Reviews
Book, music and movie reviews; many Pagan related but some are just for fun.
This week’s recommendations
Sep 4th
Well, it’s the weekend and, if you’re like me, you like to do a little shopping on the weekends! I don’t know if it’s a female thing or what, but when the weekend comes around, whether it’s online or in the mall I just have this desire to go shopping. So I thought that each week on the weekends I would share some of my favorite Witchy recommendations, especially things I’m really enjoying right now, that some of you might be interested in or that might inspire you. Each week I’ll post a little Amazon list of 5 products that I recommend and a brief comment. Some things I’ve reviewed before, some I’ll review in the future, but all come as recommendations based on my actual experience with them. So every book, every deck, every CD and every movie that I recommend is something I’ve experienced personally and truly enjoyed and wish to share with you! So treat yourself, you know you want to. 
Tarot Review: Shadowscapes Tarot
May 31st
Shadowscapes Tarot collectors box cover
The Shadowscapes Tarot is a deck that has been several years in the making and was published and released by Llewellyn Worldwide in May of this year. It’s a wonderful and whimsical deck created by artist Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, which has been compared with being similar to the unique and detailed work of long time tarot artist and illustrator Lisa Hunt. I would say that’s a great assessment; much like Lisa’s work, Stephanie’s art is very detailed, rich in hidden faces and images, with fine lined swirls and curves here and there to help show to energy flow and intentions behind each beautiful image. Also, much like some of Lisa’s work, Stephanie combines many elements of both Celtic and Asian themes, images and artistic styles within the cards. The Shadowscapes Tarot draws heavily on winged beings from faeries and angels to butterflies and dragons. Even some of the merfolk depicted in the Cups suit have fins placed in such a way that make them look as though they are winged water creatures. From this alone there is a feel of light airiness and the feeling of movement and transition with all the cards. There is also a strong connection to the earth element, providing a great deal of wonderful, lush landscapes as backdrops for many of the cards
The coloring of the cards is the most attention grabbing aspect for me personally. Color is one of the big selling points, or even drawbacks, for many people who select a deck to work with. As exampled by the Universal Waite deck, even a tarot system as classic and loved as the RWS can be even more loved when the colors are tempered a bit and made more soft and light-filled. Here the Shadowscapes deck uses the most wonderful blend of muted watercolors and jewel tones that make the things that really need to stand out jump off the card and the things that might want to linger in the background sit aside but not without poking around a corner and tickling your brain a bit. There are animal guides within the suits who follow us through their progression. Some include fish within the Cups, birds within the Swords, foxes within the Wands and dragons within the Pentacles. Each image is layed in color and texture to present the element of the suit in a rich way, giving each card more depth and meaning.
The major arcana cards are some of the most beautiful renditions I have ever seen. Some of the cards that are often the darker or “feared” cards have such wonderful light and hope within them. The Death card is one such card that pulls more on the image and idea of the rebirth side of death rather than the aspect of ending with a beautifully bright filled image depicting a phoenix with large fiery wings, ready for flight.
The Death card from the Shadowscapes Tarot
The cards are bordered with a beautiful metallic lavender color which helps to make a really nice frame for these colorful images. The biggest problem and the one real failure with the deck is trying to pack Stephanie’s very ornate and detailed art into small, bordered cards. The cards measure 2.75 x 4.5, which has become the standard for Llewellyn it seems, and sadly the resizing of the very detailed oriented images causes a lot of the little nuances to be lost in translation. The cards are also very flimsy. Llewellyn has gone from producing sturdy cards that can hold up to regular use to cards that need to be shuffled and handed very gingerly for fear of fraying and peeing corners and edges. These cards could also bend and crease very easily if they are shuffled carelessly causing cards to be unwittingly marked for the life of the deck.
The companion book is a wonderful help however. Each card from the deck gets a full page print in the book allowing the reader to go back and study and compare to smaller sized cards with a larger, albeit black and white version, of the image within the book. This can help with finding some of the details that might be calling you in the card but not appearing clear enough because of the image size.
Barbara Moore lends her wonderful words and insight to the book helping to create a wonderful narrative for moving through the landscape of the deck. Barbara creates a wonderful crash course to working with and reading tarot in the introduction section, working to help those new to the cards understand the deck structure so that they can make confident assessments of the cards both alone and in layouts without having to rely too heavily on the descriptions and details given in the book itself. And this will be a great boon for those who pick up this deck who are still a little wet behind the ears with reading the cards since there are not rock solid interpretations of the cards in the book. While Barbara does present a “meanings” section for each of the major arcana cards, they read more like her wonderful prose style narrative than a hard and fast card meaning. These sections are missing for the minor arcana cards and instead the last few lines of each detailed description lend some insight to the general energy and meaning of the card. At the back of the book there a handful of spreads to try with the cards. While the usual three card and Celtic Cross spreads are represented there are also some more specific spreads for reading based on love, achieving goals, and finding balance in our lives.
Overall this is a fantastic and unique deck that was well worth the wait. While it may not be the best beginners deck, for those that are looking for a deck full of color that offers a challenge and a chance to really work more with your clairvoyant and intuitive skills, this is a great deck to pick up. I would recommend working with this deck on a daily basis for a while, maybe doing a daily card pull or working through the deck one card at a time to get a better sense and feel for each card and giving you the chance to learn its unique language.
If you are interested in checking out more images from the deck, visit Stephanie’s Shadowscapes Tarot site and you can also visit her blog to see what she’s currently working on as well as look back at the archives from the creation of the Shadowscapes Tarot. You can find the deck for purchase on both Amazon.com and Llewellyn.com. You can also find out more about Barbara and her work on the Llewellyn site as well as her WordPress page.
Review: The Gaian Tarot
Mar 16th
It’s been quite a while since I came to discover that one of my favorite earth-spirituality based artists was working on a deck. Joanna Powell Colbert does some wonderful art, some that many people would be familiar with from articles in magazines like SageWoman. Two of my favorites are her images of Brighid and the Holly King.
Brighid
So when I heard about the Gaian Tarot quite a while back I was really interested in finding out more about it. At the time she had only completed the images for the Major Arcana and a collectors edition of the majors were available through her website. I bookmarked the page and tossed around the idea of purchasing them for months. They were around $80 dollars, which I didn’t think was terribly unreasonable for a self-published piece that was so beautiful. But it’s very rare that I use the majors alone and I knew that I’d want them for more than just altar devotional and meditation work. So I decided to wait, especially after she explained on her site that she was in the process of creating the cards for the Minor Arcana. I waited, checking back on her site from time to time, and finally, last year my waiting paid off. The minors were done and Joanna was preparing the deck for mass publication! I was excited, anxious to get my hands on them, but then it turned out that the deck wouldn’t be out until September of 2011! Egads! No!!! Joanna was fortunate enough to have a plan worked out with Llewellyn, who will be publishing the deck next year, which would allow her to create and sell1,000 decks in a special edition run. As soon as I got the message from her email list I went right away to purchase one.
This is where a turn of events, a very interesting one, takes place that just shows you that sometimes even something that seems so silly as a deck of tarot cards is just meant to be and the Universe will make sure it happens as it should.
I go the site and start filling out the information to be able to pay for the cards over four payments between the fall and winter with the deck planning to ship by Ostara. The deck was $245, something that I knew was worth the money given what it was and the fact that it was self-published, but part of me was hesitant. Right before I was about to hit the button to pay for the first payment I could hear my husband in the back of my head yelling at me for not only purchasing yet another deck but for spending almost $250 on it. So I left the page, not paying, and deciding that it might be best for me to wait until the deck came out in 2011. A few weeks pass and I get a “thank you” package in the mail from Joanna and I find myself a little confused because I knew I didn’t pay for that first payment. So I email her and explain what I think happened and, at first, planning to offer to mail the gift back and just leave it at that but before I could stop myself I saw that I had typed out that I would like to purchase the deck and where do I go to pay. I went with it, sent the email and a little while later got an email back from her with the details on what to do. All I can say is I’m glad that twist of fate happened because this was the deck I was meant to have.
So, now for the deck itself.
Gaian Tarot
The feel of the cards is like nothing else. Everything in the collectors edition of the cards are produced in a green manner. The cards are printed on recycled paper with soy based ink and the coating is a water-based coating called aqueous coating. When you hold these cards and you run your fingers on them they feel like you’d expect a tarot decked named after Gaia should feel; it’s earthy and solid but has a loving gentleness about it. The art on the back of the cards is just as beautiful as the art on the front of them.
backart
The set up of the deck is one that will certainly appeal to those who might be more “new age” inclined, but that’s not to say there is anything fluffy about the deck! There are many people who have a hard time with the more ceremonial aspects of traditional tarot, and even many of the art decks are nothing more than mere clones of the Rider-Waite Smith deck. Joanna has taken the concept of the RWS and rather than cloned it, placed the principles in a world of earth-based spirituality from start to finish. Some cards have taken on differ
Herbs
cards
The other changes include the suits. Here you’ll have Air for Swords, Earth for Pentacles, Water for Cups and Fire for Wands. The court cards also change a bit and the genders are not as rigid as in the RWS deck and many of the clones. Here you’ll see men and woman exchanging roles as the Princes are replaced by the Child of each element, Knights are Explorers, Queens are Guardians and Kings are Elders. Their messages come across in a similar way to the traditional tarot ones but with a little twist depending on how you view gender in the tarot.
bag
The other wonderful thing that you get with the set is the companion book. Usually the book that comes with a deck doesn’t get more than a small glancing from me, but this book gives you stuff to actually DO with your cards, ways to explore with them that include meditations and journaling exercises that ma
Gaia
In the end you get an amazing deck of card that really are more than just something to divine with, it’s a tool for meditation, for spellwork, for ritual. It’s a tool for working on really understanding yourself. I was surprised to find some of the cards that really made me stop when I was going through the deck the first time. I have never been very drawn to any other version of The Hermit before but the one in Joanna’s deck is honestly one of my favorites I’ve ever seen and it’s one of my favorite cards in the deck.
The Hermit
Without any doubt a lot of love went into the creation of the deck and the collectors packages. Images on Joanna’s Facebook page show the work that she and her community did to put together and package the sets to ship out to everyone and you can feel the energy jump off those pictures and you certainly could feel it when you opened the package when it arrived!
If you are able to purchase this limited edition version of the deck, I would urge you to do it right away. It is amazing and something that I think anyone following an earth-based path should have. If you’ve never taken to the tarot before this could very well be the deck that does it for you! It’s a gentle deck but it’s a deck that isn’t afraid to still show you the firm, tough love messages either. For me this is personally a gentle deck, especially when you hold it in comparison to my “heavy hitting” decks I use like
sign card
You can find out more about Joanna Powell Colbert and the Gaian Tarot online at:
Twitter
Facebook
Gaian Tarot
Gaian Tarot Majors
Gaian Tarot Minors
Gaian Tarot Collectors Edition
Tarot Review: All Hallows Tarot
Nov 30th
I’ve been saying for the last week that I was going to get to a tarot review and FINALLY here it is! The All Hallows Tarot is a wonder, small and compact deck with beautiful hand drawn artwork with a Halloween flair that is perfect for anyone at any level of experience with the tarot.
The deck is done by Robin Tisch-Hollister and was previously available independently but is now being manufactured by Leisa ReFalo from The Tarot Connection and is available for sale at The Tarot Connection Shop. The deck consists of 79 cards (there is a special card called The Happy Squirrel) and one marker card, and at 3.65″ x 2.65″ it makes for a great deck to stash away and carry with you in a your purse or backpack. While the art is very festival for the Halloween holiday it isn’t exclusively aimed at Halloween and can easily be used any time of the year, especially if you are inclined to working with Gothic themed images. However, unlike many of the other Gothic decks, this one is very light hearted and blends the light and dark aspects of these images wonderfully.
The deck is based on the RWS deck and has the same suits; Cups, Disc’s, Wands and Swords. The fun thing is that the item representing each suit can change from card to card. For example in the suit of swords the 10 of Swords is represented by a voodoo doll with 10 pins while in the other cards there are actual swords. In the suit of cups you see chalices, cauldrons and pumpkins. The deck is very whimsical and has a mind of it’s own in that way.
The deck doesn’t come with a LWB (little white book) but one can be downloaded from The Tarot Connection website. Honestly, with this deck, I found that connecting more on a personal level with it and getting to know the cards and let them speak for themselves gave more depth than just going by the book. These cards have a very unique way of working with each other and the way they speak in a spread. I think anyone working with this deck needs to be aware that this this deck does walk a fine line between playful and serious. Reading with this deck it’s important, in my mind, to not take it too literally and to take the time to look at the symbols and messages in the cards from a few different perspectives for the best message.
I would recommend your first reading with this deck being a reading to get to know the deck a bit better. Ask the deck how it wants to work with you, what kinds of messages will it give and how will it address them; will it be direct or will it be more open to interpretation. I did a 5 element spread with the cards and for me, this is going to be a very direct deck that seemed strongest in the earth and fire elements. It definitely gave the impression of being a strong deck but one that will definitely have it’s own way of speaking.
The All Hallows Tarot can be purchased for $40 at The Tarot Connection online store.
Mood: tired
The Simpsons take on Wicca
Nov 30th
As someone that doesn’t watch The Simpsons I was completely unaware about this new episode airing this week that tackled the subject of Wicca. Since I also didn’t hear about it until after it had aired I went and hunted it down online and found the episode already up on the Fox website (you can find it here if you haven’t seen it). The basic gist of the episode is that Lisa stumbles upon three Wiccans performing an Esbat ritual in the woods and she finds herself interested in their beliefs after they tell her that they worship nature. But when the three Wiccans and Lisa are discovered by the cops doing an initiation ritual for Lisa in the woods the three teen-aged Witches are arrested and Springfield gets to experience it’s own Witch Trial.
Honestly I have little opinion about the episode. It was pretty silly and really wasn’t offensive in my opinion, frankly it wasn’t any more questionable than any other portrayals of Wiccans and Witches, especially of the teen variety, that we see on any other television show these days.
Did any of you see it? What did you think?
Mood: blah
Review: Cunningham’s Book of Shadows by Scott Cunningham
Nov 16th
In 1993 the Pagan community lost one of its foremost writers and teachers on eclectic American Wicca, Scott Cunningham. Scott’s writing career was quite expansive. He had written both fiction and non-fiction and his books on Wicca are considered to be classic, must-reads for beginners. When Scott passed away at a young 36 it was believed that he had other books in the works but he had amassed such a large collection of papers and documents that it would be 16 years before this book, “Cunningham’s Book of Shadows” would finally be released. But does it live up to the hype and expectations?
“Cunningham’s Book of Shadows” is a collection of various Wiccan rituals, spells and correspondences that most people would expect to find within anyone’s Book of Shadows. The thing that will likely draw most people to this book is the fact that this could very well be Scott’s Book of Shadows. The only problem with this is that much of that sort of material was well covered in Scott’s 20 previous books on Wicca. This book contains 16 chapters covering everything from Sabbat and Esbat rituals, prayers and invocations, recipes for ritual feasting, herbal recipes, incense and oils, magickal and spiritual lore, spells and more. There is an extensive bibliography at the back as well to help find additional reading material and there are several personal stories from those that knew Scott personally included in the back appendix.
There are several things about this book which stands out right away. This book, for all intents and purposes, is a “greatest hits” of Scott’s previous books. The manuscript for this book was found in an envelope in a manner that made it appear as though it was meant to be published. However the manuscript was, at least in the publishers opinion, incomplete. It is thought that this was sort of a first draft and Scott would have worked to flesh the book out in the future. Because of that Llewellyn has taken chunks of pertinent material from Scott’s previous books and included them here to supplement chapters and lead into rituals and spellworking sections. Much of the bulk writing that isn’t spells, recipes or rituals is annotated at the bottom of the passage as being an excerpt from a previous book. And even many of the spells and rituals will be quite familiar if you have Scott’s “Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner” or “The Complete Book of Incense, Oils and Brews”.
There is a bit of previously unpublished material though, but it’s a little, well, interesting. There is a story in one of the lore sections called “The Story of the Sky People” (p. 205) which basically tells a tale that aliens descended to earth, blended in and bred with earth beings and thus created the first magickal priests and priestesses on earth and eventually they created the city of Atlantis. More or less the gist of the story almost seems to be saying that magickal people (such as Wiccans, one would assume) are descendants of alien and Atlantean beings. At the end of this story this is a line that says “Note: this is a legend and should be viewed as such.” No idea though if this was one of Scott’s notes or a publisher note so people wouldn’t think Scott was totally out of his tree when he wrote this. There are also invocations and prayers which are almost equatable to rewrites of classic Wiccan literature such as the Charge of the Goddess; the first section “Words from the Old Ones” seem to take very heavily, and blatantly, from pieces such as this one.
There is also a bit of a cheap thrill sort of sell with the book in that Llewellyn has included some of what is supposedly Scott’s hand typed and annotated pages along with the published material in the book. Toward the end of the book it begins to look like filler with each page of printed runes and descriptions is mirrored on the opposite page with the “hand typed/written” copy from the original transcript.
One of the most interesting new additions to Scott’s material that we haven’t seen before (or at least not that I could recall) is that of Dryghtyn (p. 15). Dryghtyn is mentioned in some of the new rituals and prayer material presented in the book and appears to be the name that Scott has attributed to Source with the God and Goddess being born of Dryghtyn. This was interesting because you don’t see this name for deity used much if at all in eclectic material but you do find it in some British Traditional material, most notably Patricia Crowther’s “The Dryghtyn Prayer”.
In the end, “Cunningham’s Book of Shadows” boils down to being a nice collection of many of his best magickal bits in one handy, hardcover book. It doesn’t really bring a lot of new material to light and it certainly isn’t the posthumous new Wiccan classic that I think many people were hoping for. It’s worth checking out if you are a fan of Scott’s and would like to have something like this on your shelves, otherwise it is an easy one to pass on.
Mood: tired
Ghost Hunters does it again!
Nov 15th
I’m a few days behind on this because I’ve been fighting off a cold all week but this week saw the premiere of the new show from TAPS, “Ghost Hunters Academy“. This show is unique among the paranormal programs out right now because it’s not just about the hunt but about how it’s done and what makes a good paranormal investigator as well as a good investigation team. While it’s true that this show may has a little less appeal to the “ooh and ahh” audience that watches these shows, this show is sure to pull in a lot of other viewers who are either interested or involved in the field of paranormal investigation since it’s gives a bit of that inside look into what goes into the work of an investigation.
This Ghost Hunters show gives us a bit of a behind the scenes look at what goes into being a member of TAPS. Steve and Tango fill the roles of teacher foe the academy, leading and guiding 5 individuals hoping to graduate and be given a spot on the team as a new investigator. Talk about job placement! As the semester (i.e. season) rolls on, if someone isn’t making the grade, they will be eliminated and a prospective student on the waiting list will be called up to fill the shoes of the dismissed member. In the end it all comes down to finding someone that will make a great investigator and be able to fit in with the TAPS team.
On the first episode Steve and Tango took the students to Fort Mifflin in Pennsylvania. Fort Miflin has long been known as an investigation destination for teams and individuals in the paranormal. This was certainly an exciting place for the team to go to for their first investigation together. There are five prospective team members right now:
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Heathyr- a 24 year old medium who leads her own paranormal team back home, the Arizona Research and Mediumship Society.
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Chris – a 24 year old science student who has mainly an interest in the scientific side of things in an attempt to gather concrete evidence of paranormal activity.
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Karl – is a 20 year old recent member of the Northern Colorado Paranormal Society and amateur investigator.
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Susan – is a 22 year old aspiring DJ who is a member of the League of Paranormal Investigators.
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Ben – is a 20 year old amateur investigator who has a big love for using the gadgets and equipment for paranormal investigation.
In this first investigation all five came up against some challenges and Steve and Tango weren’t easy on the, Heathyr opted to not participate in the pre-investigation walkthrough because she felt that it would compromise her ability to use her psychic gifts on the investigation. While that could certainly be true, I found that to be one big strike against her; she’s there to be an investigator, not a medium. When you’re an investigator who has psychic ability, that’s great, but you’re there to be an investigator first and foremost. It also puts the rest of the team at a disadvantage because now at set up and during the investigation you have a team member that doesn’t know the hot spots, doesn’t know about the predetermined set up and so on. Chris found himself getting a lesson in the power of suggestion from Steve and Susan learned the hard way about keeping secrets from your team mates.
It was a really interesting episode and shows that this could be a promising series from TAPS and the Ghost Hunters franchise. If you missed this episode catch it in replay or OnDemand and be sure to catch the next episode. The show airs Wednesdays 10/9c.
Mood: working
Extreme Paranomal…again…my shock and awe
Oct 27th
Yes, that’s right, shock and awe. But I’m sure you can guess that it’s not GOOD shock and awe. Last night it occurred to me that the part two of the “special two night event” was on and I turned the channel to the show even though I had missed the first five minutes. Since I knew that one of the two locations had something to do with Voodoo I was especially interested to see how this would turn out. And…just…wow.
I gave the sort of blow by blow of how their investigations go in my post about them last week so I really don’t need to get into it again because this episode followed the same format as the last one. Silly instigation of spirits, putting themselves in potentially dangerous situations (both physical and spiritual) for the purpose of gathering evidence or creating some shock factor footage and just in general showing no respect for the spirits and locations being investigated. However it’s the first segment, the one that deals with a Voodoo curse in Louisiana from 1915 when a supposed Voodoo Priestess named Julia Brown places a curse on the whole town. A hurricane came several days after her own death killing just about everyone in the town. And in come “Ghostman” and “Demon Hunter” to check out the validity to the hauntings that have been reported in the area since.
They use a coffin as an altar, they invoke Papa Legba, Baron Samedi and Mama Brigitte (they invoke her with sparking water which I found interesting because I had always known that rum with hot pepper was appropriate to her). There is suddenly a sound of drums from somewhere and two of the guys take off and start exploring the woods and leave the “Demon Hunter” behind to hang out at the coffin altar. When they call to him to ask if he saw something that they saw and ran after they get no response so the come back and Nathan is laying on ground, mouth agape and eyes wide open looking paralyzed. Wow…really?
Here is the first part and I’ll include the second part as well but if you watch the first part you’ve seen all you really need to see. Although if you watch the second part you can get to see them mark the the whiney guy with chicken blood and put him inside the coffin altar, bury him alive and try and provoke spirits while the guy is in the coffin.
Honestly, I think that regardless of how ridiculous these guys are, this is just unbelievably disrespectful! The whole episode pretty much opens up with Shaun saying “We’re gonna mess with Voodoo for the first time in 15 years of investigating.” Keyword here being “mess”. Maybe it’s just me but that’s where my shock and awe comes in, the disrespect. It just doesn’t seem as though they’re working with the practices in the rituals from a place of respect or anything of that nature but more from a place of shock value. It’s like a 15 year old that dyes their hair green, gets a tattoo and starts doing things to freak out their parents; they don’t know what they’re doing, they aren’t doing it for any real reason, they’re just trying to get a reaction.
You know what the WORST part of all of this is? I can’t tear myself away from watching this train wreck. I’m sure if this does end up coming back on A&E as a regular show I wont watch more than an episode or two. There are two things that would make me less annoyed with this show. First, incorporating some ACTUAL experts in their investigations when they are going to do things like rituals. So with this Voodoo ritual they should have brought a Voodoo Priestess with them rather than just going and talking to one. Second, it would be great to see them do some research with their evidence after the investigations rather than just “hey we found some stuff let’s go home”. Their “evidence” of EVPs and their heat sink evidence are pretty suspect without any sort of follow up. When you see heat sink evidence of someone sitting somewhere when the three on camera personalities are in view of the shot that doesn’t automatically mean it’s a spirit, especially when you’re dealing with people that have a camera crew following them around. So who’s to say who or what that is?
Yup, cheat thrills. The real shock and awe for me is how many people seem to be loving this show based on the comments that A&E is getting on their Facebook and Twitter pages. It’s also surprised me greatly that there are people saying that this is what they would rather see other than shows like “Ghost Hunters”. It just makes me realize that we’re still not really in a place for television shows about true paranormal work and experiences. I guess in the meantime you can always check out the awesome team of Beckah and Katie Boyd and visit their site Supernatural Hotspots and watch their investigation videos and check out their stories. Until we start demanding better of the media and these “reality” paranormal shows we’re going to continue to be nothing more than a Halloween freakshow all year round.
“Women and Spirituality”…clips and review
Oct 24th
After the last post of two Salem Witch documentaries a comment in that post from Rev. Mary Miller brought up another wonderful documentary called “Women and Spirituality”. This was a three part series of documentaries that were created by Donna Read for the National Film Board of Canada and released between 1989 and 1993. The films feature interviews with Pagan and feminist leaders including Starhawk, Margot Adler, Carol Christ, Liusah Teish and Merlin Stone among others. The three films included “Goddess Remembered”, “The Burning Times” and “Full Circle”. Each film is approximately a hour long.
The first film, “Goddess Remembered”, examined Goddess worship in ancient European times while looking at how these believes have become reawakened in the feminist movement today. “The Burning Times” looks at the Witch Trials, mainly as they happened in Europe, while looking at how the mistreatment of women accused as Witches transformed into abuse, violence and neglect toward women by future generations. And the final film, “Full Circle”, looks at the modern day Witch and Goddess worshipers while looking forward and discussing ways that the Goddess may continue to flourish in the future. This final film features a beautiful glimpse of a ritual lead by Starhawk with the amazing Gypsy Ravish singing an invocation to the Goddess.
Below are a handful of highlight clips of the films. You can find the films for say in a box set that contains all three direct from the distributor for around $35. The box set can also be found on eBay and Amazon.com. This really is a fantastic set of films and perfect for helping as either teaching tools for beginners of Wicca or to help others understand the concept of honoring the Goddess both in the past and the present.
Let the paranormal insanity begin!
Oct 20th
Ah…Halloween must be in the air! Monday night a new paranormal show premiered on A&E called “Extreme Paranormal”. Now, I wasn’t holding out MUCH hope but at least a LITTLE hope. I always do when there is a new paranormal show on but I’m starting to think that I need to count my blessings that “Ghost Hunters” keeps spinning off new shows and just stick with that. In case you haven’t heard in November Sci-Fi (which, as a refresher, I refuse to call SyFy), has a new spin off from “Ghost Hunters” coming called “Ghost Hunters Academy”. This show will be featuring groups of college students and would be ghost hunters working with Steve and Tango from the popular Ghost Hunters franchise as they learn the ropes with paranormal investigations. I have hope there. “Extreme Paranormal”…no.
“Extreme Paranormal” appears as though it will be the latest in the A&E psychic and paranormal shows, something that the channel is getting quite deeply involved in. The cable channel is airing the two part pilot on the two Mondays leading up to Halloween (naturally). On October 19th the first of the two shows aired and it was quite a scene. This show is very similar in style to “Ghost Adventures” (which you can see how I feel about that here). Basically three guys with equipment that go running around provoking spirits only to later run away. And they seem to have no purpose for doing what they do other than to freak each other out and “catch evidence” of a spirit.
The best, or really worst, part of the show is the “occult expert” Nathan, AKA “The Demon Hunter”. I can’t even being to tell you the number of eye roll/giggles that this guy gave me in the hour of this show. In this episode Nathan, along with Shaun, AKA “Ghostman” and Jason, who has no cool “Top Gun” call sign, went to visit the New Mexico State Penitentiary which saw some of the most brutal inmate deaths during The New Mexico Penitentiary Riot during two days of February 1980. One of the brilliant ideas that these guys come up with is to visit the cell of a victim that was pulled out and burned alive and use fire and blood to try and draw his spirit out to make an appearance for them. They get one guy to lie on the floor in the exact spot where the inmate died (there are burn marks on the floor showing how he was positioned at the time of his death), they outline the body in chalk, use a flammable gel to outline that, Nathan cuts his hand and draws out blood to draw “The Tree of Death Rune” inside the outline and then lights it all on fire to get the inmates spirit riled up all while basically verbally taunting him as well. Seriously!?! As for “The Tree of Death Rune” I honestly don’t know what he was talking about. The rune he drew looked somewhat like Algiz upside down which was interesting since that’s not so much a rune of death but protection. If anyone could shed some light on this I would love to hear it because I’m seriously wondering if this guy maybe spends too much of his time playing World Of Warcraft when he’s not being “The Demon Hunter”. Which, by the way, they have the nicknames because they have a site and podcast called “Ghostman and The Demon Hunter”.
But after going nuts cutting bars off cell doors, lighting fires, screaming like little girls and generally acting like idiots they just leave. No discussion, no assessment of evidence, no real purpose to their visit. “Hi, we just want to come in and light shit on fire and maybe use a power saw to bust up some cell doors. Mind if we spend the night next week?”
And then they went to a lake to hunt down a serial killer which was even more ridiculous. They constructed a large circle with pentacles and a triangle attached to it out of foam with bit clear plastic party cups glued to the top to act as makeshift candle holders for tea lights and then they send it off afloat into the lake where this spirit apparently resides. Nathan tells Shaun to go in the water but to stay in the circle because he’ll be “protected by God” as long as he says in it…because meanwhile Nathan and Jason will be, you guessed it, lighting a circle on fire on the beach and summoning the spirit of the serial killer out of the water. Yes, a fiery ring of invocation, complete with skulls and all, on a beach at a lake while some guy is floating around with a flashlight in the water inside some rejected NERO prop. Really!?! And naturally they piss off the ghost which comes up from the water and grabs Shaun by the back and tries to pull him under, however Nathan will be sure to point out to him that it happened because he left the circle! OH NOS!!!
Honestly, this is just getting to be too much! There are enough of these paranormal shows on and a few of them, mainly the “Ghost Hunters” shows, seem to serve a purpose in trying to help the living and the dead cope with and understand their unique situations. Things like this and “Ghost Adventures” are just silly and pointless. At the beginning of “Extreme Paranormal” there is a disclaimer stating that portions of the rituals have been cut and that you shouldn’t try this at home. I can only assume that the reason for “cutting out parts of rituals” is so that they don’t encourage people to light their living room floors on fire or anything like that in order to call on spirits that might be in the house.
On a somewhat brighter note, after that monstrosity ended a show I hadn’t seen before came on called “Medium/P.I.” This show stars one of my favorite magickal people and psychics, Jackie Barrett as she works with her friend Sean Crowley who is the Captain of the cold case homicide division of the NYPD to try and solve cases. This was an interesting show and I enjoyed it since it showed people with the gift of sight working to HELP people, not just piss off ghosts for the hell of it. Besides, it was nice to see Jackie Barrett back on TV. She was the runner up of Lifetime’s show “America’s Psychic Challenge” back in 2007. Sadly this didn’t seem to list any upcoming episodes beyond the one that I saw. However another episode of “Extreme Paranormal” will air next Monday what the paranormal triple threat visit an insane asylum and put Jason in a straight jacket in an effort to “draw out ghosts”! Good times.
An oracle deck review breaks out in this post!
Oct 14th
Today was a really weird day. And trust me, this isn’t the only day that will be weird this week, I’m sure. Most of my day was spent dealing with stuff for Sacred Mists, but NOT the one project that I was especially planning to work on and looking forward to doing. But, it all has to get done. That along with an assignment for my class with Christopher had me wrapped up in some other things that kept me away from the work in the temple that I wanted to get done today. Before I knew it, I was sitting here trying to recode one of the websites with the plan of moving which just had me in completely frustration with now not one but TWO site development companies and soon I found myself in a mood I don’t normally like to be in. But, I just keep telling myself, “tomorrow is another day”, or as my music guru Bob Marley is telling me as I write this “don’t worry, about a thing, ‘cause every little thing’s gonna be alright.” Thanks Bob. 
So one of the things from the last few days that I’ve been meaning to bring up for discussion was a recent purchase that I made at Borders. I bought the “My Spiritual Reading Cards” by Sylvia Browne. When I picked them up and looked at them and then didn’t put them down my husband’s reaction was “You’re going to give that wack job money?” Ok, I’ll be real clear about this; I’m not a fan of Sylvia Browne. I have three books of hers that were given to me as gifts and I have read them and they made me a little twitchy. When I see her on TV it makes me even a bit more twitchy. Do I think she’s really got a gift? I don’t know. She could be a great example of why I’m careful of what I do. I think it’s possible she DID at one point, but it’s also possible that her own hard work to exploit herself may have caused her gifts to leave her. I honestly believe that when a psychic or intuitive exploits their gifts “the powers that be who giveth can taketh away” just as easily. That could be the case here. When a you’re charging $700–1000 (and up!) for a hour of “reading time” then I think you run to risk of treading some shady territory. And if you do enough looking at videos of her on YouTube and you visit sites like Stop Sylvia Browne (who have the best logo ever) you’ll find plenty of info that suggest that if she had it’s been long lost.
Regardless, I found myself drawn to these cards. My first thought wasn’t about myself but about being able to use these cards to help clients. I have started using them this week since getting them and they have been somewhat helpful. It is a 74 card deck of spiritually guided messages, meditative thoughts and guidance. Why 74? In the card that explains the deck it states that 74 was chosen because 7 and 4 equal 11 “which is the highest spiritual number”. If you’re not up on your numerology, 11 is a Master Number and is considered a number that carries energies of deep insight, intuitive ability and illumination. It’s sometimes called “the psychics number”.
The deck doesn’t come with a LWB (little white book) but just as a folded card that gives a brief explanation of the cards, their use and a suggested layout. The cards don’t really need the LWB since there really isn’t much to them. The cards each have a single image on them and then a statement of some kind. I tried to find images of the cards online and wasn’t able to find anything. This is the cover of the box:
I shuffled the deck and at complete random pulled the following three cards:
“Be careful that negativity doesn’t lodge in your body. Visualize a green light around for protection.”
“Being alone can help you know yourself – and even more important, love yourself.”
“You can only honor your mother and father – or anyone else – if these are honorable.”
So this was interesting. When I do three cards at random like this I tend to look at the first as being the root of things and the two build off them, deepening the message. I can certainly say that, as far as how today went, these card gave me some useful messages. Yes, I think quite strongly that negativity probably did “lodge” itself in me today after one thing had gone a little wrong and then it just sort of festered and grew as the day went on. Spending time alone? Well that’s a whole other story. I’m “alone” most of the day, however I’m constantly answering the phone, replying to emails, talking to clients, dealing with IMs…I’m working most hours of the day and I have begun to sense that I GREATLY need to start spending more time away from my desk, away from the computer and away from my phone. I need to spend time on a daily basis doing things for myself by myself, doing things like meditation, my art that has suffered lately, and reading a book that I don’t HAVE to read for one reason or another. And by GODS I need to spend more time at the beach! But yes, I don’t do these things and this is a good sign that it’s time to make them a priority. When it comes to people being honorable and them earning their honor, let’s just say there are a lot of people around me that I know I probably SHOULD “honor” and hold at a certain level of esteem but I don’t feel they have earned that from me so I don’t. This actually did factor into my day a little bit today, not greatly, but this is still a message that, for me, confirms some things I’ve been thinking lately.
Do these cards measure up to being a good and helpful deck? For some things, I think they could be. I would say these are a lot like using the “Ask Your Guides” oracle cards by Sonia Choquette or the “Healing Cards” by Caroline Myss. They are much more geared toward something specific, in this case dealing with questions related to emotions and spiritual needs, so that doesn’t make them a good deck for doing a relationship reading for some for example. But for pulling a card a day for meditation or something like that, I could see these being useful. I haven’t played with the spread that is recommended with the deck, which is a 7 card spread that is a little Celtic Cross-like, but I will have to do a reading with it to see how these cards play out in a larger reading.
There is no note as to who the artist is that did the cards but they are pretty and I’m going to assume that the passages on the cards are by Sylvia Browne since the use “God” as the Divine signifier. In the end I’d recommend them as a meditation and reflection tool and probably not much else. They’re usefulness is somewhat limited just by design. So if you have $15.95 to spare and pick up a new meditation tool, check them out.
Picking your Witchy annuals
Oct 11th
It’s that time of year again, that time where mundane calendars start to pop up in bookstores and metaphysical shops. I don’t know how I manage to do it, but I end up with just about every Pagan themed almanac out there, at least 2 wall calendars and 3 daily/week calendar books each year. The last few years I’ve found myself particularly torn when it comes to the daybook type. I like having a calendar/schedule book that I can carry with me. Yes, I have a phone that’s able to do all that and I run Outlook which also has a calendar, but no matter how hard I try and move to a fully digital scheduling system, I can’t. I guess physically crossing things off my schedule is just too fulfilling!
The problem I have been having though is deciding which one of the many daybooks to use. The big deciding factor seems to always come down to what is less bulky and easiest to carry in my bag. Because of this the Llewellyn Witches’ Datebook just about always wins. And it’s certainly not a bad calendar!
Some of the pros:
- It’s lightweight
- A whole week fits on two pages so when you have the book open flat you can see your whole week
- Each week has either a little passage or piece of art that has a spiritual focus
- There are indicators for planting and harvesting days
- The moon phases and Sabbats are naturally listed
- During the week dates of note are listed including Pagan centered historical events and the births and deaths of Pagan and occult notable figures
- There is also a nice appendix section in the back.
One of the big cons, for me at least, is that there is no month-view and each month blends into the next based on how the weeks fall. Visually it’s always been more or less the same; the graphics have never changed year to year and it’s very “Plain Jane” given it’s black on manilla colored pages. It’s a good one to work with though and gives all the basics that someone would need to tracking the wheel of the year and planning ritual and spell work. And, if you’re like me and need to use it to track appointments and projects, you have some room for that but it’s not a great deal of room.
The other book that I been using for the last 6 years now is the Seasons of the Witch Datebook which is put out by 7th House Publishing. This is another one that has a great deal of pros but a few glaring cons.
In the pro department:
- You get a great deal of information on a daily basis
- You get the moon phase, the sign the moon is in and transitioning to along with the times and your Moon Void of Course times.
- There is an icon to indicate days that are in Mercury Retrograde along with an icon for days when protection magick is best worked.
- Days marked in red indicate secular holidays while days marked in green denote the Sabbats (these are also listed in print, of course).
- They also have a system that they employ called “PowerCast”. On days when a particular energy is going to be at a peak, there may be a “PowerCast” opportunity. Days where major energy is available, the item is listed in all caps (like “COURAGE”) or when there is lower energy but energy that is still potent for spellwork, it will be listed in lower case letter (like “warrior energy”).
- A number of charts and lists of information related to ritual and spell components, planetary hours and moon names and times help to make this date book extremely useful for those that like creating their own spells.
- This one also has each week displayed over two pages, roughly the same amount of writing space for each day, and little bits of other info each week along with artwork. One of the big pluses for me is that it does have a month-view at the beginning of each month and it’s in big, beautiful color.
The cons for this one, it’s BIG. It has a hard cover, large spiral binding and runs around 200 pages. It’s also inconsistent. Each year there is a change to this annual and you never know completely what you’re going to get. The 2009 edition has been my favorite so far. It came with a red placeholder ribbon that was glued into the back and could be used to mark your place during the year. The pages where a little thinner than usual but glossy which made it a little thinner than usual but I did need to use a special Sharpie pen to write in it without it smearing. Each year there is a theme and the art throughout the book as well as some of the info provided during the week. For example, one year it was tarot and this past year was “the bog Witch” and featured an emphasis on herbal magick. For 2010 the theme is “10th Anniversary Goddess Edition” and focuses on a different Goddess each month. However, this year’s is really big but has fewer pages than last year; the pages themselves are back to being bulky, thick, dull (i.e. non-glossy). This makes for a little bit more ease in writing but a large book. I’m not a fan of this year’s cover at all (last year’s was beautiful I thought) and the Goddess art inside nice. Some of the Goddesses are beautiful, and some are interesting interpretations (I particularly found the image of Hecate interesting). And no marker this year, though the there are tabbed dividers for the months.
Now you can also consider the costs:
Llewellyn Witches’ Datebook – $10.99
Seasons of the Witch Datebook – $19.99 (If you order on their site you can get it for $16.95 but you’ll have to pay shipping so you’re not really saving any money verse purchasing it in a retail shop.)
So yes, again, I find myself at odds. I ended up buying the Seasons of the Witch book out of loyalty and the fact that I couldn’t resist it. I stood in the bookstore holding both trying to decide and just put one down without really deciding and I ended up still holding the bigger, more expensive one. I think I’ll end up using this as a schedule and desk calendar and I’ll learn to be more reliant on my new phone to keep track of things on the go (I broke down and got rid of my Blackberry this weekend so that I could get away from T-Mobile and got one of the new Hero’s from Sprint). I’ll probably get the Llewellyn Witches’ Wall Calendar this year.
Do you bother with a Witchy themed calendar? What are your requirements for one and which do you usually get?
“Time to nut up or shut up”…yes, it’s Zombieland!
Oct 3rd
I wish I could give the this movie 100 thumbs up in front of the post title! “Zombieland” turned out to be the best 81 minutes of my life this year so far. Seriously.
“Zombieland” tells the story of 4 of the, possibly, last humans left on earth after the zombie apocalypse has finally happened. Woody Harrelson’s character explains early on that knowing the names of those that are still alive is a bad idea because it will cause you to get attached, so instead of proper names they call each other by where they are from; Tallahassee (Harrelson), Columbus (Eisenberg), Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin). At the time the apocalypse happens Columbus is a college student in Austin, Texas and he decides to try and get back to Ohio to see if his parents are still alive. As he is heading east he hooks up with Tallahassee, a crazy zombie killing machine, also headed east and willing to take Columbus as far as Texarkana in his Escalade since Columbus has been walking. Tallahassee’s main side mission is to find a Twinkie, and this leads them to eventually meeting Wichita and Little Rock, two sisters trying to get to Pacific Playland in California, an amusement park that is rumored to be zombie free. After a series of cons on the guys, they all end up together heading west to the amusement park and on the way nothing short of hilarity ensues.
It’s so hard to really explain how truly awesome this movie was. I know that’s sort of a cop out in a lot of ways, but it’s true. I can honestly say this is one of the first times I’ve been to a movie where honestly EVERYONE in an almost sold out theater laughed at the same things and really enjoyed it together. Harrelson and Eisenberg are a fantastic, almost Abbot and Costello type pair, playing off each other perfectly. The acting from all four is genuinely great and the zombies, of which there are many, are both funny and somewhat scary. The special effects and makeup are great. This was the first movie I’ve seen Eisenberg in (sadly I missed “Adventureland” but my husband saw it and said he was really great in that and he loved him in this as well). He’s got a lot of promise I think as a comedic actor but he kind of reminds of me Michael Cera; he does that whole “sad geek” thing real well it seems. And truth be told, and anyone that knows me pretty much knows this, but I’ve had a big thing for Woody Harrelson since I was a kid watching “Cheers” and some of my favorite movies are movies with him (“White Men Can’t Jump”, “A Scanner Darkly”, “Natural Born Killers”…and he was the only redeeming thing about “Surfer, Dude” which was a shame because that could have been a great movie).
If you like zombie movies, you’ll like this. If you like dark comedy, you’ll like this. If you liked “Shaun of the Dead” you’re going to love this! And if you can, catch this one in the theater! I would definitely say this is one you want to see with a crowd. “Zombieland” gives a lot of hope that the zombie comedy concept can work on a lot of levels and it isn’t just a one-shot fluke. Here’s to hoping that the zombie genre keeps churning out funny, exciting films like this one!
