Advice for Beginners on Wiccan, Pagan & Witchcraft Paths
My years of experience will do no good for anyone if I do not share it with you. I hope my words of wisdom and advice help you avoid many of the mistakes I made.
Spirituality is a process. Witchcraft is a journey, not a destination. There are many factors to consider when choosing a spiritual path. Spirituality is about devotion and practice. One cannot simply associate one’s self with a path, and call it their own. You must practice it. You must become a part of it. You must be willing and able to live that path.
The path of Wicca, Witchcraft, and Paganism is not about shock value. It is not about making your oppressive relatives angry, or proving yourself different in main stream society. Yes, by nature we tend to go against the grain, but not always so harshly. The path is about devotion. It is about finding a spiritual balance and focus that makes you a better person. It is about finding your place in the world that also helps make the world a better place.
Title: The Hell You Say (Book Three in the Adrien English Mysteries) Publisher: Just Joshin Author: Josh Lanyon Pages: 259 pp Price: $13.99 (paperback) / $6.99 (ebook)
Polytheism, the belief in many Gods, has long been associated with Pagan religion. Some deities speak to us, some speak through us.Some take our bodies over for a while and some bring us to our knees in awe.Deities manifest differently in some traditions than others, but all appear part of an animate inspirited world bigger than we are, and Pagans find it appropriate to honor, invoke, learn from, and even love these entities.Often personal altars can be syncretistic, as is this one focused on healing entities and energies.
Part of forming a community is defining what that community means. What do we stand for? What are our values? Who is or isn't a member of that community? And what are our goals? Today's stories for Watery Wednesday take a look at the ways in which the Pagan community is defining itself. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!
Summer is coming! Several of today's articles we've gathered for the Pagan News Beagle discuss Pagan celebrations of that sunniest and warmest of seasons, both modern and ancient. All this and more in this week's Watery Wednesday!
When my wife and I started the Oak Court (for those of you new to the column, that's the name of our coven, and the street we live on) we weren't setting out to start a coven. Heck, our little gathering didn't even have a name in those early days and certainly wasn't called "The Oak Court." We simply invited a few friends over who weren't involved in any other small-circles or covens and grew from there.
I first came across the term covenstead in Uncle Bucky's Raymond Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft. In the Big Blue Book Buckland describes the covenstead as "the name given to the home of the coven (the place where it always, or most often, meets). Within the Covenstead,* of course, is found the Temple." I've been a part of several covens over the years, but most of those situations seemed to lack a true covenstead. Rituals were undertaken in several different locations: a few houses, maybe a park, etc. Those places were all nice, and my house numbered among them, but they didn't feel like a covenstead.
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...