Death and Change
This page lists articles I have written on witchcraft, paganism, and spirituality. Some articles are listed under multiple headings.
Death is constant, and its vehicle is change. These articles explore aspects of change, death, mourning, and commemorating the things that have passed from our lives.
No Wrong Way to Grieve
Grief is love with nowhere to go. There is a lot to grieve right now, and there will be a great many more losses before the COVID-19 mess is over. Read More
Speak Honestly of the Dead Even if it Means Speaking Ill of Them
How the concept of “don’t speak ill of the dead” is typically utilized is fraught with dismissal and erasure. Every time someone problematic dies, it is nearly inevitable to hear statements of “don’t speak ill of the dead,” but who does that idea serve? What benefit does it have? Certainly, if we want to learn from the past and honor those who have been harmed by people now deceased, we must speak honestly of the dead, even if being honest means speaking ill. Read More
Death is Required for Living: A Spiritual Argument Against Aggressive Moral Veganism
Unless you are solely eating items that are cast off or harvested from still-living plants or animals, you are taking a life to survive. Every. Single. Day. Even leafy greens cause death unless you are able to harvest the leaves individually from your own garden. Read More
Mourning & Commemorating Transitions at Samhain
We don’t get to choose to what we mourn. We can’t help the fact that we mourn not only other people, but animals, objects, places, relationships, activities, our previous selves, and anything else we place personal value upon. When we value something, anything, and it leaves our lives, it is natural to mourn it. Read More
Why I Do Not Formally Venerate My Ancestors
These are my personal reasons for not formally venerating my ancestors, and some things I have done instead to root my practice and connect with death. Read More
Spiritual & Practical Reasons to Have an Artificial Yule Tree
It may seem counter-intuitive to include a plastic tree as a sincere spiritual component of Yule, but it makes sense to me for some very specific reasons. Read More
25 Forms of Banishing – A Versatile Tool in Witchcraft
Banishing is used across all forms of magic. It is a loss that is welcome or needed, and most deliberate changes involve some kind of loss or banishment. Read More
Tarot Thoughts: Hanged Man Vibes for Tower Times
If you find yourself thrown off your foundation and hanging by your foot, relax and take the time to see what that new point of view can reveal to you. Read More
Seeking Balance During Extremes
COVID-19 has dealt the entire world an unbalancing upset. Even in cases where this pandemic doesn’t strike to the very hearts of our daily lives, we are still seeing dramatic effects on our lives and the lives of those we care about. Here are some suggestions to help you find your balance. Read More
Is It Fate, Cause and Effect, Coincidence, or Self-Determination?
How the events of our lives shape reality is a complicated mess of interrelations, cause & effect, random chance, personal choices, & metaphysical impetus. Read More
Living a Life Free From Regrets
As far back as I can remember into my childhood, I wanted to live a life free from regrets. Now that I am in my 40’s I have a rather large number of them, but I also do not feel like I let myself down. When I said “free from regrets”, what I really meant was “wouldn’t go back to change it if I could.” Accumulating regrets is a natural part of living, and although I do regret how things turned out now and again, I respect and understand all my choices that led up to those things. I can’t think of a single one where I look back and genuinely wish I had made another choice. Read More…
What Exactly Is the Point of Divination Anyway?
One very common practice in witchcraft, paganism, and most pagan-tangential traditions is divination. It is found worldwide, in every culture, in some form or another, throughout history, and is one of the few fundamentally human activities found anywhere and anywhen. Even when divination is vilified and outlawed, it is still present, practiced in the shadows. But why do we do it? What exactly do we get out of it? Read More
A Story of Ghost Cats
This is the story of what happened to me with an entire litter of ghost cats, their living sibling, closure after death, and the joys of reincarnation. Read More
An Unexpected Encounter with The Dead: A Ghost Story
On a handful of occasions I have found myself in a situation when I needed to work with the dead. This ghost story is a recounting of one such occasion. Read More
Lament for the Lost
The Lament for the Lost commemorates different kinds of major losses that have been suffered, from lives, to livelihoods, normalcy, dignity, and sanity. Read More
What “The Balancing Path” Means
Life balance is never static. It is a moving target, which you might find briefly, but usually spins away again as life circumstances inevitably change. Read More
The Paradox of Estrangement in the Time of COVID-19
As cases of COVID-19 are surging throughout the United States, I cannot help but wonder about my birth family, how they are faring, and if they are safe. It is a strange thing to have no idea, to be aware that I may never know, to be glad for the estrangement which prevents that knowledge, and yet to wonder and hope that they are well. It creates a paradox of conflicting emotions, a cognitive dissonance, to be so concerned, and yet know that it is far and away in my best interest to retain the distance of estrangement I created. Read More
Making Room for Anger in Your Life and Practice
Anger is an incredibly powerful emotion, and at the same time an incredibly tricky emotion to wield in healthy ways. It is a volatile fuel that is usually unsustainable and will burn you if you try to hold it for too long, but when given healthy space, that same volatile fuel will naturally burn itself out and can facilitate the most amazing transformations. Read More
Deluding Yourself Feels Amazingly Good
Deluding yourself, lying to yourself, might seem bad, but it can feel amazingly good. It allows us to have hope and feel good about bad situations, helps to cushion the psyche against ongoing trauma and abuse, and helps us keep equilibrium in difficult situations. Read More
Neurospicy Take on Positive Affirmations
Positive affirmations as they are typically done, do not work for me, and I am certain that is also true for a lot of other people who are also neurodivergent, and others as well. But, the idea has value, and affirmations can be approached in ways that will work even for those of us who recoil at typical positive affirmations. Read More