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Exclusive Q&A With La Carmina about Her New Release “The Little Book of Satanism”
La Carmina is an award-winning alternative culture journalist and TV host. She runs the leading blog about Goth travel, fashion and Satanism (LaCarmina.com/blog), which was featured in The New York Times and Washington Post. La Carmina is the author of four books including Crazy, Wacky Theme Restaurants: Tokyo and Cute Yummy Time, published by Penguin Random House. She received a journalism prize from the Society of American Travel Writers, and her writing has appeared in Time Magazine, CNN, Business Insider and Architectural Digest. As a TV personality, La Carmina has danced with William Shatner and Henry Winkler on NBC’s Better Late Than Never, dined with Japanese monsters on Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods, negotiated a $666 taxidermy head on Discovery Channel’s Oddities, cooked cute…
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Focus Pocus
Focus Pocus: Deviating from the Norm Whatever “the norm” even is! (Photo by Natasha Connell on Unsplash) My practice has changed a lot in the past few years. Not only have I wanted to closely examine what I believe, who to learn from and follow, and what environments feel comfortable to me, I have also needed to adapt my practice to work for me in new ways as my Neuro Spiciness took a new direction which was triggered by the start of the pandemic. When the world stopped, so did my ability to keep track of where I was in space and time. After trying to get back…
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Book Review – The Happiness Year: How to Find Joy in Every Season by Tara Ward
Book Review The Happiness Year: How to Find Joy in Every Season by Tara Ward Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing 128 Pages Published: December 22, 2022 In The Happiness Year – How to Find Joy in Every Season, Tara Ward challenges all of us to carefully think about our perception of the seasons around us. Do we favour one over another? Why is that? Is it truly because our own personal preference is for one season over another or is it perhaps a learned behaviour? In her writings, she takes us through all four of the seasons in detail. She encourages us to explore all the seasons in a…
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Stay in Your Magic, Keep in Your Power an Excerpt from “Happy Witch” by Mandi Em
Stay in Your Magic, Keep in Your Power (Excerpted from “Happy Witch” by Mandi Em) Magic can help you feel powerful, but there can be a big difference between the way you feel post-ritual and the way you feel as you’re going through your mundane life. The feeling of connectedness and otherworldly magic can get lost in the shuffle sometimes when the day-to-day chaos starts piling up, leaving you feeling zapped and depleted. No more! Cultivating a magical life can be the antidote to feeling pressed by the mundane and disconnected from your power. This is the big secret of the craft: It allows you to keep perspective of the…
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Book Review – The Witches Almanac: Sorcerers, Witches and Magic from Ancient Rome to the Digital Age by Charles Christian
Book Review The Witches Almanac: Sorcerers, Witches and Magic from Ancient Rome to the Digital Age by Charles Christian Publisher: Visible Ink Press 336 Pages Release Date: February 28, 2023 Charles Christian’s The Witches Almanac, unlike other books which answer to the same name, is not a book of the year, seasonal celebrations, or planting cycles: instead, this is a book which catalogs witches and sorcerers, presenting them in a historical context, from the earliest known practitioners of magic in classical antiquity to the modern era. The book opens with an introduction that lays out the author’s approach to this topic, and it is followed by…
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WitchCrafting: Crafts for Witches
Ostara Cards Merry meet. I don’t always manage to get Yule cards out on time, but it occurred to me: why send cards only for the winter holidays? Why not for spring? Here is a suggestion for an Ostara card that can be modified for any of the other sabbats. I bought packets of seeds that were magickal and, hopefully, easy to grow – organic and heirloom when possible. Then I wrote a verse for the inside of the card that can serve as a spell, which you are free to use: “As the wheel turns and we move into the light, May…
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It’s All Rite
Spring is a time of hope, new beginnings, potential, and planting. Air, east, the new moon, the maiden archetype, inspiration, imagination, fresh flowers, nests, eggs, hawks, seeds, chimes, dragonflies, wonder, joy, playfulness, communication, spiders, purification, daffodils, childhood, and adventure are all associated with Ostara. For readers who want to keep it simple, below is a collection of easy yet meaningful activities to celebrate the Spring Equinox. Pick whatever interests you, and continue as long as you wish. Perhaps one of them will become a daily practice. * Put a bowl of candied eggs on a table or counter to bless new beginnings with sweetness and happiness. * Hang wind chimes…
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Witch Hunt
There are witches all around us. You can find them anywhere… The Witch on Wheels has been documenting her findings. Meet Cheyenne Falls I met Cheyenne and her fiancé as they began building their skoolie at the homestead in Georgia I visit twice a year. We got to talking about our paths. One of the things I liked is that she, too, worked with death, and was not squeamish about bones and such. I also enjoyed the meals we shared, typically with her doing the cooking. Working in the lodge kitchen, the range was her altar, a wooden spoon her wand, pots and pans her cauldron, food her…
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Ostara Correspondences
Mon, Mar 20, 2023 (oh-star-ah) – Lesser Sabbat – Spring/Vernal Equinox Other Names: Ostre, Oestre, Eostre, Rites of Spring, Eostra’s Day, Lady Day, First Day of Spring, Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, Alban Eiler, Bacchanalia, Mean Earraigh, Pasch, Caisg, Pess Symbolism: The beginning of spring, new life and rebirth, the God and Goddess in Their youth, balance, fertility Goddesses: all love, virgin, and fertility Goddesses; Anna Perenna (Roman), Aphrodite (Greek), Astarte (Canaanite, Persia, GrecoRoman), Athena (Greek), Cybele (Greco-Roman), Blodeuwedd, Eostre (Saxon Goddess of Fertility), Flidais (Irish), Gaia (Greek), Hera, Ishtar (Assyro-Babylonian), Isis (Egyptian), Libera (Roman), Minerva (Roman), The Muses (Greek), Persephone (Greek), Renpet (Egyptian), Venus (Roman), Ostara (the German Goddess…
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The Kitchen Witch
The Humble Boxty Many years ago, I went out with a guy named Tim. We were just kids; I was a little older than he was, but we were still kids, basically. I was twenty and he was eighteen. At that time, the drinking age was eighteen years old in New York State. We went to a lot of concerts and to clubs that featured live music. Tim was a major Deadhead and I loved anything I could dance to. But like so many young people, we drifted apart. I didn’t hear from Tim for many years – not until I reconnected with him on Facebook around 2007 or so.…
