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I recently had an e-mail from a friend who, after this year's Midwest Grand Sabbat, had packed up the family and headed out on a road trip, destination: Salem, Mass.

As an offering, she'd brought a cork from the Grand Sabbat night.

Now, this may seem an odd kind of offering to make, of little or no intrinsic value, but think about it.

Gods help us, the Salem witch craze of 1692 is probably the most famous witch hunt of history. (Americans have always been good at publicity.) Personally, I doubt that we see here anything more than scapegoating and the pathological inner workings of theocratic society.

But let us say for a moment—call it “mythic history”—that there actually were witches of our sort in “17th” century Salem: people who fled to the New World because it was no longer safe to keep to the Old Ways back in the old one.

What do they find when they get here? A mighty Forest (and such a forest!) and in that forest, who but the Black Man Himself, our beloved Horn-God, more beautiful and terrible than ever, already waiting for us.

Waiting to dance.

Would you not want to know that, 300-some years on, our people are still here?

There is an old saying, “if you can’t love yourself, how the heck can you love somebody else?” This admittedly cheeky statement actually hold a lot of truth but the bottom line is everything starts with self love, your health, yourself esteem, your relationships your success and your happiness. Even if you had a less than ideal childhood, it is never too late to esteem yourself and watch as everything makes a turn for the better, And quickly. Making a daily ritual of this will weave this strand of personal empowerment into your life and make sure it is grows sure and strong.

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Fortunately, I managed to catch myself before I left the house.

It so happened that day that I was wearing a green Heart of the Beast May Day tee-shirt, sporting on the front a tree-man holding a baby.

So far, so good.

I'd combined it with a sage-green bill-cap with a horned Green Man badge on front.

Well: that's bearable, especially if the cap is worn bill-back. This could even pass for witty, in a witchy kind of way: a tribute to the god of the witches, with his Two Faces, fore and aft.

Yes, but over my shoulder I'd thrown a cloth bag with yet another Green Man printed on it. Two makes a point; three belabors it.

In poetry, unless you're an Anglo-Saxon scop (which I'm not), two alliterations per line is acceptable; three, though, is too many. (Yet another reason why Crowley's poetry stinks.)

In short, I'd become the pagan equivalent of the guy who wears around his neck a cross big enough (were one so inclined) to crucify a toad on.

Who wants to be that guy?

I went back in and traded the Green Man bag for something plainer.

It is said that during the dark days of the Great Persecution, certain friars secreted themselves near the sabbat-stead of a certain Alpine valley.

In this way they hoped to spy upon the witches in their gathering, and so ascertain once and for all the much-vexed question of what numbers the cult could claim.

Now it so happened—let it surprise no one—that these friars were in their turn espied by a certain warlock on his way to the sabbat, and this is what he said to them:

 The County rolls on … shifts, moves, roars around me as I write at The Regent Cafe. The County I’m referring to is that of Prince Edward, in Ontario, but locally it’s simply known as The County. It’s the end of July, end of the Strong Sun Moon and the island is buzzing with tourists. Many come to camp at Sandbanks Provincial Park, a fourteen mile stretch of white sand beach that includes constantly changing sand dunes as hurricanes and unusual phenomenon occasionally grip this island in Lake Ontario. The new moon that begins soon is the Ripe Berries Moon, but in Ontario and other places the two moon cycles seem to have amalgamated. The berries have been ripe for ages. Blackcaps, raspberries, blueberries, mulberries and wild gooseberries. My favourites are raspberries, pungent, flavourful, and sweet; the red color a good one for someone postmenopausal.

You have likely heard that the Earth's speed is shifting. It’s not revolving at 50 KM anymore, it’s spinning much faster. My spirit guides have announced that the magnetics on earth are swiftly changing. This has been predicted many moons ago by the Aztecs, Mayans and me, a Mennonite lass. I wrote about these times of awakening and Earth changes and how they will be accelerating in 2004, in a book, titled, AWAKE! A Spiritual Primer. It is still in print in 2019.

Many of us who have come to identify with Witchcraft or Paganism (hence finding ourselves on the Witches & Pagans blogosphere) originated in a family tradition where communion with the Divine (the All, Spirit, the Totality) was achieved through prayer. In the etymology found within common dictionaries, "prayer" tends to be defined both as, "worship of God (a deity)" as well as simply, "an earnest hope or wish." Somewhere in the mystery between these two forms, we may find the truth. Prayer, as well as spell craft and the various types of ritual used to facilitate both, can be seen as acts of co-creation. 

Those of us raised in one of the major mono-theisms may be familiar with teachings like that found in Matthew 18:20 of the Christian "new testament": Again, I tell you truly that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather together in my name, there I am with them."