Best of
Paganism

1998

Circle Round: Raising Children in Goddess Traditions


Anne Hill - 1998
    Now Starhawk, Diane Baker, and Anne Hill offer new ways to foster a sense of togetherness through celebrations that honor the sacredness of life and our Mother Earth.Goddess tradition embraces the wheel of life, the never-ending cycle of birth, growth, love, fulfillment, and death. Each turn of the wheel is presented here, in eight holidays spanning the changing seasons, in rites of passage for life transitions, and in the elements of fire, air, water, earth, and spirit. Circle Round is rich with songs, rituals, craft and cooking projects, and read-aloud stories, as well as suggestions for how you can create your own unique family traditions. Here are just some of the ways to make each event in the cycle of life more special: Mark Summer Solstice by making sweet-smelling herb pillows for good dreams Send a teenager off to college with the Leaving Behind and Carrying With rituals Comfort an injured child with the Tree of Life meditation Commemorate a loved one by planting or donating a treeAs a one-of-a-kind resource for people of many faiths and beliefs, Circle Round will be a beloved companion in your home for years to come.

The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year


Caitlín Matthews - 1998
    Now, with this inspiring book of day-by-day mediations, renowned Celtic scholar Caitlín Matthews shows you how to reawaken the power of this age-old spiritual inheritance.Using poetry, myths, reflections, rituals, and visualizations, Matthews leads you on a yearlong pilgrimage that will help connect the cycles of your soul to the circle of the seasons. From the winter months of Samhain the summer months of Beltant, from mediations on the gifts and blessings of life to the insights and promises of the soul, she enables you to complete your own sacred circuit of the turning year.Brimming with the legends and lore of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and Britain, The Celtic Spirit is a brilliant introduction to the sacred wisdom of the Celtic path--and a potent resource for daily spiritual renewal.

The Winter Solstice: The Sacred Traditions of Christmas


John Matthews - 1998
    Brimming with stories, activities, folklore, and recipes, this popular holiday gift book traces the history behind traditions of the season and provides practical suggestions for celebrating the Winter Solstice as a joyous, life-affirming festival.

Embracing the Moon: A Witch's Guide to Rituals, Spellcraft and Shadow Work


Yasmine Galenorn - 1998
    You know what you want in life. You're searching for a spiritual path that is deeply meaningful. You hunger for a closer connection with the Earth, the seasons, and the shifting energies of the moon. You long to weave beneficial magick into the very fabric of your life. You can do all this and more when you embrace the moon. "Embracing the Moon" is a guidebook to following your unique spiritual path as a Witch. Based on a non-traditional, eclectic approach to Witchcraft, this system of natural magick draws on many traditions. You can use this powerful, versatile magickal system exactly as created by the author—or you can customize it as you wish. "Embracing the Moon "describes a multitude of options so you can choose those most meaningful to you: -Faerie magick -Hex work -Goddess rituals -Earth healing rituals -Elements and deities -Magickal tools -Prosperity and abundance spells -Recipes for oils and powders -Love and beauty magick -Household magick -God rituals -Shapeshifting and animal magick -Candle and herb magick -Magickal life mapping -Protection and healing spells -Rune charts and symbols The author has developed and practiced her eclectic system for over 20 years. Now you can use her insights, exercises, and magickal techniques to create a system that is both within the traditions of Witchcraft and yet uniquely your own. Get "Embracing the Moon" today.

The Apple Branch: A Path to Celtic Ritual


Alexei Kondratiev - 1998
    The traditions of Celtic-speaking communities in particular offer a highly effective method, expressed through mythology (as in the symbolic apple branch) and implemented through seasonal rituals.Alexi Kondratiev outlines rules for Celtic-circle membership and shows how to become conversant with Celtic culture and mythology, and at least one of the surviving Celtic languages. He also provides the actual formula of words given for each of the Celtic rituals and visualization sequences. These rituals are closely connected with the passage of time, especially the four seasons, as well as other feast days. In this book the ancient traditions of all six Celtic nations are brought to life. Alexi Kondratiev, who knows sixty-four languages well enough to teach them, conducts classes in a variety of Celtic subjects at the Irish Arts Center in New York City, and has been a contributor to a number of magazines and journals, including Keltoi, Carn, and Keltria.

WAR GODDESS The Morrígan and her Germano-Celtic Counterparts


Angelique Gulermovich Epstein - 1998
    She is a horrific goddess personifying war the way the ancient Irish saw it: loud, chaotic, glorious, bloody and heroic. She is savage and deceitful, bloodthirsty, revelling in the gore of battle. She comes as a carrion crow or a hag, portending or causing violent death. Yet she is no mere demoness. She fights for her race, the Túatha dé Danann, against the invading Fomoire. She has a strange relationship with Ireland's great warrior Cú Chulainn: by fighting him, she forces him to rise to his greatest glory. Under other names — Nemain, Macha, Fé, Badb, the Washer at the Ford — she shows aspects of motherhood, sorcery, prophecy and teaching.

Shapeshifter Tarot


D.J. Conway - 1998
    It's about using the unique and specialized talents of that animal, plant, or object. Nothing makes this technique and method more clear than the Shapeshifter Tarot.This amazing 81-card deck follows the traditional pattern, although the names of many of the Major Arcana cards have been shifted to fit the more Pagan approach to this deck. For example, the Fool becomes Initiation, the Magician changes to the Sorcerer, and the Hermit becomes The Seer. Three additional cards, The Double, The Journey, and The Dreamer are part of the tradition on which this is based and will add additional meaning to your readings and personal work.And there's more This boxed set comes with a 264-page book. Of course it has vivid interpretations of all the cards, revealing their symbolism and divinatory meanings. It also includes sample readings, key words to make readings easy, how to meditate with the cards, using the deck for spellworking, and the skill of shapeshifting itself.Combined with brilliant art of transcendent majesty and beauty, this uniquely shamanic deck is simply one of the most powerful Tarot decks available today. It is also one of the most potent tools for Pagans of all traditions. Whether you want this deck for personal work or for giving readings, one thing is very clear: you'll want to get and use this deck every day

Spirits of the Sacred Grove


Emma Restall Orr - 1998
    Far from being wrapped in a veil of secrecy, it is celebrated openly, in the sunlight of a meadow or a shady forest glade. This is a very personal journey through the seasons with a modern female Druid, which reveals Druidry as an accessible and compelling spiritual path that offers great potential for healing and self-empowerment.

The Triumph Tree: Scotland's Earliest Poetry AD 550 - 1350


Thomas Owen Clancy - 1998
    Ranging from war to religion, nature to love, the quality and power of these poems display the riches of a vanished world. Alongside famous works such as The Gododdin (here in its most faithful translation yet) and The Dream of the Road, are poems by and for St. Columbia, the homesick verse of Gaelic poets on crusade, the court skalds of the Orkney earls, poems in praise of strong drinkers, harps, books and islands, and much else besides — many of which have never before appeared in translation.

Songs for Earthlings: a Green Spirituality Songbook


Julie Forest Middleton - 1998
    Now drilled for three-hole binders at a NEW LOW PRICE! Celebrate the Earth and all her inhabitants with over 400 songs, chants, rounds and hymns. Songs for Earth, Air, Water and Fire; invocations and ritual songs; prayers for the planet; songs for the wheel of the year and the cycles of life; relationship and healing songs; songs to change the world. Songs for women, kids, environmental groups, circles, churches, camps, Pagans and gardeners.