Rev. Karen Tate

Embracing the Feminine Consciousness by Rev. Karen Tate

One thing is certain - change is inevitable and it occurs when enough people will it, after a profound event, or when circumstances collide that usher in transitions or new beginnings.  Some people say the concept of Goddess, whether that be a deity, archetype or ideal for cultural and social change, is an idea whose time has come and gone.  It is little more than a feminist fantasy and discredited spirituality.  Millions would disagree and state mainstreaming Goddess Spirituality, or ideals of the Feminine Consciousness, spiritually, culturally and politically, is an idea that is flowering and finding its way back within mainstream life across continents and cultures.

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Other Articles of interest available on TWPT

• Goddes is The Secret! by Rev. Karen Tate
• Magical Fluidity by Lupa
• A Witch by Any Other Name by Mike Nichols
  
• Your Magical Library by Elizabeth Barrette
  
• A Familiar Question by Lupa
  
• Once Upon a Time by Strahbary
  
• Eclecticism in Wicca by Esra Free
  
• Bringing Ritual Into Your Everyday by Lyon
  For an index of all our Articles click here.

Elysia Gallo

Witches on the Air by Elysia Gallo

If you're anything like me, you take notice when anything even slightly witchy turns up on TV. And if that's a Pagan family on Wife Swap or Tyra Banks' all-out assault on our witchy sisters, it really gets your attention!

Now if you happen to live in a box that's not hooked up to the Internet, chances are you have missed the flurry of blogs and web commentary galore about the "Lives of Witches" episode of The Tyra Banks Show that aired on January 29 (check out some of the blogs in the links section to get caught up!).

However, if you're like the rest of us, you've been reading them all and rolling your eyes. How dare Tyra say she needed to burn sage (our thing) because she got the "heebie jeebies" from her own guests? How dare she insinuate that it was offensive to her viewers to refer to Wicca as a religion? And what roles do Satanists and born-again Christians have to play on a program about Witchcraft? In the end, I guess it's just sad that anyone felt that she would even attempt to be unbiased; she showed clearly enough that she was petrified of offending her Christian audience.

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Bob Makransky

The Lunar Rhythm: The Power of Symbolism by Bob Makransky

Spirits: All early calendars were lunar, and have now been replaced by a solar calendar.  This is highly symbolic. The fact is that the human race in its infancy was matriarchal – the female principle always precedes the male. When the human race invented agriculture and began to stabilize waking consciousness, it also passed its baton to the males.  Heretofore the males hadn’t done much of the work of keeping society glued together.  What little “thinking” was being done was being done by the women. The culture – in the sense of religion, science, technology, crafts, literature, etc. – was in the hands of the women, who handed it all over to the men at the time agriculture was invented.

 The calendar was originally invented by the women who made it lunar because it was precisely the ebb and flow of lunar rhythms that they were trying to track.  You only need a solar calendar when you’re doing agriculture because the work you do revolves around the seasons. And although hunting and gathering were also seasonal (depending on what game and plants were available in what season), this wasn’t so much a part of primitive peoples’ existence. They were vaguely aware of the yearly cycle, but didn’t think in those terms much because they had no need to plan much of anything.

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Elizabeth Barrette

Your Magical Library by Elizabeth Barrette

Think of a Witch’s room, and one of the first things you see is a wall of books.  Witches rely on esoteric knowledge to accomplish their goals.  A magical library provides detailed correspondences, diagrams, ritual schematics and so forth.  Magic also lends itself well to focusing the energy of a library to help empower spells, and to protecting books from loss or damage.  Of course, a single article can’t cover all the different kinds of books that belong in a magical library, but these books will give you a good place to start.   

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Other Articles by Elizabeth Barrette

• His Story, Her Story, Our Story
  
• Secrets of the Inner Circle: Simple Ways of Getting Involved in Paga

Lyon

Bringing Ritual into Your Everyday by Lyon

Many people are drawn to the neoPagan paths because of the images of pop culture. TV shows like ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Charmed’ have put a new face on magic and witches.

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Other Articles by Lyon

• Out of the Broom Closet, Into the Cauldron? by Lyon
  
• Strolling the Path Hand-in-Hand With Your Children

Morgan Ravenwood

Paganism and Morality
by Morgan Ravenwood

In a previous article I wrote entitled “The Joys and Pitfalls of Pagan Parenting,” I repeated what my then-teenaged daughter, “Jane,” said to me in response to my attempts to keep her on the “straight and narrow”: “But, mom, it's not like you're a religious Christian or something!"  As I said in the article, I spent the rest of our conversation trying to explain why you don't have to be a Christian to be religious and to believe in---and practice---leading a decent life.  Fortunately, time and maturity has proven this to Jane, who now has three children of her own to teach it to.

In some of the online discussion boards I belong to, it has been mentioned repeatedly that many people believe that morality needs religion—and preferably the Christian religion--to exist, and vice versa.  Of course, both myself and others, including some Atheists, have hastened to explain that this is in no wise true, presenting our own personal points of view and experiences as proof. 

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Other Articles by Morgan Ravenwood

• Paganism, Atheism and Humanism: Finding Common Ground
  
• The Pagan Aversion to Organization:  Benefit or Detriment?
  
• Ode to Ostaraps
  

Boudica

Reflections on Scott Cunningham
by Boudica

Seems everyone who walks the path of Wicca has something to say about Scott.  Though many praise him for pointing out that Wicca isn't just for those who are coven bound or traditionally initiated, there are many who point out just as quickly that Scott turned the Wiccan Community on its ear.  From Scott's discussion of initiation to the spells and rituals that he published, Scott's books have been discussed, analyzed and lovingly dog-eared

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Other Articles by Boudica

• The Amazing, Incredible Harry Potter Phenomena  by Boudica

Strahbary

Once Upon a Time
by Strahbary

Once upon a time there was a girl. She was a young pretty thing. However through no fault of her own she finds herself in a horrible situation. An evil woman has trapped her and she can’t get out. The poor girl was so disheartened that she just didn’t know what to do but to let the beautiful days of her youth just slip right through her fingers. That was until the day that the young and unbelievably handsome prince charming came riding up on his white horse to slay the evil woman and rescue the beautiful young damsel in distress so that they could go on and live happily ever after.

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