• Gods & Goddesses,  Monthly Columns,  Spells & Rituals

    The Modern Merlin’s Corner-February 2025: Embodying the Divine Masculine in a Toxic Masculine Society

    Hello, and welcome to February! I hope everyone who celebrates had a wonderful, and inspiring, Imbolc. We’re currently seeing the effects of toxic masculinity in our society-especially if you live in USA. Our leadership, to be blunt, embodies everything that the masculine energy has to offer in its shadow: greed, hatred, bigotry, intolerance, and more. While there are many who support this cult of personality surrounding the “FOTUS”, I believe there are many more who are opposed to him, including within the United States. As a male leftist, pagan, witch, sorcerer and mystic, embodying the masculine comes with a sort of taboo these days; many see anything masculine as simply…

  • Reviews

    Book Review: Healing Pluto Problems by Donna Cunningham

    Amazon Stock Photo

    Why this book matters in our time TW: This book, and review, will touch on very hard issues such as abuse, substance use, incest, molestation, rape, etc.  Healing Pluto Problems: An Astrological Guide by Donna Cunningham recently got an update with Weiser rolling out its Classics Series. First published in 1986, when one of the most potent Pluto transits, in his native home of Scorpio, had just gotten underway about 2.5 years prior. Understandably, there was a need for this book at that time, when so many issues revolving around such Plutonian issues as drug and alcohol abuse, domestic abuse and sexual abuse were coming to light, and new, innovative…

  • Monthly Columns

    The Modern Merlin’s Corner: Transformative Magick With Astrology and Alchemy

    My Dark Night of the Soul I think before I get along with my more practical explanation of what exactly I’m talking about here, I first need to explain why I chose to write this article, at this particular time. As an Astrologer, I firmly believe that humanity itself is on a threshold: evolve, or don’t. It sounds simple, but it’s much more complex, because we, as human beings, are more complex than duality of good vs. bad, or light vs. dark. The grey area is within us and around us. I mainly work in this grey area, believing that magick and spirituality are exactly what you make it. It…

  • Reviews

    Book Review – Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening by Connie Zweig, PhD

    Book Review Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening by Connie Zweig, PhD Publisher: Park Street Press 304 Pages Publication: May 23, 2023     If you are seeking a book about the “how to” of doing personal shadow work Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening by Connie Zweig, PhD is not the book for you. If, however, you are committed to cutting through the illusions that are thrown towards us by those who we consider to be within our circle of trust and the shadow they…

  • Reviews

    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…

  • Monthly Columns

    As Above So Below (How the Stars Became Our Hearts)

    Confessions of a Dark Witch   The Bourne     I decided to write this in response to many different people suggesting to me that I have a hard life because I call myself a “dark” witch, and many of those same individuals also added that, if they did not fully understand, I should clarify to people what I mean exactly. Also, as is obvious, I’ve returned to narrative format, as when talking about deep personal things like your own inner experiences in relationship to you own spiritual beliefs and practices, it should always be made clear that these are opinions and beliefs, not scientific truths. The realm of spirituality…

  • Monthly Columns

    MagickalArts

    A New (Witch’s Year)! The Space of Integration   Happy July and the Space of Integration Between….     We’ve just celebrated the Summer Solstice and now have an opportunity to rest in the weeks between before the next Sabbat of Lammas and the Autumnal Equinox. How we choose to use that time can serve us in unexpected ways and deepen what we have carried from our experiences of those previous Sabbats. In that spirit, I would like to invite you to just simply breathe into this month of July. This month is the pause before each inhalation and the fullness before each exhalation of breath. We can choose to…

  • Monthly Columns

    Shadow Work in Dreamspace

    Shadow Work in Dreamspace: A Guided Anahata Meditation (Photo by Jake Buonemani on Unsplash) Blessed night, all. I had just woken up from shamanic dreamspace and I thought I would share with you my experience and interpretation of shadow work within dreaming. This was a bit intense and the information given was a little difficult for me to take in. But I know well with my line of work when it comes to shadows, it is something that is always needed. This dream started out in a church I went to once with my friend Victoria as a child. Oddly, though this is where Lammas monologues were being held. If…

  • Monthly Columns

    As Above So Below (How the Stars Became Our Hearts)

    Shedding Light Upon Shadow     Happy October! Tis the season… to delve deep into our shadows. The shadows have been very prominent than ever this year. Many of us have faced a lot of pain and fear, and are in need of help through dark times. Like in the popular poem Footprints in the Sand, during the hardest times are when we have to recognize we don’t have the power without help from our spirit guides, whoever that is in your particular path. When we are faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, it leaves us no other choice but to put our faith in something higher. There hasn’t been an…

  • Monthly Columns

    Crone’s Corner

    Heeding the Advise from a Tree     There is a stillness in the air in New England when we approach Samhain, the time of year for the descent to begin into the dark days, when the light leaves us to contemplate the harvest of our year that has passed. I feel the trees, which were full of life a few weeks ago, giving their final farewell in a burst of color displaying their life well lived during the turning of the wheel! The first week of November marks the last of the leaves falling gently to the ground, covering the earth in a blanket of brilliant yellow, red, and…