Mystics talk about it all the time. Some doctors are getting wise to the idea. Simply put, there is an incredibly strong link between he functioning of the mind and the physical body. But some people demand proof. For those I would direct your attention to the April 6, 2011, issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. There you'll find an article written by six researchers entitled "Brain Mechanisms Supporting the Modulation of Pain by Mindfulness Meditation." If you don't want to pay $30.00(!) just to read the article and if the abstract isn't enough, you can go to this article by Anne Harding which explains the paper. To put it briefly, some subjects were given a pain to experience. Next,

The 8 of Wands is often interpreted as a fast moving energy. Things happen and they happen quickly. When Spring finally and really comes, the world seems to blossom overnight. Here, where snow still covers the ground in the shady areas and the temps still dip below freezing, we have a few brave crocuses adding bits of color to a dirty grey world, but that’s all. We know, though, that in May, the trees will flower and the tulips and daffodils will splash our soggy gardens with color. To help us remember, here is the very lovely 8 of Wands from the Universal Goddess Tarot. From booklet: Lie down with me on this soft grassy carpet. Smell the fragrances of spring, close your eyes

Today most of the snow is gone, although there are still piles here and there. The small lake near my house is still frozen over. [caption id="attachment_5290" align="alignnone" width="201" caption="4 of Air"][/caption] This image is from the forthcoming Gaian Tarot (available Fall 2011). Here in the Midwest, we eagerly look for robins at the end of winter. They are a harbinger of spring and are always a welcome sight. The eggs are a lovely blue color, like the ones in this card. Instead of Wands, Swords, Cups, and Pentacles, this deck focuses and the basic elemental energies of the natural world. The suits are Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. The 4 of Air, pictured here, shows a

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Raymond Buckland, author of numerous books, including the new Solitary Séance. After many years of writing non-fiction (approximately sixty books) I am at last able to turn to my true love, which is fiction. I thought that the ideal genre on which to focus would be fantasy . . . Tolkienesque, with magic, wizards, fairies, and the like. So I wrote The Torque of Kernow, which dealt with all of those things, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought “How wonderful! I have finally found my niche!” I planned follow-on novels about Kernow (which, incidentally, is the old name for Cornwall, my favorite part of England). I plotted the second one