Lisa Hunt’s Fairy Tale Tarot features the lovely Sleeping Beauty. I love how the moonlight coming in the window is mirrored in the moonlight in the tapestry. This card highlights the idea of the moon representing the unconscious, comparing it to a dream state (since the princess is in a 100 year sleep, I assume she is dreaming during at least some of that time). The room looks comfortable and safe. All the dangers and fears, if there are any, are within her mind and inhabiting her dreams.

One of the things I talked about as the keynote speaker for the 6th annual Conference on Pagan Studies at the Claremont Graduate College is the need for community. I wrote that simply writing to people through the internet is valuable, but not enough. We need to have in-person communication in order for the community to survive and thrive. I wrote: "The methodology for creating safe Neopagan community, however, is in place. In 1971, Carl Llewellyn Weschcke organized what may be the first modern U.S. occult festival in Minnesota, called Gnosticon. By 1974 he was holding the Witchmeet, perhaps the first modern U.S. Pagan festival. Over the next 35 years, the number of Pagan festivals has

When I was in high school I took several science classes that included performing experiments. It's a basic premise of science that under the same conditions, your experiments should show the same results. For example, if you fill a test tube with oxygen, then insert a lit match into the test tube, the flame should become brighter. If you perform the experiment and the flame goes out, it's assumed that you, the scientist, did something wrong. I believe that magick is (or should be considered) an experimental science. Curiously, most people look at a magickian, and if his or her magick didn't work, rather than assume that the magickian/scientist did something wrong, they automatically

Many a witch shares her life with a familiar, and from what I’ve seen and heard, cats, snakes and dogs are top favorites among the Wiccan demographic. Since they are such dear friends and companions, we sometimes get a little carried away in wanting to see them as something they are not: humans. Yes, pets definitely have distinct personalities just like people, but please try to remember they’re animals. That is exactly what is so valuable about them! They bring a completely different energy into our lives. I thought I’d share with you not one, not two, but three strange news stories I came across today concerning the anthropomorphization of pets. First, it turns out that dogs love