I recently was introduced to Raven Grimassi’s The 13 Goals of a Wiccan by a friend. To say I was amused is putting it lightly. Here I thought that my goals as a Wiccan were to honour nature, the divine and myself. I guess I was wrong. According to Mr. Grimassi, I’m supposed to be curing disease, speaking with spirits, and having power over wild beasts. I must be a pretty sad Wiccan then, since I can’t even get my cat to obey me. Why would anyone consider these things goals of a Wiccan? Since when is our religion about…

I’ve been at total lose ends lately because I haven’t had a project to work on. Actually, now that I think about it, that isn’t really true. I’ve had a lot of projects (cross stitch database, studying Tarot, my main site, etc.) but they were all for me, so they just don’t seem all that important. (Now that’s something to think about…) Anyway, I have finally found a project to work on! During a rather lengthy chat with a leadership member of CFFN, we got to talking about the lack of depth in some of the lessons. The lessons themselves…

I’ve been meaning to comment on this article since I first read it. In a nut shell, the author says that if someone isn’t out of the broom closet and in the public eye, then they are a “fair weather witch.” I am somewhat offend that the author feels she can judge other people in this way. If she feels that she can best express her faith by being an activist, then that is wonderful. But that does not mean that is the best way for you or me to express our faith. There can be many reasons a person…

Ellen Cannon Reed has passed away. I am sad, but I’m not going to write a personal message of mourning. I didn’t know Ms. Cannon Reed. In fact, until this morning, I didn’t even know she had any sort of presence on the internet. If I had know earlier, I think I would have done my best to meet her. But even though I never did get a chance to meet her, she has influenced my path through her Tarot deck (which I have a love hate relationship with), and her writing. It’s funny how people you have never met…

It’s amazing the way you can dream up a personal history for someone based on what they are wearing and how they carry themselves. Now, I’m not saying it’s right to judge a person by their appearance, but, honestly, it’s hard not to form some sort of opinion. If it wasn’t, then why would we dress up for job interviews and first dates, and dress down for rock concerts and cleaning the house? There are a lot of people out there who dress all in black, or cover themselves with occult jewellery, or look like they are on their way…

Wiccans seem to be pleased that we have no sacred texts, no written scripture. Many of us claim that it is better this way. Practitioners can rely on personal experience instead of the experiences of others. We can discover things on our own, and make things up as we go along. Yet, at the same time, we tend to be a well read group. And the market is flooded with good, bad, and horrible books about Wicca, Neopaganism, and magic. Are there books we all should be reading? Should we have some sort of central scripture or group of writings?…

I’ve been thinking about joining the Pagan Speak web ring. I was waiting for the new August topics to be posted, but since they seem to be delayed, I thought I’d try one of the July topics. Also, it ties in nicely with an essay I’m working on for my main site, part of which I will reproduce here. Topic #1 : Hexing vs. Healing (thanks to Syrenichol) What do you think about hexing vs. healing? The saying goes, “a witch can’t hex, can’t heal,” but not every witch agrees to this. Wiccans follow a moral code, “an ye harm…

I’ve been thinking about the Rede a lot lately. Although it may cause some snickers amongst people who know me, I’m actually really interested in ethics. The biggest Wiccan ethic (and the only, according to some) is the Wiccan Rede. An it harm none, do as thou will. Or in simple, “If it is not going to hurt anyone, it is okay to do.” A tall order, really. I’m going to branch off a little bit here, but stick with me. I’m not a fan of most reality TV, although I will admit I got a kick out of Joe…

My first real ritual, many years ago, was to empower some pieces of rose quartz to give to several people who were going through different health problems. I had a few jitters, to say the least. First, at the time my parents were only mildly tolerant about my choice of religion. They were coming around, but pretty slowly. (The summer before we went to Salem as part of our holiday, and my mom loved the huge occult shop there, so that helped.) I was afraid they would interrupt me, unknowingly, or tease me, or something. Of course, they didn’t. 🙂…

*sigh* Work on my pages has totally stalled lately. I haven’t done much work on Tarot in the past week. I’m not really sure why. I guess other things seem more important sometimes. And it wasn’t really a great week either. But things seem to be calming down, and the Christmas/Yule decorating is done. I think the tree looks rather pretty too. I’ve started trying to learn C++ again. There is something Zen about programming. Even doing something as “simple” as an Access database. When things are going right, I sort of get into this groove. One piece of code…