Her “day job” working in a metaphysical bookstore gives her access to plentiful reading and research material, but she also meets a lot of questioning people daily. “Learning where people are on their own path is so fulfilling for me,” she says. “The questions people bring to their personal quest fascinate and motivate me. There are so many ways of being in the world, and I want to understand them all.”

Deeply influenced by the work of comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell, Starr still lists The Power of Myth as her favorite book. “We all have forces at work in our daily lives we try to understand,” she says, “and we all tell ourselves stories to get through the day.”

After caring for an elderly aunt who was a dementia patient, Starr was shocked when someone suggested the experience might have left her open to demonic possession. “That really sent me digging into demonology to try to understand where that explanation would come from!” she said. “That’s when I discovered a powerful trove of demon lore and of course, I had to write about it.”

Now Star sees writing as part of her personal path, likening the gathering of information and the sharing of the material to a kind of active meditation. “If we get back what we put out into the universe,” Star says, “I want to make sure I’m sending the clearest signal possible.”

She keeps herself open to all ideas and all philosophies. “There’s just no one way to express or experience this miracle of existence,” she says. “I really don’t know who or what is running the show, so I try to be nice to priests and oak trees. That’s not a joke. All life and all belief is sacred.”

Above all, she holds to the key moral tenet of her Wiccan faith, The Wiccan Rede, “An Ye harm none, do what ye will.”

Riley Star