I'm the official platywitch mascot, and I've just been named!
After much debate and some giggling, the Sacred Crossroads crew decided that I shall be known as "Playto," but my Craft name is "Squidgy." There was some talk about my gender, but to be honest, labels are SO limiting. Besides, I like to keep folks guessing..."
Now you may well ask, why a platypus? We're not Australians! Well, to be honest, the idea came about through a rather bizarre conversation where the term "Pagan platitudes" was uttered, and we immediately jumped to platypuses from there. You could say, the platypus adopted us.
Research into platypuses revealed some very interesting facts about these amazing creatures. They in many ways bear a metaphoric resemblance to the pagan community... They seem to be put together from many different parts, and some "experts" refused to believe in them for a long time until one was finally caught and examined. Within the Community Advisors alone we have Eclectics, Wiccans, Gardnerians, a Blue Star, Oddysseans, an Äsatru and a Shaman. Also like pagans, they seem to mostly be cute, fuzzy little creatures but they--the males, at least--have a poisonous spur they can defend themselves with. The platypuses also hunt "blind" underwater, with their eyes closed, and rely on elector-receptors in their bill to sense movement--very paganish, we think.