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Unity Through Community
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Are You a Sheep or a Dragon?
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Cultural Appropriation and Why It Matters
Cultural appropriation is a term you may see referenced in many discussions of modern Pagan religion. It refers to, quite simply, the appropriation of one culture’s practice and belief system by another, but without the true cultural context. For example, NeoWiccans who integrate totem animals, vision quests, and sweat lodge sessions as an homage to Native Americans – but who are not Native Americans themselves, and do not understand the usage of those practices on a cultural level because of it – could arguably be accused of cultural appropriation. Be aware that different people view cultural appropriation in different ways. Some see it as a form of flattery – a…
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Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535)
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was born in Cologne, France, 1486, but beyond that, little is known about his early years. In 1499, he entered university at Cologne. Over the course of his education, he learned eight languages, and studied alchemy and hermetic philosophy. He took a position as secretary to Maximilian I, king of Germany and Rome, and spent a good deal of time socializing with scholars and nobles. According to scholar Charles Nauert, rumor has it that Agrippa formed or joined a secret society in Paris at this time. Agrippa the Educator & Feminist In 1509 Agrippa joined the teaching staff at the University of Dole, France, where…
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Ribbon Trees & Rag Bushes
This is an article that originally appeared on my About site, but with the migration to the super-cool new ThoughtCo vertical, some under-performing articles got done away with. However, I was traveling recently and saw a ribbon tree, and it made me want to share this once again. The history behind the use of ribbon trees is a long and complex one. It’s a practice found in a number of different cultures, so I thought it would be interesting to do a little digging and see how they compare in various places around the world. Although it’s difficult to tell, at least initially, where this practice may have originated, it…
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Stop Putting “Spiritual” Shit in Your Vagina
Look, I know there are people who hang on every single goddamn piece of faux-spiritual-wellness bullshit advice that David Avocado Wolfe and Gwyneth Paltrow espouse, but seriously, y’all gotta hear me out on this one. I keep getting emails from people asking about the trends of inserting crystals into their vaginas, and worse yet, WASP NESTS. Now, I’m no gynecologist, nor do I play one on tv, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that these are things you should not ever do. EVER. Here’s the backstory. The trend of the vagina crystal, sometimes marketed as a yoni egg because that sounds really spiritual and feminine and pretty and…
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Review: The Lost Tarot by Hans Bauer
I’ve been collecting Tarot decks for about thirty years – I’ve probably given away more sets of Tarot cards than most people own in a lifetime – and every once in a while I run across one that really makes me stop and say, “Wow. This is COOL.” Hans Bauer’s Lost Tarot is one of those decks. The Back Story One of the things that intrigued me about The Lost Tarot from the get-go was the backstory. Think of this as a concept deck – Bauer has created not only a collection of lovely Major Arcana cards (more on those in a moment) but also crafted a clever origin story…
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Make Magic With a Honey Jar
I’m a big fan of any kind of magic that involves stuff you already have around your house, and I find a LOT of magical whatnots in my kitchen. I always have honey on hand because (a) it’s freakin’ delicious and (b) it’s good for you, from a health perspective, to eat locally sourced honey. It’s also really good for magical stuffs. Binding You can use honey to bind things together – after all, it’s all kinds of sticky – so why not incorporate it into a bit of binding magic? Bind a couple of poppets together with a layer of honey between them to sweeten the relationship, and then…
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Country Fairs and Harvest Celebrations
Much like Beltane was a time of gathering and celebrating the spring, the late summer and early fall seasons have often been the times of year when people in rural areas got together with their neighbors to mark the early harvest. In parts of Europe, and particularly the British Isles, Lammas became the season for country fairs. This was partly because the herds were typically rounded up at the end of the summer, so if you had livestock to sell, a country fair was a great place to find buyers. You could bring your herds and flocks to town, pen them up for sale or trade, and enjoy some festivities…
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The Magic of Hedge Apples
The Osage orange, also known as a hedge apples (and in some areas, “monkey balls”), is a tree that grows in North America, and gets its name from the Osage Native American tribes who used its hard wood to craft bows for hunting. The “orange” itself is not a true orange (or an apple, for that matter) but a large, sticky fruit that is completely inedible to anyone but the local squirrel population. When the balls – usually about four to five inches in diameter – drop to the ground, it can create a huge mess, so generally it is recommended that if you plant an Osage orange, unless you…
