With each turn of the Wheel of the Year, we open ourselves to the inherent lessons offered by the cycles of nature; the changing seasons representing a psychological "map of consciousness" facilitating human growth. Myth and ritual contain the framework for our growth and personal transformation, rites of passage, healing, empowerment, and manifestation.

In 2012 we embraced Change as our yearly theme. As Pagans, our teachings are found in nature, the seasons, cycles, and the cosmos . . . all of which are in a constant state of flux. In nature we find the reflection/lessons for how to grow, live consciously, and create the life we deserve. To that end we don't need to emphasize the need, or desire, for change. It is a given. We understand the clarion call of life for change, transformation, shape-shifting. That's the journey we shared ritually and mythically in 2012 . . . lessons on how change comes, how we can approach and embrace change . . . even consciously choosing what changes we want to make . . . the ways that change can be approached, embraced, and integrated into our lives.

That critical year of change prepared us for the NEW DIRECTIONS coming in 2013. Hopefully, we have prepared ourselves, individually, and as a community, and done both the inner work as well as the outer work in preparing the foundation for new possibilities and new growth in the months ahead.

As the Founder and Director of Temple of the Goddess, I can personally testify to the changes of 2012. While writing our Autumn myth of Ganesha, I was cracked open in unexpected ways. Since then the changes of 2012 have been morphing into NEW DIRECTIONS for me and the temple. It is now time to grow our beloved temple to the next evolution of its own life cycle, as nonprofits must do, or inevitably, deteriorate. The vision has always been to create a nonprofit Pagan church that will be here for many, many generations to come.

After months of prayer, visioning, and looking to a future of NEW DIRECTIONS, it is time for me to step away somewhat from the Los Angeles temple activities and begin work on growing the organization on a larger scale with much more interfaith work and other temple programs, such as our affiliate program, GAIA-the school and credentialing arm of the temple, a prison ministry, as well as Nine Muses Arts. In order to do these additional programs

I need to pass on a few of the many proverbial hats I've been wearing this past decade to some of the strong leadership pillars of the temple.

I am proud to share with you a few changes made as we move into this year of NEW DIRECTIONS. I will remain in my role as Director of Temple of the Goddess, and President of the board, overseeing all aspects of the organization. However, this incoming cadre of leaders in key director/management positions will free me to grow us in many other ways. The new staff will report back to me and consult with me as needed. Pythia will remain in her much-needed role as Secretary and Treasurer and often Temple Shopper. :)

Kamala will be stepping into the key leadership role of Director of Religious Services. She will be responsible for directing and coordinating all rituals, our Sabbats as they stand now, as well as the monthly moon circles. Working closely with our talented and gifted ritual planning committee, Kamala will guide the Sabbat rituals as producer and director. Additionally, Kamala and I will work towards offering smaller rituals for the other Sabbats and growing all aspects of the Mythic Players, as well.

In addition to her work as Music and Choir Director, Ananda is now taking on the key leadership role of Director of Clergy Services and Ministerial Development. With her years as a teaching administrator as well as years of service as a ritualist and decades of Pagan and Goddess studies, Ananda will be a wonderful guide for growing the clergy with a two-pronged approach. Ministerial development with studies and refinement of our current clergy members as well as extending our clergy services by opening doors in the Los Angeles area in hospitals and healing centers who need Pagan clergy. Her work leading groups around the country these past years makes her a great fit for interfacing with hospital and funeral administrators.

As Co-Directors of Community Outreach, Briana and Nona, will be growing the temple, both within and without, in this key leadership role. Briana has become an important part of the temple and her openness, enthusiasm, and belief in the temple principles as well as her love for the temple community makes her the perfect candidate for this position. Nona, while somewhat new with us in time, feels like she's been a part of us forever. Her natural leadership abilities will bring so much to the temple in the key role of growing and coalescing our community as well.

The story continues . . . when we step out, trust, and commit to change, the universe affirms our courage and reflects back to us the New Direction we are meant to take. Within days of announcing these big changes to the Board of Directors in early December, a small cadre of us went on a site visit to the Church of Truth: A Center for Awakening Consciousness in Pasadena as a possible location for our monthly Moon Circles in 2013. While there, Rev. Donna asked us to participate in an interfaith activity, the Pasadena Interfaith Walk for Peace, which will take place in Feb and March. The event begins with a month-long shoe drive and ending in a day of walking for Peace on March 3rd. I was asked to participate on the planning committee with a council of interfaith clergy and TOG will be very involved in the closing ceremony for the Peace Walk. There could not have been a more potent confirmation of my decision to delegate some of my temple responsibilities and expand our work in larger venues. See below for more information on the temple's involvement in the Pasadena Interfaith Walk for Peace.

But wait, there's more NEW DIRECTIONS . . . in early January we were trying to set the dates for our 2013 rituals at Neighborhood Church with some difficulty. We re-visited the Center for Awakening Consciousness with the purpose of moving our yearly Sabbats there. While the sanctuary is quite different than we were used to, we feel our ritual theatre template can easily be adapted to the new space and look forward to offering all 2013 Sabbats at this new location.

The changes we initiated in 2012 are growing into wonderful, exciting NEW DIRECTIONS for Temple of the Goddess. I think we have found a home at the Church of Truth in a way we could never quite call home at Neighborhood Church. They already consider us a part of their community which is very lovely. I think we can truly grow TOG to a wonderful new level in this nurturing space and community.

As we move into this year of NEW DIRECTIONS, the Year of the Snake, we have the opportunity to immerse ourselves deeply into the journey, the mythic lessons ahead. As we do so, we make of ourselves, our consciousness, an altar for personal growth . . . and the beauty of it is we do this through the gift of art and community.

Love and Blessings, Xia

"But once this subject catches you, there is such a feeling, from one or another of these traditions, of a deep, rich, life-vivifying sort that you don't want to give it up." -- Joseph Campbell, p. 4, The Power of Myth

This current new direction of my spiritual life actually began when I was 8 years old. I joined the local Presbyterian Church because it was the closest church to my home. I had attended some services at various churches and temples during sleep-overs with my friends, and I loved the theatricality and spectacle of their rituals. On Christmas and Easter, I relished going with my friends' families to their pageants and holiday productions, and I missed this in my everyday life, so asked my parents if we could join a church. This was a surprise to them, because they were both atheists who had each given up on religion in disgust, having found the pretense, irrationality, and bigotry of the evangelical communities in which they had grown up, more than they could stomach. But they were progressive parents who honored their kids' feelings and needs, and so each Sunday, despite their better judgment, they dropped me off, sometimes with my brother and sister, at the little church just a couple of blocks from our elementary school.

My parents would come to the church events I participated in. They watched us singing in the Easter Sunrise Service at the Hollywood Bowl and in the chorus during the Christmas pageant reenactment of Joseph and Mary's search for a safe haven to birth their son, a story that always brought me to tears. To their credit, my parents, despite their disdain for the institution, never showed any contempt, or indicated that there was anything silly or wrong with my going to church. I reveled in these holiday rituals, and the seasons came alive for me. Joining with my newfound community in their Sunday school rituals each week gave me a sense of belonging and hinted to me of the power and wonder of the presence of the Numinous and Divine.

Then, one Sunday, I came face to face with the narrow-mindedness that my parents had fled from. I had come to really admire Jesus and his sacrifice and generosity, and so listened intently as the Sunday school teacher began to expound on the betrayal of Judas. But I was confused, and so questioned her, "If it was God's will to sacrifice Jesus, then mustn't Judas's betrayal have been a part of His plan, and so if Judas was only doing God's will, how could he be evil?" I was sincere, I just wanted to understand these interesting new ideas, but to my Sunday school teacher, I was some sort of miniature apostate. She became stern, and told me that anyone who did not accept Jesus as their savior would be condemned to hell. This image of hell sent a chill down my spine and I knew that she couldn't be exactly right. I knew of people who didn't believe in Jesus, like one of my father's heroes, Mohandas Gandhi, who I had always thought was just as admirable as Jesus, and I could not imagine any god who would send such a man to hell. But I was an obedient and compliant child (typical first-born I guess) so I continued to listen with only an uneasy wondering. Then she went too far, claiming that since my parents did not believe and did not come to church, that they too were bound for eternal suffering and punishment in hell. I asked politely with tears welling up in my eyes how that could be true, my parents were good people and how was it possible that they were going to hell. She repeated that that was how it was. Then I yelled, "No, now you're wrong. That can't be true." and ran out of the church, never to return.

It was pretty clear to me that the Christian Church was not for me, it just didn't make any sense, but I could not forget the peace and pleasure I felt in those beautiful spaces with their rituals and mysteries. That brief taste of my own internal calling to the Divine was the beginning of a lifelong search that has ultimately led me to Temple of the Goddess.

This quest has taken me many wonderful places. Knowing how transformational film and television had been in my life, how movies like Lost Horizon the Snake Pit, and Of Mice and Men had so formed my own ethos and worldview, I understood the sacred role of story and theater, and so became an actor and tried to make a living in Hollywood. I studied Zen Buddhism and learned to meditate, practiced yoga, Tai Chi, and even massage therapy. I found wisdom in almost all of these, and continued to grow and evolve, passing through many systems. Metaphysics and mysticism filled me with delight and mystery, but like acting, metaphysics never really felt like home. Good strong tools, yes, many that I still use today, but not really my heart's home.

Even while often stumbling along, I had learned to follow and to trust, and found myself following a shamanic path. The practice of Core Shamanism I was following was often taught to Indigenous people who had lost connection to their traditional practices, and frequently led them to recover many of their lost traditions and rituals. This is just what happened to me; doors opened which led me home to my own shamanic roots in European paganism and witchcraft. I began to make connections with groups doing rituals based on the Wheel of the Year, celebrating the seasons and the journey of our sun around our earth.

I sensed in these nature-based rituals a garden gate to the spiritual home I had been seeking. From my earliest memories I recalled a deep reverence for nature. As a native Californian I had always resonated with the chaparral of Southern California, and spent as much time as I could in the fragrant hills and valleys of this beautiful state. I could feel a deep and inescapable connection to this scrubby land that my ancestors had settled in 1848, 100 years before I was born, and I moved to Topanga Canyon, where I could feel that I was finally coming home.

In this Pagan community I found the Woman's Mystery of the Ancient Future Sisterhood and began a dance practice called the Tantric Dance of Feminine Power. This very somatic practice and the priestess training I received there, led me to the threshold of the door to my heart's home, where I could feel the earth solid beneath my feet with the wind blowing in my ears as my tears began to wash me clean. But even with my growing wisdom fueled now by the passionate fire of my desire burning bright, I continued to feel the need for community, for others with whom to share my experiences and for a ritual tradition based broadly and openly in all our myths and stories, ancient and modern.

The Fall ritual of 2005 was the first I attended at Temple of the Goddess and was, appropriately, the harvest of all the fruits I had gathered on my long path. As I sat in the audience filled with deep gratitude and with tears running down my cheeks, I knew I had finally opened that door to my heart's home, where I felt complete and at ease. So much so that the very next ritual offered by the Temple, I took a role as a facilitator.

Since then, my reverence for and deep belief in the power of myth, storytelling, and ritual has grown and deepened. The power of myth drew me to Pacifica Graduate Institute where I steeped myself in depth psychology, finally receiving a MA in Counseling Psychology. The course work at Pacifica concretized the numinous pleasure I had felt ever since I was a little girl who sat mesmerized by stories like the fairytale of "The Little Match Girl", the myth "Demeter and Persephone", or the TV play "Amahl and the Night Visitor".

Once again I feel the wonder and awe of that little girl. In the thrall of the stories and the power of shared community rituals, I am continuing my journey in the role of Ritual Director of Temple of the Goddess. With great excitement I begin this new direction and am in such gratitude that I have been given this opportunity to serve in a way that fills me with such creative energy, compassion, and devotion.