Merry Meet and Welcome to the November Issue of PaganPages We hope that all our readers came out from Sandy Safe and Sound.           

Charity As our year of examining virtues as applied to our pagan path moves forward, we come to November and Charity.  Generosity and helpfulness is a definition of this virtue.  How can we manifest this virtue in our daily walk? Here in the States the celebration of Thanksgiving is upon us.  What a great way to “walk the talk” .   My city of Atlanta has an amazing event called Hosea’s Feed the Hungry which is a nonprofit program that operates under the umbrella of the Martin Luther King Jr. People’s Church of Love.  It takes place at Turner Field, our baseball stadium.  Incredible numbers of people give of their…

The Cauldron     Almost everyone knows what a cauldron is. They are usually shown in movies or shows dealing with witchcraft, and a lot of people might then associate it to dark magic. The cauldron has been around for a very long time, and media has corrupted it’s use over those years.   The cauldron is a central image of the Celtic Shamanic tradition as it is a vessel or heat, plenty and inspiration. Large cauldrons were very common among the ancient Celts, some of them being as big as a person. Cauldrons were so important to people back then, that when the owner died, they were often buried…

Wheel of Year info – Samhain (repeated from October’s Astro Report) Sun in Scorpio at 9 degrees Thursday, November 1, 2012 – 12:00 am EDT Names – Samhain, All Hallow’s Eve, Hallowe’en, Allhallowmas/Hallowmas, All Saints’ Eve, Last/Blood Harvest, Ancestor Night, Festival/Feast of the Dead, Last Harvest Festival, Nos Galan Gaeaf (Welsh) Date: Nov 1st (sometimes celebrated on the eve – Oct 31st) Astro Correspondence: 15 degrees Scorpio Color: oranges, purples, blacks Food: ground tubers and vegetables, gourds and pumkins, pork, wine, tree fruits, cakes, ale, mead, red foods, nuts, herbal teas, cider, chicken, scones/cakes/pies, mushrooms, fish. Common Info: All Hallows Eve (Hallowe’en – note the apostrophe as the word is…

One can’t be too careful about going through old clutter.   A guest was coming to do circle with me, so I went through some of the boxes stacked against the wall in what would be my dining-room if I had such a place.   One article that came to light was a lightweight secretary, just a black box with silver ornamented lines that opened at the top and had two small drawers in front.  I opened the top and there it was – the wallet.   This was my former former wallet, maybe older than that.  I was going to lunch one day in 1997 with my Syrian friend Steve and…

Skaði, Goddess of Hunting and Winter    Hers is the name in which Scandinavia derived its own. Daughter of the frost giant Thiazi, Skadi rules over winter, mountains, forest, game animals, justice and independence. She is also known as goddess of the hunt, as it is her gift which brought the use and skill of archery to hunters. It is said she is tall and thin, with ivory skin, raven black hair and deep blue eyes. She travels over ice and snow covered lands on skis, a bow at her side, and always in the company of wolves. As a dark goddess she is known as Queen of Shadows, the…

My Theory   I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what there is “out there”, in the universe, that we have not yet discovered, nor do we know anything about. And it’s a lot.   We can see through our telescopes far out into space, and we’ve seen that there are thousands upon thousands of stars in thousands upon thousands of galaxies. You would think that with all that “space” out there, we would have found someone else, any other kind of life, no matter what form it took. But then again, since there is so much space between all that “space”, it’s not hard to believe that sentient lifeforms…

I Am A Hypocrite. I Am Love.   The word hypocrite is defined by Merriam Webster as a person who puts on a false appearance of morality and virtue or who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings.   I was called a hypocrite yesterday. And I must admit that I was surprised. Perhaps I shouldn’t be, but I was. Granted it was second hand information, as the person who informed me of this wasn’t the one who allegedly labeled me a hypocrite – they were just the messenger. Nonetheless it was unsettling to me. It isn’t because I haven’t been called unsavory names before. Hell,…

Spells and Rituals Since November is the month of Thanksgiving, I thought that giving a couple of examples of thanksgiving rituals would be a good way to begin this monthly column.  The nicest thing about these type of rituals is the act of giving thanks, in and of itself, I think is usually what’s really appreciated, and since there are so many ways it can be done it doesn’t have to be a dull and boring act. One way is to set up a small, Thanksgiving altar somewhere either in your house, or out on a covered porch or other outdoor area.  The bare minimum you need is an incense…