Merry Yule!! ______________________________________________________________         ______________________________________________________________   In This Issue…   We say goodbye to a beloved column Nature Alchemy ~ A Journey to Yourself and columnist Diana Lynn Kekule. We thank you for sharing your all your wisdom and wish you the best on the next leg of your journey!! Read up on some Magick Mirror Work in a new column Witch’s Souls Work Channel the Beatles in an Interview with David Young Learn a little about Nan’s divining  journey to PaganPages in her new column The Spiralled Edge Meet your newest secret best friend Jules our advice columnist in Dear Jules   ______________________________________________________________   We are…

I’m Jules and I am one of the newest PaganPages columnists.  I’m female and live in Las Vegas, NV with my family and cats.  I first discovered myself as a pagan, witch, psychic and empath back in 1999 and I’ve been a strong believer in the Goddess ever since.  I am a spiritual artist and I love to make things to brighten up people’s days.  I sell my creations in a local store and on Etsy. The advice column I’ll be doing will be called “Dear Jules”.  I’ve always been someone who others go to for advice.  In one of the groups I belong to I saw that PaganPages was…

My thanks to Jenn for inviting me to become part of PaganPages. I am most comfortable when talking one to one with another person, preferably over a cup of tea (or another drink of your choosing) and my writing reflects this. My hope is that these columns will feel that way for you too. So, grab your favourite beverage, curl up in a chair and we’ll have a natter. Once I had agreed to become part of the PaganPages family, I had a good long think about what I personally wanted to achieve from this venture. And, what I could offer to others at the same time. When I have…

Merry Meet my lovelies, I am chuffed to bits to be able to have a natter with you here on Pagan pages! Let me introduce myself…My name is Mandy and I am a Mum, Grandma, Wife, Sister, Friend, Jack of all trades, fur baby slave, Oh and a Hedgewitch! I live in the boundaries of the magical county of Wiltshire UK, home to Stonehenge (yep, you all know that one), Avebury Stone circle and numerous other magical and ancient sites I hope to be able to share with you over time! The landscape here is a typical English country scene of green hills and fields, rivers and streams with an…

Winter Goddesses As I am writing this, it is a week before the holiday of Thanksgiving, meaning that Winter Solstice is just around the corner. Here in the northeast section of the United States, the weather has begun to get quite chilly and we have had the first tiniest taste of snow, while in other parts of this country, the ice and wind chill has already begun to wreak havoc. So, I thought this would be the perfect time to write about just a few of the many Winter Goddesses that abound throughout the world.     Colleda is the Goddess of Winter in Serbia. She was the one to…

#2 Yule Last time I wrote a personal essay about how I feel about the holidays. I promised an educated, informative article this time. Oh stop laughing! I’ll write a little about Yule and a bit about Winter Solstice. Modern Christmas is a mix of these two ancient celebrations as well as what happened to honor the god Mithras. The reasons the Winter Holiday was celebrated differ a bit from why we celebrate today, but not completely. For example. “The Light of the World” , seen by many Christians today as their god is celebrated. In days past, lengthening days were celebrated. THE light of the world! I don’t know…

Ngetal, Ruis and the Nameless Day   Ngetal: From Mabon to Samhain, as we have seen, the comings and goings of the dead serve to thin the veil separating Middle Earth from the Underworld. Now at Samhain the Holly King sends the rest of his youth into the final harvest, his spirit descends once more to the gates of the Summerland, and this time he throws them wide for all spirits, human and non-human, to come up the World Pillar for that liminal time between times, the Celtic New Year. The cosmic order is relaxed for a season and Herne the Hunter, the Holly King’s Underworld aspect, bursts forth into…

Happy New Year! For many pagans across the world Samhain is considered the ‘pagan New Year’. In the late 19th century, Sir John Rhys and Sir James Frazer (The Golden Bough) suggested that it was the “Celtic New Year”, and this view has been repeated by other scholars. For the Celtic people a new day didn’t begin at dawn, but at dusk. The idea behind this concept comes from the notion that before there was light, there was darkness. Before there was life there was a void. From the darkness, light was born. Thus, a new day begins at the beginning of the dark night. They divided their year into…

Fire and Ice       Merry Meet. Ice luminaries are wonderful to include in your Yule celebration, but they are good for as long as it’s cold. And when it’s cold enough outside, I plan to make these by the dozens in the garage.   I start by choosing a large container and a smaller container. They can be bowls, storage containers, pails and milk containers. If they are glass, be extremely careful. The expansion of the water as it freezes could break a container, so the trick is to get it out at just the right time. You can also buy molds especially for this. Directions often call…

‘Solstice night’ Merry meet! Yule is one of my favorite sabbats because it signals the return of the light. I put up a Yule tree and decorate it with symbols of nature and the Goddess. Sometimes that stays on lit night, but more often I choose to spend the night with the light of just one candle. My tradition has been to sit in sacred space, in silence, throughout the night. I do as little contemplating as possible, preferring to sit with the darkness, become one with the vast stillness, touch the mystery, listen to the deep silence, count my blessings, meditate, journey to visit the crones and read inspirational…