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I have seen him stretch out his naked limbs on the altar.

I have seen.

I have seen the flash of blades descending.

I have cried out.

I have anointed my brow with his blood.

I have mourned with the others.

I have eaten the red bread and drunk the red drink.

What does he feel, the Horned, as he sits upon the altar and gazes on the faces of his people?

What does he feel?

This I can tell you, I his priest, who have sat upon his shoulder and watched with him there.

It is love.

When he sits upon the altar and looks upon his people, he feels for us a love so unbounded, so all-encompassing, that he would do anything, give anything, for us.

Even to the laying down of his life upon that very altar, that we might feed on his flesh.

Deep in the heart of every modern pagan lives the longing for the Pagan Place, where the old fires burn undiminished.

For 13 years, here among the hollow hills of the Midwestern US's Driftless Area, for one week a year, the mists would part, and we would enter into that place, the secret heart of Witchdom.

We called it Avalon.

In 1995, priestess Lhianna Sidhe dreamed of a gathering where those of deep experience in, and dedication to, the Craft could come together and collectively Turn the Wheel.

And turn it we did.

 New this year at Black Mountain Seeds:

Giant German All-Black Turnip (Brassica rapa pernigra)

Long believed extinct, this legendary heirloom turnip from the Harz mountains in Germany has long been prized by cognoscenti for its sumptuous all-black flesh. 

Yes, unlike other so-called "black" turnips, the German All-Black has sweet, meaty flesh that is just as black as its skin! 

Just think: no more need to laboriously stain those turnip slices with expensive, carcinogenic dyes! Just slice and serve. (The skin is so tender, you won't even need to peel 'em.) No messy clean-up either.

These cylindrical, pleasingly phallic roots (up to 13" in length) will make prepping for your next Black Mass fiendishly easy. 

Supposedly the word “pretzel” derives from Latin brachiatellum, “little arms.”*

During the German Middle Ages, pretzels—made from flour, salt, and yeast only—were considered a Lenten food, their signature shape said to represent arms crossed in penitential prayer.

Witches, of course, tell it somewhat differently.

Well, I can truly say that I've met the maenads now.

It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

Let's do it again.

To the best of my knowledge, in the entire 3000-year span of its existence, not once in ancient Egyptian art do we see the death of Osiris at the hands of his brother Set.

If true (and my knowledge of the field is nowhere near exhaustive), this is a remarkable fact, and makes some profound suggestions about the thought-life of the ancients.

What is shown endures. What is shown is empowered. What is shown is made real.

So that the death of a god, the Great Sacrifice, while—terribly so—a necessity, can never in itself be an inherent good.