From this moment on, when someone in North America asks me for a book on Traditional Witchcraft, I will be recommending Besom, Stang & Sword from Christopher Orapello and Tara-Love Maguire. Why? Because this book takes what I feel is the most essential truth of any real Witchcraft and places it front and center: Witchcraft is Local.
Read more: Review of Besom, Stang & Sword | Strategic Sorcery
Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki has been a light and an inspiration to thousands of students of the Western Mysteries, Qabala, and the Craft. She served as the Director of Studies of the Servants of the Light from 1976 to 2018 . She has given her life to the work, and had thought that her life was in order for retirement.
She is 90 now and is in the middle of a painful divorce. She needs her freedom from her hopefully soon to be ex-husband, but every visit to the lawyer costs her as much as a month’s pension. He is trying to leave her without anything. She is on the Channel Island of Jersey where everything is expensive, especially the lawyers.
Please help us raise money to cover her legal fees. The quality of her life and her years ahead are at risk.
Source: Fundraiser by Ivo Dominguez Jr. : Freedom For Dolores
[ Click To Listen Or Right Click To Download]
A song for our times by Gwendolyn Reece.
Lyrics
Battle Hymn of the Resistance
When we rise up and claim our power
The Good, it cannot fall.
We take up the shield of service
To defend the rights of all.
[Chorus]
We hear the call of duty.We heed the Spirit’s Light.
We stand firm in compassion,
And work to set things right.
We defend the Constitution,
Rule of Law across the land.
When blind Justice, She is threatened
We will not let it stand.
[Chorus]
We hear the call of duty.We heed the Spirit’s Light.
We stand firm in compassion,
And work to set things right.
We tend the Hearth of Kindness,
Soul of Democracy.
Welcome tired, poor, huddled masses
Yearning to breathe free.
[Chorus]
We hear the call of duty.We heed the Spirit’s Light.
We stand firm in compassion,
And work to set things right.
Our Healer’s Cup we offer
To all souls who have need.
We work to heal our nation
Of hatred and of greed.
[Chorus]
We hear the call of duty.We heed the Spirit’s Light.
We stand firm in compassion,
And work to set things right.
Our visionary garden blooms
With dreams we bring to birth,
Of what society can be
If we dare to love the Earth.
[Chorus]
We hear the call of duty.We heed the Spirit’s Light.
We stand firm in compassion,
And work to set things right.
So rise up and claim your power
Together we will grow.
See America as we should be
And we will make it so.
[Chorus]
We hear the call of duty.We heed the Spirit’s Light.
We stand firm in compassion,
and will make things right.
By Gwendolyn Reece ©
Source: BATTLE HYMN OF THE RESISTANCE – A song for our times by Gwendolyn Reece – Panpipes Pagan Chant Site
As many tarot lovers have come to realize (or ignore, as the case may be), the notion that there is no perfect tarot deck is a tough reality to accept. It’s true and if you haven’t realized that yet, then I am truly sorry to be the bearer of bad news. The more time one spends working with the tarot, the more decks one acquires, collects, and lusts after. One’s individual taste for what they enjoy and what they don’t enjoy in a deck also has a hand in building the hoard, particularly as your style develops and evolves. Like any fascination or life-embedded hobby, the collecting of decks and the desire for perfection knows no bounds. It’s a vicious cycle and admittedly, I am a living victim of its madness.
Read more: Riding the Smith-Waite Tarot Train… @ Infinite-Beyond Online
Vickie was one of a kind and the best kind too. In her life she touched so many people in such positive ways. She would see something that needed to be done and quietly do it, no fanfare, no look at what I did, she just found joy in helping. She was inquisitive, loved books and learning, life was a great adventure for her and she embraced it all. Her life was a gift and blessing to all who knew her. Her death will be keenly felt by all those she touched. She is now a bright star in the heavens.
In lieu of flowers her family asks that donations be made to the New Alexandrian Library in Vickie’s name.
Donate or leave your memories at: In Memory Of Vickie Edrington | The New Alexandrian Library
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
~ Albert EinsteinLike most of you, I’ve been curious about where we are headed in 2018, so I’ve been poring over my ephemeris, calculating transits, and casting cardinal ingress and eclipse charts — three astrological methods of gaining insight into future events. This post will be long, but I’ll break out the more technical astrological details into separate paragraphs for the astrologers, so those of you who just want the conclusions can skip through.
The theme for this year is grounding and reality checks, with Earth and Water signs emphasized. A big part of the reality check will be much of humanity coming to an inescapable understanding and visceral awareness of how all life on Earth is intertwined and interdependent. Some will continue their efforts to deny that fact, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence, but eventually, the dams that hold back the onslaught of reality break.
Source: A Very Persistent Illusion: The Astrology of 2018 – Urania’s Well Astrology
Samhain seems to have started early this year. The veil between the living and the dead has worn thin. It looks frayed around the edges, with maybe even a narrow hole here and there, close to the middle of everything.
Source: Samhain
I spent last weekend with Psyche and Eros: hearing their story from Greek mythology; exploring the challenges, promises, jealousies and angers among the characters; ritually re-enacting the story before choruses of men and women, all under the guidance of Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki (pronounced ‘no-VEE-ski’), head of the Servants of the Light, an international non-denominational mystery school.
Source: Psyche and Eros
As many of you many remember, Chris and I signed a contract earlier this year with Weiser/Red Wheel Books to write a book about our style of traditional witchcraft. We had been working on it for quite some time before the contract was even solidified, as we are both very pragmatic creatures with contingency plan upon contingency plan stored away in our heads, and we are quite happy to say that as of last week, the first draft has been sent over to our editors for the review-and-revise part of the show.
Source: The Lesson of the Yew @ Infinite-Beyond Online
Just now we’re about halfway between Lammas and Mabon; in the ancient Celtic lands, the grain harvest has come and gone. Cucumbers, onions, tomatoes are at peak, but will be nearly done by late September. But right now? Right now the children are coming to the end of summer.
Read More: Back To School!
