Eos’ fingers are slowly spreading across the eastern sky as I write this, warming the landscape as the air fills with the cacophony of birdsong. When we first moved to this house, I was startled by the intensity of the spring morning birds here. They start at 4am and being the light sleeper that I am, it took some getting used to. Today though, as I watch the sun rise, I am thankful for the soundtrack that greets the dawn.
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Before I begin, I want to say that I appreciate how much energy (emotional and physical) goes into writing a book. I’m not trying to tear apart the author in making this review. I do think that they do some lovely things in their book and I’m so glad to see how modern books are really trying to unpack what previous generations did in terms of appropriation and overall white supremacy.
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Have you ever been struck by an author’s words to the point that it feels like they’ve spoken a truism that you need to sit with and unpack for a bit?
When was the last time that you gave yourself time to really take time to reflect on something an occult writer wrote and how it fits into your world view?
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Disclaimer: I was given a free advance digital copy of this book from Netgalley for an honest review. The book and oracle cards are scheduled for release on Nov 2022.
Overall impressions: I liked it and would consider buying it/recommending it to others.
Details: this book and oracle deck are a collaboration between 2 women (Laura Zuspan and Rae Diamond). The book, written by Diamond, is meant to accompany the 52 earth based oracle cards drawn by Zuspan, The digital version of the book is lovely – muted greens and browns that are soothing and grounding. I can only imagine how beautiful the book itself will be. The book starts out with an overview of Zuspan’s and Diamond’s partnership and the aspirational focus that motivates the project and insights in the deck.
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Part 2 of the series Wicca for Devotional Astrology
A question for astrologers with devotional practices. Have you considered Wicca? Hear me out.
To say the moon is important in astrology is an enormous understatement. The Moon is called The Mediatrix, the essential interpreter and translator for other celestial forces to humankind.
For someone observing a planetary devotional practice drawing from Traditional Astrology, the Moon and Lunar Work is the place to start. Wicca is a system that is inherently lunar that can be used to deepen one’s personal practice and bring it from prayer to ceremony. It is a helpful model for group ceremonial ritual experience.
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A question for astrologers with devotional practices. Have you considered Wicca? Hear me out 😉
You probably look at an astrological chart several times a week. Have you ever imagined casting a chart with your body, creating a ritual circle, a sacred space within which to commune with the Celestial?
Casting a circle in Wicca, at its most basic level, is creating a vessel of sacred space by invoking 4 cardinal forces, usually an element associated with a particular direction. Which element goes where can be very different amongst traditions and individuals.
As an astrologer, you are already familiar with the four foundational forces that make up humankind’s experience of this world, forces that go by many names, such as The Elements – fire, air, water and earth. You are already familiar with navigating them as the four essential stations about a circle that form the axis of the cosmos- the angular houses, and also the medium & imum coeli along with the ascendant and descendant.
Once, years ago, a local Indigenous Elder told me his people were People of the Corn (or maize if you prefer). He went on to explain the statement with information about agricultural and ceremonial traditions to contextualize it culturally. It stuck with me as a teaching.
But while I understood his nation’s relationship with corn and a little about how corn was part of ceremony, I confess, I didn’t truly understood this viscerally as a teaching until this winter. I don’t think it really became a “knowing” for me until I realized that “my” people are also people of corn (in the more broad definition of corn: the Germanic/Dutch root meaning grain. My people (modern and ancestral) are People of the Wheat. And yes, I appreciate the irony in that (white people of European descent often being represented by the wheat emoji). But let me clear: I don’t think that being a person of wheat or corn is about race. I think it’s about ceremony and relationship to land. I think it’s about how you or your ancestors build sacred relationship with harvest, abundance, and security in relation to the land.
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Sigil Witchery by Laura Tempest Zakroff explores the practice of creating art based sigils. It considers the ways we use art to symbolically represent the world around us and how that same symbolism can be applied to making sigils. While the overall result is the same, in that practitioners are creating an abstract image sigil, it is unlike the more common language based sigil structures used in magic because it starts with artistic symbols and weaves them into a new abstract talisman.
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After months of dreaming , Faye & I are both majorly reworking our gardens this year.
We invite you to join us in this experience of gardening as spiritual work, a practice of magic, a pleasure and an escape!
Please use hashtag #greenwitchgrowalong2022 on Instagram so we can indulge in your work.
You’ll also be able to follow-along as we share our big projects and some exciting news.
Halloween season is wrapping up and like the good little witch that I am, I spent much of the time leading into it contemplating my ancestors. But also, like the complicated family lineage witch that I am, I find it hard to actually do traditional ancestor work with my blood relatives, so this month I looked at ancestral work through a different lens: plants.
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