Winter is starting here in Wellington New Zealand, and has been heralded by a weeklong southerly storm. The Cailleach, she is not far away and can be felt in this the first of the winter storms. Offerings are already being made by unsuspecting people who were silly enough to bring umbrellas as protection against the strong southerly winds.
So I had a half written post about using magic, specifically a magic spell to find a home, using a combination of Kiwiana, and perhaps other more ‘traditional’ magical stuff, but I stalled and have only written about one object, the 21st Key Mirror, a Kiwiana staple for 21st gifts, generally given to you by your family. It has strong significance of love, family and independence, which is for most of us, what we are looking for when finding a new home, rather than just a place to live. I was also going to include things like tiki’s, and teapots, but in actually that was nothing like what I actually did.
New Zealand is not really old enough to have magical folklore as such, we were settled about 150 years ago, wait let me rephrase that, Europeans did not really settle in any great numbers here until about 150 years ago, around the late 1800’s and early 1900s with larges amounts of immigration happening after World War I and World War II, well after, it can be said, the time when magic was something other than fairy tales that you told children.
Kia Ora I’m a Tea Drinking, Urban Witch and Textile Artist. Welcome, to my little corner of the interwebs, all the way down here in Wellington, New Zealand, situated in the Southern Hemisphere. Where the seasons are opposite to that of the Northern Hemisphere and we cast our circles in an anti-clock wise.
I first became interested in things spiritual and magical when I was around 18, and I am nearly 43 now so a few years ago. As an 18 year old I had a wee way to go before I would fall upon Witchcraft, or as I like to say it fell upon me. It was not until I was about 25 did I meet my first Witch, who became my introduction to things Witchey. I remember her first words to me ‘So you’re a Witch then.” It was not a question, and oddly or not so oddly that just felt right.
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...