They’d long since fallen asleep but something wouldn’t allow her to quite shut her eyes.
Read MoreArtwork by Thomas Locke
My inspiration for this work mostly comes from the sky and indigenous rituals, and people here in the Americas. Many of the types of mythology and places in these works come from the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Read MoreTits and Demons: Five Possession Films That Are Actually About Female Sexuality
I always wondered why the most famous contemporary exorcism story took such liberties with its main character.
Read MoreI Dream of Red
My house is dead. I look for my house.
Read MoreMy Life as a Nasty Woman
"If you tell anyone about any of this, they won't believe you. I did the same thing to another girl last year. When she went to the principal, he didn't believe her either. She was nasty like you, and that guy knows I can do much better."
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My Witchy Weekend in New Orleans
New Orleans offers limitless exploring, from the many bars and jazz clubs on Frenchmen St. to the hedonistic Bourbon St. The whole attitude of the city is one of living for the day and I am convinced there’s not an unfriendly soul in the city. For witches: the appeal is even greater—see sights like the altar above (at Hex, the Old World Witchery shop) or learn to read tarots and palms.
Read MoreWhich 'Labyrinth' Zodiac Sign Are You?
This month marks the thirtieth anniversary of the iconic, amazing, beautiful, terrifying, weird, and sparkly Jim Henson film Labyrinth starring David Bowie and Sarah Connelly, along with a huge cast of wild goblins, monsters, heroes, and villains designed by Brian Froud. We can ponder why on earth Jareth wanted a screaming baby, exactly, or whether we’d give in to his demands to love and fear him in exchange for everything we’ve ever wanted (hint: YES), or precisely what are the moral implications of slipping a teenage girl a poisoned peach and then slow-dancing with her inside a bubble. But you know what’s even more fun? Identifying what character represents you best, based on your zodiac sign.
Read MoreTarot as Family Therapy
Around my mother’s candlelit dining table, several relatives sat beside me, each taking a turn to shuffle through a Rider Waite tarot deck. Each shared a specific concern before a handful of cards were selected at random and placed in the classic Celtic cross formation. In the wake of an aunt’s sudden and untimely death last year, my family reunited through a series of polite dinners and strained holiday events, our bonds reemerging after a long winter of estrangement. Gathered before the tarot, our presence served as an unlikely but inevitable means to deepen our reconciliation.
Read MoreApproaching Witchcraft as a Recovering Atheist
A more spiritual person might have believed I picked up the book because of some kind of higher purpose, but at the time, I thought I was merely attracted by the color: a pale lilac that spelt the word ‘Wicca’ in a simple font on the book’s spine.
Read MoreThe Difficult Journey to Mourning My Sister
My partner Dion and I huddled against the chilly April morning, waiting on the Provincetown pier for the whale watching cruiser Dolphin IV. Once we were out in Cape Cod Bay, I pulled up my hood and slipped off to the aft deck, a little ceramic urn concealed inside my coat pocket.
Read MoreEach of the Presidential Nominees as Tarot Cards
With the first debate between Clinton and Trump this evening many of us have anxieties about our future given this insane election. Many also turn to Tarot Cards as a way to prepare when they have anxieties about their future. So what do the cards tell us about the frontrunning candidates? Can we predict their motives or outcomes? Probably not, but let’s try! We will examine each of the candidates through Arthur Edward Waite’s tarot deck.
Read MoreWhy We Cut: Women & Self-Harm
One school day, when I was a young teenager, my guidance counselor called my mother to tell her she needed to pick me up. I was being sent home for the day because they found out I was “cutting”—using cuticle scissors to carve stripes into my thighs and lower belly. My mother brought me to the diner and bought me lunch, and over french fries and grilled cheese sandwiches, she admitted she’d had no idea what I’d been doing, or how emotionally confused I was at the time.
Read MorePerforming Gender: Playing the Girl
I’m 30 soon and I don’t deal in regrets, but I come closest when I look back on the last decade and count the moments where I instinctually deferred to the expectations of others without checking my own pulse. I use the word “instinctually” when it’s not, not really. From childhood on, women are shooed away from any personal pulse-taking — instead of figuring out who we are as individuals, we’re encouraged to locate an external archetype and align ourselves with it. To find a planet with an “appealing” orbit and sync up. To self-help ourselves into an inoffensive cookie-cutter shape that satiates the people around us at the expense of our own hunger, because the supposed communal appetite holds more value than ours.
Read MoreBe A Goddess: 7 Ways To Cleanse Your Aura
An “aura” is a rainbow-like, kaleidoscopic, electromagnetic field of energy that pulses around the physical body and is attuned to our emotions, health and external circumstances. It is a technicolor dream coat of many layers: the etheric body, astral body, mental body, higher mental body, spiritual body and the casual body, each of which together give the impression of a blending together of colors and light around the skin and is, essentially, an extension of the physical self.
Read MoreHow To Reclaim Your Inner Magic
Whenever I think back on my childhood, it’s almost as if a projector sets itself up in my mind and plays one specific clip, over and over again. I can picture myself running through a field (not unlike something from a cheesy commercial). I don’t care about getting my clothes dirty or bugs or strangers or of falling down and getting hurt. Essentially, I, not unlike many others, associate childhood with freedom. We feel free to learn, to grow, and to simply be who we are. After all, at a young age, it seems impossible to be anyone else other than ourselves.
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