Source: Erie Times-News
[ldnews.com/news/ci_12019440]
Rich Konkol Jr. lay on the sanctuary floor, covered by a black cloak, practicing his religion.
He snored.
His loud nasal grunts were exaggerated, as befitted someone playing the role of a gatekeeper put to sleep by a Holly King who didn't want to make way for the Oak King's new season.
The mythological battle between kings took place March 18 at the Open Circle for Ostara held by the Covenant of Brighid's Haven. Konkol is a member of the local eclectic Wiccan coven, a part of the pagan religious family. His group held the ritual to celebrate the vernal equinox and the arrival of spring.
"It's nature-based," Konkol said about his pagan religion. "We follow the cycle of seasons, the ebb and flow of how our own world works, especially our region, where you have your growing season, your season where it's cold and you're reflecting on yourself.
"There's no one right way or one concrete path to take," he said. "It's whatever is in each person's heart and soul."
Konkol, 33, was raised Catholic but left home at age 20 because of issues over his new religion.
Since the age of 7 or 8, he'd been attracted to the outdoors, the woods, where he felt the magic, the spirits of nature.
"It just clicked," he said, "like a priest called into priesthood or a minister to serve. It just resonates."
At 16, he discovered, through books, that what he was feeling was an Earth-based religion.
Pagan and neo-pagan are [u]mbrella terms often used interchangeably to describe a collection of religious groups that includes Wicca, which is the largest, as well as Druids, goddess worshippers and others, according to professors of religion and sociology who have studied the various groups. Neo-pagan or contemporary pagan is often used to distinguish practitioners of new religious movements that have ancient roots.
Konkol is part of the United NeoPagan Council of Lake Erie and a Wiccan coven, but he just describes himself as pagan.