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They say that long ago, before things were as they are today, the Moon fell in love with her brother.

She tried everything she could think of to get into his bed, but he was having none of it. Only Cat shared his bed, no one else.

So Moon goes to Cat one day and says: Cat, trade shapes with me.

And Cat, being Cat, says: What's in it for me?

Says Moon: Someday I shall bear a great many children, and my children will always make a place for you at their hearths.

And Cat, being Cat, says: What else?

They call it "Jewish Christmas": Chinese food and a movie.

I suppose, then, that Witches' Christmas would be Indian food and a movie.

I don't know what it is about witches and Indian, but there sure does seem to be something. No doubt there are individual Jews who don't do Chinese (overexposure as children, probably), and doubtless there are witches out there who don't relish alu gobi.

But bring some palak panir to your next coven potluck and then tell me I'm wrong.

One of the first things the new Republican majority has done in Congress is to escalate the battle against legal abortion.  Republicans have long been seeking the world’s most restrictive law on abortion. Today, in the midst of what most people would regard as far more pressing issues, Republican leadership is seeking to further restrict women’s access in ways that ultimately alienated even many Republican women members of Congress.   The reasons for their fanaticism go deeper than the reasons anti-women’s rights groups give for opposing abortion.  They go to the root of who they are.

“There are things,” my Grandma Winnie would say, “better left forgotten.”  That was always her response to questions about her life.  So, for many years all I really knew about her was what we lived together in the tiny mountain community of French Gulch.  When she died in the early 1990’s in her early 90s, my father and I cleaned out the shack where she had lived with my Grandpa Russell.  I came away with a bit more information about who she was from my father’s stories of her.  We sorted through a box of photos, and my dad did his best to identify the images as I wrote on the backs.  Then he showed me a letter, typed in 1911 in San Francisco.  The letterhead was from The California Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.  “There are things,” I heard my Grandma Winnie say in my head, “better left forgotten.”

After some prodding by Himself and some encouragement from friends, I'm taking a stab at the Pagan Experience Project. I'm not necessarily going to do every prompt all the time, but if the prompt elicits good thinky thoughts, I'll share them. I've decided to start with week two's prompt on personal practices.

Loki's not a terribly formal Deity, and and so many of my practices are not either; I share morning coffee with Him every day; I meditate once a day; ideally I do yoga, but that practice is a work in progress.

In today's Faithful Friday post, the Beagle brings you stories from many faith traditions. Next Monday, Jan 26, has been dubbed "Blue Monday" and is supposedly the most depressing day of the year, so in this Beagle installment we concentrate on the interaction of mental health and religion, especially in Paganism.

The Wild Hunt featured this well-written article on Paganism and depression last week, including perspectives from a wide variety of Pagan therapists, activists, and advocates.

(Image of Loki by Astral Eventide, commissioned by me in 2011)

The prompt for Week 3 of the Pagan Experience is to blog about Deity - Those Who guide you. Considering the fact that this blog is pretty much The Loki Show, it's probably redundant to introduce Him here; if you read my blog, you're familiar with His work.