At the beginning of February, I got to go to Earthspirit’s  Feast of Lights.  When I was there, I got to attend  Andras Corban Arthen’s “Sacred Land: an Anamanta Workshop.” I’ve enjoyed Andras’s teaching ever since I was a little Witchling and I took his Witchcraft 101 classes.  It was nice having beginner-oriented stuff that wasn’t condescending or lightweight, and even though it was obvious in his survey of all the different sorts of Witches he’d encountered that he liked... Read more

I’ve been laboring for a while to put into words just what makes community such a necessary part of spiritual life.  I don’t mean by this that it is wrong or a failure for any of us attempt to stay faithful and connected to our gods alone; I don’t mean to echo the words of Gerald Gardner, who said we could not “be a Witch alone.”  Sometimes all magic, whether of a Pagan or a Quaker variety, has to happen... Read more

If you are a reader, you probably know the feeling.  Having moved from one house or apartment to another, you find yourself wanting to take down a particular book, and you know exactly where it is… in your old home. That kind of phantom access, to a world that is no longer there, is more and more familiar to me as I age.  So often I will catch myself in a reverie, thinking of a friend or vista from my... Read more

The black month November says M de la Villemarque is the month of the dead. On All Saints Eve, (the Scotch Halloween) crowds flock to the grave yards to pray by the family graves, to fill with holy water the little hollows left for this pious purpose in the Breton grave stones, or in some places to offer libations of milk. All night masses for the dead are said and the bells toll; in some places after vespers, the parish... Read more

In Part 1 of my Open Letter, I feel that I made two important errors, and I need to own them here. The first was a lack of clarity on when I was asking that Christian Friends should take pains to discern the will of Spirit in sharing based on the Bible or Christianity.  I was not as clear as I meant to be that I was not talking about when Christians speak among themselves, or when established friends within... Read more

I am blessed by some remarkable friendships. One friendship that has grown over time into something extraordinary is the one I share with my Quaker friend Kathleen.  Kathleen loves to tell the story of how she and I met at a Woolman Hill retreat a few years back: she had found herself, a deeply committed Christian, feeling at loose ends among the liberal Quakers she knew then, as few of them spoke much or often about the Christian aspects of... Read more

I tend to agree with Abraham Lincoln, who once observed that he didn’t care much for a man’s religion whose dog and cat were not the better for it.  And it’s not just dogs and cats, either, but all the beings of the Earth–including the somewhat annoying ones we happen to share a species with.  I take it that that’s what religion is for, and that we honor our religious tradition best by illustrating that. Compassionate engagement with the world... Read more

When we die, where do we go?  Does more of us remain in the grave, or where we have lived? My husband Peter and I have lived in this down-at-heels farmhouse for three summers now.  It is an odd house, in an odd sort of a neighborhood; I have hundreds of acres of woods, much of it owned by various public groups, in my backyard, a suburban neighborhood of close-built ranch houses across the street, and a neighbor in such... Read more

Yesterday, Jason Pitzl-Waters of The Wild Hunt wrote an email wondering what Pagans feel regarding this week’s Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, and about the ACA generally.  My first reaction was that I really had nothing to say on the subject… as a Pagan, that is.  I do have my own opinions, to be sure, but at first blush, I didn’t see them as grounded in my religion. Upon further reflection, I have to say that,... Read more