• Monthly Columns

    Focus Pocus

    (Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash)   Spirituality & ADHD Brains are weird. It is the machine that keeps our body alive. Sometimes, it is the computer that has crunched the numbers and tells us, “Hey there’s a chance that thing you are about to do could kill us,” and other times it is the decision maker which determines maybe we are better off without knowing any of the details. It helps us understand the world and the people in it and helps us make the connections that are essential to our well-being and survival. It is also the part of us that can make us feel disconnected at times,…

  • Monthly Columns

    MagickalArts

    What Are the Magickal Arts? When I began this column for PaganPagesOrg many years ago, I had a vision of filling it with writings focused on exploring the magickal weavings of artistic endeavor. I am after all a former professional ballerina. One of my children is a trained fine artist, another is a classically trained musician, and all five of my children are excellent writers and artists in their own rights including the sciences- a pediatrician, a biomedical engineer and a veterinarian. As the years continued forward I have come to using the term Magickal Arts as an expression of the artistic and refined nature the Craft requires. As magickal…

  • Monthly Columns,  Spells & Rituals

    Peeking in the Shadows: Crafting a Book of Shadows and Light

    A Journey Through the Witch’s Wheel of the Year 2022!   The Witch’s Wheel of the Year In the February Issue we began exploring the Sabbats of the Witch’s Wheel of the Year and beginning a journey of filling our BOS with information about how we celebrated and what we found to be true of our practice. For a review of what the Wheel of the Year is take a look at February’s posting here: Peeking in the Shadows: Crafting A Book of Shadows and Light-February2022   We Continue Our Journey Through the Witch’s Wheel and call to the Light of the Summer Solstice…. THE SUMMER SOLSTICE/LITHA   The King…

  • Monthly Columns

    Words – Poetry

    WORDS Before the written word, there was the spoken word. Before the chronicles of history, there were stories. Before tabloids and the messy spawn of scandalous gossip, ballads and epic poems sounded in mouths of bards and minnesingers. Against the blind furies of forgetfulness, arose high cultures of memory. Long before civilized humanity slumped into pulp fiction and sado-masochistic fantasies, myths were weaving threads of truth into archetypes, extending the dimensions of reality. Guiding words of fire’s intensity and eloquence resonate joyously through the alchemic laboratories of time! You who have befriended Tolkien and the Shire, Arthur, Merlin, and voyagers to the Isle of Women, far, far off in the…

  • Monthly Columns,  Spells & Rituals

    Celebrating The Old Ways in New Times

    Celebrating The Old Ways in New Times for June/July 2022 Bright Blessings! By the time you read this, you may be saying, “It’s too HOT!!!!!” and are wishing for Fall time again! Think about just weeks ago, wishing Wintertime away because it was SO cold! Well…the weather will get hotter in Summer, and by the time you read this article, you may have your Summer Solstice plans underway! For some, this will be the first Summer in a couple of years they have felt safe to gather for Sabbat. What a wonderful feeling it is again to see soul kin. What better time than on a Solstice in Summer when…

  • Monthly Columns,  Reviews

    Exclusive Interview with Author Madame Pamita

    Madame Pamita Talks About Slavic Magic and Baba Yaga, the Slavic Witch of the Woods   “If you follow the guidance within you, you get led to do the right things,” said Madame Pamita, author of “Baba Yaga’s Book of Witchcraft: Slavic Magic from the Witch of the Woods,” which was reviewed here last month. She has, and amazing things have happened. “My mom bought me a tarot deck when I was ten years old. She grew up in a magical household. We lived in a magical household. Albeit, it was Catholic magic. You go to church and you light a candle and you’d make a wish or a prayer.…

  • Monthly Columns,  Reviews

    Witch & Popcorn

      Review of Jeepers Creepers 2 Bright Blessings, film lovers. Today’s review focuses on a horror film- my favorite genre- and how the determination of two men overcome a seemingly invincible force…at least for twenty-three years. The film grossed over $100,000,000 worldwide and at the time of release was the highest grossing film for four days straight. It is now in ninth grossing place of all films released before Labor Day. It was nominated for three prestigious awards including the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. Before reading the review, watch the trailer for Jeepers Creepers 2 here:   The plot is- three days after the events of Jeepers Creepers…

  • Monthly Columns

    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,…

  • Monthly Columns

    Dancing Into Summer – Poetry

      Pick up your feet Your dancing feet Even if you’re stuck in one place Even if you’re body refuses Or simply can’t Close your eyes Let your thoughts dance Tap tap tapping down the corridors Of your mind Whirling in worlds Of soul and spirit Sending your essence flying high Towards a domed ceiling Candelabras shaking Under the onslaught of joy Dance, dance, dance into summer Heat waves a slave to the beat Solstice imbalance pouring Funk into the shadows Open the windows and Fly, fly out into blue Into fluffy white Into thirsty, hot afternoons And giddy evenings Sing, laugh, love Embrace the chaos that you can And…

  • Monthly Columns,  Spells & Rituals

    Notes from the Apothecary

    Notes from the Apothecary: The Beech Tree   The common beech, or Fagus sylvatica, is a majestically large deciduous tree, native to North America and Europe, and a vital part of the ecosystem thanks to being home and food to many forms of wildlife. There are other beech species, all in the Fagus genus, with some native to Asia, including Fagus japonica, the Japanese blue beech, and Fagus engleriana, the Engler or Chinese beech. In the U.K. where I live, we often see “Copper Beeches”, which have distinct, purple-bronze leaves and look like they’re straight out of a fantasy tale. Interestingly, this isn’t a different species, but a carefully cultivated…