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Meeting Your Ancestors: Beginning Ancestor Veneration at Samhain
Ancestor veneration can be a tricky subject for the newcomer. Whether you’re new to the Craft or just new to the concept of incorporating ancestors into your practice, it can be a challenge. First of all, not everyone knows their biological ancestors. And not everyone has nice ancestors. In fact, most people have some assholes…
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Embracing Queerness as a Witch: Subverting Norms and Gaining Power
Categories: ArticlesTags: queer witcheryOne of the great Mysteries of the Craft is that each of us is a perfect, amazing, flamboyant, paradoxical reflection of the Divine. Of course, this Mystery looks cheap on paper. Until its full power is realized through direct experience, it seems obvious, cliché, tawdry. The experience of the Mysteries is what makes them powerful…
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The Circle
Categories: Creative NonfictionTags: personal experienceThe ritual circle at Taz and Alex’s house was the main feature of their verdant back yard. It was eighteen feet in diameter with twelve stones — limestone, marble, quartz, granite, and others — marking the circumference. Wild strawberry plants surrounded the southern half of the circle, and the northern half was marked by three…
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Dechristianizing Yourself: Criticizing the Institutional Church
Categories: ArticlesTags: dechristianizationWhile Wicca as a religion is now old enough to have grandchildren — children raised in the faith by parents who were raised in the faith by parents who converted to the Craft — there are still plenty of practitioners who come to Wicca and other traditions in Paganism from Christianity. And many of them…
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Mental Health and the Craft: Finding the Balance Between Magical Thinking and Magickal Thinking
Categories: ArticlesMental health is a subject near and dear to my heart because I struggle with several major conditions. I have Bipolar I Disorder, and I have experienced visual and auditory hallucinations while in manic and depressive states. I have Autism and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. I have been frankly suicidal on more than one occasion. And…