They usually can be found on urban street corners or heard yelling from the TV or radio.  Their rhetoric is filled with clichés and admonitions about how, if we don’t follow their particular brand of religion, we’ll suffer dire consequences.  Religious zealots can be found in every religion.  You never have to look too long before you find one.  Trying to have a calm conversation with them about what it is they believe is usually a complete waste of time.  They think they have the One, True Religion and you don’t unless you’re standing up there with them and screaming exactly the same words.  And even then you might not…

Not everyone is skilled enough to turn out intricate gold eggs in their spare time or beautifully sculpted marble figures to grace their altars, but making your magical tools isn’t about becoming a world-renowned artist or a craftsman.  It’s about learning the relationship between you and the tool. When I was initiated, I wanted an athame.  Not just any athame, I wanted a black handled, double-edged, a bright and shiny 6 inch blade athame.  The shape of the blade had to be just so and the handle had to feel right in either hand (I’m ambidextrous).  I had a mental image that was crystal clear and all I had to…

You hear it all the time: “Perception is reality.” Sometimes, that’s a hard thing to accept, but it says a lot about how we act and react to the world around us.  And for any who do magic, it’s a very important, even crucial maxim.  However, it also relates to how we determine who is ‘sane’ and who isn’t. Of course, I’m sane…  I really am. I mean, really…  I am… Sane, that is. Really (Here’s some advice:  Do not try to prove you are ‘sane,’ because the harder you try, the worse it gets.) Our spirituality, probably because it’s based on personal experience rather than a specific book or…

Jargon and specialized vocabulary are used for nearly every trade or system in the world.  Sometimes this results in the general population taking on part of this way with words, such as the use of the term, ‘download.’ But more often than not, most people can listen to some conversations between two people who work or play at the same thing and not understand what the heck they’re talking about.  For instance, I sat next to a table that held three accountants one time.  They were not trying to keep their conversation quiet or secret in any way; I heard every sound uttered by them.  But for the life of…

Raise the Mizzenmast, Matey This is the fourth in my Elementals Perspectives series for Pagan Pages.  If you have not already guessed it, this one is about the Element of Air. Popular modern Paganism declares that Air is the province of ideas, dreams, questions, and all things intellectual.  It also correlates with clouds, light, vision, and stuff we associate with the sky.  That is an interesting relationship. When we think an idea is not truly well thought out or complete, we label it as being airy.  If we believe a person is mentally not very connected to his or her total environment, we might say they have their head in…

Just like a good joke, it’s all in the… (wait for it)… timing.  Pagans put a lot of importance on timing and for good reason.  We pride ourselves on being more than clever about getting stuff done.  After all, that’s what magic is all about: getting stuff done.  And to get it done, you have to do it at the right time.  You can’t hit a moving target if you don’t pull the trigger at the right time.  You can’t put the cart before the horse.  And you can’t catch the right train unless you’re standing on the platform at the right time.  In magic, where you are making small…

In many Wiccan traditions, as well as a few other Pagan faith groups, there is something called ‘the Great Work’.  This term is probably stolen from the Masons and, in Pagan venues, refers to what might be termed a calling, though that is most often used when referring to some kind of spiritual dedication.  Traditionally, an initiate chooses what will become his or her Great Work sometime during their time at Second Degree (if following the Gardnarian format).  Other traditions might not follow that form but still retain something like the idea of the Great Work.  Whatever it may be called, finding your Great Work is an extremely important event.…

Dancing in the Flames This is the third in my Elementals Perspectives series for PaganPages.  As you might guess, this one is all about the Fire Element. When I was about ten years old, I nearly burned down a forest; I played with matches.  If it weren’t for the vigilance of my parents, I probably would have been the cause of enormous damages and maybe even loss of life.  It has been the cause of many nightmares for me over the years and it’s been difficult to forgive myself for my childish stupidity.  The only good thing that has come out of it is now I respect the Fire Element…

Diving Deep This is the second in my Elementals Perspectives series for PaganPages.  For those who didn’t read the first one in the series last month, let me briefly review what I’m trying to do with these articles. Most of us have a working knowledge of the classic four Elements (Air, Fire, Water, and Earth) and the so-called fifth one, Spirit.  It’s a handy way of categorizing the universe and that’s useful when we work magic or even for just getting a handle on what’s going on.  It’s easy to think of the classical Elements in much the same way as we were taught to think about the Periodic Table…

It’s an old joke:  How he walked thirty miles to school each day… in the snow… uphill… both ways.  The image that goes along with it is of some old guy, maybe sitting in an easy chair or on a park bench, lecturing the youngster about how ‘easy’ they’ve got it.  Everybody laughs at that joke because we’ve all had at least one moment when we were that youngster and some grownup gave us a speech about how we didn’t know how tough things were ‘back then’ and we didn’t appreciate how much better off we were, growing up in the time that we were.  The implication was that… somehow……