The Healer: When I first bought my Goddess Oracle deck I immediately fell in love with one card above all else, it was the Goddess Ixchel, of all of the cards that I pulled  it took me two full years before I finally pulled her. She has come forth as the Divine expression of the power that I hold within me when, as a Priestess, I connect to the majesty of the Heavenly realms while also opening as deeply as I can to the elements and allowing all of these energies to flow through me and to crack me wide open, making a conduit of me. This Goddess has taught me how to let the I AM energy use me to restore balance and harmony, she has taught me surrender, focus, rootedness and the depths of true power that can be tapped into.
 
The Creatrix: Saraswati, Shakti, Mary Magdalene and Gaia are some of the Goddess archetypes that have taught me about the nature of creation, creation that comes from the imaging of other realms to be expressed here in this one. My second and fifth chakra has been illuminated by these expressions of Goddess and turned up to burn bright as I sit down to create.
 
Above are but a few examples of how the different archetypes, the Goddess deities have come to teach me more about the One Divine Goddess, She comes to me in many different ways with many different names. I have learned that for each lesson I face there is a corresponding Goddess that has the answers and the tools that I need to further my learning. The deities that I had so fervently denied believing in have taught me more then I had ever imagined I would be open minded enough to receive.
 
In the end what I have learnt is that I was not only longing for a community that would accept me exactly as I was, I was also longing for the self-freedom to allow myself to believe and to grow in the ways that inspired me most. I thank the Goddess for being slow and tender with me in those beginning years on my Priestess path and for drawing to me women who were gentle, playful and not attached to the labels that I held so close to me in those years.

My hope is that as women and men we may all be honoured to believe, worship, practice and journey homeward in the direction that flows the smoothest for us and that we be met with the love, acceptance and embrace that the Goddess and Her community has given me, and most importantly of all, that each of us can feel safe enough to truly let go of all that we think that we know in a surrendered act of humility and open up to all that the Goddess knows in us and through us. I pray for a world of women and men who have the self freedom and confidence to be exactly who they are and to worship in the flavour and design that suits them best. Let us shine our rainbow light Homeward bound.
 
Grace Be With You
Priestess of Grace
Candise Soaring Butterfly

We're adding a new feature to the PaganNewsBeagle -- Magical Monday will feature stories, spells, rituals, and practical tips to start out your workweek. Nothing but positive vibes on Monday!

Looking forward to the High Summer Holiday of Lammas/Lughnasad? Here's a "really ridiculous" ritual from Patheos that sounds like fun!

We get lots of requests for protection magick here at Witches&Pagans -- so many that we are devoting a large portion of next spring's "Psychic Arts" issue of the magazine to that very subject. In the meantime, here's a short ritual/spell for that very purpose that I collected for y'all online. You're welcome!

The Goddess in Her many aspects teaches us the mystery of the cauldron—birth, death and rebirth. Nowhere is this unfolding of regeneration more evident than in the garden bower at high summer. Heady with the fragrance of rose, valerian, lily, sweet pea, peony and more, the air itself seems ripe with life. As blossom turns to bloom then fades to seed or dies back to root we witness a time lapsed allegory of our own days on this earth, ending with the promise of new generations.

I’ve been spending a good deal of time in my garden this summer. After completing an herbalist apprentice course late last fall I was anxious to make use of my new knowledge. More recently, I have learned the art of making flower essences, capturing the vibrational energies of the blooms at their peak, reducing and formulating the essences to be used for the enhancement of mind, body and spirit wellness.

--Khristiani? Mussulmani?

--Worship Living Blue Father Sky...not stupid gods from books.  (S. M. Stirling, "Ancient Ways")

I'll admit it: the Abraham religions make a certain amount of pagan sense.

In this edition of the PaganNewsBeagle (Air - Monday) edition we have three stories from Creighton University including Voodoo in New Orleans, how online social media reflects (and affects) religious behavior, and a study that concludes religious teachings create an inability to tell fact from fiction in young children.

This paper discusses the syncretism of both Catholicism and Voodoo in New Orleans and explains how the adaptable Catholicism of New Orleans provides ample support for the growth rather than repression of Voodoo.

The rise of online social networking appears to represent a new challenge to religious individuals and institutions. In this paper, the author suggests that technology can enhance religious practices through the expansion and creation of religious communities.

Does strong religious belief create gullibility in children? Furthermore, do such beliefs predict psychopathology? This study explored how religious fundamentalism related to irrational beliefs and primitive defense mechanisms.

As some of you may know, I wrote a book called The Witch’s Broom. Recently, as a result of that, I got a message from a lovely man named Robert Skinner, who has a business called Blue Moon Brooms. (Yes, my group is called Blue Moon Circle, so how fun is this?) He said he loved my book (yay) and very kindly offered to make me my own broom for the price of one penny plus shipping (double yay). These are some gorgeous brooms, people.

Art by Susan Seddon-Boulet
(http://www.turningpointgallery.com/)

"In the best known version of the Greek myth, Persephone is dragged down into the underworld by Hades, whose title is 'Pluto.' But in earlier, pre-patriarchal tales, she descends there under her own power, actively seeking to graduate from her virginal naïveté by exploring the intriguing land of shadows. 'Pluto' is derived from the Greek word plutus, meaning 'wealth.' Psychologist James Hillman says this refers to the psyche-building riches available in Pluto's domain. Hades, he says, is the 'giver of nourishment to the soul.'" - Rob Brezsny

It is dark and the waxing crescent moon is hidden in the night sky by the tops of the redwoods.  But I walk the path confidently, my bare feet know the way though I have only been to this place once.  I move in the dark toward the sound of drumming.  I am again at Reclaiming’s California Witchcamp with witches of all genders from many parts of the world.

Last year, my first year at Witchcamp, we worked a Babylonian myth which introduced me to the Goddess Erishkigal, Queen of the Underworld.  It was a powerful and comfortable experience for me.  It was an opportunity to thank the Goddess for my own time in her realm dealing with a long bout of depression and complex health issues in my forties.  It was a time to thank her for allowing me to hang in the dark long enough to finally understand the dark is no scarier than the light, once my eyes adjusted to the dimness.

She is not the most beautiful woman at the court of the Aesir, nor the most glamorous, not the most vivacious and charming. Those roles are held by Freyja, said by some to be Her rival, by others to be another, earlier, side of Herself. (In mainland Germany, there was no Frigga and no Freyja—only Frija, apparently an amalgam of the two goddesses.) There is no contest: Freyja is the star who draws all eyes in Asgard.

But Frigga will gladly cede this to Her, because She is more than that: She is Asgard's Queen, the one who holds the heart of its King and who carries His keys. She runs His household, has borne and raised His children, and sits at His side. She is the one He turns to for comfort, counsel, and blessings. She is the one who offers sacred drink to those who sit at His table, and that drink itself carries a mystery from the past that few--beyond the two of Them—know or speak of.

Wicca-schmicca. The iconic witch of the 20^th century is Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West. If you've ever wondered why she's green, any Midwesterner can tell you. Tornado skies really are that color.

My friend Stephanie and I are big Wizard of Oz folks. Is that really a filmic epiphany of the Triple Goddess there in Munchkinland, or are you just glad to see me?

Stephanie's doorbell hasn't worked for years. Why have it repaired when you can hang a Bell Out of Order: Please Knock sign on your front door instead? For all I know, the doorbell actually does work.

What’s the difference between a pentagram and a pentacle? Aren’t pentagrams satanic? Why do some Wiccans wear pentagrams? Do I have to wear a pentagram to be a Wiccan?

A pentagram is a five-pointed star, usually depicted as interwoven, or with the lines used to draw it overlapping. A pentacle is a pentagram with a circle around it. Pentagrams and pentacles have long been symbols of protection and warding off evil, and they are used for that purpose by many Wiccans today.

A Little History

Pentagrams have been used for thousands of years and appear in ancient Greek, Roman, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian art. They have been used by Christians, too—perhaps most famously by Hildegard of Bingen, who, along with other twelfth-century Christian scholars, associated the number five with the five senses and the human body (one head, two arms, and two legs; it reminds me a bit of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man), and saw it as the symbol of the microcosm, or the divine reflected on earth. The symbolism of the pentacle plays an important role in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and of course it is also associated with the Christmas star and sits atop the Christmas tree in many Christian homes.

The pentagram has been used extensively by practitioners of alchemy and high magic (both past and present), including Cornelius Agrippa and Eliphas Levi, who developed the Tetragrammaton Pentagram. The pentagram was adopted by fraternal organizations such as the Freemasons and the Order of the Eastern Star, which associates each point with a woman from the bible.

Almond Orchards

As a child in Ripon, California, I lived surrounded by almond orchards. The trees grew in neat, straight rows, in accordance with human desires rather than their own. The only time the trees were able to have a little freedom was during the annual Almond Blossom Festival, when they dropped pinkish-white petals all over the ground. Almond trees lined the main street of town, and the petals collected in drifts on the street, and blew through the air during the parade. I could sense the trees' exuberant happiness at that time of year.

The orchards were not just full of trees, though. They were also full of angry honeybees who lived to sting humans. I understood why. They were being kept as slaves, and forced to live a migrant lifestyle that did not suit them. Commercial beehives were moved around from one orchard to another, disorienting the bees. Although I could sense why they hated human beings, understanding them did not make me any less afraid of them. I was allergic and would pass out if I was stung, and they would chase humans, and they terrified me. 40 years later, I'm free of that fear, though the cost was too high-- I'll write about that when I catch up to the present day.

The Tradition of Hospitality

My mom's parents, who immigrated from Austria and were native speakers of Plattdeutsch, were nominally Christian but observed a number of traditional Germanic customs that no doubt originated in heathen times. Some of these customs had a coat of Christian paint on old heathen wood. There is an old tradition known among heathens today as Guestright. That is taking in transients, and goes back to the days when there was no such thing as a hotel, and back to a place where sleeping outdoors would surely mean freezing to death, so the custom had a practical function in society. It also had heathen religious overtones, because there were many stories of Odin wandering in disguise, and the traveler who came to the door might be Odin, and one had best not turn him away and anger him. My grandfather observed a custom of inviting a "bum" home for Christmas Eve every year. Although it was tied to a Christian holiday, that very holiday is also an old pagan and heathen holiday, Yule. The family claimed this tradition was about charity, but it was transparently really about honoring the wanderer. If it had been about charity, they could have invited a poor person from the local area, or made a donation. The custom was very clear that the person invited to the feast had to be an anonymous vagrant whose real name no one knew. Looking back, knowing what I know now about heathen stories and customs, it is quite obvious to me that was a survival of a folk custom meant to honor Odin. And it was still being practiced in the 1970s.

As we journey through the waning moon, it is time to listen to the night wind woman and to trust the talkative silence...

Listen to what is walking here
tiptoeing through your dreams
knocking at the door of your unconscious mind
whispering from shadows
calling from the full moon
twinkling in the stars
carried by the night wind woman
rising at sunset
peeking out
in tentative
yet persistent purpose.

Listen to the call
trust the talkative silence…

The more traditional American holidays can leave some of we Wiccans and Pagans feeling a little left out and blue. Here are some ideas for taking pride in ourselves and where we live– as the old Francis Scott Key ditty goes: "the land of the free, and the home of the brave." Get your magical-minded buddies together for an outdoor picnic. For this, I would suggest your friendly, less populated county or state parks. If you are concerned about the forest ranger making the rounds, hold the festivities in your own (or co-host with one of your guests') big back yards instead.

Cook special dishes of significance to you. Cakes and Ale or Cakes and Wine are always an easy crowd-pleaser. Per Patti Wigington, at the about.com website: "The Wiccan ritual known as Cakes and Ale is often celebrated as a way of thanking the gods for their blessings. Cakes are usually just cookies prepared in the shape of crescent moons, and the ale can be alcoholic or it can be apple cider, juice, or even water." Here is her recipe:

SIMPLE SABBAT CAKES

This is the second of my series of posts on how I connect to the elements from a Southern Hemisphere perspective living on the western coast of Australia. Previously, I called in Air, in the East.

I now turn to the North, and call in passion, creation, desire, heat: I call to you, o Fire! Standing in the circle, we have already established a sense of presence in the breath of life, the whisper is on the winds, the intention is set, the inspiration has arrived. Fire is called next as it now has the Air to breathe, to ignite a sense of drive into what we do in this space, a flurry of sparks: let's turn that whisper into a roar. 

When calling in Fire, I can hear the sound of a match being lit. I can feel the warmth spread from my hands, spreading across my chest and then catching on to the circle behind me. And fire is catching. To the far north of this place lies the red hot Pilbara region, where the dirt is red and the land expands for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres like a Martian landscape. There is no where else like it on Earth. If the elemental creatures of myth such as the salamanders had a home, you can easily imagine them being conjured from such a place. When you are up North, the red dirt gets into everything: your car is covered, the washing on your line is tinted, sometimes it even feels like your lungs are coated in red dust.

Hey, friends and fellow Pagans.

So some of you may have noticed that we've been experiencing a number of technical glitches, errors, and other problems for the last two weeks. This came about as a result of a major update our site's host went through, which caused a lot of our code to no longer work as it had previously. After much wrangling, bugtesting, and other hard work, we're happy to report that these issues are no longer a problem.

Some of the issues you may have experienced include (but are not limited to) the following:

“Peace and Blessings!”

If you’ve had a phone consultation with the Queen Mother Imakhu, you’re sure to recognize the trademark greeting, along with the joyful cackle. This time, I wasn't following my usual "Call The Queen Mother!" routine which usually involves bringing her a dream for interpretation or seeking guidance in untangling a leadership knot. This time, I was seeking to make her the subject of a blog post, hoping to speak about the nuts and bolts of Priestesshood.

Instead, she had news.

It's faithful Friday here at the Beagle, and what a lovely bouquet of positive stories we have for you! (Nice to have good news after yesterday's dual tragedies in Ukraine and Gaza.) Enjoy!

Cara Schultz covers the recent Declaration for European Indigenous Traditions and interviews Pagan leader Andras Corben-Arthen about the declaration for The Wild Hunt.

Patheos blogger Yvonne Aburrow offers suggestions for Pagans who want to engage in interfaith dialogue.

Twenty years ago today, I self dedicated to the Goddess. Not any one Goddess, or tradition, but simply just The Goddess. The only guild I had was The Spiral Dance by Starhawk. At 16 years old, steeped in the evangelical movement of Christianity, I took a deep breath and inhaled the Goddess' warm embrace of hope and exhaled the patriarchy, shame, and sorrow brought about by the God of Abraham.  Even though I had no formal connection to Reclaiming at the time, and knew even less about 'witchcraft' what Starhawk wrote about in The Spiral Dance resonated with light inside my most darkest spaces. There would still be years filled with nights of terror and dread, there would be more fear, more shame, and yes more suffering. Unlike the faith of my childhood, The Spiral Dance and this Goddess never promised deliverance from suffering in exchange for servitude, rather instead simply offered space. 

Twenty Years after that first reading of The Spiral Dance, my spiritual path has matured and my toolbox is far more expansive. Yet, in a sea of labels, unverified personal gnosis, rhetoric and opinion, I still have no real name for space I share with the the Goddess. I just have the path. My mentor, Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie once said, "there is misperception that arose that if I committed myself to a spiritual path, that I would rise above suffering.  I have come to learn the opposite is true:  If I commit myself to a spiritual path, I will suffer with an open heart and a naked soul. "

I wouldn't blame you if you just thought to yourself, "Gee, that's depressing." After all, who wants to hear that it's going to get more painful before it gets better?  On the other hand, perhaps that truth is strangely comforting, because it is, after all, a relief to know the truth.   Nonetheless, as the faithful psalmist said, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”  And so much of making any headway toward joy is in the spiritual practice of honoring space. 

Summerland Spirit Festival: Turtle Creek, Wisconsin, July 2014.

The Wild Hunt: post-industrial primitive. We've gathered in front of the hall: the hunters with our face paint and spears, along with the rest of the tribe. When the horns blow, we'll all process down to the Stones, where the Elders will call the Deer. We'll hunt, kill, and mourn him properly before we eat him and rejoice: the mysteries of life and death, the old, true ways.

A little girl whose name I don't know--she's maybe seven--comes up to me and asks very specific questions about the patterns of our face paint. Actually, she's already got it all figured out. The blue line across the nose and cheekbones means "hunter." The crossing line down the brow and ridge of the nose means "tribe." Right?