Animal Allies
Skullduggery
INSIGHT
Skullduggery
by Rev. Judith Laxer; artwork by Mark Roland
I made a pact with my cat Wanda. When she was about three or four years old, during one of our love-each-other times, Wanda rested her beautiful head in the palm of my left hand. I petted her from the tip of her cold, wet nose to the back of her ruff, over and over, bliss on her face, and probably mine, too. My landscaping friend Michael had recently given me a cat skull he had unearthed. He knew I would appreciate such a thing, and as I ran my hand over Wanda’s head again and again, I mentally asked her, “Can I have your skull when you die?”
Cougar Dreams and The Power of Choosing
To every man there openeth
A way, and ways, and a way.
And the high soul climbs the high way,
And the low soul gropes the low.
And in between, on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth
A high way and a low,
And every man decideth
The way his soul shall go.
---John Oxenham
Believe it or not, even personal development coaches can sometimes feel themselves struggling with inertia, seemingly unable to figure out much less take the next step, feeling stuck. Recently, in the throes of a particularly impotent (figuratively speaking) period where I felt both my personal and professional life were going nowhere fast, I had an unusually vivid dream.
A Short Guide to All Things Lupa
Books, Articles & Miscellany
(a sidebar to Lupa: Reclaiming Our Feral Inheritance)
"Riding the Red Tide: Practical Menstrual Magic," SageWoman Magazine #67, 2005.
Fang and Fur, Blood and Bone: A Primal Guide to Animal Magic, Megalithica, 2006.
A Field Guide to Otherkin; Megalithica, 2006.
"Pleasure, Pain and Punishment: BDSM and the Shamanic Journey" (with Taylor Ellwood), Konton Magazine, 2006.
"Fucking Through the Looking Glass," Konton Magazine, 2006.
Kink Magic: Sex Magic Beyond Vanilla; co-written with Taylor Ellwood, Megalithica, 2007.
"Totems and Transformation: Psychological Shapeshifting in the First and Second Circuits," in Magick on the Edge; Taylor Ellwood, ed., Megalithica, 2007.
Lupa's Words for the Wise
(a sidebar to Lupa: Reclaiming Our Feral Inheritance)
Drawn from post-Jungian psychology, aspecting refers to the practice of identifying different parts of one's self through archetypal characters or "aspects." To say, for instance, that you see yourself as a lover, a fighter, and a poet — and to give each of those elements a specific "voice" and personality — would be aspecting yourself through a Lover, a Warrior, and a Poet. Not to be confused with Multiple Personality Disorder, aspecting involves creative, conscious visualization, not disassociation with one's material-reality self.
Lupa: Reclaiming Our Feral Inheritance
Life bleeds. Life is raw. Life has teeth and bones, sinew and skin. For all too many of us, though, life is a plastic paradise filled with toothless distractions and virtual vitality. We live our lives surrounded by computer monitors and neutered beasts, claiming to love a feral inheritance but doing little to cherish that legacy.
Lupa wants to change that.
By way of her blogs, the website she shares with her husband Taylor Ellwood, and — best of all — the books they both edit and author under the Megalithica imprint of Immanion Press, Lupa is trying to bring the Wild back to the wasteland of plastic Paganism. Sure, she lives in a modern home; she and Taylor maintain active web presences… and yeah, they're total geeks. Still, Lupa refuses to settle for an air-conditioned life that's factory-sealed for her protection. Lean, fit, and active, she lives the path she describes, and inspires others to do likewise. A shaman in deed as well as name, Lupa favors the raw edge of modern magic, working up a new future with her hands in the soil, in fur, and occasionally even in blood.
Connections - Into the Forest
In the forest, nothing stands separate.
There’s a ravine near my home where I often walk. The entrance is through a graveyard, where only a chain link fence separates the gardens of the dead from a jungle of untended growth, a green cleft that slices through the city. I find this shadowy, forested otherworld strangely entrancing. One of my favorite spots is a kind of “giant’s causeway,” an elevated road running high above with its enormous concrete supports sunk deep into the forest.
