The Pagan Community is one filled with diversity and individuality - characteristics we celebrate. Our religious beliefs are often quite disparate. Yet, although we walk different paths, we do so in harmony with one another. We connect - often deeply - on a spiritual level. And it is through our spirituality that we become more than just a community. We become a family.

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The Art of the Kitchen Witch
By Josh P.

Family, health, love, safety, happiness, friendship - even work and wealth - all these things are the provenence of the Kitchen Witch and have been throughout recorded history. Mind you it wasn't always called Kitchen Witchery. But whether it's the Craft, Folk Magic, Hedge Wizardry, Witchcraft, or simply working to propriate the gods and bring luck to the home, it's a part of humanity's heritage. When the earliest gatherers brought home food and mixed it with healing herbs, offered some to their gods, decorated a dish with flowers - they were developing the fundamentals of the Craft.
Extract from Kitchen Witchery

Oh Woe is Me
By Axiom

We Pagans are a discriminated against group - it's true. But why do we whine about it so much? It's almost like some badge of honour to be able to one up on who was most insulted or belittled - or even threatened. But what do we actually do about it? I've been thinking about this a bit with the whole discrimination train of this column - and I've begun to realise how angry I get about whining Pagans. We all know at least one right up there with the fluffy bunny.
Extract from Myth, Magic and Madness

Mundus Cereris
By Anne S.

Aside from her agricultural role, Ceres also rules over liminality - the transitions we pass through as we progress through life. There is the transition of life to death - clearly an important one that Ceres has a role in. Ceres lives beneath the earth, amongst the roots of the growing things. From her springs life, reaching out of the Underworld into this world. When it dies it returns to her....
Extract from Festivals and Holidays

Pagan Responsibility
By Christine

I was at the bookshop the other day with some friends. One headed off to look at the latest fiction while the other made a beeline for the parenting section. As we perused the titles, he commented that there didn't seem to be many available for "people like me". IE Pagan parents.... He's right. There's material for Jewish, Moslem, and Christian parents, even Atheist...but not an awful lot sitting on the shelves dispensing advice from toilet training through to diet and religion.

It's funny, 'cause we're a minority, but surely there's still a need among us for quality guides on raising kids? How about some of the other standard genres?...
Extract from Crossroads of the Pagans

Rugiu Svente
By Katya

My grandmother was the one who always made the offering. Then she would take a sickle kept sharp just for this event and cut the first sheaf. Using a few stalks, she would bind up the sheaf and craft a woman - this is Boba, or the Old Woman/Grandmother....
Extract from Festivals and Holidays
   

From the Desk of
Albineus Equinus

I penned an editorial for this edition, but when the latest spate of bombings struck my homeland I changed my mind. This island and her sister, Ireland, have seen so many religious and political acts of violence over time. We are a nation torn from within by our own passions. Our own convictions and ideologies. Crimes of faith - a contradiction when so much of our faith - be it Christianity, Islam, or Paganism - revolves around ideas of peace, tolerance, and justice.

The events of 7 July set off new waves of hatred and anger. Over the first three days afterwards London experienced 68 "faith hate crimes". How many more occurred elsewhere in the country I don't know - but 68 in three days! All against Islam. Are we to be further divided along the lines of Christian and Moslem, ready to treat every "Moslem-seeming" person as a potential terrorist?

How does one identify a "Moslem-seeming" person? Of those I know, only one family is of Middle Eastern origin - and they fled Iran after the Shah was deposed. They are as concerned about and fearful of Fundamentalist Moslem sects as any Christian.

Woodlace

Norse Midsummer
By Dairmot

I laid a fire in the fire pit and set up and filled the torches. On the North Altar I put a spear for Odin and my rune bag along with a bottle of mead and a horn cup. In the East I placed a sword and shield to represent the land our ancestors came from. In the South a hammer for Thor. The West Held a Battle-Ax to honor the warriors who had passed over the Rainbow Bridge to the Halls of the Gods.
Extract from Pagan Thought

Whispers in the Dark
By Silver Shamen

I am a Goddess Worshiper. My ways are derived directly for observation in nature and visions I have had over the years, plus age, experience, common sense and reading between the lines in formal courses on the subject.

First, by luck, I was never made to go to church. My mother stayed in the Christian church when it split and Church of Christ emerged. It caused a rift between her and her mother, who went Church of Christ, that never healed. My dad was born Greek Orthodox, but was really a witch but did not know it, or at least did not show it....
Extract from Editorials

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"From the Desk" continued...
But the rest? Well, aside from a few of African ethnicity, the rest are descended from as white-bread European-ancestry as my own lily-white self.

What about my Lebanese friends? Families whose association with Christianity stretches back into the Middle Ages. They certainly look Middle Eastern. Will they become victims of faith hate crimes? Almost humourous - Christians attacking Christians and having it prosecuted as faith hate due to a case of mistaken religiosity. Almost.

The response to the bombings is something we - as Pagans - can learn from. Not the determination of the Londoners, in particular, and the British in general, to face fear and stare it down, resuming normal life asap. Although that is an action worthy of emulation in any trial. But the more sordid, less admirable, response. The "tit-for-tat" mentality that has resulted in these acts. The people being attacked are innocent of any role in the bombings. That they are Moslem is immaterial too. We weren't bombed by Moslems because we are a Christian nation - we were attacked for our role in an unjust war. We helped Bush invade Iraq - where many many more innocent people have died. This bombing is a result of that.

These faith hate crimes ignore that reality, arising from fear and anger and a burning need to lash out and punish those who hurt us. Anyone who "looks" like they might be similar to the perceived enemy becomes the enemy in one swift shift in thinking. My friend, Ishmael, runs the Fish and Chip shop down the road. To some in my town, he is now "one of them", an enemy to be hated regardless of who he really is.

As Pagans we are often targets of discrimination and hatred. It would be easy to compare ourselves to the British. A small, brave group under attack by the rabid fanatic. And in some ways that is an apt description. But it might be more appropriate to compare ourselves to Ishmael. A man attacked because of uneducated, erroneous, and fearful misconceptions. A man attacked not because of his actions but because of his perceived religious beliefs. A man who has to choose how he will now respond, aware that it may make no discernable difference.

It is important to determine why we are being attacked and respond appropriately. Most of the time it is due to faith hatred. Not something we can usually control. But how we respond is very much up to us.

In light and love,
Albi
Managing Editor

Crystals: Unleashing the Powers Within
By Jill Bentley

Tiger's Eye is one of those fascinating crystals that have intrigued most of us since childhood. It's common enough in quantity but certainly unique in looks. Tiger's Eye is considered to have the ability to draw down the powerful and spiritual energies of the sun and combine them with the steadfast energy of the earth....
Extract from Tools of the Trade
   

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