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Esbats and Sabbats: Methods and Tools for Timing Observances
Wiccan practice is based on eight solar observances, called Sabbats and known collectively as the Wheel of the Year, and 26 lunar observances, called Esbats, each year. Some people hold very strictly to celebrating the moment, or at least the day, of the observance. Others are more relaxed about the time of the gathering, factoring…
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Building a Personal Practice: A Month-by-Month Guidebook
Categories: ArticlesTags: personal practiceAs the wheel turns to Samhain, the Witches’ New Year, you may feel the pull toward making some witchy new year’s resolutions. To do more witchy stuff. To be more witchy. To enhance your personal practice and live the witchy life. Yes! You can do it! Harness the power of the season of the witch…
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The Nine Sacred Woods of Wicca: Unlocking the Secrets of the Sacred Fire
“Nine woods in the Cauldron go — burn them quick an’ burn them slow.” Thus goes the couplet from “The Rede of the Wiccae” by Lady Gwen Thompson. In this poem, originally published in Green Egg in 1975, Lady Gwen doesn’t specify which woods are the nine that should go in the ritual fire, only…
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Tradition and Path: Where You’re Walking and Who You’re Walking With
Categories: ArticlesTags: personal practiceTradition and Path are words that get tossed around a lot in the discussion of Paganism and Wicca. Young traditions are sometimes scoffed at as being ‘really just a path’, as if a path is somehow less important than a tradition. There’s the implication that paths are eclectic or made up and thus less authentic…
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People of the Library: An Annotated Bibliography of Recommended Beginner Books
Categories: ArticlesTags: reading listsThere are thousands of titles on Wicca, Witchcraft, Paganism, magick, and the occult from publishers large and small. Some of them are useful to read and refer back to again and again. Some of them are, quite frankly, not worth the paper they’re printed on. And some of them are so expensive as to be…