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.

    Motherpeace recovers the positive, nurturing peace-oriented values of prepatriarchal times, and brilliantly combines art, history, mythology, folklore, philosophy, and comparative religion with an informed spiritual and feminist perspective.Vicki Noble challenges us to celebrate our ancient peaceful heritage and to reclaim our right as a people to a life without war. The book is a vision of hope and transformation, made even more powerful by the vibrant pictorial images of the seventy-eight Motherpeace tarot cards.Motherpeace shows how traditional myths and symbols can provide ideas and images for understanding the meaning and power of the Goddess for women and men today.

    

    Part I covers the myriad faces of the Goddess revealed, including: Her presence throughout history; Her Earth and Moon symbolism; Her Madonna and Magdalene disguises; Her revelation within the psyche; Her relationship with women; Her influence today; and much more. Part II covers ritual invocations of the Goddess in 13 guises: from Ishtar to Isis, from Hecate to Aphrodite, from Epona to Ma'at. Part III gives an alphabetical listing of more than 1000 goddesses including a brief history and the main correspondences of each. This is an important work by the Farrars providing an indepth exploration of the Goddess in her many aspects at a time when Western culture is awakening to the influence of Feminine Divinity, both individually and collectively. Over 40,000 sold!

    The first section is a thoughtful examination of Wiccan ethics and philosophy that explores how to truly live Wicca. The second section includes devotional prayers and rituals that provide inspiration for group or solitary practice.Topics in this Wicca book include: cultivating an ongoing personal relationship with deity, ethics and standards of behavior, concepts of sacred space, elements of a daily practice, tuning into the Wheel of the Year and the elements, and creating meaningful personal Pagan rituals.Move beyond the basics of Wicca and enter the sacred space of the circle within.

    The workbook formats includes exam questions at the end of each lesson, so you can build a permanent record of your spiritual and magical training.

    What we can do is small, but perhaps through this book we can impart the wisdom we have discovered. It is just this: spirit and enchantment and reality are bound together in a green world full of wonders.Living Green with the Spirits of the LandIn 2007, the Seruntine family relocated to a secluded Nova Scotia homestead. They made it a point to live gently upon the land by growing and raising their own food, living in balance with the surrounding forest, and honoring Nature's spirits. In return, the land and the spirits looked after them. Seasons of the Sacred Earth follows life deep in their woodland hollow through a magical year. It is a marvelous journey into a place where gardens grow by love and magic, where children romp through enchanted forests, where mystery beckons by light of fireflies. And living close to Nature, they discover an ancient truth: the magical and the mystical are never farther than Earth and Sky.

    A High Priestess of Wicca and a third-degree Wiccan devote this custom-filled book to Brigid's Festival of Returning Light, an ancient holiday filled with hope.

    "To Ride a Silver Broomstick" presents both the science and religion of Witchcraft so you can become an active participant while growing at your own pace. This book is ideal for anyone, regardless of religious background: male or female, young or old, beginners and initiates.

    Rather than depending on snippets of wisdom to build a new faith, Wicca for Beginners provides a solid foundation to Wicca without limiting the reader to one tradition or path.Embracing both the spiritual and the practical, Wicca for Beginners is a primer on the philosophies, culture, and beliefs behind the religion, without losing the mystery that draws many students to want to learn. Detailing practices such as grounding, raising energy, visualization, and meditation, this book offers exercises for core techniques before launching into more complicated rituals and spellwork.Finalist for the Coalition of Visionary Resources Award for Best Wiccan/Pagan BookIn her first book-length work, Sabin presents a first-rate, fresh, and thorough addition to the burgeoning field of earth-based spiritual practice volumes...written in a light, informative style that magically mines depth, breadth and brevity.--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

    Tracing a wide range of groups—radical environmental activists, lifestyle-focused bioregionalists, surfers, new-agers involved in “ecopsychology,” and groups that hold scientific narratives as sacred—Taylor addresses a central theoretical question: How can environmentally oriented, spiritually motivated individuals and movements be understood as religious when many of them reject religious and supernatural worldviews? The “dark” of the title further expands this idea by emphasizing the depth of believers' passion and also suggesting a potential shadow side: besides uplifting and inspiring, such religion might mislead, deceive, or in some cases precipitate violence. This book provides a fascinating global tour of the green religious phenomenon, enabling readers to evaluate its worldwide emergence and to assess its role in a critically important religious revolution.

    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.

    With the help of this book, we all can learn to incorporate earth-aware philosophies of days gone by with modern realities. Includes spells, rituals, herbals, invocations and meditations and daily magical exercises.

    What they don't know is that when you discover the universe is full of magic, you fall in love with the world."When high-powered Manhattan lawyer Phyllis Curott began exploring Witchcraft, she discovered a spiritual movement that defied all stereotypes. Encountering neither satanic rites nor eccentric spinsters, she came to know a clandestine religion of the Goddess that had been forced into hiding over the course of history. Book of Shadows recounts Curott's remarkable initiation into Wicca (meaning "wise one") and shares her insights as a high priestess of an elegant, ancient spirituality that celebrates the magic of being alive.An Ivy-league graduate and promising lawyer, Curott was a typical young woman in her twenties, determined to forge a law career within the burgeoning, male-dominated music industry. But when she began having prophetic dreams and mysterious visions of ancient female figures and unfamiliar symbols, she discovered an unexpected world of magic and began searching for a rational explanation. When her friend Sophia--a practicing Witch--suggested having her cards read by a Wiccan High Priestess, Curott instinctively dismissed the idea, but then forced her natural skepticism aside on the chance that this age-old practice might help her understand the unusual occurrences in her life.Thus begins her journey into the magical world of Witchcraft, a religion originally practiced by priestesses, shamans, and healers that empowers our lives by working with the natural cycles of nature. Fascinated by this pre-Judeo-Christian religion that honors women as the embodiment of the Goddess and emphasizes respect and love for the natural world, Curott began attending a local coven's weekly circle to learn the sacred arts. Her Book of Shadows chronicles her ascent to the position of Wiccan High Priestess and her efforts to reconcile her newfound spirituality with her struggles as a woman rising through the ranks of the corporate world. Along the way, Curott relates the history of Witchcraft and shares many traditional Wiccan practices, such as casting a circle, drawing down the Goddess, harnessing the powers of the natural world, and casting spells for health, prosperity, and love.Engagingly written and rich with detailed rituals and techniques, this inspirational book traces a modern woman's spiritual journey into a realm of extraordinary experience and enlightenment. Book of Shadows provides us with the keys to discover an enchanted world of divine empowerment so as to unlock the power that lies within us all

    Where the maiden, mother, crone archetypal system is tied to female biology and physical stages of life, the fivefold model liberates the female experience from the shackles of the reproductive model.In a woman's lifetime, she will go through several different cycles of beginnings, potential, creation, mastery, and wisdom. This fivefold model is not an adaption of the threefold. It is a new system that embraces the powerful, fluid nature of the lived experience of women today.Join Lasara Firefox Allen as she explores the nature of the five archetypes; gives examples of what areas of life each might preside over; lists goddesses that fit within each archetype; suggests ways to begin building relationship with the different archetypes; and provides simple rituals for recognition, transition, and invocation.