and the importance of family were deeply instilled in me at an early age. It was as much culture and family as it was religion.
I loved church and I loved the ritual. To me, going to church was like a great family gathering that we got to light candles and burn incense at. I loved church so much that I became an altar boy as soon as I was able and I remained one into high school.
Being from such a small town, my outlook was very sheltered. I thought that all churches were like our parish and that all Roman-Catholics were as great as the ones in our parish. It’s difficult to explain how I never realized that only men could be priests and only women could be nuns. I never even knew that it was a sin to be gay until well into high school. Some things just never occurred to me. Church was for worship, not politics.
Then again, it might have just been simply that the people around me had a healthy respect for authority (including Church authority) but were also fiercely independent. A good example of this was my paternal grandmother, a Sicilian immigrant.
She She was a good Roman-Catholic, attended Church regularly, had statues of Mary and the Saints, and was devoted to God. However, she was also a practical Sicilian woman with a mind of her own and “because I say so” or “the bible says” just simply wasn’t good enough for her. I often heard her say, “I don’t agree with that. When the Pope sits on his throne and he talks to me about it, then I’ll consider it. Until then, he’s just another man. His job is to help us find God, not to tell me what to think.”
I remember her being mad at the neighborhood kids running through her garden. One day, she saw them. She raced to the niche that the statue of Mary was in and turned it around to face the wall. She quickly returned to the window, made a gesture with her hand, and said something in Sicilian. Then she returned to Mary and faced the statue out. “Some things, I don’t want her to see” was the only explanation that she gave me. I now suspect that she was doing a bit of good ole fashioned peasant magic and by turning Mary away, she wouldn’t give offense.
When I was small, I remember playing a game on my younger brother’s birthday. I
would go out into the woods behind our house and build bird nests to welcome the
birds back. I didn’t realize the significance of it, but my brother’s birthday
is on the Spring Equinox. When word of my odd behavior made it to my paternal
grandmother, her comment was “He still go to church? Then, no problem. Leave him
be.”
One of my fondest memories while growing up was playing “Gods and Heroes” with my friends. We would pretend that we were the old Greek and Roman Gods or that we were super-heroes with magic powers (like Shazaam! or Doctor Strange.) I distinctly remember seeing a show on Saturday morning TV about a magical Goddess named Isis and I think I fell in love. From that point on, I insisted on being Isis when we played our game – complete with bracers and tiara that I made myself. No one ever questioned how a boy could be “O Mighty Isis”.
In my teen years, I was very interested in everything psychic but coming from a small town, there wasn’t a lot that a 13 year old could do to learn. Even our library at that time was tiny. My interest in things psychic was reinforced when I used to practice psychometry (receiving psychic vibrations from objects) on things that my friends brought me. The results ranged from “this ring belongs to X” to “I don’t know what this has to do with the bracelet but your fan belt is loose”. I had a pretty good track record, especially considering that I didn’t even know what a fan belt was! As if that wasn’t enough, I actively sought out those déjà vu moments and had dreams that often came true. I learned how to meditate in Church, even while assisting with Mass, to increase my feeling of being one-with-God.
Eventually, I realized that the Church part of my faith wasn’t for me. I still acknowledge the beauty and Truths of the Christianity (the faith) that I was raised in but I could no longer participate when I saw the beauty of the religion needing to bow to the Church (the administrative organization of the faith).
I realized that I craved a personal connection with God (at this point, I started to use “the Divine” rather than “God”) that so many organized religions seemed to eventually sacrifice for doctrine. I knew that there were many religions and that it was their purpose to help bring people closer to God, so I started to explore. I studies martial arts, dabbled in Buddhism, read about Shinto, and generally explored what interested me at the time.
After graduating high school in 1984, I moved to Boston. Shortly after
arriving, I was at a party with a date. The host was across the room and he was
pointed out to me. I remember saying, “Oh! That’s the man that I’m going to
spend the rest of my life with.”
So far, we’ve be together for 24 years. Some things you just know.
I ran into an old friend and he introduced me to his girlfriend. She was practicing a form of shamanic witchcraft and was involved in the local Pagan community in Boston. I listened, fascinated. I quickly read everything on paganism and modern witchcraft that I could get my hands on. This was what I was looking for and I started to network and make friends in the greater Boston Pagan community from all different paths and traditions.
Faerie Magic/Gay Spirituality. During the last 1980’s, I was an active participant in a gay/faerie focused magickal group called the Wyrd Sisters. The Wryd Sisters was based in the Boston area and was lead by an Alexandrian High Priest. Work in the Wyrd Sisters led me to a personal exploration of Faerie workings, modern Paganism, and modern Witchcraft. We often did magickal workings with the HP’s garden and faerie devas, learned general ritual and magickal techniques, and did community events like cleaning up the garbage in the Fenway Gardens. The work was very focused on nature, nature spirits, personal power (magick), and community.
1988, Imbolc: Alexandrian 1st Degree Initiation – In 1987 I was dedicated to an Alexandrian coven led by Lady Morven. In 1988, I was formally initiated into the Alexandrian Tradition and began a more formal study of Wicca and The Old Gods. The focus of my training was the Alexandrian Tradition and BTW lore, practices, and magick.
1993 was a busy year for me. I was on the Board of Covenant of the Goddess and I attended the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions and co-officiated an interfaith service. The Dalai Lama was a special guest at this conference.
1993, Samhain: Alexandrian 3rd Degree Initiation – After leaving the initial Alexandrian coven that I was Initiated into, I continued my training with another Alexandrian coven, Symbios, run by Lady Arachne. Symbios training incorporated the Alexandrian Tradition but also included ceremonial magick, ritual drama cycles, pathworkings and a deep exploration of the Mysteries. The Chthonioi Line is also the originators of the series of Mystery Drama Rituals known as The Book of the Provider, or The Provider Cycle.
1993, Autumn Equinox – Coven Synchronos was formed with me as High Priest and Arani as High Priestess. Coven Synchronos was an Alexandrian training coven and our focus was to train Priests and Priestesses in our Tradition and in the Mysteries. Coven Synchronos was formally closed in 2003 and I retired from public teaching.
In 1994 I became the owner of Arsenic & Old Lace, one of New England’s oldest and most respected occult stores. With the change in ownership to me, I created the Pagan Community Center to fill the need to hold public classes and rituals for the greater Boston area Pagan community. We even boasted an intern from the Harvard Divinity School. As part of the services that we offered, I began reading Tarot professionally through the store. In 1998 I closed the retail store location but still continues today as a strong web presence and thriving internet business.
1997, Stregheria: In 1997 I began to study the ways of Sicilian Craft (Trinacrian Rose) with Rev. Lori Bruno. Our oral lore tells us that her tradition has been handed down from her family (she learned from her aunts) and that she is a descendent of Giordano Bruno. The tradition honors the Mother and Father (as Diana and Apollo), places an emphasis on both celebration and magic work, and blends aspects of Sicilian culture (including some from Christianity) into the Tradition. She brought me into the Family as a Stregone on September 20, 1998.
In 1998, Lori brought me to meet Dr. Leo Louis Martello. Leo was an Elder of the Craft, one of the first public witches and authors in America, and the only “public Strega” in the 60’s – 90’s. Leo took me under his wing and gave me some rather unorthodox personal instruction via phone calls and letters. He even taught me through dreams... and would later quiz me on them. Unfortunately for me, Leo passed into the Summerland on June 29, 2000. Luckily for me, he continued to visit and teach me in my dreams for the next 9 years. Before he passed, he had left me with an abundance of things that he felt I needed to do if I was going to grow into the person that I would become.
In 2008, I lost both of my parents – my mother in January 2008 and then my father to a long illness in October of 2008. My husband and I decided that it was the right thing for me to do to spend the last several months of my father’s life with him as his live-in caretaker. I got to know him again as my father, newly as a friend, and surprisingly as his priest. Between October 2008 and December 2008 I did a great deal of soul searching and took stock of my personal inventory. By January 2009 I realized that I had finally finished all of the tasks set out for me by Leo and was ready to move forward and start teaching again.
May 30, 2009 I called a Grand Council of Alexandrians of the Chthonioi Line. With approximately 30 Elders in attendance representing multiple downlines, our goal was to define ourselves and our practices as something related to, yet distinctly different from the Alexandrian Tradition. This was in part due to the recent trend of a few public Alexandrians to loudly express opinions of discrimination, misinformation, manipulation, and generally declare themselves and authority over anyone using the name Alexandrian. We nearly universally have chosen to no longer call ourselves Alexandrians, but instead declared ourselves to be our own distinct yet related Tradition of Chthonioi-Alexandrian Wicca.
Summer/Fall 2009 - I offer occasional workshops that are Strega-focused but designed to get people to *think* about their relationship with the Gods and magic. The workshops can be described as interactive discussions that begin with a specific topic or set of topics. After Yule 2009 I will be forming a new group that will be a blend of loosely organized study group and Coven. The focus will be Stregheria (Italian-American Craft) as a personal path as well as a way to the Mysteries and will also incorporate some teachings and techniques of more traditional Wiccan Paths.
In March of 2010, the Sheaves of Demeter was officially named and consecrated. It is a coven practicing the Strega Tradition of Sicilian/Italian Witchcraft as passed by my teachers, Dr. Leo Louis Martello and Rev. Lori Bruno. In addition to being focused on old world Witchcraft in the modern world, we also incorporate the religious ritual mystery tradition of Chthonioi-Alexandrian Wicca into our practice. Some members are more focused on the personal devotion and reverence of the Strega Tradition while others are predominanently focused on the ritual practice of the Initiatory Ritual Mysteries. We’re structured more like an extended family rather than the traditional hierarchy of a BTW Wiccan Coven.
So that’s me. Vinnie.