Above head, the sky fades from a deep eggplant purple into a pale orange outline along the dark silhouette of the mountain range. This is the middle of nowhere. A trail of lanterns snakes through the dry shrubs. The beams of yellow, pale blue, and orange circles of light steadily follow to the pace of a witch named Rabbit and her rattling bells.

In the front of the procession, Grey Wolf presses a skeletal mask into his long silver hair that blows in the warm autumn breeze. The stream of lanterns stop and circle around a pile of bones to begin their ritual at Stone City Pagan Sanctuary, which is in the middle of a dry chaparral forest in Santa Clara county.

As brown leaves begin to litter San Francisco's sidewalks, Witches sprinkled around the Bay Area gather to dance around fires to welcome the fall and worship nature. San Francisco may be marching down the yellow brick road to becoming the greenest of emerald cities, but the Bay Area's local Pagan witches have been worshiping mother Earth for centuries.

Paganism is very mysterious religion for several reasons. Witches were made to look evil by Christians hundreds of years ago and to add to the mystery today every Witch worships with his or her own unique spin. "As our culture evolves individuality is becoming more important. It's I, I, I everything - iPod, iPhone," says Rabbit. "We need we, we, we. Paganism allows you to be yourself within a community. But we all believe in Earth preservation and creating traditions to mark changes."

All Pagans mark holidays or Sabbats, which correspond with the seasons. Each season has one major agricultural festival and one minor solar festival. The major agricultural harvest festival of the fall is Samhain, celebrated on Halloween. The minor astrological festival is the Autumn Equinox or Mabon, which signifies the end of summer and the beginning of fall, when Pagans believe the light and dark are balanced.

"This time of year is about time changing," says June Ahearn, a Wiccan psychic who moved into an apartment hovering above a crystal shop in the Castro when she was six years old and tells the story of her spiritual journeys in her book The Skye in June. "The winter is approaching and bringing cold. Summer is ending and we will no longer have fruits and vegetables or outdoor activities. It's about coming inward."

When All Hallows Eve comes around, witches donning pointy conical hats migrate to Golden Gate Park to dance the spiral dance with a thousand other Pagan witches celebrating Samhain. To worshippers this Halloween celebration is like the New Year's Eve of witchcraft. During this time Pagans believe that the veil between the worlds is thin, meaning communication between the living and the dead transpires with ease.

The Pagan alter is a crucial element required for celebrating Sabbat rituals. Every Pagan alter must contain a few crucial ingredients, which represent each element: fire, earth, water, and wind. Ahearn's alter is where she burns incense to represent air, lights a candle to represent fire, pours a glass of wine to represent water, and lays out crystals to represent earth. For Samhain's alter, she adds pictures of the deceased and a skull, which represents Hacate or the Goddess of Death.

Once an alter is properly prepared then witches may hold their ritual. Pagan rituals always open and close by greeting and dismissing the directions. Each of the directions also represents one of the natural elements symbolized on the alter. North is earth, South is fire, East is air, and West is water.

Elizabeth Rose is a solitary witch, which means she practices alone. "We're all pretty eccentric," explains Rose. "Getting 13 eccentric women together is ..." She stops and a crazy expression fills her face. Then, she continues to explain covens are a group of witches that usually contain a magic number of nine, eleven, or thirteen witches. Some are closed and gather privately while others, like Come As You Are Covenant, or Reclaiming, host larger-scale rituals. Reclaiming's Samhain ritual welcomes thousands of witches to dance around the fire on Halloween.

Back at Stone City Pagan Santuary's 'stone henge,' Come As You Are or CAYA celebrates Autumn Equinox by dancing around the fire, eating cake, and drinking wine. Similar to a Church ceremony, they sing and chant to the God(s). Afterward, witches extinguish the ceremony by dismissing each element and saying "Stay if you will, leave if you must. Blessed be."

The Book of Shadows is another crucial element of Witchcraft and in it each witch keeps a diary-like record of spells and revelations. "My Book of Shadows has rubber bands holding it together," says Rabbit as flecks of gold left over from a prosperity ritual to the Goddess of Wealth, Oshun, sparkle on her skin. "There are rose petals shoved in there, spells jotted down and circled, big folded up pieces of paper sticking out. It's my secret magical journal."

From Rabbit's neck dangles a necklace with a star or pentacle in a circle, worn by Neo-Pagans and Wiccans. Each of the points represents an element. The top fifth point represents the quintessential spirit of oneself. The symbol is often confused with the satanic inverted pentacle, which is the complete opposite.

Rose, who wears a pentacle ring, says Satanism and Witchcraft lie on opposite ends of the magical spectrum. She says it's debatable but believed that Satanism is black magic and Wiccans are only supposed to practice white magic.

"I only cast spells for the good of all and the harm of none," says Rose, who has been practicing Wicca for about twenty years. The Three-Fold Law advises Wiccan witches that spells with malicious intentions will haunt the caster threefold.

"Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols once said, 'New Wave is watered down Punk,'" says Rose, who once put a love spell on Iggy Pop and plays in a punk band called Daughters of Mars. "Well you could say Wicca is kind of like watered down witchcraft."

Aside from the pentagrams on their jewelry, you would probably never be able to pick a Witch out from the crowd. "I like to refer to myself as a Witch because people are afraid of it," says Rose, as she cackles. "People think we walk around in capes all day. No! Just look at my cute little skirt." she continues, pointing out her purple mini skirt. "I'm a bit different from all these people," says Shannon Moore, owner of the 102 acre Stone City Pagan Sanctuary, "But I'm sure we all say that."

Ahearn, who holds her own beliefs says, "But the bottom line is that we all celebrate the Earth."