Here is an ancient way of casting out demons and bringing new tidings for your friendships and family. Buy a big bag of dried beans and invite all your friends over. In ancient times, many pagan people, from the Greeks to the Incan Indians, believed that beans contained evil spirits. Go to your roof or wherever you can “get high”—high above the ground, that is! Give everyone a handful of beans and start throwing them down one at a time, with each toss calling out whatever you want to kiss goodbye: a job, a bad relationship, whatever your personal demons may be. After you have discarded all the discord from your life, you and your friends can celebrate the lifting of your burdens.
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PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.
Today, it's not at all uncommon to see people in New York wearing fashions from Paris, or kids in California watching Japanese anime TV shows (and kids in Japan watching American TV shows). It's called cultural exchange, and it has always happened, as long as people have traveled and traded and interacted with each other.
The way ancient cultures are presented in the history books often makes them sound as if they were completely separate from each other, sealed away in some sort of etheric ziptop bag, as if the borders of the various empires and cultures were non-permeable. But that's far from the case. During the Bronze Age - the time when the Minoans were being all Minoan-y - the whole eastern Mediterranean was one great big cultural exchange area, with people trading objects, ideas, styles, and fashions from one spot to another as fast as the ships could ply the seas.
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What are your thoughts on 'cultural appropriation'? I've been hearing that a lot lately.
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Cultural appropriation is an issue with living cultures, such as Native Americans, and it's a very real problem that I wish more p
The insanity of the holidays can drive anyone crazy. Getting gifts, arranging to visit with family, work parties, and more. It is a time of the year when you can lose track of the importance of the phase of the year we are in.
You can find any posting on what to do on Yule, how to decorate your house with all the associations, what food to cook and so on. I don’t do any of it. I find the holidays stressful and unbearable in most years.
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