Baneful Herbs (PBP week 4)
This week I was trying to find a way to write about belladonna so that I could work in the 
song “Belladonna and Aconite” by Incubus Sukkubus. I had thought about just writing about belladonna and then I thought about the song, which speaks largely to the concept of flying ointment. That led me to thinking “well, maybe this would be best for an F week to talk about flying ointments”…but then it occurred to me that there was a way to make it all work out together. Baneful herbs!
This doesn’t surprise me but it annoys me…
Last week we had the chance to watch some of the bigger sites on the internet go dark in protest 
of SOPA and PIPA, two possible pieces of legislation that could possibly threaten the freedom of publishing and sharing content over the web. It was interesting to watch a few individuals who stood out by favoring these bills among the hundreds who were protesting against it. There was this idea by these few people that if these bills passed their small, private interest work would somehow get more protection (i.e. self-published artists getting covered by some government protection from having their work plagiarized or pirated over the web). Granted, the protests caused the bills to be buried, which is a good thing, really. These bills are not designed to help the little guy, they’re about helping big business from having their movies and TV shows pirated, not a self-published book that gets scanned into a PDF and posted on a torrent site. But that’s another story. It just popped in my head as I discovered rampant plagiarism tonight.
The Modern Witch S3E1 – Welcome Back!
No doubt by now you have read about the changes that Devin and I made to the current state of The Modern Witch Podcast. We left BlogTalkRadio in favor of going back to the prerecorded shows after a number of problems with BTR and Skype and feeling that we were creating a pretty compromised show. It just wasn’t sounding as good and was missing a number of the things that made the show so great. In the process of this change we also found a new home on the Pagan Radio Network.
Read MoreReview: Apparition Incense Burner
When I look at incense burners I tend to think of just your standard $2 long piece of wood with a hole in one side. When 
it comes to cone incense I’ve always been partial to the small, round soapstone holders because it keeps things neat and tidy. But this very unique new incense burner called the Apparition Incense Burner adds a little something else to the burner that makes the whole process of burning your incense a little more interesting.
The One Witch’s Way 2012 Datebook is Out NOW!
I can’t believe it, but, YES, only a day later the One Witch’s Way 2012 Datebook is ready for sale! I was in my living room 
working away on getting all the stuff from today’s Pagan Blog Project posts organized and I hear someone at my front door. Instantly I’m thinking “What on earth did I order now and forget all about?” The thing I wasn’t expecting to find at my door when I opened it was the proof of the datebook! Especially since it just got submitted! But here it is, a day after the submission being approved the actual book is here and that means it’s ready for sale!
Blót (PBP Week 3)
This week I thought I would write about something in an exploratory way. It’s a topic that I know a bit about but nothing 
in depth since it’s a celebration I’ve had the opportunity to participate in a few times as a kindred guest. So I’m looking forward to some comments from those who are on more of a Norse Pagan or an Ásatrú path. It’s the celebration of the blót.
One Witch’s Way 2012 Datebook on the way!
FINALLY! Yes, this has taken far, far too long! Everyone has heard the reasons and excuses, so I’m not going to go 
through them again, but I can happily say that the proof copy is on it’s way to me and with any luck they will be available for sale in the next week. It will be up on Amazon and I’ll have some copies available through my shop as well. But I wanted to take a moment to share some of the details of it, with a few screen shots of the interior and an images of the cover.
Absent Healing (PBP Week 2)
This week for the Pagan Blog Project we’re on the second week for the letter A. I wasn’t sure what I was going to write 
about this week. At first I was going to write a bit about how much I love the stone ametrine, but I’ve written about ametrine before. Then I was going to write about one of my favorite Celtic Goddesses, Aine, but I wasn’t really feeling like writing about a Goddess when I sat down to write. Then I tossed around the idea of Arcana/Arcanum because I could work in the song “Serpents Dance” by Arcana (one of my favorite bands) into a post. In the end I decided on something else entirely. Absent Healing.
Monitor Your Own Ethics
I have been having some really interesting discussions with some people over
the last week since my post this past Saturday with my thoughts on a review posted on Amazon in response to Christian Day’s first book. I am planning to write a personal post that will give me a chance to muse a bit more on my own thoughts and feelings about Wicca, my past within that tradition, and where I have come to now in my path and with my magickal ethics. But one thing just really came to the surface quickly while having some of these discussion; I really wish some people would stop feeling this need to push their personal magickal and spiritual ethics on other magickal practitioners.
The Modern Witch Moves to Pagan Radio Network
Tonight Devin and I were getting ready to get things started for our episode this week of The Modern Witch. It had been a weird day; everything seemed to be pointing toward 
something not being right with the show for tonight. I could feel it from the minute I logged in to get things set up for the night. Our topic had morphed from sacred sites to earth magick (mostly my doing because I didn’t know that we were really going to be talking specifically about sacred sites for two hours). After getting all organized, and Devin managing to get home in time despite a few snafus on the way home, we were ready to go! I go to log into the show to get the switchboard started and…nothing. BlogTalk isn’t letting me in. Devin tries and he can’t get in. I try another browser and I still can’t get in. Devin does the same thing and still, bupkis. So since we couldn’t get logged in and couldn’t even access the show page we had to cancel tonight’s show. I knew it. I had felt that coming all day.
Wicca is supposed to be safe?
Today on Facebook Christian Day shared with everyone a review on Amazon of his book “The Witches’ Book of the Dead” that, to be honest, just annoyed me. It essentially brought to light some of the things that have for many years bothered me about a portion of the Wiccan community. I say Wiccan and not Pagan because this is specifically a Wiccan issue it seems. I know it bothers people to hear the term “fluffy bunny” but I am one to call a spade a spade and that is the only way to describe this particular review and the reviewer’s apparent views on Wicca and Witchcraft. I can’t help but talk about it here and use it as a way to sort of explore this somewhat odd notion that “Wicca is supposed to be safe.”
Laurie Cabot Closes Up Shop
On Friday January 6th, “The Official Witch of Salem”, Laurie Cabot, announced on her Facebook page and website that she would be closing the doors on her 
Salem, MA Witch shop. Cabot’s store, The Official Witch Shoppe, located on Pickering Wharf in Salem, is the third shop Cabot has had in Salem. The ball started rolling when she opened the first Witch shop in America in 1970 as The Witch Shoppe at Crow Haven Corner. Crow Haven Corner is still open in Salem today under different ownership. Cabot went on to opening The Cat, The Crow, and The Crown, which closed in the fall of 2010 giving birth to The Official Witch Shoppe. Now, after 42 years of running a shop in Salem Laurie Cabot will be holding one more book signing on January 28th and then at the end of business on January 31st the doors will close for good.
Avalon (PBP Week 1)
For my first week of posting in the Pagan Blog Project I thought I would write about one of my favorite yet elusive topics. 
Avalon. I’ll admit that I have little in the way of “meaty” material to share on the subject and I certainly don’t have a lot of research to offer. Instead I want to talk about the interesting phenomena that is Avalon. It’s something I’ve been drawn to for many, many years and I have always found that, regardless of what physical attributes we give to Avalon or whatever pseudo-historical facts we try and graft on it, Avalon is its own being. It is a living, breathing, magickal realm and not one that is easily bound by space and time. It is what it needs to be for us and it shows itself to us when and how it needs to be seen.
To Write or Not to Write…
2011 was a pretty fun year. A bit frustrating at times, quite challenging at others. I found myself teaching more, which was something I had missed 
greatly during the first couple years I was in San Diego, and it also saw me finally finishing and releasing my first tarot book, something I’d been working on for quite a while in theory but never on paper. It’s been sort of surreal to have that book done because I keep a copy at my desk and I actually refer to it a lot. It’s a little weird to want to reference something and look for it in your own book. I ended up having a moment of realizing that, while I ultimately wanted to write that book in order to have a more solid platform for teaching tarot students, it really ended up being something I needed to do in order to get my own tarot beliefs and practices down in a single place and in a clear way (although I am well aware that I need to set some time aside this spring to work on a second edition with some edits…lol). But now I’m thinking, what next?
The Pagan Blog Project and What’s Ahead for 2012!
Happy 2012 everyone! This year is going to be a busy and exciting one! I have a lot of plans for this year and I’m going to be working 
on some fun and exciting things including a few new books, teaching some classes, doing some traveling, and doing a lot of work with Devin on Modern Witch and Living Temple of Diana things. All very exciting! But I have one big project that is launching this week that will be a year long venture that I want to invite all of you to be a part of! The Pagan Blog Project is a weekly blogging “challenge”, though I like to call it an “initiative”, where each Friday we’ll be posting in our own respective blogs about a Pagan, magickal, or spiritual topic with the help of a prompt. The prompts are not specific topics but rather a letter; this allows us all to explore topics we pick that are specific to our own paths rather than being “forced” to work with something that might not be relevant to us. Through this project we’ll all have the opportunity to explore our spiritual paths in a variety of ways with intention and purpose, as well as learn from others who are also participating.
Pick up the 2012 One Witch’s Way Datebook NOW!
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