There is a particular magic to mythology. I admit, I have a complicated relationship with the word magic. I’m a fairly pragmatic person, and I tend to lean toward a definition of magic as “science we can’t yet explain.” So whenever I work with myths and stories, or magical concepts, I tend to break them down and look at their function, or look at the sociology and history that created them. Read more
Halloween is almost upon us. It’s a time of year for costumes, parties, and maybe a few ghost stories. Samhain is on its way, too. This is the time of year when we see a thinning of the veil between the worlds. If we’re given to such things, it becomes easier to reach across the veil. But as much as the veil thins outside of us, it thins inside of us, too. Read more
I’m old enough to remember what the Craft was like ‘in the day.’ It was highly sexual. Many rituals included Great Rite in true, and it was practically de rigueur to fuck your Witch friends. And while most of the coven leaders I met were married, few (the times being what they were) were exclusively monogamous. Few people now recall that one of the original descriptions of the Craft was ‘the Tantra of the West’ but that's exactly what it was. Read more
Greetings, and welcome back to Wyrd Words. Keeping the Thor in Thursdays, here on Agora! I recently saw a fellow author here at Patheos Pagan get put through the wringer on the channel’s Facebook Page. I watched people completely dismiss Crystal Blanton‘s work without even reading it, because she dared to declare herself a Feminist. Not that the article had anything at all to do with Feminism, they just decided that she couldn’t possibly have anything valuable to say because... Read more
What is cool is letting chance rule the experience of what we come to understand about our magic. Such an understanding can be a very hot thing. Read more
It is Samhain-tides again, the final harvest; a time of acceptance that death comes for everyone in it's own correct time. In reverence we embrace the sacred dark. Yet, in mirthful paradox, we affirm the deliciousness of life, staring death in the eye, raising our glasses to toast that today we LIVE, and live large to honor our beloved dead. Read more
Storms are an integral natural force of the autumn season. Traditionally witches are intimate with the wild natural forces of the weather. While most folks are starting to retreat inside to the safety of home, perhaps witches are in the domain of the outdoors--their hair dripping wet with wild dark eyes--directing the wind and rain. Read more
There are many roads that one may travel. Divine encounters with Hekate and Odin transformed me, leading me down winding roads that have shaped my spiritual practice in beautiful and unexpected ways. Read more
In our modern sensibilities, God is the fundamental construct for Divinity; the Goddess typically doesn’t even make the list. You may ask yourself: why does this matter? What do we gain from a feminine concept of the Divine? Read more
I am dedicated to the Vanic Goddess Freya and consider myself Her daughter. When I first started working for her, I was full of zeal and love for Her and I couldn’t really figure out why everyone did not want to honor Her and devote themselves to Her. Now that I have a solid devotional relationship with Her for a couple of years, however, my rosy cloud has passed. I have to admit that there are also some negatives to being dedicated to a deity. Read more
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