I was a month shy of my seventeenth birthday when I decided I wanted to be a priestess. I envisioned leading rituals, working magick to heal people, and teaching starry-eyed seekers about the Mysteries of the Craft. What I did not envision – not at sixteen and not at twenty-six – was the massive amount…
An elder in my tradition told me on more than one occasion that being Pagan clergy isn’t a master’s degree but rather a vo-tech certificate. She put it that way to illustrate the fact that much of what Pagan clergy do to serve their communities is learned through practical experience and on-the-job training. It’s a…
The Kingdom of Heaven is in this very moment, properly understood. I don’t remember now whether I heard that in a college religion course or at a sermon one Sunday as a child, but it has stuck with me for decades. I’ve interpreted it in various ways over the years, but I’ve come to understand…
If you’ve been studying or practicing the Craft for very long, you’ve probably come across the concept of the Great Work. The Great Work, as it is understood by my tradition, is the process of discovering who you are, what your true will is, and how to manifest that true will. It’s a process that…
Many years ago, when I was a plucky young religious studies student at a private liberal arts college in Arkansas, I had the privilege of listening to a guest lecture by a traveling Buddhist monk. The monk’s name, I can no longer remember. What I do remember is the overwhelming serenity of his presence and…
As practitioners of the Craft, and indeed as human beings with families and jobs and lives, we can lose track of our own spiritual progress because it’s been superseded by other, more immediate concerns. That’s certainly been the case with me. I’ve found that it takes more effort to flex my magickal muscles, that things…
For a long time, I thought a coven was a group of people who practiced magick together. It didn’t occur to me until embarrassingly late in my practice – in a coven, mind you! – that there was more to the coven than people getting together a couple of times a month for celebration and…
Let me preface this recommendation list by saying that it is not the be-all-and-end-all of advanced reading lists. In fact, it barely scratches the surface. It will be most relevant to Wiccans, although there are some titles that will be of interest to non-Wiccan Witches and Pagans as well. I’ve tried to give representation to…
From time to time, I’m asked to speak on a panel of representatives of various religions to educate students about the diversity they may encounter in their future professions. Usually, it’s me, a Catholic, a Muslim, a Jew, and an Athiest. And let me tell you, those days are the days I have the worst…
One of the questions that I am routinely asked is whether or not a practitioner can be called to the service of a deity outside their cultural context. There’s a lot of concern in the Pagan world these days about cultural appropriation and the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation, and it is an…