In the summer between the third and fourth grades, I read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum thirty-four times. With each reading, I felt certain I would find the secret that would help me endure that difficult summer. It would be decades before I realized that simply having the right shoes did […]
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Every Maiden isn’t young. Every Mother doesn’t have a child. Every Crone isn’t old. Ritual for a Group Several years ago, I created a ritual for hundreds of women writers who’d come from all over the world for a week-long conference held on a college campus. The ritual was to honor their stories, those […]
Read MoreThe rituals I share on this website and the items you’ll find in my shop were all created with magic in mind. Some were created from the magic of love. Let me explain. For seven years, I devoted myself to caring for my husband. He had Alzheimer’s. Our journey came with the heartbreak you […]
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DARE YE VOW ON AN OATHING STONE? Hearken back now to a time long ago when the land was always viewed as the home of the ancestors. Everyone knew that the spirits of loved ones who had died now guided and protected those still walking the earth. Everyone understood that physical survival in this world […]
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Whatever your spiritual beliefs, death creates a threshold between the world of the living and the world of the dead. When we think of a funeral as a rite of passage, we’re referring not to the deceased but to those left behind. For the survivors, life is irrevocably changed by the death of someone significant, […]
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By its nature, a rite of passage is a ceremony intentionally practiced and witnessed by a group whose members affirm that the person who completed the actions of the rite has been irrevocably changed. Thinking about the elements of today’s weddings and funerals, I can see why writer Ronald L. Grimes says ritual may have […]
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