Deborah Blake

Everyday Witch A to Z Spellbook
TWPT talks to Deborah Blake

Deborah Blake is a Wiccan High Priestess who has been leading her current group, Blue Moon Circle, since 2004. When not writing, Deborah runs The Artisans' Guild, a cooperative shop she founded with a friend, and works as a jewelry maker, tarot reader, an ordained minister and an Intuitive Energy Healer. She lives in a 100-year-old farmhouse in rural upstate New York with five cats who supervise all her activities, both magickal and mundane. She is the author of Circle, Coven and Grove: A Year of Magickal Practice, Everyday Witch A to Z, Everyday Witch A to Z Spellbook and the forthcoming Witchcraft on a Shoestring (September 2010 Llewellyn). She has written many articles for Pagan publications, and her award-winning short story, "Dead and (Mostly) Gone" is included in the Pagan Anthology of Short Fiction.

Click here to read the interview.

Imajicka

Lammas is amost here.....

Amidst the sweltering heat (hottest month on record) that we have been subjected to on the east coast as of late it is easy to not be in a harvest state of mind when Lammas roles around on the 1st of August. We tend to associate harvest with the fall, cooler temperatures, colorful trees, corn crops being taken in by farmers and if you live in the city perhaps you associate it with full to overflowing fruit and vegetable stands at the local farmer's markets or wherever it is that you head to when you want the freshest food you can get. And yet Lammas is a celebration of the first harvest festival that will eventually lead to Samhain come October 31st as the end of the harvest with Mabon in between here and there.  

Click here to go to Imajicka's Blog

Deanna Anderson

Magick for the Kitchen Witch
TWPT talks to Deanna Anderson

Deanna Anderson, her husband and two daughters live and work in South Carolina. She has been initiated into the Gaia's Wisdom Coven and School of Pagan Thought. She is currently a 3rd Degree Pagan and she also holds a seat of Family Council. Deanna is currently working towards a Priesthood/Ministry degree within the council.

Deanna is a published author with her latest book Magick for the Kitchen Witch released in May of 2009. She has another book due out later in 2010 called Magick for the Elemental Witch.

Click here to go to the Author's Corner home.

M. Macha Nightmare

M. Macha Nightmare
Cherry Hill Seminary Interview

• Our Mission: Cherry Hill Seminary provides quality higher education and practical training in Pagan ministry.
   

• Our Vision:  Cherry Hill Seminary supports Pagans and their communities by —
  Providing an extensive education in diverse aspects of Pagan philosophy, practice, and skilled ministry;
  Supplementing existing ritual and magical skills with training for professional ministry and counseling;
  Serving as an ongoing resource for individual continuing education; and
  Providing a forum for scholarship and community 

• Our Values: Cherry Hill Seminary —
  Honors the sacredness of the Earth
  Values scholarship
  Respects diversity
  Encourages individual and spiritual autonomy
  Values community
  Promotes service

 Read this interview with M. Macha Nightmare  by clicking here.

Holli S. Emore
executive director
Cherry Hill Seminary

Cherry Hill Seminary TWPT Column

Where do my freedoms end and your rights begin?  At the late June Summer Intensive CHS grad students tackled every conceivable aspect of dual relationships and ethics for Pagan ministers and counselors. 

We continue to hear stories of Pagan groups which blow up because of interpersonal issues, or an event that is marred by rumors of sexual abuse.  There are the violent crimes which receive widespread media attention because the perpetrator is portrayed negatively as a Pagan.  And then there are all the times that Pagans have parted ways without a word, with no explanation, no closure, no continuity. 

We struggle with the many ways that Pagan values and those of the dominant socio-religious culture seem at odds.  Too often, people leave Pagan groups with deep psychological wounds.  The religion we found so refreshing becomes a painful reminder of misunderstandings and missteps. 

Many are reluctant to air our dirty laundry by reporting a crime, even though we want to be respected as peers with the ministers of other religions.  Are our values really so different from the rest of the world?  Don’t we start with “harm none,” long before we reach the part about “all acts of love and pleasure?” 

I’m convinced that if more Pagans took advantage of good training like CHS offers, we would all better withstand the occasional storms that blow through our lives.  As CHS grows, we hope to become a foundational resource that the Pagan world can count on for many years to come.

Boudica

Reading Tarot for Friends
by Boudica

Sooner or later you are going to find yourself reading for a friend.  Be it a best friend or a new friend, somewhere along the line they find out that you read cards and they will ask if you would be kind enough to read for them. 

For me, many of the friends I read for know what the tarot is about; there is no need to explain.  Either they are not good at reading cards, or they prefer another style of divination or they just are not familiar enough with the cards and feel they need some kind of validation for the reading they may have done for themselves.  Most of the friends I read for know I am a very direct person who does not usually sugar coat my reading for the benefit of the faint of heart. 

 Click here to read more of this article.

Next Holiday:
Lammas/Lughnasadh
August 1, 2010

Although in the heat of a midwestern summer it might be difficult to discern, the festival of Lammas (August 1) marks the end of summer and the beginning of fall. The days now grow visibly shorter and by the time we’ve reached autumn’s end (October 31), we will have run the gamut of temperature from the heat of August to the cold and (sometimes) snow of November. And in the midst of it, a perfect midwestern autumn.

For the rest of Mike Nichols' article on Lammas  click here.

Link

Your Own Celebrations of Summer

There’s a village one year’s journey from here.  And in that village lives a woman with four children.  Like any family, all four children are kindred and similar -- yet very, very unique.  One is a feisty child, with brilliant golden hair, and a natural glow warmer than any other.  This child’s name is Summer.

In an entire year, perhaps the 91 days (and nights) of Summer seem to fly by the quickest…  When you think of summer, what comes to mind?

Summer is the peak, the pinnacle, the realization of what took root during the Spring.  One lesson the seasons teach is that many things in nature grow, mature, and then fade.  Imagine yourself old and gray and wise.  Look back upon your own life as if it were a single turn of the year.  What part of your life was your high point, your “Summer,” your peak?  Where did you shine your brightest, glow your hottest?.

 Read the rest of this article by clicking here.

• Posted July 30, 2010

Science and religion clash in 'Agora"
Sybil Leek: Brevard author writes biography of famous ‘white witch’
Woman 'who dragged cop' shuns witch tag
Do Pagans Worry About Blasphemy?

• Posted July 28, 2010

Pagan Leadership Skills Conference
Lammas Countdown: Ritual Honoring Lugh
Pagans celebrate the full moon with a ceremony on the beach in Atlantic Beach
Images of New Henge at Nat. Geo.
History of Religion and Paganism Connection
Witch Eilish De Avalon drags cop 200m at high speed after claiming Earth laws don't apply

• Posted July 25, 2010

Save Triple Goddess Bookstore Rally
Shedding light on ways of pagans
All the young Druids
Native Americans Setting Environmental Example
Rachel Weisz challenges herself
'Agora': Rachel Weisz shines as a heroine caught in an orbit of hate
LA area Pagan calendar of events and classes from July 23 - August 1

• Posted July 21, 2010

New Goddess & Spiritual Feminism Organization launched
15th Glastonbury Goddess Conference

• Posted July 18, 2010

School official says on-campus religious-ed program likely to end
Pagan summer traditions kept alive in Pirogovo
Publisher cancels book series with Wiccan themes
America's paranoid religious right

• Posted July 17, 2010

Pagan Music Festival Coming to Unity
How Pop Went Pagan
Scene and Heard: Pagan Metal

• Posted June 24, 2010

Barbara Ardinger talks to Pat Lynch of Speak Up!
Where the Wild Place is, Part 1 by Barbara Ardinger a revisionist fairy tale
The Fate of the Internet -- Decided in a Back Room
The oil spill and the soul of nature

• Posted June 18, 2010

Break our oil habit now
Magick and the Media by Donald Michael Kraig

• Posted June 17, 2010

Wicca, Witchcraft & Wizardry on Long Island

• Posted June 13, 2010

• Posted June 4, 2010

Cameron says oil chiefs refused his help

• Posted May 22, 2010

The new Beltaine issue of The Sacred Glen is now online

Deborah Blake Interview at Pantheacon

Sabrina
the Ink Witch

Sabrina the Ink Witch:
TWPT Talks to Sabrina

Sabrina, better known as The Ink Witch has been crafting Old Style Pen & Ink for over 30 years. Her beautiful artwork has been published in many magazines all over the world. Her artwork also appears in several published books and most recently she has been included as the illustration artist for a Pagan Based Traditional Publishing House; Spiral Publishing, Inc.

Click here to read the interview.

Jesse Wolf Hardin

Updated 10-09-2008

TWPT's Earth Magic

This month Jesse's new article is entitled
Pitfalls on the Magical or Spiritual Path.

Otherwise benign New Spiritual practices can suffer from some of the same pitfalls as conventional organized religion. Fortunately, once we’re aware of these diversions we can make the informed choices that reunite us with the inspirited world, rather than contribute to our estrangement.

In my life of pilgrimage the voices of the earthen Anima have repeatedly contradicted what I’ve read, was taught, once thought, and so badly wanted to believe... Thus as I became a teacher myself, I deferred again and again— not to presumed authorities or established traditions, but to the actual Source of every real truth they contain. Our realization of wholeness/holiness begins not in contemplation or conclusion but in a great listening. It begins in a vulnerable condition of openness, with fierce focus, gentle humility, and the overwhelming gratitude that makes us worthy of such gifts.

Read Jesse's column on TWPT

Boudica

Updated 01-25-2009

TWPT's Bookviews

Crafting Wiccan Traditions by
Raven Grimassi

I enjoyed this book because of the concept. I was surprised at the amount of material that Grimassi covers for this process. The contents of this book puts it all together to show you how it's done.

Tradition is the foundation of our spiritual system. Each person sees the Wiccan path as a personal path. Gardner did it, Buckland did it, even Grimassi did it; establishing a system of spirituality that worked for them, and enabling it to work for others.

Raven Grimassi presents a “system” here to establish your own Tradition. In it he also includes all the trappings and tools and beliefs and reasons to do so. It is a complex method, with all the basics, all the elements and all the workings that we may want to include.

Read Boudica's review of Crafting Wiccan Traditions by Raven Grimassi

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