If your passion is making art or music, throwing pots, or growing an artful garden, you are an imaginative person, and you need to stay in touch with your muse. Call her to you anytime you are feeling blocked or uninspired. You can make a very special tool that will draw your muse to you with sweet-smelling smoke.
You’ll want to keep a pot of the hardy and sun-loving herb sage on your windowsill so it is handy at all times. Here is a simple way to use this herb to create a wand for instant inspiration: Combine a long stalk of fennel with a twisted bundle of sage and long sticks of your favorite incense, such as cinnamon or nag champ (my personal favorite). Braid the materials tightly together into a wand using purple (for power) and gold (for money) string or thread. Before any artistic endeavor or meditation, light one end of the wand with a candle and wave it around to clear your environment, allowing the smoke to clear your mind in the process.
Autumn Skye Morrison (Powell River, BC) In creating art I find my stillness and rhythm, my teacher and passion. Each painting offers a reflection of the light and shadow of our humanity, our sublime geometry and our timeless divinity. May we celebrate this fantastic adventure, inspire and be inspired. autumnskyemorrison.com
Miss Ascentia (Stewartville, MN) is a Priestess of Poetry & Song, Professional Plant Spirit Advocate, Vision Quester & Sundancer adept in the High Technologies of Prayer, Craniosacral Therapist and Educator, Birth Doula and a Devout Student of Metta. ascentia@live.com
In Music Power Harmony, R. J. Stewart presents an interesting take on the concept of hierarchy as it relates to musical harmony and how that can be applied to magical work. He argues that hierarchies aren't inherently linear or spatial and that treating a hierarchy as a series of separate entities with linear connections ignores holistic aspects of the hierarchy that could be useful in magical work. When examining hierarchy from a harmonic perspective, Stewart notes that harmonics can open our awareness to resonances and relationships between the patterns and entities involved, in such a way that it provides order without necessarily bringing authority into the mix. It's an interesting take on hierarchy, which is typically treated as a linear structure with temporal authority included in it.
The problems that most people have with hierarchy is the abuse of authority or the bureaucracy that makes it convoluted and unable to do anything. Typically hierarchies are associated with corporations, governments, and other such institutions. These institutions enforce hegemonic authority and standards that keep certain agendas in power, while keeping others out. It's not a surprise then that people have knee jerk reactions to hierarchy. Yet I think R. J. Stewart makes some interesting points about hierarchy as it relates to both music and spiritual work.
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...