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Of course this post comes with a disclaimer. Before starting any weight loss program please consult your physician.

There’s a magickal disclaimer as well. Remember that when you do magick it is best to support your magick with appropriate mundane activities. As above, so below.

June’s shadow card is the 8 of Cups, shown here from the new Tarot Illuminati by Erik C. Dunne and Kim Huggens.  Here we have a figure, cloaked in red, with his back to us walking away from 8 cups stacked behind him.  Red is the color of passion indicating that this person is passionate about their pursuits.  There are 5 cups on the left and 3 on the right and it appears as though the cups are empty but in truth we do not know if they are or if they have something in them.  If they are full, perhaps he is leaving them behind because they no longer work for him, if they are empty he may be feeling that his life is empty and he is leaving them in search of fulfillment.  He uses a cane to assist him as he walks in a wintry scene though a doorway between very large rocks towards what appears to be a stairway to the moon.  

The 8 of Cups is about going on a quest in some form or another, walking away from a job, a relationship, a belief system, or any other situation, positive or negative, and is often about leaving something good in order to find something even better.  Sometimes the quest is about finding yourself, of looking deep inside to discover those hidden things that you are finally ready to face.  A quest can be about leaving the past behind you so you can move on to better things, or leaving behind emotions that no longer serve you.  

It has been over two months since I've written anything for Witches & Pagans. Looking back, it doesn't seem that long, but it's the truth. I've been on a journey, one that I hadn't planned on taking, and one that started as just an annoying, yet familiar pain. A problem I thought for sure I could handle, as long as I was strong, and just tried to push through.

Without boring you by explaining my medical history, I'm familiar with kidney stones. The first time, in 2011, I had them, I went to the emergency room, who readily pumped me full of drugs, told me to drink a lot of water, and wait to pass them. They passed. $4000+ to be told to drink more water.

In early March of this year, I got that familiar twinge in my back, and I was determined to not accumulate another $4000 of medical bills just to hear, "drink more water", so I drank a lot more water. The pain remained, steadily getting worse. I drank more water. I lost my appetite, and couldn't even keep food or water in my stomach. Then, on April 11th, I got really ill, not the kind of ill where you lay down in a dark room under blankets kind of ill. The kind of ill where your wife drags you to the car and races to the emergency room. I was in so much pain, and so sick that I passed out in the car.

Ancient Hellas is often lauded as the birth place of modern science and philosophy. Certainly in the arts of medicine and healing, this is true. Hippokrátēs of Kos (Ἱπποκράτης) is seen by many as the founding father of medicine, and today--seeing as I'm a little sick with the flue--I wanted to talk about one of his basic understandings about the human body: the internal physician; the body's own ability to determine its illness and cure it where possible.

Hippokrátēs was alive from 460 BC to about 370 BC. In his lifetime, he set about to advancing the systematic study of clinical medicine, summing up the medical knowledge of previous schools, and prescribing practices for physicians through the Hippocratic Corpus and other works (although he Corpus itself was most likely not written by him, but assembled in and slightly after his time). Hippokrátēs separated the discipline of medicine from religion, believing and arguing that disease was not a punishment inflicted by the Theoi but rather the product of environmental factors, diet, and living habits. Much of his theories came from his very basic understanding of the human body: in Hippokrátēs' time, it was forbidden to cut into a corpse, even for research.

Before we get to the inner physician, I must speak about two of Hippokrátēs's most famous ideas about illness: humoralism and the concept of crisis. Humoralism is a now discredited theory of the makeup and workings of the human body, positing that an excess or deficiency of any of four distinct bodily fluids in a person directly influences their temperament and health. The four humors of Hippocratic medicine are black bile (melan chole), yellow bile (chole), phlegm (phlegma), and blood (haima), and each corresponds to one of the traditional four elements.

When things aren't going your way you can use tarot magick in meditation to help find new perspectives and solutions.

A good card to work with is the Hanged Man.

Hello everyone! I suppose the best place to start this blog is just to jump in with both feet and start yakking! (Uh, should that be ‘jump in with both lips?’). Over the months, I plan to get more in-depth on the topic of crystals. We’ll talk about such things as where they come from, how (and when) to cleanse and clear, setting up grids, and even learn how to communicate with your crystals.

However, in order to cover all of that information we have to be on the same page about one crucial point. The point I’m referring to is that crystals are sentient beings. It isn’t something that is normally written about in most crystal reference books. We tend to hear about how to “use” crystal in our healings and other magical workings, but the role of the crystal tends to be secondary to the practitioner; that it is simply a device to be used, much like our candles, altar tools, or smudge sticks. What I am proposing for your consideration is that employing crystals’ assistance should be regarded as a co-creative endeavor between the crystal and the person. More like a relationship between colleagues. Let me tell you how I came to this realization and why I feel it is important to share with you here.

Here's some tarot magick to relieve anxiety, worry and self-sabotage. All you need is the Eight of Swords from a Waite-Smith or Waite-Smith clone tarot deck.

In the Waite-Smith Eight of Swords we see a woman who is blindfolded and bound. She is in a cage of swords.