*October 31st marks one of the High Holidays in the widely-used Pagan Wheel of the Year – Samhain. Out of all our holidays, I’d say this one gets the most press. Our celebration of the end of the growing season coincides with all that is spooky in the larger culture. This time of endings in…
Tag: modern paganism
I don’t mean to go all Ned Stark on everyone, but…well… In years without a pandemic, we would be preparing for the last of the harvest celebrations and planning the journey of the inward spiral: the time of turning within for healing, nurturing, and personal growth. This year, of course, is different. Many of my…
One of the best and most beautiful aspects of modern witchcraft is that it is an evolving path. Although we base a good deal of our philosophy and practice on ancient religions, paganism and witchcraft as we know them today are new. Born of the 60s counterculture and the equal rights movements for women and…
I am currently developing some video offerings. These classes are donation based and are free to all my Patreon supporters. Here’s the first class! Building a Sustainable Daily Spiritual Practice Balancing the needs of our schedules against our desire for greater spiritual connection can be challenging. Sometimes even finding 5 minutes to ourselves seems impossible….
For the last five years, September has had one specific focus for me – the Pagan Pride Day festival. Like many CUUPS chapters, my own chapter hosts an annual Pagan Pride Day in Frederick, MD. I have had the honor being the lead organizer since our inception. We have been fortunate – our festival has…
This sermon was for the September 13th streaming service for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick. I like to remind myself that I would have lived. That several thousand years ago, I would have known that sometimes when the grasses rustle, it’s because there’s an apex predator behind them feeling a bit peckish. I would…
I can feel it coming. Here in the mid-Atlantic, we’ve had our first False Fall – a regional hiccup as the growing season winds down when we’re given a sudden glimpse of the weather to come. The first False Fall is a few days to a week and is immediately followed by temperatures in the…
One of the types of Ancestors I personally venerate are Ancestors of the Order – humans who followed a similar life path to my own. In my case, these are the priestx classes of many cultures: the people who chose to place themselves in service to Spirit, the journey of human souls, and the creation…
This short meditation was offered for the August 23rd service streaming service at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick. Full text below: I don’t remember where I first heard it, but somehow I learned the phrase ‘if you want to know where a culture will be in 20 years, look at where the counterculture…
When I consider potential titles for an autobiography, ‘Crying in Savasana’ is definitely in my top five. It seems like so many watershed life experiences have landed during a yoga practice or in the reflective/integrative period afterward. In 2011, one such moment landed like a ton of bricks. I was at a retreat and the…