Alexiel Raynes
Alexiel Raynes is a shaman, philosopher, and musician from Louisville, Ky. He has studied religion and science for over 20 years. His spiritual path focuses on self realization, the liberation of the constraints of the mind on consciousness. He also studies plant medicines and their use in indigenous cultures world wide. He is fascinated with exploring the world beyond the veil of mainstream western science, and postulates at what lies beyond general consensus reality. He, together with his business partner Hallie Walker are the owners of Saol Bandia, a holistic herbal apothecary based in their hometown. They are also very active in raising pagan awareness in their community, and helping give witches the courage to stand up to a world that has forgotten our ways. You can visit their store at Saolbandia.com For contact visit Facebook.com/AlexielRaynes2020 Or email [email protected]
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As Above, So Below (How the Stars Became Our Hearts)
Seasons Blessings! Moving into this period of darkness and the first snows begin to fall. I come to this place of contemplation. And as with the last few pieces, I’ll lose my 3rd person textbook voice. This piece will be a bit meta, as, yes, it’s snowing and I just now started this. Lol. And I said “Lol”. And I said that I said. This message is a download, heavy on my heart with these past moons. A lesson that’s been delivered to me through my personal life, and I feel the need to share. Blessed Samhain. What a strange season it has been, closing with a lunar…
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As Above, So Below (How the Stars Became Our Hearts)
Does the Universe Care? Throughout the ages, human consciousness has sought to scratch the surface of reality, and those who are able get peek behind the scenes have a different takeaway. For every NDE (near death experience) where a person claims to have seen god and a universe beyond understanding and been reunited with loved ones, you have a claim of those who saw nothing at all. Locally, with experiences like church and psychedelics, some report profound experiences, other’s experience profound boredom. If you dig deeper into the wisdom of the sages, you’ll still be disappointed. While it is popular to believe great minds think alike, it would seem they…
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Book Review – Dedicant, Devotee, Priest by Stephanie Woodfield
Book Review Dedicant, Devotee, Priest: A Pagan Guide to Divine Relationships by Stephanie Woodfield Publisher: Llewellyn 202 Pages Publication date: January 8, 2022 Dedicant, Devotee, Priest is an amazing book that provides a comprehensive walkthrough of many of the personal situations we have as witches. Especially if you’re in a situation where you don’t know many others who practice, it can be difficult to even know where to begin on your journey. This book takes you through the layers. How to meet a god. How to cultivate and maintain that relationship. It explores the different levels of closeness to be achieved with the divine. The different kinds of…
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As Above, So Below (How the Stars Became Our Hearts)
Everything, Everywhere, For all Time A fool thinks he knows everything. A wise man knows he knows nothing. But… what is everything? Well. We don’t know much as a species. Our whole existence is a grab bag of unanswerable questions and paradoxes. Like the Fermi paradox, which is the absence of obvious evidence for alien life, despite the clear logical prediction that they should be there. Religion and science have struggled to understand everything, both as individual pieces and as an all inclusive collective. Throughout all time of collective human history, the closer we get to the answer, the further away it seems to be. Religion, and science,…
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Movie Review – Everything, Everywhere, All at Once Directed by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert
Movie Review Everything, Everywhere, All at Once Directed by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert Produced by A24 2022 “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once,” lives up to its name. It gives us everything. It’s a drama, a psychological thriller, a love story, a comedy and a Kung Fu action flick all rolled into one. Easily an all time cult classic which will be enjoyed by generations to come! SPOILERS AHEAD! The story follows an unassumingly ordinary lady, Evelyn, doing her taxes for her laundromat business. Something seemingly ordinary, but giving an acute and accurate insight on how just one thing can be so complicated, when…
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As Above, So Below (How the Stars Became Our Hearts)
In the Beginning… The Big Bang itself may be up for debate, but what’s not, is what the universe was made up of in her early moments. In those early moments, the universe was pure energy. According to CERN, The European Organization for Nuclear research, it took the universe (then made of pure energy) about 380,000 years to condense into the first elementary particles, quarks and gluons. Quarks we’re the very first building blocks of matter. The gluons containing the strong nuclear force that holds them together. These atoms were mainly hydrogen and helium, the simplest and most abundant elements in the universe. These atoms formed huge clouds,…
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Toxic Spirituality
I try to keep these articles from being super personal. Avoiding using words like I, or speaking from my personal experience. This will be the opposite. This piece will be 100% gonzo. So, I’ll start my saying, I was always a seeker. A lot of people start their path Christian by default of indoctrination. I was different. I sought after the truth, and it was told to me that it was Christ. I spent much of my time in the church. I saw lots of abuse. I saw people ostracized due to their sexual relationships. I saw people mindlessly brainwashed by the platitudes of the church, even if they…
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As Above, So Below (How the Stars Became Our Hearts)
The Mystery of Non-Causality “You are this universe. And you are creating it at every moment. Because you see, it starts now. It didn’t begin in the past. There was no past. If the universe began in the past, when that happened it was now. But it is still now and the universe is still beginning now and it’s trailing off like the wake of a ship from now and as the wake of the ship fades out, so does the past. You can look back there to explain things but the explanation disappears. You will never find it there. Things are not explained by the past. They’re…
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Oracle Deck Review – The Wild Unknown Archetypes Deck & Guidebook Created and Illustrated by Kim Krans
Oracle Deck Review The Wild Unknown Archetypes Deck and Guidebook Created and Illustrated by Kim Krans Publisher: HarperOne 78 Cards Deck. 224 Page Guidebook Publication Date: October 15, 2019 Kim Krans is already quite popular in the Pagan community as the Creator of the best selling Wild Unknown Tarot deck. If you’re not familiar, The Wild Unknown has taken the world by storm. I love the art, though I have not worked with it personally, it never called out to me. She also has an animal spirit deck, which seems to accompany the Tarot deck very well. Neither of them called out to me. They’re both very beautiful…
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Book Review – Your Spiritual Almanac: A Year of Living Mindfully by Joey Hulin
Book Review Your Spiritual Almanac A Year of Living Mindfully by Joey Hulin Publisher: Laurence King Publishing 256 Pages Publishing Date: October 19, 2021 This book comes to you from a generation quite jaded by planners, journals, and almanacs. It has obliterated this impossibly high bar. Joey Hulin, who is just an amazing human being, has clearly mastered being a human. She breaks down each month, and she gives you EVERYTHING. A meaningful fable, journaling exercises, recipes, rituals, planetary aspects, yoga positions, aspirations, meditation, and more! An example: Ritual for November: Rites of passage are central to a number of cultural, spiritual and religious practices, and they…
