Author, Healther, Teacher
With offerings such as Kim Davis and Mitch McConnell, I am courting the idea of inventing a new life story where instead of hailing from my beloved home state of Kentucky, I was instead born to gypsies who raised me in an RV, moving all over the United States and stocking my mental larders with exciting adventures. Continue reading “Kim Davis: Everybody Must Get Stoned”
This week, several articles on Josh Duggar popped up on my Patheos feed as news of his marital unfaithfulness spread across the interwebs. Not on Patheos Pagan, mind you, but throughout the other religious channels. Pagans are not much talking about him since he is not one of us and it is hard to see any relevance to us. He is just another vocal, Proposition 8 pushing, up-in-our-reproductive-business, telling us how to live Christian we prefer to ignore.
Continue reading “Josh Duggar: Why He Is Relevant to Pagans”
Within the past two weeks, I have seen several articles by Pagan columnists whose work I enjoy expressing surprise and dismay at how other Pagans speak to one another in online message boards. Honestly, I can only look stunned whenever I hear this. Like this: O_O Continue reading “Dealing With Pagan Assholes”
Emotion is what fuels magical practice because spell work begins with what you want to have happen. If you cannot feel, then you cannot want and feeling is emotion. All intense emotion is high energy and you can, with rational thought and careful planning, direct all the intensity of that energy toward your goal. Passion will spike energy right off the meter, whether that passion comes from lust, anger, fear, or exultation. High emotion of all kinds: love, fear, sadness, anger, frustration, etc, can fuel your magical energy like a stoked furnace. But should you? Continue reading “High Emotion Magic: Bonus or Bad News?”
“An it harm none do what ye will.”
We cling to these words, among other reasons, because they are our battle cry to legitimize us to other faiths. “Oh, no… We aren’t bad people. We even have a law that says ‘harm none.'” I saw this again with recent comments an ill-informed Florida sheriff made attributing ritualistic murders to “Witchcraft” when of the many replies that flooded my Facebook news feed, “We harm none!” or some derivative was the most common. It is our haughty badge of honor and overall, it is a lie. Why? Because we are human. Continue reading “Harm None: Paralysis & Hypocrisy”
Welcome to the list of my own 10 Favorite Witchy Movies. Are they predictable? Absolutely. They are at once predictable and cliche. There glaring omissions that will cause readers to say, “But what about…?” and “YOU LEFT OUT..!” This is not a list of ALL Witchy movies or the BEST Witchy movies, but my own favorite Witchy movies. Because it would be like choosing my favorite children, these are listed in no particular order, but are the top ten favorites from a wonderful line of magical films I have enjoyed in my life. Continue reading “10 Favorite Witchy Movies”
It can happen to all of us, although thankfully, not usually to the degree we see in the graphic above. Rituals fail. It is easy to raise one knowing eyebrow and say that it failed because it was intended to fail and all things are exactly as they should be and blah, blah, blah, but there is a huge difference in knowing that rituals sometimes do not go as planned versus understanding why rituals sometimes go in the ditch and how to manage that inevitability. Continue reading “Ceremonial Interruptus: When Rituals Fail”
Several of my co-bloggers here at Patheos Pagan have stepped in with their rebuttals the post written by another Patheos blogger, Father Longenecker, called “Twelve Reasons Why You Can’t Call God, ‘Mother,‘” and after reading their wonderful write-ups, I felt inclined to include my own. Please also read the other Patheos Pagan opinions on this issue as they are quite informed and interesting. Continue reading “Despise the Mothers, Worship the Fathers”
One of the primary premises not only of magic but also of spirituality itself is words are power. In Catholicism, for instance, the words of a priest have the power to condemn or to provide absolution for confessed sins. In Craft, we learn that our words, spoken, written, or in thought, create form. Our words can thrust us forward into a life filled with joy, magic, and pleasure or they can imprison us in a self-made cage. Continue reading “The Two Most Powerful Words”
All religions bring with them a series of stories/parables designed to illustrate lessons that help us grasp essential truths. We often think of these fables as being works of the past and granted, the myths of old all hold wisdom critial to the human condition.
Just as science has never stopped and human development has never stopped and miracles have never stopped, so have the stories that give us lessons in the form of allegories stopped.
Consider these fables, borrowed from many different sources, new and old, designed to give us something to think about:
My experience with totem animals is shaky at best. I do not have a particular animal with which I feel a particularly strong alliance, although I had an affection for pigs for awhile, especially those with character. I spend time with Dragons, who are my magical allies, but I could not rightfully call them “totem” animals with a straight face without risking my house burning down. I have friends who are soulfully in tune with cats, dogs, or horses. Some have extreme devotion because they are so dissatisfied with humans they have shunned us in favor of their four-legged friends. I adore cats, but I always end up the ones that use you as a hotel, feed station, scratching post, and catnip connection. That does not inspire sacredness for me, although I deeply grieve when they pass on. I tend to distrust animals and refuse to have pets I cannot take in a fight, regardless of how much I love them. You never know when an animal is going to snap. Continue reading “Animal Magnetism”
What are you like in your relationship with the Deities you honor? How do you engage them? What role do they perform in your life? Continue reading “The Grateful Child”
Where does your energy go? Often, I hear even advanced magical practitioners talking about physical, mental, emotional, social, sexual, and magical energy as though these are unconnected. Some even equate success as a Pagan leader with working well beyond healthy exhaustion of limits on those energy reserves. Anyone truly worth their Himalayan Sea Salt knows a deficit in any of these levels compromises them all and if you physically and mentally exhaust yourself, your magical energy suffers greatly. Continue reading “Take Back Your Power Eggs”
In my own spiritual practice, CUSP, the time between Imbolc and Spring Equinox is critical to our harvest process and the manifestation of positive life change for the coming year. This is especially true of the final few days before Ostara when we officially plant our goals. At Imbolc, we submit our list of desired outcomes for the harvest season and we spend the next six weeks tuned into the Universe to receive confirmations that what we intend to plant is for our greatest good and redirects that tells us, “No, do not plant this…plant this instead.” Redirects may come because what we intend is not in our best interest or perhaps what we plan is already on the verge of manifesting for us and the magical energy we would use for that purpose could go elsewhere. Continue reading “UnOstara: Celebrating An Unplanting”
Humans often consider the power of speech and written word to be the defining quality that sets us apart from the rest of the animal world. With the exception of some animals specially trained to communicate, Koko the Gorilla, for instance, humans alone possess the demonstrated ability for the ongoing use of language. There is little denying the power of words. We all have memories of times when words cut us to the bone and left us to bleed. Theory says it takes 100 positive words to make up for one negative word. Sometimes, words imprint on our psyches and become the filter through which we experience our lives. Words can damage us forever and often the person doing the wounding has no idea they have hurt us or changed us in some significant way. Continue reading “The Power of Words”
I am either the best or the worst High Priestess in the history of, well, ever. Whichever you tell me, I will likely argue anyway. One of my beloved, and I do mean beloved, long-time circle members messaged me today with a perfectly reasonable question.
BLCM: We have a rosebush in our Earth quarter that needs to be removed right away with great prejudice. What can we do to appease the Earth quarter once it is done?
ME: Leave a five dollar bill on the nightstand and promise you will call.
O_O
I was admittedly in a strange headspace. I had just finished a particularly steamy scene in the new novel I am writing and I was, shall we say, all dressed up with nowhere to go. Of course, during those times, the Goddess is not just present, telling you where to turn and how fast to go, but is driving the bus.
The appropriate response is about leaving a nice crystal or a different plant or a pretty statue for restitution. I could throw in some stuff about being at a crossroads at midnight with a vial of menstrual blood and a crow’s feather and while that is fun, it really is kind of superfluous to the process. But then, as I will drone on about momentarily, ritual is for us, prayer is for us, homage is for us. Continue reading “Powers of Earth – Be With Us… How?”