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Hand Fasting Gifts     Merry meet.   While couples planning weddings take advantage of gift registries at every place from The Home Depot to Crate and Barrel, couples who are hand fasting may appreciate a more pagan, creative and personal approach to gift giving.   At the urging of others, one couple I know visited their favorite pagan store and with the owner’s cooperation, made a list of items they liked. Those who wanted could look at the list and choose something without stressing over second guessing which book, what incense or the best color for an altar cloth. By the owner maintaining the list, it was helpful to…

In my daily work with children and families, the theme of forgiveness makes its way into many conversations I have with parents especially. Parents are in a leadership role that they are sometimes ill-prepared for. If they didn’t experience good parenting when they were children or see mentors engaging children with respect, it can be like becoming the CEO of a company you have no previous knowledge of. All of the sudden, parents are expected to launch into a demanding world of care, consistency, and responsibility while operating on very little sleep! This would stretch the capacity of any human being.   In Hawaiian culture, there is a forgiveness practice…

THE CRANE BAG By Joanna van der Hoeven   I read this slim volume on a two-hour ferry crossing between Dover and Dunkirk! This morning I woke up (in our house set in the forest in Sweden) to the call of two cranes in the field in front of our house. It seems that today is the day for writing my review of this book. The cranes themselves say so! This book is not actually about cranes though it does start with a Celtic crane myth. It is really a brief introduction to ritual tools and practices from the Druid tradition. “Held deeply within Celtic mythology, the crane bag is…

  The colour red appears throughout Celtic mythology and is normally associated with magic in some way. This may be the prophecy of war and bloodshed. Rowan, the tree with the startling red berries, is strongly associated with powerful magic. The Morrígan herself is normally portrayed as having red hair, especially in her guise as a sorceress or poet. Red is the magic of spells, curses, geas and prediction. Red is proactive magic; visible magic; magic that wants to be seen, admired or feared.   Think about red in our daily lives. Red means stop; warning; danger; love; passion; blood; fire; forbidden; command; hang up; hot; hazard and generally ‘pay…

What is an Altar? By Rowan Moss     What is an Altar? Is Book 4 in the Pagan Children Learning Series, by Rowan Moss. This book explains what an altar is, where you put it, and the different types (inside/outside, holidays, etc). After explaining that an altar is a sacred space, the author explains why it’s never okay to touch another person’s altar. A craft is included at the back of the book, which encourages children and their families to create an altar. This craft teaches children the items needed for the altar and the step by step directions to creating it. A glossary Is also included to explain…

Palmistry Made Easy by Johnny Fincham   This is a small book, it is only 80 pages in length, but the author Mr. Johnny Fincham does seem to pack a lot of information into those 80 pages. In the introduction, Mr. Fincham mentions Charlotte Wolff who was a physician and psychoanalyst in 1936 and John Manning who wrote several articles in Psychology publications in the early 2000’s. And he also says that Palmistry is a vibrant and powerful tool used now in criminology, psychology and anthropology and genetics. On page 1 he writes,”The palm is proving to be an incredible mirror into the workings of the human mind.” One of the…

  The God Pan in His Bee Keeper Manifestation I made this painting in the year 2012. I t was inspired by a powerful dream I had where the ancient god Pan came to me. This painting sold a few years ago, it lives in Switzerland now. Green Dreams These days I dream in green A wise maiden appears and promises me a dream And in that dream within a dream I meet an ancient bee keeper He has horns, and a beard and the hooves of a goat Says he The Honeybee tells us how to be and not to be that intimate connection between life, death and new…

A poem based on a meditation and visualization of Hekate, where she informed me I would make a choice, then walk through fire. She was not wrong, and it was more than worth it. This was written almost immediately upon returning from the meditative state.   One is a source of distraction The other is a source of inspiration One wishes to see me grounded The other wonders how far I could fly Let me stand upon your shoulders Let me reach into the sky Then you can climb on mine And we’ll be reaching twice as high One is a source of frustration The other is a source of pure…

Thoughts While Reading The Complete Lenormand Oracle Handbook       One of the books on my summer reading list is The Complete Lenormand Oracle Handbook: Reading the Language and Symbols of the Cards, by Caitlín Matthews. I don’t have a set of Lenormand Cards – but I’m not letting that stop me from learning as much as I can about them. As with all divinatory cards, I am fascinated by the variety and beauty of the many sets of Lenormand cards available in occult shops, online or from private seller. I think what appeals to me about the Lenormand is the combination of pictures, numbers and playing card symbolism.…

  For 50 years, Alan Oken has practiced the art of “reading” the energy of the cosmos through the lens of astrological charts. A chart depicts the placement and relationships of planets and other heavenly bodies at a particular moment in time, stopping them in place. From that picture of a frozen slice of time, astrologers apply the ancient Law of Correspondences – As above, so below – to look at how the dance of the planets affects events and relationships here on Earth. As Oken says in the introduction to this excellent book, “Astrology is a very complex system of interweaving energies. It takes time and dedication for the…