"Work is a huge part of our everyday mundane lives as well as playing an important roll in our spiritual life. Work is an issue that takes on a personal aspect for each individual and depending on what ethical system you have in place suggest you serious you take this responsibility.

"Personally, I take my work in mundane life very seriously since being an R.N. I literally hold other peoples' lives in my hand and I also take my work in my spiritual life very seriously as well for several reasons. These reasons are as follows: (1) first of all it shows the Goddess and God that I take my oaths to them with all seriousness by working on my skills diligently to master each learning task so that I could be of service to them by teaching others of our tradition. (2) It also shows the Elders and teachers of our tradition just how I take my responsibilities of my vows by working hard and progressing in a timely manner. (3) The work that we do in our tradition gives each of the students a very strong sense of accomplishment as we work through each level requirement reach the goal which is initiation. But not every person possesses the same work ethic or drive it takes to stay on a spiritual path such as ours.

"People are strange creatures. When they start awakening to the facts that there is a lot more to life than going to work everyday, working with your family and not getting their spiritual needs met by the [organized] church, they start the search for a deeper meaning that their hearts are seeking so some turn to the occult arts for these answers. When these people start searching for spiritual answers they come across witchcraft with the idea that all they have to do is contact a grove or coven, ask to become a member and then the hart part would be over. They don't realize just how much work and dedication is ahead of them to reach their goal of enlightenment. Some of the potential students are looking for a quick way to becoming a high priest or priestess or to becoming a "powerful" person through the use of magick and spells, not realizing the harm they could inflict on others by not being property trained. These are the students who get bored quickly, who do not do the allotted work given to them in either the spiritual or physical form and they leave a group looking for another group that lacks the discipline and structure of a true "structured" tradition, or one to which they don't have the responsibility of doing any work at all.

"Our students are given, up front, the challenge of just how information intensive and how much work this tradition is. For it is through hard, diligent work that we learn this tradition well enough to have off and go out into the world to start our own covens or groves, armed with everything we need to meet society's scrutiny. We work hard enough to know our teachings well enough to become adepts so that we can pass the same along to future students, just as the Ancient Ones did to our teachers. This is one of the reasons why we do the work tasks outside our lessons such as doing workshops at annual festivals to share our knowledge, doing ritual to put our working knowledge into motion (such as designing the ritual circle to writing inspirational ceremonies to figuring out how to use the Universe's power through the astrological signs and other items that are incorporated into the ritual to make the magick more powerful). It is through the work of practical demonstration that actually shows how each student is progressing and to reassure our teachers that we know what we have learned vs. just doing the book work. As a part of our work responsibility, we teach neophytes the basics stringently so that they understand the traditional concepts, the magick and the consequences they can face before they are allowed to do any advanced work. This, again, takes work, prioritization, dedication and motivation on the part of the person who is teaching, so as a teacher, we need to keep the student's interest by being passionate and confident about our teachings and our lineage being passed on.

"Another issue that comes from work are the members of a coven or grove who like to participate in circle but make no effort to do their share of the work. So then the work is then left up to the members that are willing to do it, and these procrastinators use excuses to justify why they aren't doing any work, but these members don't realize the only one they are fooling is themselves, and it is going to take twice the time to meet their level requirements for them to move forward through the initiatory process.

"In our coven, work duties are as valuable and important as learning to use tools, as the vows and oaths we speak before the Goddess and God, as well as to our Council of Elders. As coven leaders, elders and teachers, along with future teachers of our tradition, it is our responsibility to set the example for each student to follow so that the work tasks can be accomplished. Everyone has a place to fill in a working coven in which the continuity of the group is sustained; but if one person shirks his/her responsibility, it is like the domino effect, the tiles start falling down. When this happens the covens could begin to fall apart.

"So it is to our advantage to do the work, inspire ourselves and future students so our tradition will always be strong, steadfast and meet the challenge of each level requirement."