Morgaine was raised in a small Missouri town outside of St. Louis in the 70's. Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father a retired minister. (Not quite the start you'd expect for a Wiccan Priestess.) Her older brother was in the army and her family would spend summers traveling where he was stationed.
Photographed by Jennifer Reeve
Enhanced by Jeff McLane
Too poor for cable and too isolated for many friends, she resigned herself to the solace of her mind and delved deep into the comforts of art, music and literature. She read everything she could get her hands on. Some of these writers became her greatest influences including Shakespeare, Tolkien, Plath, Keats, Tennyson, and Stevie Nicks. Morgaine grew fanatical with her imagination making up complete poems, stories and songs--collecting them in her diaries. These writings were not only a creative outlet, but also a type of therapy for dealing with abuse. �Writing became my voice when all other avenues of expressing myself were taken away�
Her mother had a short string of boyfriends, all falling short of resembling a decent father figure. Morgaine�s growing independent nature became smothered by child abuse. Her mother finally settled down with her future stepfather on a remote cattle ranch. While she dreamed and wrote about seeing the world, her days were spent working cattle, baling hay, fixing fences, feeding chickens and even joined the FFA. But the cycle of abuse hadn�t ended, it was just transformed from physical to emotional. "I didn�t get to learn a lot about myself. I was quite removed and spent most of my teenage years in a deep depression feeling very unworthy and hating myself."
During this time, she discovered Wicca and the art of Magick. Morgaine became active in the local pagan community and also learned to read tarot. "I was having a hard time with religion. I was just escaping and starting to understand the things that had happened to me as a child. I was falling into abusive relationships with men at every turn. I needed freedom and that�s what the Goddess gave to me. Wicca has become one of the most important things in my life�my own strength and energy breaks out on it�s own. It�s made me realize my own worth.�
The little gift book began an evolutionary process�revamped and rescaled several times. It wasn�t until she had all of the chosen pieces in place that Morgaine realized something was missing. She began collaborating with artist Jeff McLane in Spring 2003. �I didn�t want this project to be �normal�. I wanted to give it life and I couldn�t do that alone. Jeff�s ability to understand what this whole project meant and his talent to translate that meaning into artwork gave me faith and trust. It�s the process that was important.� Now complete, �Demons Don�t Fail Me Now� hit the market in May 2004.
Morgaine has now hit the streets promoting �Demons�. But she hasn�t forgotten about some of her first inspirations. At every poetry reading, she takes a moment to remind people about child abuse. �I promised the Goddess, if she ever gave me a moment to speak, I would speak out about child abuse. It�s important people understand, you can�t truly defeat anything in this world if you don�t expose it to light. There are too many horrible things in this world for children. Abuse is one that can be ended.�