Magic gives us the power to believe that we, individually, are important. In that, we might say that magic is anti-fascist -- after all, one of the key tenets of fascism is that the individual is weak, only the group (other than the Glorious Leader) matters. Words like "empowerment" and "agency" come to mind. Read more
The 1621 celebration was not identified by anyone as the "First Thanksgiving" until 1841, when Rev. Alexander Young did so in his book Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers. By then the New England Thanksgiving had developed a substantial tradition that had little to do with the Pilgrims, so the claim was slow to catch on. Read more
Death is the great mystery, the undiscovered country, the unavoidable confrontation with the boundaries of who and what we are. Perhaps the greatest and wisest of us can sit directly with that mystery and let the grief just happen, like a leaf falling from a tree. But most of us need some form to our practice. Read more
The Pagan community is growing more diverse. This is a good thing! But it means that we will come into disagreement more often, and so must have policies and norms in place as to how to handle conflicts. Read more
Imagine that we could hop in our TARDIS and jump back to the Golden Age of Athens to grab a musician, and bring them forward in time to talk with a modern musician. Their metaphysical views about music might be completely irreconcilable, but they could still play music together. Read more
The social-media-viral cult of personality around Greta Thunberg is a glamour being cast as what part of artist Hiroyuki Hamada has described as a rebirth ritual -- the rebirth of a monster, capitalism. Read more
It strikes me that, if ritual is "poetry in the realm of acts", then a large part of living a magical life is recognizing found poetry when one sees it. Sometimes that gets institutionalized -- found poetry published to others, to stretch the metaphor a bit. I am quite sure that in Japan, a waterfall like this would be the home of a Shinto shrine, and would see a steady stream of visitors. Read more
I share this so that you may know it, if when next you grieve (for that is the way of the world, you will grieve) you wonder at your own behavior. Brains are weird, and there is no right way to grieve. Read more
And our society is too much Aresian and too little Athenian. We are too ready to give in to the easy mindless rage that ends in defeat and humiliation for the aggressor and destruction for their victims, rather than the difficult, judicious, creative — but still valiant and strong — way of wisdom. Read more
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