Someone asked me the other day whether or not it was acceptable to do magick for personal gain. This is one of those topics that can be hotly debated in Pagan circles. Wiccans sometimes say no, that there is something intrinsically flawed with the idea of using the powers of magick to say, win the lottery. (Hell, if that worked, there’d be a lot more rich Pagans out there.) Traditional Witches often used magick to get what they wanted. So what’s the answer?

When a person comes into magic, they often do so largely because they're looking for that magical wand for themselves. Either they're looking for a magical cure for their problems, or they're looking for an explanation why things work out the way they do, and so on. They often don't even give themselves a moment to consider the applications for other people. Even the nicer kinds of people often have this blind spot- they're not being selfish, they're being considerate of meddling in other people's affairs.

Still, I have often said that the true mark of a magician of any sort (be it shaman, sorcerer, witch, etc.) is how they use their powers in aid of another. After all, the first focus of any magician is the mastery of one's self and one's own life. Of course, once one has accomplished that (no easy task, to be sure, but it is the first goal), it should stand to reason that a person would naturally turn their gaze outward towards their surroundings.

In the Marvel Universe (yes, I'm referencing comic books in my magical practice), there are three kinds of true magic- Arcanum Ego, or the magic of one's self and one's own personal "energies"; Arcanum Eco, the magic of one's environment and natural power; and Arcanum Exo, the magic of extraplanar forces and beings. For myself and my own experience, this seemed entirely natural as a system of understanding. My own studies of astrology have taught about the modes of Personal, Interpersonal, and Transpersonal ideology and wisdom- if you haven't learned this yet, the twelve signs are split into four Personal (Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and Cancer), four Interpersonal (Leo, Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio), and four Transpersonal signs (Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces).

For my inaugural article here at PaganSquare for the newly minted military section (include link please!), I had a lot of ideas on which direction to take, but I couldn't quite decide where I wanted to set my focus. Some of you may be familiar with my writings on the Pagan Newswire Collective's Warriors and Kin (link: http://military.pagannewswirecollective.com) in which I have been faithfully posting there each week for a little over three years. Sometimes, I ramble a bit (who am I kidding, I ramble a lot!), and sometimes I readily admit it's hard to come up with that hard-hitting journalism that seems to come naturally to so many other writers over at PNC (link: http://pagannewswirecollective.com) and within the Pagan community as a whole. I call myself a hack, but I write from the heart, and I hope you enjoy what I offer.

So where did my mind wander for this article? Well, the last Monday in May is a national holiday – Memorial Day, which I found to quite apt. It is a holiday many Americans equate with the unofficial beginning of summer thanks to the rediscovered warm weather, complete with backyard barbecues. But it means something a whole lot more – an honoring, solemn day of remembrance for all those who have served and have passed.

For our Heathen brethren, this Memorial Day will mean something a little bit more, as the Veteran's Administration now officially acknowledges them by offering the Thor's Hammer emblem. Yes, this is another victory for Pagans as a whole, but just like how many people forget the meaning behind the holiday while they're enjoying charred burgers off the patio, many folks either forget or are unaware the way an emblem joins the list (link: http://www.cem.va.gov/hmm/emblems.asp). You see, someone who has served has had to die and the next of kin makes the request. And that request, as many of us recall, can take several years, a lot of hand-wringing and plenty of petitions and calls to action.

Today I was chatting with my colleague Ochani Lele (who will be appearing on Wyrd Ways Radio on June 5), author of "Sacrificial Ceremonies of Santeria: A Complete Guide to the Rituals and Practices," "Diloggun Tales of the Natural World," and several other books.  We were discussing our respective Holy Powers when he asked me a question that made me stop and, after answering it, ask him if he'd mind me using it as a question here.   During the course of our conversation, he said to me: 

"You know . . . having Jewish blood, I've always been a bit afraid of Norse religion. Just out of curiosity, how do you think your gods would react to someone with Jewish blood taking up their worship? Would they respond? Would they accept? What about an African, or an African American? How would the Norse gods respond to such a person? Are they beyond racial boundaries, like the Orishas? I'm assuming they would be . . . but assumptions often get me in trouble. What are your thoughts on that?"

What did it mean to be a priest in ancient Egypt? 

Roving mendicant, parish pastor, fiery evangelist or vodoun mystic – so many stereotypes joust for attention when you speak the word.  Egyptian priests, however, were very different from the typical modern western image of a minister.  Their primary obligation was to conduct daily and seasonal rites in order to perpetuate the balance between the neteru (gods) and the earthly realm.  Healing, magical and literary and musical arts developed around these rites.  But preaching, converting, pastoral care for a congregation, and the like were not part of the job.

A hem-netjer (servant of the god) might be attached to a temple for life as a permanent vocation.  Other priests served in rotation, living at home with wife and children most of the year.  Celibacy was not a requirement for priesthood, though married priests during the New Kingdom abstained from sex before coming to the temple for their period of service.  In the large temples, divisions of labor resulted in specialties like the wab priest (a sort of ritual helper), sem priest (performed funeral rites), and kherheb (lector) priest, who recited texts and often performed magic.

In Osireion practice, we look at the figure of the priest as an allegory or type for our own daily living.  That does not mean we go live in a stone temple, but that we contemplate the devotion of the priest to spiritual practice.  We do not feel that we are inherently unclean, but we do find it meaningful to dip our hands in clean water before a ritual, to signify that we are washing away what is unwanted in our lives and coming to the altar with a clear and open heart.  We burn incense before the statues of our gods, but we are well aware that the scent has a powerful effect on our own human minds, instantly connecting us to the realm of spirit.  We shake the sistra, not only because it was believed that the gods like the sound, butmodel of devotional practice, in particular.

Today, however, we live in communities which are accustomed to a pastoral culture of ministry.  This need not be a conflict for independent-minded Pagans; humans naturally congregate and form groups based on shared values and practice.  Within those groups, some will emerge as possessing specific skills needed by the others.  There is honor and beauty in the idea of caring for others in our spiritual communities.  Intentional nurturing of one’s own spirituality, in addition to learning about ethics, leadership, ceremony and pastoral care, brings about a model for priesthood which can serve the growing new Egyptian spirituality communities.

“O Ra, Lord of Light, Giver of Life and taker of it, cast your light of peace unto the world. So commands the Chief Lector Priest, Haroeris M7, everliving in Ma’at.”

From Selections of Ancient Egyptian Prayer, © Copyright 2009 Michael J. Costa (M7), All rights reserved.

Women in Nepal tortured because of witchcraft allegations (Al Jazeera)

"Women accused of witchcraft in Nepal are often tortured and beaten by their own community. Human rights activists have been trying to stop the persecution but they say current legislation is too weak and is not helping. It is thought that about four women are abused every month, having their heads shaved and being beaten and bound."

SCOTUS to hear case on Christian prayers at beginning of public meetings (Miami Herald)

I don't want to talk about this.

Every fiber of my being is resisting - and that's why I'm going to do it. "The way of the transgressor is hard." I've called this series Blurring Boundaries for a reason - because that's what being a Dionysian comes down to. A constant struggle to be free and true, tearing away the masks no matter how painful the process, striving for an openness that leaves you so raw the wind against your skin bruises and filled with a monstrous hunger to experience more, always more, no matter the cost. Being alive and knowing fully what your flesh is capable of.

That is what being a Dionysian means to me, and it's terrifying as the face of the Devourer, my sweet prince, is terrifying. I love him and I will never stop pouring myself out for him. And I know that he would do the same for me because I am an initiate.

One thing I often see, both from the reconstructionist and non-recon sides of Paganism, is a blind spot when it comes to sources that derive from Christian writers. I see this a lot particularly in Ásatrú and related Heathen faiths: when there’s a debate on something in the Sagas, or the Eddas, someone will inevitably chime in with the fact that most of the written lore comes down to us from Christian writers, who were writing after the official conversion from Heathen beliefs to Christianity, as if to shut down the discussion by impugning the sources.

The reality, of course, is that without the written sources, we would know next to nothing about the religion of the Norse. Indeed, much of our knowledge of Roman Pagan religion also comes to us from Christian sources, and the watchword from a Pagan or Heathen point of view could be, “If the Christians were against it, it’s probably a good idea.”

For example, a masterpiece of erudition on the subject of Roman religion by Marcus Terentius Varro, a book called Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum is lost. Its contents are known to us chiefly through Augustine’s City of God, in which he critiques Varro. But for Augustine, our knowledge of Varro would be much less, and thus our knowledge of the Religio Romana would be all the poorer.

Ten days ago, I finished a long and occasionally arduous journey deep into the heart of nerdom: I finally read every issue of Marvel's THOR and its sister comic, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, published since the character came back in 2007.* 

Between here and there, there have been about 60 issues of the main Thor book, plus 37 issues of Journey into Mystery, plus assorted one-shorts and miniseries. (I'll confess, I haven't read every single one of the one-shots, mainly because Marvel released a ton of them around the time the movie came out and I'm sorting out what's what. If I stumble onto any gems, I'll let you know.) That's a lot of comics - Gods bless the iPad, without which I doubt I ever would have taken up the project.

If you like superhero comics... Well, it's actually hard to tell, exactly, how well you will enjoy this particular era of the character. The 2007 Thor relaunch emphasized the fantasy side of the series as opposed to the super-heroing; most of the time, when the series goes towards superheroics, it falls a little flat. The best parts, for me, evoke a wonderful feeling of magical realism, the mixing of the mundane and the fantastic, the holy and the comedic.

I walked into a convenience store a few weeks ago and made a startling discovery. I must have walked by that store a hundred times, but I had no idea that it held one of the greatest selections of magazines and newspapers in the area. As I browsed, I was astonished to see the face of the Black Madonna staring back at me. 

For those of you who read French, the hors-series edition of Sciences et Avenir (Science and the Future), January-February 2013, is an absolute gem.

https://www.epresse.fr/magazine/sciences-et-avenir-hors-serie/2013-01-01

A little over a week ago, I introduced a new series for the blog: a short series about the labours of Hēraklēs. In that post, I described the life of Hēraklēs up until the point where he set out to complete the tasks. Today, I'm taking you through the first of twelve labours: Hēraklēs' challenge to slay the Nemean lion.

The Leon Nemeios (Λεον Νεμειος), or Nemean lion has been described with a large variety of parents. Selene is mentioned by Aelian and Seneca, amongst others, but one of the drakons is also possible, especially Echidna. Diodorus Siculus, in his Library of History describes the lion so: 

(As readers of my Wytch of the North blog know, Queen Anne Boleyn is the most prominent member of a group of spirits I refer to as "The Queens"--since they literally are the spirits of dead queens--whom I have adopted as my Disir, and who have adopted me in turn and are kind enough to favor me with Their advice and support.  I may cover the story of how Anne first came into my life in another post, but for now I would like to share the below thoughts that were inspired by my Work with Her.  Probably this is more or less common knowledge, but for those who may not know, Anne Boleyn was beheaded by her husband, Henry VIII of England, on May 19th 1536, on false charges of adultery and incest.  Thus, I have set aside May 19th each year as Queen Anne's Day, which I observe by processing to our local Owen Memorial Rose Garden here in Eugene, where I leave gifts and offer prayers for her, and then at home I prepare a Tudor-era inspired feast in her honor.  This year, I will also be presenting prayers and poetry submitted as gifts for her by my readers.  Anne's death was a great tragedy, but as I commented recently on my blog, I think it's important to remember how she lived--boldly, with style and aplomb--and not just how she died.)

This week, in my search for Anne Boleyn-themed viewing material that I had not yet seen, I ended up borrowing (from our amazing local library) a BBC production of Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl.  (Which is also available on YouTube here.)  Many of you are doubtless familiar with the Hollywood adaptation of this story, featuring Natalie Portman.  (I watched this again recently too, and to my surprise found that the theatrical release doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense if you aren't already familiar with the novel; this must be due to bad editing and too many deleted scenes, as the plotline--which was fine in the book--just does not hang together well.)  I have to admit, although I love Philippa Gregory, especially her books about the queens involved in the Wars of the Roses (aka "the Cousins' War"), I am not a fan of The Other Boleyn Girl.  Gregory does seem to have a distinctly pro-Catholic bias in her novels, and when writing about the Reformation, that bias translates into an anti-Anne bias.  In The Other Boleyn Girl, Mary is the good girl who compromises her purity for the sake of her family's ambition, then ends up falling in love with the king despite herself, only to be foisted from his bed by the heartless Anne, who coldly connives her way to the throne and stops just short of committing incest with her own brother in a last-ditch effort to conceive the male child that would have saved her life.  (Gregory's treatment of Anne's daughter, Elizabeth the great Protestant Queen,  in later books is not terribly flattering either.)  In historical reality, on the other hand, Mary was more of a good-time girl than a "good" girl (the King of France, one of her many conquests prior to Henry, referred to her as his "English mare,") and Anne was very likely a virgin at the time of her marriage, although on the topic of whether or not she actually loved Henry there are as many opinions as there are writers to offer them.  (The Lady herself says that she did, and does, which makes her story all the more tragic.)

Public radio interviews convert to Khemeticism (KBIA)

"Porsha Williams knows a thing or two about walls – metaphorical ones, that is. She’s been up against a lot of them, whether religious, psychological or cultural. She describes herself as a “raised Christian, converted to Pagan woman.” And that conversion is the source of many of these walls."

A skeptical look at dowsing (Livescience.com)

Well, the school term is finally, officially over, I've submitted my last essay exam, and now I am free and clear as a bird, almost. I'm at least free and clear enough that I can catch up on some of the Odin and/or Deity questions that have accrued while i've been battling through finals the last two weeks. As I know i've noted before, I'm really enjoying the questions that are coming in. I think these are conversations we need to be having. Moreover, I"m forced to really engage with my own practice, and think and analyze what I do and how i approach my practice much more consciously and I think that's a good thing. Nothing in devotion should ever become so rote that we forget why we're doing it!

Two days ago, Bronwen Katzke posted over on Mama Afrika about spiders, and how they began appearing in her life repeatedly. She, like me, saw this as a sign. I thought her post was interesting, mainly because for the first 20 or so years of being on my path, Spider was my totem. I posted this in the comments section and promptly forgot about it.
The next day I had a strange urge, the urge to record my ex-step-father’s recent death in the family scrapbook. This is strange because he was a terrible, violent man who abused our mother as well as us kids (me and his two biological children). When he died in prison, I honestly felt nothing. I had put him out of my mind and moved on long ago. But because he was my siblings’ father, and my nieces’ and nephew’s grandfather, I felt it was only right to include him in our family register.
So I dug the thick, bulging scrapbook out of the pile of books and papers where it lay next to my craft desk. I opened it and took out the page with the family register, then set the scrapbook down on the other side of the desk. After carefully lettering his name and birth and death dates, I picked the scrapbook back up to replace the register.
When I went to open the cover, there, on the spine, sat the largest brown recluse spider I have ever seen. Brown recluses are venomous, and though their bite isn’t directly fatal, it causes a painful necrosis of the surrounding tissue that will spread. If not treated, it will turn into sepsis and can cause death. They like to live in human habitations, near water sources, and they are aggressive. Because of this, they are the only spider that I will kill on sight.
In my path, which I describe as Zen Wicca, I believe that the Creative Force of the Universe is omnipresent, and while it’s not anthropomorphic, it does have a kind of consciousness that is too vast for our human minds to grasp; we can only sense it in a very limited way. Though we are very tiny compared to the vastness that is the Universe, we are a part of It, and It moves through us and around us. It can speak to us, if we know how to listen. It speaks in the language of coincidence, which we might call “signs” or “omens.” So as one who tries to align myself with the Universe, I listen when It speaks to me. And that large, poisonous spider on my scrapbook was a sign.
The challenge is to understand what the Universe is saying. I think it means that, like the poisonous spider, some people are dangerous, and it’s best to get them out of our lives as soon as possible. Perhaps the Universe is telling me that I only thought he was out of my life; like the spider, he (or really, his influence) was hidden, ready to strike when I wasn’t paying attention.  But now, because of my experience with him, I know how to identify poisonous beings, and I’m not afraid to dispatch them immediately.
I grabbed a scrap of fabric out of the trash and crushed it, then washed the stain off my desk.

Before I address the title, let me first address a fact that was illuminated in some fairly recent conversations:  I am old.  Chronologically, I'm just a bit over thirty, which isn't really anyone's idea of old --and contrary to the prevalent misconceptions of ancient longevity (which is an average) generally speaking, people who could survive past the age of 15 all through the Archaic and Classical eras could typically expect to live into their sixties, so this isn't even "old" by historical standards, but I'm old.  I'm old because I retain this stubborn identity of "Hellenic reconstructionist" even though many people my age and younger, even (sometimes especially) if they practise by the same general methods I do have long eschewed the term because of reasons.  I all get to those reasons very shortly.  I'm old because I've acquired greater measures of both patience and cynicism in my approach to dealing with others, largely because of persistent misconceptions of who and what I am and am about, and when I don't have the patience to explain it, I don't get angry, I just shrug and think oh well, this isn't news and frankly I don't think they're worth explaining it to, and then I ask the other person "Hey, let's agree to disagree?"  But the good thing about being an ageing cynic (but not really a Cynic, though I do appreciate some of their teachings --my philosophy is based largely on Kyrenaic Hedonism with equal parts Empedocles, Democritus, Kirkegaard, Sartre, Camus, Crisp, and Jarman filling in the gaps, and also a huge stress on aesthetic arts bringing joy and meaning taken from famous Dandies including, but not limited to, Beau Brummel, Oscar Wilde, and Lord Whimsy)...  [coughs]  Yes, the good thing about being an ageing cynic with a blog, is I get to make things as clear as i need to, update and revise as I need to, and point people to said blog when I don't feel like dealing with them right now.

I want to make clear what religious reconstruction is and is not, because in spite of being pretty active for about the last five years in trying to promote this method of practise as both a perfectly valid and relevant "pagan path", it seems I've been met with more gross and appalling misconceptions in this last year than the previous four combined.  Now, I have some suspicions on key players who may be a large part responsible for this, but this isn't about naming names, this is about using the position afforded me on PaganSquare to clarify, perhaps even educate.  In this, I also want to stress (though I doubt that I could ever stress enough for some people) that identifying with a reconstructionist method is not synonymous with being ultra-conservative, traditionalist, neo-luddite, or regressionist.

Religious reconstruction is a method of practise, not a religious doctrine in and of itself.

When I was a child, I would wave to the man in the moon who I imagined peering down at me through the window. 

It wasn't until I became a Pagan that the moon came to be associated with the feminine.  The phases of the moon just seem like the perfect symbol for the stages of a female and for the menses.  So when I first heard about moon gods, I was sure there was some mistake.  How could that be?  It not only can be, but isn't as unusual as I thought it was. 

I've been thinking about what to write for this column for the last week and I've been coming up blank. No topic has really seemed right. There was nothing exciting going on or anything of real note standing out to me. If anything my life has been pretty mundane. Get up, go to meetings, meet with clients, come back and work on a project, spend time with the family, and of course throw some meditation and exercise in the mix for grounding purposes. Nothing very glamorous at all, and yet it strikes me that perhaps there is something to write about that, on this blog and its this: Magic isn't always glamorous or full of drama or anything else that we might associate with pop culture references to magic. Sometimes magic is just part of daily life, something you are doing to make your life easier or more meaningful or to connect with the spirits, but not something which necessarily has a lot of glamour associated with it.

My latest book, A Magical Life, has just been published. I'm excited to have it out, but something that the author of the introduction, Storm Constantine, wrote has been on my mind. In describing the book, she explains that magic isn't a colorful garment we put on, but rather it is an integral part of our being, woven into our lives everyday. And that is how I think of magic. I meditate each day and my meditations are an essential part of my life, something done as a way of bringing order to my mind, while allowing me to connect with the spiritual forces I work with. Nonetheless I'd have to say there is nothing inherently glamorous about the meditation. In fact, there are days I don't want to meditate or do anything else along those lines, and yet I make sure I do meditate because it is part of my life, and because not doing it takes away from the quality of my life.

I think to some degree your average magician is in love with the idea of magic being glamorous. Certainly at the beginning of a person's spiritual work with magic, there is this sense that you need to get all the ceremonial tools and that every act of magic must be an overt, explicit affair that screams to the universe: THIS IS MAGIC! And there is something to be said for doing those loud acts of magic that are glamorous and over the top and amazing in their own right. I've done and still do those kinds of acts of magic when the time is appropriate. But I recognize that fundamentally magic isn't always that way, nor does it need to be. My meditation practice isn't over the top and yet it still fills me with a sense of wonder and amazement. Indeed, if anything my daily work speaks more loudly to me than an over the top ritual because the daily work is where the discipline of the magician is tested. In that daily work, I don't necessarily do magic to solve problems (at least not overtly), but what I do is connect to the magic in a meaningful way that allows me to deepen my relationship to the spiritual forces I'm working with.

This weekend, which is a holiday long weekend north of the 49th Parallel, Pagans from all over the vast expanse of the Canadian landscape will be meeting in Gatineau, Quebec (which is just across the river from our capital city Ottawa) to discourse on what it is to be Canadian and Pagan, exchange ideas, study workshops, exchange chants, review scholarly works in our field, and of course, socialize.  It's called the Gaia Gathering (the Canadian National Pagan Conference,) and I believe this to be the most exciting thing currently going on in the Canadian Pagan community.  I made an epic journey to the 2010 conference in Montreal to present at a couple of panels, as well as one of their first workshops, and it was a life-changing experience.  This year, I am unable to attend but I was able to interview "Winnipagan" Dominique Smith, the current Chairperson, via Facebook about this outstanding event:

Question: So from your perspective, what is Gaia Gathering all about?

Dominique: The Canadian National Pagan Conference: Gaia Gathering at its most basic is about the identity and culture of Canadian Pagans. As Canadian Pagans we have unparalleled perspectives on the world and on the Craft. Our politics, our environment, and our Canadian culture influence us Pagans in a profound way. We see the world and react to it quite differently than most other people. Gaia Gathering is a way to explore and honor our uniqueness. Gaia Gathering is also an opportunity where Pagans from across Canada can interact, learn and create with a diverse group of individuals that have peerless perspectives and experiences on issues facing Canadian Pagans. Figuring out what makes Canadian Pagans different also opens us to identify our similarities and in a country this large its important for Canadian Pagans to feel connected and not alone, especially in rural areas where access to information and other Pagans can be quite limited.