There are certain things most of us keep around because sooner or later, we’re going to need them. Bandages. Flashlights. Batteries. A plunger. Ibuprofen. Chocolate. If you’re a practicing Witch, Pagan, conjure worker, or generally magical person, I think there is another category worth considering: The magical emergency kit. To…

There are things I expected from getting older. Grey hair. Wrinkles. A certain amount of creaking when I stand up. Bladder leakage. The gradual realization that getting down onto the floor has become a decision requiring both strategic planning and an exit strategy. I did not expect to lose my…

I read candles for a living, among other things. When I finish spellwork for a client, the prayer candle itself is part of the reading, and I pay close attention to what happened while it burned. Black soot on the glass traditionally indicates resistance or obstacles. White soot can indicate…

There is a wonderful simplicity to candle magic. You need a candle. You need fire. You need a reason. Technically, that can be enough. People have been lighting candles with prayers and petitions for longer than any of us can trace. A flame in the darkness is one of those…

There is a particular photograph that appears in nearly every weight-loss story. You know the one: the Before Picture. The person stands there looking vaguely miserable, usually wearing something unflattering, possibly holding up a newspaper so we know nobody has tampered with the evidence. The lighting is terrible. The posture is…

One of the questions I often hear is some variation of: “What spell should I do?” My irritating practitioner answer is usually: “What exactly are you trying to accomplish?” Because magic isn’t one thing. You wouldn’t walk into a hardware store and announce, “I need a tool.” Well…you could. But…

I want to go on record as saying, “This Seems Poorly Supervised.” I am about to turn 65. I know this because the United States government has been sending me mail. Lots of mail. And AARP started blowing me up ten years ago. Apparently, there is a point in every…

There is a particular sound a Pagan makes when encountering a good rock. It isn’t quite a word. It’s more of an oooh. The rock may be lying beside a creek, embedded in the dirt along a trail, sitting at the edge of a parking lot, or minding its own business somewhere…

I miss the days when being irritated with someone meant I was irritated with someone. These days, apparently, I need to examine why this person triggers me, determine what they’re mirroring back to me, identify the unhealed wound they’ve activated, journal about my response, pull three Tarot cards, take a…

There is a peculiar thing people sometimes do after planting a seed. They dig it up to see if it’s growing. Not literally, usually. Most of us understand that if we plant a tomato seed on Tuesday, digging through the dirt on Thursday to check its progress is probably not an…

Today is the New Moon. Technically, this means the Moon is still up there doing perfectly respectable Moon things, but we can’t see the illuminated part from where we’re standing. I appreciate this. I’m right there for it. There are days when I, too, am doing perfectly respectable things that…

Somewhere, at some point, someone decided you should never buy your own Tarot cards. I would very much like to meet this person. Mostly because I have questions. Who does buy them, then? Is there a designated Tarot distribution committee? Do I submit an application? What happens if nobody in my family…

There is something wonderfully primal about incense. Long before we had pretty glass prayer candles, printed Tarot decks, commercially bottled magical oils, or witchy shops filled with every conceivable tool, our ancestors had fire. They had plants. They had resins. And they had smoke. Across cultures and centuries, people discovered…

Somewhere along the way, we all learned the phrase, “survival of the fittest.” It conjures images of lions chasing gazelles, the strongest prevailing while the weak quietly disappear. The funny thing is, that’s not really what Darwin was talking about. Evolution doesn’t hand out trophies to the strongest. It rewards the…

But We Really Dress Like Marla Singer Every generation of Pagans seems to have an unofficial fashion icon. If social media is to be believed, we’re all gliding through forests in flowing black velvet, trailing lace sleeves, silver jewelry, and enough dramatic scarves to supply an off-Broadway production of Macbeth. Somewhere…

Time to Move Forward There are seasons in life when it feels as though every step requires extra effort. Conversations become tangled. Plans stall. Progress slows. We find ourselves wondering if we’re pushing against an invisible current. Fortunately, every season has its purpose—and every season eventually comes to an end….

Or, Why I Worked So Hard to Have Nothing Much Happen For most of my younger years, I assumed life was supposed to be exciting. Big adventures. Big dreams. Big changes. Big stories. Big money. Big relationships. Then life obliged. To read the full article, go to The Body of…

I was looking for one particular candle the other day. Not a fancy one. Not the expensive beeswax pillar I’d been saving for some future occasion worthy of its existence. I was looking for a little red candle that had already done its job. It had burned down to a…

What are you still carrying? Every practitioner eventually encounters a moment where the energy feels heavy, dense, and unnaturally sluggish. You might wake up feeling like you spent the entire night running a marathon, or notice that small, simple tasks feel like hauling stones up a steep hill. We often…

Curating the Ghosts of the Women We Used to Be (Without Getting Stuck in the Past) There is a specific kind of internal silence that descends at a certain age. It is not the silence of abandonment; it is the quiet of a curator surveying a newly organized collection. You…