For once I'm not sure how to begin this entry and I've been avoiding being online for a few days to really let my thoughts come out the right way.  I'm writing after the shooting death of an old friend and fellow pagan, Dirk Wolf.  Dirk was killed by someone he knew would kill him and, it's suspected by his friends and family, that the police right now may have the wrong man in custody.  Yet who can really say?  I can't go into all the details because it's still under investigation and I wish not to interfere, but all I can say is much of what I know is hearsay and I'm not the only one who is stunned.  Dirk was shot in broad daylight on the corner of a busy intersection.  Yet I do not feel so bold to discuss all the details here.

I'm numbed by Dirk's death because the last time I saw him and the man accused of shooting him, his business partner, Aaron Harvath, was on Monday.  I was busy packing up stuff at Vagabond Imports when he came in around noon.  Dirk was dressed in his usual black suit, leaning on his cane (he's had to walk with a cane ever since he was bitten by a brown recluse spider and developed nerve damage because of it) and looking at a Balinese dragon flute he'd always wanted to buy but, even with our closing sale, he couldn't afford.  "Evelyn would kill me," he said, "we're on such a tight budget."  So I gave him some incense.  I noticed that he was more well dressed than usual and asked if he was dressed up for Samhain.  He then told me all about his new job; he was starting a security guard business and things were looking up for him and his friend.  Aaron stood there and said not a word, just looked smug.  Which, now that I think about it, was unusual, but at the time I didn't pay it as much mind as I do now. 

When I first met Dirk he was this weird Goth kid who loved to hang out at the Mission Coffee House and would come bug me at Vagabond Imports.  He wanted me to teach him Witchcraft, which I was perfectly willing to do, until he started claiming that he was part of the Illuminati and that he was over 400 years old!  I thought he was joking, but the boy was dead serious.  Then he developed a crush on me and starting leaving little gifts of rose petals and red candles outside the storeroom door.  He even once bragged to me that he cast a love spell on me and that the man I'd marry would come to me during a time of death.  This worried me but not for long.  One day he finally walked in with a girl as strange as he was and the two were really made for each other.  This relationship, and the baby that was produced as a result of it, really matured him.  Dirk would still dress up in black leather, spike out his hair, and wear red contact lenses to make himself look like a member of the undead, but he grew out of pretending he was Illuminati.  It was the girlfriend OR the fact that we teased him about his wild stories all the time.  Hell, for years I entertained people with stories about this strange kid who would later become one of the sweetest men I'd ever know.

He was never officially my student, but I like to think I was his elder, someone like an older sister who was the only one who listened to him enough to answer wild questions.  Even when he once showed me what he claimed was a picture of himself in World War II and bragged that he built an Astral Projection Machine, I was doing my best to set him straight about the Occult arts and religion.  I gave him books, introduced him to Wiccan priest/esses, and once drove him and his girlfriend to Circle Sanctuary.  He even once followed me to a psychic convention I attended in Brookfield.  He became like the little brother I really didn't want because he could be a pest with all his wild questing, but sometimes that's the kind of student you want; someone with devotion, dedication, and, best of all, enthusiasm.

I lost touch with him shortly after I moved to Milwaukee in 2001 and by the time I came back to Point last year, I encountered him again at the Book Market.  I loved the attention and appreciation I recieved from him and his girlfriend so much that I made sure to save them the books they couldn't afford and gave them an extra discount so that they wouldn't miss out on a great bargain.

Dirk was only 23 years old.  He had just started a temple, a business, and his baby daughter is only a few months older than my friend Miya's.  He was part of a humanitarian organization called United Citizens Alliance that Dirk had joined and started a local branch of to help with Hurricane relief efforts.  I donated what little money I had to this organization.  I listened to all his plans.  I was proud of him.  He really grew up.  He was just starting his life! 

Sometimes I forget how conservative Stevens Point is and there's always something that creeps up to remind me when I least want it to and that was all the talk in the local church Dirk's friends attended.  A pastor freaked them out after he openly stated that Dirk would be going to Hell for being Pagan.  Heather, one of Dirk's wife's best friends, contacted my brother and I, her face drenched in tears for Dirk's lost soul.  Heather herself is near death from a heart disease and Dirk's death really has done a number on her because Dirk always told her that he would die way before she would.  Heather would tell him, "No, you can't!  I'm supposed to go first.  I'm the one with the heart condition!"  Over a few beers Friday night, Heather asked me a question I've always been uncomfortable to answer: "Val, do Pagans go to Heaven?"  

It's something Christians do, bless the bad ones' rotten souls, condemn the souls of those who do not believe as they do.  The Pagan concept of the afterlife is different from the Christian POV, but it does not mean after a Pagan dies we go into one place while people of other religions go elsewhere.  Heather's a gentle soul and I didn't want to distress her with too many confusing philosophical details.  I had to narrow things down for her and assure her that she will see Dirk again and that, if she really wanted to, she could even send his soul a message.  "That would scare me too much," she shivered.  "Do you get freaked out when someone calls you on your cell phone?" I asked. 

"But that's different, Val, I know that the person on the other line is alive!" 

"Yet why should it matter if they are alive or dead?"  Perhaps this wasn't the best way to assure Heather, but it was a start to how Pagans view the afterlife.  Since Dirk's path was similiar to mine, I explained that witches believe that our souls go to the moon to be reunited with the souls of our ancestors but there is a small period of time the soul of the witch spends still on earth to protect their loved ones.  After the soul is assured that their loved ones are well, they can go to the moon or move on to The Summerland which is a place very much like the Christian concept of Heaven, but to stay there for too long sometimes proves to be unproductive because the soul is restless and yearns for new experiences.  When the soul is ready to be born again, it will return to earth to begin a new life and learn a new series of lessons.  We believe in reincarnation; we live many lives yet have only one soul, a soul that goes to Heavens only to fall down to Earth again.  There is also the concept of Ascension; that, after a certain number of lives well spent and well learned, the soul can graduate into a more divine form -- a sort of deified ancestor or guardian -- but this concept might be a little too much for even me to explain fully, so it's only implied for you here.

The rest, as they say, is a mystery we all have yet to experience and my friend Dirk was not one to shy away from a discovery.  He loved to talk about death and even looked forward to moving on into the next life, into new adventures.  I assured Heather and Dirk's other non-Pagan friends that they will see Dirk again when they're ready.  For now Dirk, like any good Pagan, would want those who remember him to continue the good work he started and celebrate his life, not mourn his death. 

So what did we do?  We went out and got drunk!  Between moving and drinking, I'm paying the price.  Every muscle of mine is still screaming sore, but it was worth it.  In any case...

Celebrating is one thing, attending a wake is another.  I don't look forward to seeing someone I knew who was so young be taken so violently and be given a Christian funeral.  But funerals are for the living, not the dead, when you really think about it.  In the end, Dirk's body is just a shell and he will be cremated -- it'll be as close to a Viking funeral as he'll get.

I won't forget to miss him and wish him good journey.