For a long time, I thought a coven was a group of people who practiced magick together. It didn’t occur to me until embarrassingly late in my practice – in a coven, mind you! – that there was more to the coven than people getting together a couple of times a month for celebration and…
One of the questions that I am routinely asked is whether or not a practitioner can be called to the service of a deity outside their cultural context. There’s a lot of concern in the Pagan world these days about cultural appropriation and the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation, and it is an…
Before Laurie Cabot was the “Official Witch of Salem”, there was Sybil Leek, “Britain’s most famous witch”. Sybil Fawcett Leek (1917-1982) was called “Dame Sybil” by some and “That Damn Sybil” by others. A colorful character by any stretch of the imagination, she was a Witch, psychic, and occultist. She grew up in the New…
Jesus wasn’t the first teacher to ever use stories to teach moral or spiritual concepts. Aesop – famous for his fables – lived in Greece six hundred years earlier. Before him, in the 8th Century BCE, Homer wrote down orally-transmitted epic poetry, including the Iliad and the Odyssey, that illustrated spiritual themes while also entertaining…
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…