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The Vocation of Priestesshood: Discerning a Clergy Calling
Categories: ArchiveTags: priestesshoodIn Wicca, it seems like everyone wants to be the High Priestess. There’s a level of prestige implied in the title, harkening back to The Mists of Avalon and Vivienne with her commanding presence as she ruled benevolently over the Holy Isle. Some people are more impressed with the title than they are with anything
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Calling the Quarters: Unlocking the Power of the Elements
Some people regard the quarter calling ritual as rote memorization to get through before the ‘real’ part of the ritual begins. Nothing could be further from the truth. In a quarters-cast circle, inviting the Mighty Forces of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth into the circle builds power for both the circle itself and the power
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Witchcraft: The Recourse of the Oppressed
Categories: ArchiveTags: personal experienceWitchcraft is the recourse of the oppressed, and it always has been. It is subversive, countercultural, revolutionary. It breaks unjust bonds. It uplifts the downtrodden. It punishes the wicked. And the real danger for the Craft in the 21st Century is that mainstreaming it and becoming respectable in the eyes of the overculture — which
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My Queer Life: A Coming-Out Story
Categories: ArchiveIn honor of National Coming Out Day, I wanted to tell my story. I have a secret. Sometimes I wish I were a straight woman. It would be so much easier, less complicated, more accepted than being a Queer person. I didn’t ask to be pansexual. I didn’t ask to be nonbinary. I didn’t ask
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Cakes and Wine: The Witches’ Communion
The ritual of Cakes and Wine (also called Cakes and Ale or the Simple Feast) seems like it was ripped directly from the Christian Eucharist. And to a certain extent, it was. The early practitioners of Wicca were brought up in the Church of England, where weekly Communion is a hallmark of the faith. But
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Personal Sovereignty: Exploring Your Power
Categories: Archiven Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) utters important words to a young Will Turner (Orlando Bloom): “The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do.” This philosophy is of utmost importance in realizing your personal sovereignty
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Dechristianizing Yourself: The Difference Between Belief and Practice
Categories: ArchiveTags: dechristianizationMost people who come to Paganism from a Christian context are familiar with the idea of unified belief. Some of them are attracted to Paganism because the movement lacks a strong core of shared beliefs; others find this concept unsettling in its unfamiliarity. What differentiates Paganism from Christianity is its focus on practice rather than
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Building the Inner Temple: A Witch’s Refuge on the Astral Plane
Categories: ArchiveEach of us has an inner temple waiting to be built. The inner temple is a spiritual refuge and magickal workspace built at the crossroads of the inner realm and the astral realm, where the individual meets the universal. Like a Klein bottle, if you journey far enough inside yourself, you realize you’ve travelled outside
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Secrets of the Circle Casting: Creating Effective Sacred Space
Ivo Dominguez Jr. wrote in his book Casting Sacred Space: The Core of All Magickal Work that if we lost everything about our religion except the way to cast the magick circle and its symbolism then the religion could be renewed from that single seed. Far from a perfunctory act, to cast the circle is
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The Sacred Fire: Kindling Life in the Circle
n my tradition, we have two different types of fire represented in the Circle: Elemental Fire, which dwells in the South, and Sacred Fire, which dwells in the Center. Elemental Fire is meant to represent the transformative quality of the element. Sacred Fire, on the other hand, is a conjoining of all the Elements: Earth