The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men. — Alice Walker

I don’t live with any non-human companion animals, but often wish I could. Allergies to every fur-bearing mammal I have ever encountered and the adamant veto of my dear husband has kept our home petless for most of our family’s existence. (There was a series of companion rodents about a decade ago, but I gradually became allergic to them as well, and pets in cages never really agreed with us anyway.)

Perhaps my hominid-only life is why I’m repeatedly drawn to the topic of animal magic; while assembling this issue I discovered to my surprise that this is the fourth time this topic has been covered by one of our magazines. Reading through our previous efforts, I was struck by the number of articles we’ve featured focusing on specific animals, including insects (“Welcoming the Multi-Legged Goddess”), horses ( “The Divine Charger”), and ravens (“To Fly with the Raven”)¹ as well as ferrets (“For the Love of Ferrets”), wolves (“Wolf: from Mammal to Metaphor”), bats (“Bats: the Cutest Superheroes You’ve Never Met”), and bears (“The Bear Whisperer”).² There’s even an entire issue dedicated to cats!³ (That one can’t be attributed to personal interest, since I am so not a cat person.)

Hi Good Witch and Bad Witch!

Before I give you my question, I just want to say that I am indeed a Christian. I believe in God, Jesus, and the Bible, but I honestly don’t believe that paganism is something to fear. If anything, it’s something to honor and respect. Christianity and many of the major religions today are descended from the principles of Paganism.

Do you believe I can be a Christian and a Pagan? I read about them online, but I want to know what you think. Can I have my heart set with Jesus, yet worship the earth mother?

Thank you for taking the time to read this, — Amy

Dearest Amy,

The real question isn’t whether you can be a Christian and a Pagan, but whether you have the chutpah to come out of the double broom closet and be honest with the Christians and Pagans in your life about your choice.

I casually flip through the bumper stickers at a metaphysical shop. One sticker in particular catches my eye, and I cease shuffling them. This sticker, with its cheery gold background and Celtic knot work border, proudly proclaims “Christianity has Pagan DNA!” Certainly the scribe of this phrase does not mean this literally, but rather simply means that Christianity was born of polytheistic roots.

Although I cherish the attitude of the phrase, the wording leaves me disconcerted. I know this as a “truism,” something I feel and understand is true, if limited. I’ve never encountered any biblical passage reading, “And you shall cut down an evergreen, yea, and bring it into your house each twenty-fifth of December,” nor have I found reference to the three kings wassailing the cedars of Lebanon.

Welcome to Our New Baby

A seedling reaches for the sun.

“Something old, something new, Something borrowed, something blue And a silver sixpence in her shoe.”
—Old English doggerel describing the items in a good luck charm for a new bride

Like most of our publishing ventures, Witches & Pagans was born from equal parts of necessity (always the great-aunt, if not Queen of Invention), inspiration, and perspiration. Back in April, I wrote a business-like letter to PanGaia subscribers detailing our decision to fold PanGaia into newWitch to form a new, bigger magazine, which, at the time, we dubbed newWitch: Creating Pagan Community. The intention was (at least) two-fold: to reduce our scheduled frequency to one I could actually manage (two quarterly magazines, plus one twice-yearly journal) and to reunite our readership (previously divided by style and perceived age.)