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Book Review – Healing with Essential Oils: The Antiviral, Restorative, and Life-Enhancing Properties of 58 Plants by Heather Godfrey
Book Review Healing with Essential Oils: The Antiviral, Restorative, and Life-Enhancing Properties of 58 Plants by Heather Dawn Godfrey Publisher: Healing Arts Press 2022 340 Pages Release Date: August 6, 2022 When you mention essential oils, people often immediately think of diffusers and simmer pots, but the truth is, essential oils have been around far longer in organic usage. Many of us just scratch the surface when we use essential oils, rather than harnessing the full power of these natural items that offer so much more to our lives. This new book, Healing with Essential Oils: The Antiviral, Restorative, and Life-Enhancing Properties of 58 plants will…
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Book Review – Shadow Animals: How Animals We Fear Can Help Us Heal, Transform, And Awaken
Book Review Shadow Animals: How Animals We Fear Can Help Us Heal, Transform, And Awaken by Dawn Baumann Brunke Publisher: Bear & Company 320 pages Release Date: November 8, 2022 Dawn Baumann Brunke introduces a new way to approach shadow work: using animals as teachers. “Shadow Animals: How Animals We Fear Can Help Us Heal, Transform, And Awaken” explains how these animals can help us recognize and explore our own shadow selves. I found the concept original, non-threatening and insightful. Our fears, feelings, and phobias about various animals can help us see the hated, abandoned, judged, and denied aspects of ourselves. Buried traumas and childhood fright…
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Focus Pocus
My Life is Not a Greek Drama, but Thank You Anyway Eris During my year-long journey reading the Iliad and the Odyssey as part of Jack Grayle’s course Godsong, I noticed the way I perceive some of the gods in the stories differently than when I studied the texts when I was in college. Over the years life experience and therapy has shaped how I understand the actions of others and recently I found myself relating to the Goddess of Strife in a way I never expected. She is referred to as Strife in the Iliad Book 4, “whose fury never tires, sister and friend of murderous Ares,…
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Oud: The Magickal Benefits of the Middle Eastern Incense
Known as the “wood of the Gods” and the “black gold”, Oud is one of the most mysterious and precious raw substance used in the majority of Middle-Eastern Homes. From having its incense placed in every corner of our houses, to using its oil on our bodies and its fragrance on our bed sheets, this powerful and magickal scent is part of our culture and of our daily lives. The history of Oud goes back to ancient times, where it was known in civilizations such as the Chinese, Pharaonic and Assyrian before it reached the Arab civilization through the silk road. The earliest recorded information was found in 1400 B.C.E.…
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Book Review – Ritual as Remedy by Mara Branscombe
Book Review Ritual as Remedy by Mara Branscombe Publisher: Findhorn Press Publication Date: June 7, 2022 288 pages This book is exactly what it says. The author’s quote before the beginning of Chapter 1 states the following and is very much on point! “Rituals are like mirrors that we can hold up to reflect our lives’ journeys. The ceremonial process allows us to step out of time and experience something beyond the mundane, revealing the sacred turning points in our lives and guiding us deeper into our souls’ calling.” This quote struck such a huge cord with me. I was…
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Book Review – The Fourteen Holy Helpers by Christiane Stamm
Book Review The Fourteen Holy Helpers: Invocations for Healing and Protection by Christiane Stamm Publisher: Earthdancer Books 112 Pages Publication Date: March 29, 2022 This book struck my interest when it was offered for review. This was due to having spent over 30 years of my life as a Catholic. The Fourteen Holy Helpers are Christian Saints. In this book, Christiane Stamm presents how to initiate yourself to use the power of the saints as well as how to preform an invocation utilizing prayers to bring about healing and protection. The book invites you to become initiated by copying each…
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Jazz’s Jems
A Snippet on Shungite Shungite is a beautiful, black stone that is mainly Carbon. A fun fact about Shungite is that it contains nearly all the minerals in the periodic table of elements and is thought to be over 2 billion years old! Its element is Earth and is associated with Scorpio and Capricorn. Its main companion stone is Malachite and it’s found in Russia. Shungite will boost your immune system, can help reduce inflammation and promote universal unity. It is helpful for relieving stress and will soak up the negative energy to help balance emotions as well as purify water. Shungite can reduce inflammation and EMF…
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Book Review – Tarot Priestess: Using the Cards to Heal, Grow & Serve by Leeza Robertson
Book Review Tarot Priestess: Using the Cards to Heal, Grow & Serve By Leeza Robertson Published by Llewellyn Publications 219 pages Tarot Priestess is a 5 1/4 inch by 8 inch soft cover book with a matte finish full color front cover showing the book’s title and a closeup of an image from The High Priestess of the Major Arcana. My copy is an uncorrected proof (not for sale), with a back cover containing the publishing information and a brief bio of the author. I am assuming the final version would have a different book back. Tarot Priestess contains 219 pages with black print on sturdy off-white paper…
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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…
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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…
