Happy Equinox everyone!

“Despite evidence that the planets are aligned in his favor, local pagan Jeff Birch, 27, said Monday that he would “rather have a peaceful weekend at home” than attend his family’s Vernal Equinox celebration on March 21. “I realize it’s supposed to be a festive time of conception and new growth in the womb of Mother Earth and all,” Birch said. “But I just know that within an hour of arriving, things will get so bad that I’ll be reverting to my 12-year-old self, hiding in the rec room downstairs, wearing my Iroquois false face mask and fingering my runes for comfort. It’s not worth it.”

“Anyway, wasn’t I just back home for Mabon?” Birch added. Most pagans look forward to marking the Vernal Equinox, when the hours of sunlight equal the hours of darkness. Yet for some, like Birch, this sacred springtime celebration of balance and harmony means contending with family infighting and undue stress.”

(via The Onion)

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This is a great old documentary from 1970 on various occult groups. There are interviews with Alex Sanders, Selena Fox, Olivia Robertson, Micheal and Lilith Aquino, H.R. Giger and many others. Warning: NSFW.

(via Google Video. Thanks Dedroidify!)

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In parts one and two of our interview we discussed the history of the Koldun and their relationship to the Tarot. In this third installment we discuss how to find one’s Tarot Constellation, which form the basis for other Kolduny practices.

TiamatsVision- You mentioned that you use the Tarot Constellation for assistance in helping someone. How does one go about finding their Tarot Constellation?

NATALIA- The process of finding a person’s Tarot Constellation consists of first reducing the birth date down to a single digit. This is the Soul Number. Then find the Tarot card within the major arcana that is associated with that number. Next, you have to find the Persona and Will cards and then the Fate and Path cards. From there you look for the Hidden Influence, Visible Influence and the Inner Teacher cards.

(more…)

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“Winter in Ireland means dark and rain and mud and chill that aches in your bones. It means short wet days and long wet nights. Cold that runs damply down the sides of stone walls. Ashen fields, rubbly with last year’s hay. Winter, which began as the sun lost its vigor at Samhain, still holds sway as the land nears Imbolc, or so the cold and the damp proclaim.

But spring is near, near as sheep who materialize out of the fog near spiky outcroppings of granite. Lambs kick within the ewes, hidden as spring on a foggy winter morning. The bitter chill and the ashen fields give no clue to the nearness of a new season but, like the lambs, spring is “in the belly” of winter, for that is the meaning of the word Imbolc. Soon spring, in all its robust fragility and wild insouciant joy, arrives as suddenly as birth which, like death, is always sudden no matter how fervently anticipated or feared.

Imbolc is La Feile Bridghe, the day of Brigit, celebrated each year in ritual in Kildare, the town historically associated with the Celtic goddess and saint. The festival focuses on the largest of the area’s 32 holy wells, where a tiny wooden bridge leads into a grassy sacred precinct. Miniature standing stones link a deep rock-circled well with its outlet in a stream into which shallow stone steps descend. Brigit, sculpted in an old-fashioned nun’s habit, stands in a stone grotto among coins and flowers and other offerings.

People come to the holy wells continually throughout the year, in groups and singly, for traditional healing rituals. But the greatest crowds arrive for Imbolc, when Brigidine sisters sponsor a vigil at the well, which I was honored to attend several years ago. Hundreds join in, many coming from other parts of Ireland to attend at Brigit’s central shrine for her most important holiday. As we gathered in the late evening, we were greeted by a bonfire of gorsewood, welcome in the still-wintry chill. But that was not the only fire that lit the dark well precinct, for the women of Cháirde Bhríde — “heart of Brigit,” the local laywomen’s association — had placed hundreds of candles on the pathways and stone steps, outlining the well and the spring and the pathways. The rushing waters caught and reflected the candlelight, so that the whole precinct shimmered with light.”

(via MatriFocus)

(Thanks Pat!)

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“She might be a witch, but Stephanie Conover says that’s no reason for officials at an upcoming Toronto beauty pageant to reject her as a potential judge. Conover, who was crowned winner of the Miss Canada Plus Pageant last year, said she was recently invited to be a judge at the Miss Toronto Tourism pageant on Feb. 2. “I said I’d definitely be there,” Conover told the Star yesterday.

“Then, last week, on Monday, they asked me for a biography. I told them everything I do, how I’m an entertainer and a singer and a dancer. I talked about my charity work and I said I also have hobbies, including songwriting, knitting, painting, yoga, reiki and tarot cards.” That’s where things got sticky. “We just got her bio a week ago and we don’t agree with it,” said Karen Murray, Miss Toronto Tourism pageant director. “We want someone down to earth, not someone into the dark side or the occult.”

“We need a judge who has an upright reputation and we would be proud to introduce to the audience,” noted a Jan. 24 letter to the Miss Canada Plus group from Murray and another official with the Miss Toronto Tourism pageant. “Our board of directors has eliminated her as a judge as tarot card reading and reiki are the occult and is not acceptable by God, Jews, Muslims or Christians. Tarot card reading is witchcraft and is used by witches, spiritists and mediums to consult the dark world.”

(via The Star)

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