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What's more pagan than a standing stone?

I say, let's raise them all over the place. Front yards, back yards, large, small, public, private, no matter. We need our standing stones. A landscape needs its standing stones. Shrines. Axes mundi. Herms. Facts on the ground.

Crown them, wreathe them, anoint them, rub them with ocher. Lay offerings at their feet. Wrap them (yes, I've seen it done) in strings of lights. Dance around them. Pray to them. Standing stones.

Today's Pagan News Beagle concentrates on politics, activism, and how our Pagan culture connects (or doesn't) to issues of social justice. SCOTUS case on religious attire at work; civil marriage under attack; the Covenant of the Goddess under fire (from Pagans); are the gods moral?; how do we juggle social justice and our Pagan faiths?

US Supreme Court already decided one religious rights case this year. Another case pits Abercrombie & Fitch against the EEOC on a case involving the right to wear religiously-significant attire at the workplace.

Jennifer comments, 
I think I need to figure out what happens when I don’t have a burning desire for something that I will absolutely go through hell and high water and a whole lotta sacrifice for….but the idea will never quite 100% go away either, even if it is mostly dead. I know I don’t want such-and-such so much that I’ll do ANYTHING, FOREVER, INDEFINITELY to get it–then again, I learned at an early age that such things weren’t under my control and if you go for years and years wanting something you can’t have and cannot ever figure out how to get, the burning desire will eventually die. I don’t know if it’s a case of “I just never want anything all that much, how do I know if it’s going to be so fucking great after years of struggle,” or “I learned that I’ll lose so what’s the point,” but I dunno, just because I don’t have the hellburning passion to see me through years of struggle to the goal doesn’t mean I’ve managed to 100% give up either.
Ugh. Undecidedness/ambivalence/meh helps nothing.

So, okay.  Let's say you're not a Margaret Beauforte House on Fire.  (I feel like Beth and I are in some kind of secret cult where if we say her name enough, we'll invoke her powers, btdubs.  Here's to hoping!)  Let's say you're a normal person who wants normal things who happens to practice magic.

As a Polytheist priest often engaged in very public discussions of piety, devotion, submission to our gods and the importance of worshipful relations and all that... I often get misunderstood as somehow being unconcerned with the world around me. (Although anyone who would think this clearly hasn't read anything I've ever written, since I'm pretty prolifically obsessed with social justice, mental health, communication, and world events.)

A quote is circulating right now which caught my eye, with a message from the always-awesome Crystal Blanton: “We should not forget the power of what we are and what we do. My magic is about a better world. What is yours about?” The quote speaks to an important part of my approach to things: both a focus on bettering this world for all of those within it, and proactively utilizing that which I have been blessed with to achieve those ends, and support other related goals that I can't have as my own focus... since not everyone can focus on everything.

Invocation can be a magickal act unto itself, meant to bring strength, healing and attunement. Invocation can also be an important part of a ceremony.

 Tarot cards can strengthen the magick of your invocation.

The variously-named February cross-quarter festival draws near, and in covensteads all over Witchdom they're polishing up the candle-crowns.

Often called a Lucia Crown, from its association with the Swedish pre-Yule feast of St. Lucy, the candle-crown would seem to have its origins in the late Medieval period. At least one Byzantine emperor is said to have worn one during audiences. One guesses that the crown's haloing effect was not lost on envoys.

We next find the crown of lights in early modern (16th-17^th century) Germany, where it is worn by the Christkindl. Protestant Reformers eager to dethrone the gift-giving St. Nicholas from his December 6 feast and the hearts of children, replaced him with a Christ Child figure who brought gifts on Christmas Eve. (The custom of Yule gifts goes back no further than this.) In folklore, the Christkindl became a fairy-like character, generally personified in real life by a young girl. Early illustrations often show her dressed in white, wearing a crown of candles, distributing gifts to children.