Spiritual Practice

Workin’ for a Livin’

Workin’ for a Livin’
©2012 photos.com 

Workin’ for a Livin’
Five steps to a more magical workplace.
by Deborah Blake 

In my view of the perfect world, we would all own Pagan stores, do Tarot readings, create beautiful crafts, or make our living in some other way that satisfies our Pagan inclinations. Alas, for most of us, earning money to put food on the table requires that we spend our days toiling away at more mundane jobs, often under circumstances that are more likely to sap our spirits than to sustain them.

However, that doesn’t mean that we should give up on our dreams. In my experience, magick can find you almost anywhere, if you are willing to look for it. So, until the day when that perfect Pagan world arrives, here are some guidelines to help you survive — even thrive — in the everyday workplace.

I have wanted to be a writer all my life. But in the past I had lots of explanations as to why I couldn’t start writing. Then, two years ago, an idea so possessed me that I had to write it down and share it. I ignored all the reasons that I knew my writing career couldn’t take off, and did it anyway.

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The Magick of Travel

City Witch

©2012 Holly Golightly

The Magick of Travel
by Christopher Penczak

We often think that magick only occurs in neatly compartmentalized times and places. When I meditate, create ritual or attend a workshop, I am open to magick. Otherwise, I have a typical, ordinary everyday life, or so I used to think. I’ve learned better; everything is magical. Everything has the potential to show you the mysteries of the universe.

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Finding the City of Light

City Witch

©2012 Holly Golightly

Finding the
City of Light

by Christopher Penczak


“Cities are not natural. Cities are not magical. Cities are not sacred.” So we often hear, but I don’t believe it for a minute.

As modern pagans, witches, sha-mans and mages, we have been conditioned to long for a techno-free utopia, a garden of paradise. Many of us look to the matriarchal Stone Age cultures, claiming that these societies possessed a perfect paradise without violence, war, crime or any social ills.

It is because of this anti-urban attitude that I wrote my first book, City Magick: Urban Rituals, Spells and Shamanism. Mythic cities abound in pagan mythology, and if we look to such stories for guidance and inspiration, how can we claim cities are not magical?

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So Many Rituals, So Little Time

So Many Rituals, So Little Time
by  Wendy Thurston

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?

“It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
— Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas

As a solitary practitioner I spent lots of time planning and implementing rituals. Not only did I recognize the eight major holidays, as well as full moons and new moons; I also observed the quarter phases of the moon. I would spend a couple of hours setting up and planning a ritual, an hour or two in ritual, then it would take another half hour to clean up and put all my paraphernalia away.

The more I got involved in planning and presenting learning circles for a local Pagan group and organizing public rituals, the more my personal practice fell by the wayside. First the quarter moon rituals, then the new moon. The full moon and sun rituals soon followed, until all my attention seemed to be focused on making magic happen for others.

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Witches with Weapons

Witches with Weapons:
The Case for Firearms in Pagan Spirituality
by Wintersong Tashlin and Galina Krasskova

Guns and Pagans. The two words just don’t seem to go very well together. One just doesn’t expect to hear of the local Wiccan priestess and her Remington rifle or the friendly New Age guy and his 9mm. Coming of age as they did in the 1960s, American Wicca, Goddess spirituality, and the many varieties of Neo-Paganism influenced by their development often advocate principles of non-violence that seem to exclude weapons-craft, particularly gun-craft. For many in our communities, the idea of incorporating weapons into one’s spiritual practice is anathema. Some grudgingly permit an athame, or even a sword (especially in ceremonial magic), but the aesthetic and esoteric line is usually drawn there. But a growing number of Pagans are coming to integrate the active use of firearms into their spiritual practice. For some, learning to use a modern weapon is a means of connecting to and honoring their ancestors while for others, it is a commonsense skill in an uncertain and often violent world — one in which Pagans remain a religious minority. Whether you love them or hate them, firearms are a significant part of the world in which we live, and feelings run hot on their significance for Pagan living.

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