The beautiful and terrible (in the sense of intense, formidable, powerful, going back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to tremble") world keeps on turning, "and everything she touches, changes", as the chant goes. Read more
The beautiful and terrible (in the sense of intense, formidable, powerful, going back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to tremble") world keeps on turning, "and everything she touches, changes", as the chant goes. Read more
Festival season is coming! And I’d like to invite you to two events where I’ll be presenting this summer. The Free Spirit Gathering — FSG — has been my “home event” on the Pagan festival circuit since 1998. I’ve played a variety of roles, from will-work-for-food kitchen help to performing musician to (for my sins) President of the non-profit that puts it on. This year, though, I get to do something new. Two things new, actually: I’m on the bill... Read more
Travel gives you an opportunity to raise the magickal energy, but you have to take the opportunity and set the intent to direct it, to make meaningful choices. Read more
As I write this I am in that most liminal of places, in transit between one continent and another, between heaven and earth: in an Air Canada 777 headed for Sydney, Australia, where I'll be judging a karate tournament this weekend. Sometime while I tried to sleep, we crossed the Equator, my first time in the Southern hemisphere. Read more
The idea that one reaches mastery and then stops learning and starts teaching might be useful in some types of mythological narrative where the focus is on the novice student's journey. But as a guide to one's own personal development -- in the martial arts, in magic, in one's profession, whatever -- it is sorely lacking. Read more
"Priest" can be a specific term referring to Catholic religious figures but it also has a general meaning. The same is true of "shaman" -- and that general meaning is quite different from "priest". A shaman and a priest do not fill the same roles. Read more
The exploits of superheroes can inspire the merely mortal citizens of their comic book and movie worlds to be better, braver, and more empathetic. But more than that: their power is such that they can reach out from those fictional universes into ours, and inspire us in measurable ways. Read more
In O'Keefe's view, throughout human history magic has served as a form of resistance the conformity-inducing sort of religion. And thus, it seems to me, magic is also suited to a time when we need a political resistance. Read more
But it seems to me that if we're going to talk about the problems of "traditional masculinity ideology", we need to see how that ideology is sometimes an attempt (however flawed) to deal with real problems in men's lives. And if we want men to "do better", we have to propose alternative solutions to those problems. Read more
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