PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com

Plant Ink

It can be fun to make ink from plants.  The ink can then be used in magical workings, especially if you correspond the colour and the plant used in the ink to the intent of the spell.  I like to use it to write out petitions.

Dear GW/BW

I need some help. I need advice on a protection spell. I fear someone may be trying to manipulate people and things to try to take my child away and I want to take every possible precaution.

—Merideth

As a reminder, we are going to revisit all the quartz crystal types, condensing the information to just a few items to make remembering easier. This week we’re going to revisit quartz crystal Clusters.

The second annual Moon Meet is a congregation of Atheopagans, non-theist Pagans and friend curious about our paths, held from Friday, August 24 through Sunday, August 26, on private land on a redwood-covered mountain near Healdsburg, in the beautiful wine country of Sonoma County, California.

Registration is now open! Click here to register!

Moon Meet—named because we will hold it during the weekend of the full moon—is a group camping gathering; a few indoor sleeping locations are available by prior arrangement for those disabled or coming from distance and unable to bring their gear along.

My first installment demonstrated societies can be understood as ecosystems. When we think of society as an ecosystem, one question moves to the front: people are organisms, but where are the others? Ecosystems are not monocultures. A cultural ecology obviously depends on people and exists at the level of consciousness, so where are the other organisms?

In this episode of my Naked Tarot Podcast, I discusses a recent YouTube video from some punk who thinks that Tarot should NOT be accessible to the masses--because they'll "degrade" the cards, water down the meanings and "turn it into shit". 

Although the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot and Thoth decks are replete with esoteric symbolism (Western Hermeticism, especially), the 78 cards--the underlying structure or "bones" of a Tarot deck--aren't shackled to those two traditions.

Spring Equinox is a time of balance between day and night. In spring Mother Nature is awakening, starting fresh with new growth and new beginnings.  New beginnings mean change and often this means a bit of chaos.  March has always been a tumultuous month for weather being described as coming in like a lion (windy and rough weather) or a lamb (calm weather).  The saying is – in like a lion, out like a lamb – or vice versa.  Perhaps this old wives tale is an indicator of how early societies predicted how nature would behave during a critical season for their well being.  With the ever changing, often erratic weather, one thing which could be counted on to remain constant was the moon.  As usual she cycles through her phases without fail each month.  Offering comfort in her constancy, early societies would naturally name the moons for each month.  Early cultures living off the land would have chosen names closely related to their daily lives.

The March full moon has been called many things including awakening[i], fish[ii], windy[iii], sap[iv], crow[v], worm[vi], crust[vii], and sugar[viii].  All of these names can relate to how people saw their natural world.  March is a time when the ground starts to thaw thus removing the crust for the soil so worms were becoming more active.  Sap in sugar maple trees begins to flow and can be processed to create sugar so it would be a natural name for the March full moon.  Ice is often starting to break up and fish are starting to be more easily accessible.  The natural world is awakening to the new beginnings of the spring season.  Therefore early civilizations named the moon based on the experiences they had with nature and tied it in with what we now call old wives tales.