While my mother taught me to respect and revere nature, my father taught me to appreciate it. He is the one who would invite me out into the backyard when we were waiting for the house to cool off, "Come outside and see the night sky with me." When in the car, on a long trip home, he's the one who exclaimed, "Look! The Moon is following us!" And taught me to sing, "I see the moon/ the moon sees me/ God bless the moon/ and God bless me."
My father is an outsdoorsmen. Camping, hiking, and fishing were part of my childhood. He taught me to build a good campfire and how to cook on a Coleman stove. He taught me the importance of silence and observation when in Nature.
Just the other night, while talking on the phone, he remarked, "Did you see the Moon tonight? It's just beautiful!"

In the third grade, Jennifer asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I replied, "A witch." She didn't bat an eye. This identity wouldn't quite be realized until 10 years later. Instead, I combed the school and public library for books on witches, anything I could get my hands on. My curiosity was fed on such titles as The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Witch Next Door series, and Jane/Emily which caught my eye because of the beautiful garden globe on the book's cover.
I am a product of a '70s and '80s California mentality, epsecially when it came to children's access of information. No librarian questioned my choice of books, not to mention these books were available to me! Some books I read were scary stories, others contained truths about the persecution of "witches," real or imagined, in this country and abroad, still others, such as one I found in high school, was a how-to book on practical candle magick. (Let me just say here, any witch who has a father for a firefighter – don't bother! just wait until you get a place of your own and can do all the candle magick you want, uninterrupted.)

As a froshling at Mills College in Oakland, CA, I discovered that my suite mate and good friend, Lisa from Oregon, was a witch. She is Wiccan with Gardenarian leanings. I spent that year reading up and considering what it meant, exactly, to be a witch.
The following year I started attended the Open Circle that was available on campus and reading and buying more books than you can believe. I began talking to my Mom about my orientation and had a very sucessful coming out of the broom closet. In fact, when I explained how it was her upbringing that led me down this Pagan path, she began considering her own identity as a Pagan and witch.
In my final three semesters at Mills, I became part of a core group that planned and organized the Full Moon Circle on campus as was a member of the Allspice Coven. Allspice was very eclectic, with members who studied and found affinity with Yoruba traditions, Celtic culture, and Hindu, Greek, Native American, and Indian Mythos.
Though I look like and am partly Irish (many, many generations ago), the Celtic lore and tradition never sang for me as it did for some of my sisters. It was not until I found Raven Grimossi's The Ways of the Strega did I find my true path. My maternal grandfather and his sister are 100% Italian and it is this culture, and having pride in this ancestory that was a key part of my identity as a child.
What made me know Stregheria, or the Aridian system as it is known, for me was when I read the description of the Tregundas, the holy days of the Stregherian Wheel. They do not differ greatly from the Wiccan calendar I had been celebrating, but differed enough for me to feel that this is what the other path had lacked.

I named myself Nox Dakini to focus on a side of myself which has always been a source of strength, but is not the usual focus of one's spirituality.
I am not an witch of all "sweetness and light." I have always chosen face what I feared most; as a child, that was the darkness. Now, I am at home in the dark. I find my inspiration, my solace, there. I have come to a point on my spiritual path where I need to further nurture this aspect of myself: the dark maiden, the fierce mother, the justice-inspired crone.
All of my life, I have been the person people have turned to in crisis, in suffering. Though it is not a role I seek, it is a role that undoubtedly finds me and I thank Those That Be that I can be a helpful and supportive friend for the people who find me.