I love Pinterest and have recently decided to add additional boards that highlight my love of cooking, of Japanese miniatures called Re-Ment, of dollhouse scale miniatures, nature, Buddhism, altars, and who knows what else! I may be adding other boards that include a book-list showing books that have inspired me or a board with some of my favorite films.

I hope this helps you to get to know me better as a person and not just a witch.

So much goes into my witchcraft from different arenas in my life, like my love of art and illustration fosters the creative spirit in my spells, my fascination with crystals and love of herbalism, but also my DIY spirit too and crafty ways making candles, magickal oils, soap, all kinds of things that are part of witchy traditions as well as a layperson (muggle) life.

I also get inspired by nature and when I cannot go to the sacred places I wish, I can armchair travel through pinterest. I can also discover many new things too, places I never even knew existed, a quaint street corner in an Italian village; all such things inspire me and bring a greater depth of knowledge to my craft.

I would love for you to share your pinterest boards with me too – it is such a wonderful way for us to visually express who we are. It can also help me in casting spells for you, so if you have boards available please let me know before I cast. The better I know you the stronger and more powerful a spell I can cast for you. That’s why I always ask for photos of you because seeing you puts me in touch energetically with you and believe me when I am on the astral I can see you so clearly it is as if I am right with you in person.

Helping you actually helps me ultimately, the more I practice my art and craft the deeper it goes and I want to celebrate this with you!

Please share!

The year of the snake began today and I am casting my Chinese New Year’s Day Good Fortune Spell tonight. I have caught up on quite a bit of work after the holidays and since I worked through much of it I will be taking off the next few days to rest & recharge. As well as to clean up the house from the holiday festivities.

I have a short list of resolutions though I do not really believe in them I like the aspect of clearing out the negativity that builds up over a year and getting ready with a clean slate for the new year.

There is such possibility in a new year, a hopefulness that the ills from the past year will be healed and good things will come in their fashion.

1. Work smarter not harder. I will be updating my sites very soon with new artwork, new spells, new formats and I am excited for this. It is my ten year anniversary as an online with and aside from being a writer and journalist (and producing my websites) this is the longest job I’ve ever had! Can you say best loved job too? It is!

2. Spend more time with my family. See my brother and sister-in-law more, spend more time with Mom and communicate with extended family more often like Aunt Diane, Auntie Marcia and my cousins.

3. Love more and love right. Not sure how to do the love right part, that will be a work in progress.

4. Concentrate on building healthy habits. Eating more organic, buying more local fruits and veg and cooking healthy food at home more often.

5. Read more. That’s why I have a kindle, a nook and an iPad! Oh and real books too!

6. Take a vacation. It’s been too long.

7. Organize my kitchen, my closet, my garage, my office. (I am almost laughing at this!)

What are your resolutions?

Just wanted to thank all you wonderful people who read my blog and are my clients. It is you and my family and loved ones that I am most grateful for on this day of Thanksgiving 2012.

The wonderful Harvest Witch you see here is by the talented artist Nikki Burnette. You will see more of her work on this site and mysticspells.com very soon!

Jessica Galbreth before she said witches are Satanic.

I was a Jessica Galbreth fan since the first time I saw her fantasy artwork at her old website Enchanted-Art Designs. I used her artwork on my websites and personally collected many beautiful prints, cards, journals and figurines. I was very supportive of her artwork and enjoyed keeping up with her on her blog too. In my opinion she painted the most beautiful depictions of the feminine divine in the darker aspects that I have ever seen and indeed it was her artwork that inspired my love and devotion to The Morrigan and put me on the path to discovering the warrior queen in myself.

To find that now, the reason I have not seen her art in over a year is because Jessica Galbreth and her husband converted to Evangelical Christianity (think Pat Robertson style and indeed she was intereviewed for his network here is the link) is like a stinging slap in the face.

Jessica has denounced all her previous art (and in the video on CBC it shows her tossing away her canvases in a dumpster) but the thing that has upset me the most are the followng comments she has made:

Jessica says she was possessed by a demon when creating her dark goddesses and other fantasy artwork.

Jessica says the occult is Satanic and only about power and secrets and death.

Jessica says she was empty inside because she was giving herself over to Satan through her belief in the occult.

Jessica says everyone thought she was a witch.

Jessica says the occult is dark and God is the light.

Jessica says there is only one true way to believe and that is to accept Jesus as your savior otherwise you are damned.

Jessica says God forgives only if you accept Christ as your savior.

Jessica says she contacted demons through a ouija board.

Jessica says she is ashamed of her Enchanted Art Collection.

One of Jessica Galbreth’s pagan Goddesses, The Morrigan.

Humans created religion and religion is all about dogma, which I do not believe in.

However I respect everyone’s right to believe as they choose and I would never say that someone’s beliefs are wrong. I would not tell a Christian that just because their beliefs exclude me as a Buddhist Pagan that they are wrong to do believe as they do. I just wish them love and peace.

I would never condemn a religion or a person who practices that religion because their beliefs are different from mine. In my practice of Buddhism there is no dogma. In my practices as a solitary witch I embrace all forms of spirituality and numerous Goddesses & Gods of different mysteries, paths and religions. I respect their history and stories. I respect their depictions in art.

I only personally worship the whole of the Universe, the spirit of the Great Mother, the one divine that is woven between us and the stuff that stars are made of. This includes both the light and dark sides of all nature. There can be no light without darkness. I value neither more than the other.

Buddhism has no deity but many Bodhisattva’s and Deva’s. My pagan beliefs have many Goddesses & Gods. But there is no Devil in any of my beliefs, no Satan at all. So for Jessica Galbreth to call pagan and occult beliefs Satanic is her ascribing to those narrow-minded beliefs that seek to persecute those who walk a different path.

Jessica Galbreth’s new “Christian” artwork. A male Angel.

I am heartsick about this and shudder to think that this talented woman who embodied the spark of the feminine divine in her artwork has turned her back on her previous art and beliefs and decided rather to close herself off to a wider world and connection with the Universal Love Force to preach exclusionary dogma that puts Satan and demons into beliefs where they do not even exist.

I still love her artwork. She did wonderful Goddesses, Fairies, mythological creatures and now she does Angels. I love Angels and work with them all the time as you know from my selection of Angel spells. My feelings are that Angels do not belong to Christianity that Angels are celestial beings and belong to no religion.

I am sad to see her guilting and shaming her own art and uncomfortable with her darker and more sensual depictions (which were still very tame) and hope that she will come to terms with it no matter what path she walks.

And to just let her know the Goddess will be here, always, awaiting her liberation, ready to welcome her back to love without dogma, without patriarchy, without guilt, shame or any requirements whatsoever that anyone believe in her.

For you see Jessica, she believes in you.

Blessed be.

I write about Friday the 13th every year because 13 is a very lucky number for witches. I thought I’d do something a little different this year and just post a few fun tidbits.

Some events are intentionally scheduled for Fridays the 13th for dramatic effect. They include:

• Black Sabbath’s eponymous debut album was released in the UK on Friday, February 13, 1970.
• The 13th book in A Series of Unfortunate Events was released on Friday, October 13, 2006 by Lemony Snicket, also known as novelist Daniel Handler.
• Five of the twelve films in the Friday the 13th series, including the most recent (reboot of the series), were released on a Friday the 13th.
• A long-running theatrical show, Supernatural Chicago, premiered on Friday, February 13, 2004.
• AdventureQuest Worlds MMORPG features special in-game events featuring Voltaire (musician) and other guests for each Friday the 13th.

Events that have occurred on Friday the 13th include:

• On October 13, 1307, Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and several Templar Knights were arrested by King Phillip of France. Most were eventually tortured to death.
• On January 13, 1939, the single worst bushfire in Australian history struck Victoria, Australia, claiming 71 lives and causing widespread damage.
• The renowned rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur was pronounced dead on September 13, 1996.
• On August 13, 2004, Hurricane Charley slammed in to Southwest Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, the strongest hurricane to hit the United States since 1992. (I was in this hurricane btw!)
• An engineering train on the Northern Line of the London Underground became uncoupled and went on a 13-minute journey southbound from Archway station, finally stopping at Warren Street tube station on the West End branch of the line on August 13, 2010. The train in front was forced to skip several stations and was diverted to the City branch of the line.
• On January 13, 2012, France, Austria, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus, Italy, Portugal and Spain had their credit ratings downgraded by Standard & Poor’s.
• On January 13, 2012, the luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia sank in front of the island of Isola del Giglio, killing at least sixteen aboard and injuring 64.
• North Korean satelite launch attempt Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 failed on April 13, 2012. (that’s today!)

• The asteroid 99942 Apophis will make a close encounter with Earth, closer than the orbits of communication satellites, on April 13, 2029. ^(YIKES!)
  

Here are some interesting facts about Leap Year (which is today!)

• Despite what our elementary teachers told us, a year isn’t really 365 days. Our planet actually takes 365 1/4 days to revolve around the sun. These six additional hours each year add up to an extra 24 hours over four years, at which point we add a day to our calendar in order to keep us in sync with the sun. Without leap day, annual events would slowly shift seasons—eventually, we’d be celebrating Christmas in July.
• While the first leap day was likely observed by the Egyptians, Caesar is credited for incorporating a leap year into the Julian calendar in 46 B.C. However, scientists noticed that annual events were still shifting over extended periods of time. While the calculation of 365 1/4 days for the Earth to lap the sun was close, the true figure is actually about 11 minutes short of that, and this tiny miscalculation caused a day of discrepancy every 128 years. Pope Gregory XIII came to the rescue in 1582, ruling that leap year would be skipped three times every four centuries to fix the snag.
• Though the point of a leap day is to keep our calendar aligned with nature, hundreds of years ago people thought that messing with our months would throw Mother Nature for a loop. Farmers worried that the change would lower crop yields and sicken livestock. In fact, a Scottish saying declared that “leap year was never a good sheep year.” Lore also held that leap day babies were unruly and tough to raise. (Maybe we should ask J.Lo—whose twins were born on Feb. 29, 2008—if this adage proves true.)
• Speaking of leap day babies, those born on Feb. 29 are called “leaplings” or “leapers.” Since their actual date of birth only comes around a quarter of the time, leaplings often celebrate non–leap year birthdays on Feb. 28 or March 1. Legal permissions like getting a driver license or drinking alcohol are granted on whichever day a particular region deems official. Most U.S. states test leaplings’ patience by making them wait until the 1st.
• Four hundred years ago, women weren’t allowed to propose marriage to men… except on leap day. While the source of this switcheroo isn’t 100 percent clear, folklore traces the tradition to fifth-century Ireland, when St. Bridget supposedly complained to St. Patrick that gals were sick of waiting around for their procrastinating men to pop the question. Patrick consented to a leap day role reversal and, by some accounts, also declared that men who declined the proposal would be fined!
• In the 1879 opera The Pirates of Penzance, the character Frederic is apprenticed to a band of pirates until his 21st birthday. When that day arrives, he abandons ship, falls in love and plans to marry. That is, until the pirates realize that Frederic was born on Feb. 29, meaning his contract does not officially end until the 21st time that date occurs—when he’ll be in his 80s. He’s forced to leave his fiancé and return to a soggy life at sea.

All the posts from shaktiwitch.com have been migrated to this new blog – whew!

You will notice some password protected entries. Please just email me  to get the password. Posts about my personal life will usually be password protected.

I will now start on adding pages and links and other fun things to the site here as well as posting more often. I’m so happy to finally be using this domain name too – it’s much more appropriate than shaktiwitch.com was but I was going through my heavy yoga phase at the time (still do it every day but don’t consider it a lifestyle though I am quite flexible!)

Comments are turned on for all posts. I will not be migrating old comments – they can stay on shaktiwitch.com until the site is no longer there.