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Very sad news, confirmed by NPR: Margot Adler has died of cancer.

Adler was both a mainstream journalist and a Wiccan priestess, as is acknowledged in her NPR obituary. Her groundbreaking book "Drawing Down the Moon" was the first major non-fiction book to bring the Neo-Pagan culture to widespread attention in a non-sensational way.

http://wvpublic.org/post/margot-adler-npr-journalist-three-decades-dies

Welcome to Airy Monday at the PaganNewsBeagle: Aleister Crowley, summer skywatching, Scottish petroglyphs, ancient cultures and a little-known museum beloved by Pagans in the American South. Enjoy your week!

The web is abuzz with images from the Scottish Highlands (blame "Outlander.") If you decide to go, check out these mysterious petroglyphs while you're there.

Summer is a great time to view the Milky Way. If you can't see the stars due to bright city lights, here's a wonderful slideshow of Milky Way photos at Space.com

This problem came to me from a pagan couple who are members of CoS: “The past year has been an horrendous one for my family with serious illness, financial worry, personal upsets and coping with an aging parent.  Apart from the ongoing health problems, my partner and I seem to have the problems sorted but thought we’d like to carrying out a thorough cleansing of ourselves on a psychic level.  Any suggestions?”  SBW (Wembley)

“Pride cometh before the fall” is a message I recall hearing many times as a child. The warning that, though there was the expectation that I would always do my best, it was not appropriate to express the positive glow of success and accomplishment. If one did not self-monitor humility, one faced the very real possibility of being “brought back down to size”. Messages that urge us to be humble, to keep quiet, to deflect compliments away are fairly strong. Having internalized these messages, there can definitely be a waft of distaste when we encounter boasting. We feel the wave of Ego come towards us and instinctively step back.

Over the last month, I have been listening to a wonderful telesummit about priestesses. I am also a huge fan of the radio show, Voices of the Sacred Feminine. However, as I listen to both, I sometimes find myself wondering if walking a Goddess path is also viewed as synonymous with, "believe everything, question nothing." Crystal essences, gemstone healing, soul contracts, past lives, spirit guides, astrology, the many realms and dimensions of the occult, mystical, New Age and metaphysical. Is wholesale suspension of logic required to join hands with the Goddess? Is deft management of the tarot essential to the priestess path? Must I ascribe to "enlightened" tenets like, "you are not your body," "I am a spiritual being having a spiritual experience" and "we made an agreement to do this work before we showed up in this body at this time and place" in order to move forward?

I sat at my home altar this afternoon holding an amethyst in one hand and a priestess sculpture in the other feeling entirely too practical and realistic. I looked out my window at the precious trees, the scratching chickens, the drooping flowers, and the dry, dry relentless dust of summer and some answers drifted to my mind:

The Week of Sunday July 27^th 

What better time to launch a creative project than the New Moon in Leo?  Welcome to my new weekly sun sign column! 

The sexy and playful New Moon in Leo on Saturday sets the tone, not only for the coming week, but until the next Full Moon on August 10th.  (See my post on the Leo New Moon here: )  Mars has finally moved out of its extra long stint in Libra into Scorpio, which is great news for the Cardinal signs: Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn – but Aries and Libra will be the ones that really breathe a sigh of relief.   And, Mercury the archetype that rules communication leaves the emotional terrain of Cancer for dynamic Leo, joining the Sun and Jupiter, and bringing sparkle and play to all.  August 2^nd is the cross quarter day Lughnasadh, or Lammas, marking the first of the three ancient Celtic Harvest festivals.  Read on to see what this all means for you.

Aries and Aries Rising

Some quick notes on today’s New Moon in Leo and what it means for the month ahead. The chart cast for Washington DC is here, if you want to take a look. Leo loves the spotlight, and the spotlight is going to be on relationships this month here in the USA. Not just one-on-one relationships, but relationships between groups and countries as well. Women’s rights and issues will be front and center in the national consciousness, as will religion, foreign policy concerns and the justice system.  With Venus and Pluto facing off across the Ascendant-Descendant axis, and Mars tightly squaring the Moon-Sun-Jupiter grouping, we will almost certainly be seeing some extremely intense encounters and interactions.