Stories wield incredible power, and are one of the core shaping influences in human cultures. We can easily look around the world for examples of this: here in the United States, our culture is shaped by Christian mythology. In India, Hindu mythology forms the culture. In Iceland, the Icelandic and Norse mythology of old supports…
Tag: magick
We inherit a lot of perspectives from our parent culture. Some of these are obvious, and we begin the work of deconstructing them pretty quickly. I began hacking at the “girls can’t be strong” trope almost as soon as I could walk. As a result, I’ve made good progress on pulling that particular weed out…
Our will – the function of the brain that makes us do things, even stuff we don’t really want to do, can best be viewed as a kind of mental muscle. We have a finite quantity of it when we start the day; using it causes our reserve of willpower to deplete. This is why…
I’ve discovered that one of the most fun and rewarding aspects of releasing a book is the opportunity hang out with Pagan podcasters – they’re really cool! I have two new podcasts I was a guest on for you today, both of them recorded earlier in the year but released just recently. North Witch Podcast…
My practice of life as well as witchcraft is oriented toward the physical senses – I naturally gravitate toward an embodied way of being in the world. I want to feel experiences on my skin, in the movement of my limbs, in the taste on my tongue, in the sounds that I hear, in the…
I feel a little bit like I’m spinning my wheels right now. I work hard, but it often seems like any headway I make is short-lived, or simply reveals yet another task lurking beneath the stack I clear. I wrestle with the needs that are expressed to me and whether or not I can meet…
When I look at the path of a river, I sometimes marvel at the way it cuts through stone to wend its flow through the landscape around me. I’m lucky enough to live near both the Potomac and Conococheague rivers and I’ve spent a lot of time wandering their shores and paddling kayaks along their…
My homes have always had something of a reputation – a good friend described one of them as a ‘magickal bunker.’ Others comment on the richness of the energy, or how safe and comfortable my houses feel. So, one of the questions I get pretty frequently is how to achieve the same thing: what enchantments…
When the world gets scary, the comfort of home becomes even more important. We need places where we can let our guard down – where the hypervigilance so many of us adopted during the pandemic can ease a little bit. For a lot of us, relaxing has become difficult. Devices that keep us connected to…
The Western magickal world has a gender binary problem. Much of modern Paganism and Witchcraft derives from Wicca, which derives from…the 1950’s. And it shows. We have historically classified *everything* into the heteronormative categories of male and female, including things that have no gender. Like rocks. It’s pervasive and ultimately does a disservice to a…