All that they needed was a guide.

Yet who am I to offer advice on this topic? I am a father of two beautiful young girls, one seven and the other three. I am also divorced once and am now engaged to a wonderful, supportive, and beautiful woman.

So since I have been a father for seven years and have worked through the trials and tribulations of raising children; Worked hard to establish traditions rooted in love and not in duty, hopefully I am somewhat qualified to comment and offer my advice on one of the ways to be not just a dad but a great dad who happens to be Pagan.

So what exactly is it that separates a Dad from a Great Father?

Almost any man can be a dad, all that is involved in that is enough sex to make a woman pregnant and then the child being carried to term and being born and voila the male becomes a dad. But a father, much less a great father, is involved in that child or children’s personal life in an overwhelmingly positive manner.

Yet so many men today are either afraid or don’t know how to be whole and complete men. A man must be strong but merciful, stern but fair. No longer is it acceptable for men to be hard-asses nor should it be acceptable for men to be complete pansies and pushovers.

But a strong willed man is often times feared, crucified and turned into a pariah by the women around him. And so it is often times for fathers that want the best for and out of their kids.

I set my standards high for my children, hoping that they can reach that level but being comfortable with them in the meantime only reaching a half or even a quarter of this goal, as long as they continue to strive for excellence. And I am often told that I am to hard and that kids need to be kids.

Yet I feel that I give them room to play and express themselves but I insist that they must learn manners and how they are expected to act while in a public place.

A lot of these comments are the result of the perception of Fathers and Men in today’s culture. This perception is exceedingly negative. We are ridiculed as stupid and bumbling. The brunt of women’s jokes. Yet at the same time a male is a predator. He is a nasty, vicious, hateful bigot/racist/rapist/fill in the blank. I guess the only ones who are not killing people are the ones to stupid to operate a gun or knife.

I have seen in my own life a man who is strong willed and confident in himself be lambasted by the women around him, even complete strangers. I have seen him called sexist, macho (since when was that a bad term?), and egotistical, among many other things.

Why is it that a strong willed man is perceived as a threat?

There are bad men among us but I believe that the large portion of the problems facing us from deranged males is caused by their upbringing.

If you tell a child that he is not needed by the opposite sex and in the next breath tell him that he should stop acting like a girl, what is he supposed to think and feel?

If he steps out of line then you medicate him, instead of training and helping him to work through his feelings, therefore emotionally castrating him. Unable to express more than a very limited range of emotions.

On the worst case he is violent and angry, on the best case he is a sobbing emotional wreck, quick to cry at every bad turn in his life. This emotional wreck is the one that stays home with Mom until he is forty, he is the one that one day because he can’t afford his meds and can’t control himself without them, snaps and kills a school full of people.

And yes they make that choice but if you treat a child like a helpless baby and coddle him (or her) their entire life and are always there to solve their problems for them, then by definition they are codependent and unable to solve their own problems.

It is our roles as Fathers and Men to recognize this baggage in ourselves, and through faith in the Goddess and God (or whatever it is that you believe in), and through support groups if necessary, to overcome this programming, to be independent and able to make our own decisions.

I used to be one of these men, quick to anger and quick to cry unable to face my problems, unable, in many cases, to even express how I felt. This cost me my first marriage but now that I have learned how to express myself with words and not through anger it has enabled me to have a serious long term relationship that is strong and continues to grow. And when we overcome our childhood training then we must teach this independence and freedom to our sons and to any and all of our friends that our ready to listen.

Now don’t think that I am going to leave out the daughters of the world. We as fathers and men have a responsibility there also. They learn from us how they are supposed to be treated in their future (or current) relationships.

We must teach them independence and not that they don’t need men (as is often the message to little girls) but that they don’t need anything or anyone in their lives that is unhealthy for them. They can have men in their lives and have deep relationships without fear as long as they seek those relationships with men that have grown up and have become true men.

So to sum up what I have said about fatherhood; A father helps to establish traditions that bring the family together and helps to hold them together. He teaches them right from wrong, teaches morality, strength and love.

He is there to love and teach love. He hopefully is able to bring light into their lives and to show them that they can bring light to others through kindness. And he is also supposed to give them a basic roadmap and a how-to (if you will) of their spirituality. Not to define their faith, but to give them tools so that when they get older they can find their own faith.

So what other types of males are there? Well in my opinion the males of the world can be divided into three categories. You have boys, young males who play and have their toys and don’t know how to act responsible; they are too young.

Then you have guys, they are legally adults but still act like boys, they should know how to act responsible but for whatever reason they do not. They often fall into the negative stereotypes that are applied to all grown men. They are often the sexist bigots that we so often hear about.

But finally you have men, a small minority of males who are true adults, able to express themselves coherently; calm and confident they are often perceived as egotistical and too macho. But they are in most cases simply trying to live their lives, trying to raise their families with the same sense of ethics and morals that they carry with them.

They are stern but kind, hard but loving, strong-willed but understanding, has deep convictions but is open to compromise as long as he does not have to sell himself out.

So my challenge to you the reader is to look at yourself. What category do you fall into?

What category do you wish you fell into?

Ask this question of yourself whether you are a father or are going to be a father or even if you are neither; for facing yourself is the first step to being a complete human being.

Hopefully since you found your way here and actually read this article to the end, you are seeking to be a real man. Complete and true.

So I wish you all luck and blessings and a safe journey.

Blessed Be!

For me and my family this month has also been a time of rest and renewal. With nearly two months between Sabbats, we can take a break and turn our focus onto resting and preparing for the work of the coming season.

Soon we will be planting our garden and we will take this opportunity to teach our children about the importance of hard work, perseverance and patience.

Hard work because planting and digging is not always easy to do. Although my youngest seems to enjoy it. I think it is the playing in the dirt thing.

Perseverance because they have to take it on faith that the work that they are doing now will show rewards in the coming months. Plus, here in Florida, the heat comes early so they get hot quick and tend to want to quit almost as soon as they started.

The final lesson is patience. There is a process to gardening. From preparing the soil and planting the seeds. To the waiting for sprouting and then the cutting back. My children want to do it all right away and at the same time. So I have to hold them back and make them wait for the right time. They get tired of hearing the words, ‘Seeds don’t sprout overnight’.

These lessons are important and are sorely lacking from the rest of the world. We rush and rush in our society. We want it all and we want it yesterday. If we were a little more hardworking and patience and stuck it out to the end, than we would all be better off.

This is also the season of burgeoning fertility. We celebrate, like so many others, by painting eggs. In our Family Coven’s tradition this small act is an act of magick that will aid the Goddess and God in their bringing back the warmth and growth of the Spring. I also tell my kids that Coyote, the trickster steals the eggs and hides them. And so the egg hunt begins.

Of course the hunt also helps to spread the magick around. So my children learn from this that even though things may not always go according to plan and that bad things happen, that in the end they will work out for the best.

So as we go forward from here into Spring and the warmer weather comes take some time to go outside with your children and watch the world begin to waken from their long Winter slumber. Here in Florida one of the most common animals we see are cows with horses being a close second, and I know that in the next few months I will be able to point out the foals and calfs to my children.

And maybe you can pass on some of these lessons of Spring to your kids as well.

One of the themes for me at this point on the Wheel of the Year is the Hero’s Quest: The sacred journey taken by heroes of old to find the treasure of knowledge. As Pagans and Wiccans, we should always be searching for knowledge of all kinds. And so the Quest is an important idea for me. It closely parralels our own path to illumination and knowledge.

In my Family Coven’s tradition the story from Yule to Imbolc is that the Crone, locked away in a tower by the Lord of Winter, gives birth to the Sun at Yule. This taxes Her so much that She falls into a deep sleep near death. The Sidhe tend to her and succeed in making her young and beautiful again but they cannot find a way to waken Her.

So they send the Sun King, after He vanquishes the Holly King, on a quest to find the way to waking the sleeping Maiden. For in doing so He will waken the Earth from the slumber of Winter. They speak to Him of a sacred grove guarded over by a wise and powerful Deva.

Full of hope and light the young Sun King sets out on his quest to find the Sacred Grove. Long and far he searches for this Grove. When at long last He finds the sacred grove He follows the winding path through the labyrinth to the center. It is here that he is told by the Deva of the grove, that love’s true kiss is all that is truly needed to waken the Maiden.

This angers the Sun King. The fact that all this time has been wasted only to find that the answer is so simple. It is at this time that the Sun King is gently reminded of a few lessons, by the protector of the Grove. These lessons are:

That the journey we take is often the most important part. For, oftentimes, it makes us ready to accept the answers that we seek on our quest.

The Labyrinth is the path to initiation, and while there is only one path through, the hardest step is always the step going forward.

The Sun King’s journey, as long as it was, tells us to never give up if the cause is right and just. And it also tells us to strive all the harder in the face of adversity and challenge.

When you gather together with your famiy for this next Sabbat of Imbolc, keep these lessons in mind. And as Winter drags on remember that it is moving towards Spring and that we need to stay strong and hold out hope for warmer weather.