Of Serpents, Eggs, and Spiral Dances
My friends arrived from all over the Lower Mainland (witches, heathens, mystics, thelemites, hermetics, shamans…) for my Imbolc ritual Sunday afternoon. I’d decorated the hall, with its view of the forest, by setting up an altar for Brighid and the Cailleach strewn with evergreen branches and budding Indian Plum from the woods flanked at each side by wolf and bear hides. Brighid had a bottle of spring water and the Cailleach a bottle of melted snow. Brighid’s had bull and […]
Western Gate Samhain Festival
Last weekend I hopped in the Shaman’s truck with Mel and Kerri and after meeting up with more friends we all drove up North together to the Okanagan stopping in Hope to have lunch with Huntress and Thicket along the way to the Western Gate Samhain Festival. Once we reached the dry sagebrush steppe we pulled over hoping to harvest some pungent wild sagebrush but only found the much less fragrant yellow rabbitbrush which the two shamans harvested and wrapped […]
Writing & Teaching News
Besides being incredibly busy and trying to stay sane, I’ve also been up to various projects for publication and scheduling workshops and rituals for 2013. After having a crazy day, I was more than delighted to find my copies of the new Witches & Pagans air issue in my mailbox. I wrote and illustrated an article for it titled “The Girl Who Found a Feather: A Journey into the Magic of Birds” exploring the mythology of birds and feathers as […]
Tales from the Gathering: The Witches’ Sabbat
Sometimes at such a gathering the unscheduled events that happen naturally hold more power and draw us together more closely than we could ever have imagined. It was a Sunday under a dark moon and we had just finished storytelling by the hearth. The rain was falling hard outside the lodge and we continued to huddle close to the fire as the sun set. Those who attended my altered states workshop that morning, and those who’d heard tell about it […]
Tales from Between the Worlds
The Gathering for Life on Earth is British Columbia’s main Pagan festival and has been a successful gathering of community for over twenty years now. It’s where all the different local paths, groups, solitaries, elders, and newbies can come for a long weekend and celebrate our magical lives together. I’ve been to three previous Gatherings just as a merchant and an attendee enjoying all the rituals, workshops, and main events, but this year the chair of the board, who is […]
