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If one of us are chained, none of us are free.
- Details
- Category: From the Editor
- Written by Anne Newkirk Niven
Our treatment of Pagan prisoners and ex-cons is a litmus test of a sustainable Pagan culture.
This was supposed to have been the “Law & Chaos” issue of Witches & Pagans but it turned out more like the “Law & Order” issue. I always imagined that — like the dual-themed PanGaia #37 (“Good and Evil”) which turned out to simply be the “Evil” issue — that one side of this topic would overwhelm the other, but I never imagined that the forces of Law would prevail.
Once upon a Full Moon, not so very long ago, Paganism2 (at least on the West Coast) was all about “running nekkid through the woo-ids/drinking fermented fluids,”3 but everywhere I look today I see attempts to bring order to that juicy-but-hard-to-sustain chaotic culture. Whatever happened to Hippy-Dippy Paganism?
Nothing to fear but fear itself.
- Details
- Category: From the Editor
- Written by Anne Newkirk Niven
The battle for Pagan civil rights begins at home.
“We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.” — Benjamin Franklin
I took a call yesterday from a subscriber that got me thinking about the media, Pagan civil rights, and, eventually, Pagan self-respect.
My caller began by telling me how angry she was about the ridicule being heaped on Witches (and, by reference, on Paganism in general) in connection with the campaign of Christine O’Donnell.
O’Donnell — for those of you who turned off your media feeds during the mid-term campaign this fall and, honestly, who could blame you — was the Tea Party darling and Senate candidate from Delaware who “outed” herself as having “dabbled in witchcraft” as a teen.This admission didn’t work out so well; her first major TV ad focused on disavowing her past by declaring, “I am not a witch. I’m not anything you’ve heard ... I’m you.”
Green is the new Black
- Details
- Category: From the Editor
- Written by Anne Newkirk Niven
The future of the world is in plant magic.
“The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.” — George Bernard Shaw
In this issue we look at how we humans are working with the energy of plants to create a more sustainable, healthy environment. The green magic of plant life is truly the root, branch, and leaf of all life on earth: without chlorophyll — the green pigment at the center of the energy-transforming biochemistry of photosynthesis — life as we know it would simply not exist. (There is nonphososynthesis-dependent life dwelling at the bottom of the ocean, but it’s not much like us.1) So we begin at the beginning: with the green magic of plant life.
In the Jewish/Christian Bible it is called the Garden of Eden (Eden in Hebrew means “delight”) while in the Qur’an it is simply the Garden, thus implying that all gardens are places of ecstasy, joy, and abundance.2
That’s certainly the case for the subject of our featured interview, award-winning author, psychic-clairvoyant, and Garden Witch extraordinaire Ellen Dugan. Author of a dozen books on the magical intersection between botany and the Craft, Ellen takes us on a guided tour of her work (get a look at her real-life garden, too!) in her interview with Charlyn Walls.
Wandering Witch’s Adventures in the Big Apple
- Details
- Category: Magical Places
- Written by Natalie Zaman
My initial trips to New York City as a teen (going to “The City” is a rite of passage of sorts for New Jersey youth) were a desperate search for a shop called The Magickal Childe. Several friends told me all about this Mecca and the things I would find there, only... they couldn’t tell me where it was. No address, no phone number, nothing. All that could be garnered were the cryptic, yet tantalizing words, “you’ll find it when it’s ready for you find it.” Needless to say, I spent many a weekend wandering the streets with no luck.
Stumble—Upon Magick
I confess, my adolescence fell in those dark times before the Internet took off; Googling and map—questing weren’t options. There were the yellow pages, but who in New Jersey keeps a New York phone book? These obstacles, along with a naiveté that has long since vanished, built up The Magickal Childe to the point where I was sure that when I found it, it would be a truly mystical experience.
