The Friday before the new moon—Venus’s Day—is the perfect time to create a new opportunity and clear away relationship “baggage.” Place a bowl of water on your altar. Light two rose-scented pink candles and a gardenia or vanilla-scented white candle. Burn amber incense in between the candles. Sprinkle salt on your altar cloth and ring a bell, then recite aloud:
Many crystal shops and New Age stores now feature heart-shaped rocks. The next time you see heart-shaped amethyst crystals, buy two right away and give one to your true love. The gift of an amethyst heart will ensure a happy life together and good fortune shared. Sweet!
This is a lovely spell to do if you are given a small tree as a gift, to wish for strength and good health for you and your love. Before you plant the sapling, tie a bow in some colored ribbon, and plant the bow with a small heart symbol in the soil under the roots of the tree. After you have planted the tree, water it well—especially with one or two tears of love, if possible! Make a wish that both you and your love will grow strong and enduring as the tree takes root and begins to flourish. When the tree bears its first leaf, press it in a book associated with the one you love. As long as you tend your tree with love, you will both enjoy blooming health and vitality.
Pictured here is the most recent addition to my spiritual souvenirs shrine. This is the story of how it appeared in my life and what it means to me.
Cats. To understand this story, one must know that among other things, Freya is a goddess of cats. Also, love and sex, and that is why the heart symbol is one of her symbols. She is also a goddess of war, but that's not relevant to this tale.
The subject of crystal healing is actually quite simple in practice but has a tendency to get complex in theory. Through his book Crystal Healing for the Heart, Nicholas Pearson makes this subject approachable and easily accessible, keeping it simple in theory as well as practice. The chapters are laid out as modules tailored to different aspects of healing our hearts and each chapter builds on the work done in the chapter preceding. This is a book to be worked with and through rather than one just to read.
Working from the outside in, Crystal Healing for the Heart is a colorful book with a rainbow of gemstones on the cover. It draws you in to the promise of the heart of this book (pun intended) which is about working with various gemstones for healing the heart. Visually, the layout is easy to follow, the subject is well-described, the gemstone "requirements" are fluid and interchangeable and the meditations are well laid out. A full color interior, the book has a pleasing visual layout with color-coded headings and photographs which are simple and clear. There is a photographic example of each of the suggested gemstones and a photograph of the author depicting the final step in each meditation exercise. An appendix for crystal basics makes a handy reference for novices.
Croi - pronounced kree - is the Irish for heart. At Brigid's Day I picked that word from a basket and tied it as a clootie to a hazel tree. It was a well wishing tree. A plea for renewal at Imbolc.
It has seemed over this past year that so many people have had had their hearts broken. People are ill. The earth is sick. Women are systematically violated in perversely imaginative ways. Men are imprisoned by the mythic expectations of strength.
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...