A Reflection on My Self Dedication to the Goddess

Beltane 2012: I did not sleep well the night before.  In fact, I switched off my alarm before it rang and jumped out of bed 15 minutes early.  I showered and put on in the same dress I wore to my Methodist confirmation seven years earlier.  I slipped out of my dorm room, no makeup with damp hair.  I carried a bag of tools I had packed the night before.  It was exactly fifteen minutes before sunrise, and I was headed for a park near my university.  I was twenty-one years old and have decided to dedicate my life to the Goddess.

This decision was excruciating for me.  I was a fifth generation Methodist.  My mom’s parents are ministers, and my dad was a minister.  I lived in church housing my entire young life,

Ten Ways to Connect to Your Sacred Sexuality While Single

With Beltane right around the corner, we Pagans, Wiccans, witches, Goddess worshipers, and spiritual badasses find ourself at the sexiest part of the Pagan calendar.  The birds and the bees are out in full force, and the God and Goddess will consummate their love on one of Wicca’s most sacred days.  For practitioners and spiritual badasses, Beltane is an opportunity to reflect on the intersection between our spiritual and sexual lives otherwise known as sacred sexuality.

Sacred sexuality encompasses a wide variety of orientations and modalities and has two key themes: a deep emphasis on consent between adults and the recognition of the divine in all parties involved.  When you are single, engaging in sacred sexuality is an invitation to explore your connection to your spirit as well as to develop self confidence and self love.  In the Beltane spirit, I’ve compiled ten ideas for connecting to your sacred sexuality for you to adapt and explore to your heart’s content.

A Simple Self Love Beltane Ritual

Beltane is the ancient fire festival of love and fertility.  It is the time of year when witches, Pagans, Wiccans, Goddess worshipers, and spirituals badasses take the time to evaluate their abundance and to connect to the people in their lives.  As it is also season of the Wheel of the Year when the Goddess and God get it on and consummate their love, a lot of practitioners take this holiday to celebrate their romantic lives.  But it is also a crucial time of the year to go inward.  The most important relationship you are going to have in this life is with yourself.  Why not take one of the most magical and sacred days of the year to connect to your confidence?

The ritual I am sharing with you is all about connecting to the best parts of yourself.  I’ve given you a rough outline, so feel free to add or customize based on your practice, mood, or inclination. Through the course of the ritual, you will create a tool to remind yourself of your overall greatness in times when you are feeling low and out of it.    Therefore, you’ll be able to carry the lessons of Beltane throughout the year.

Witch Tips: Using Weather in Magic

When preparing magical workings, we Witches and Pagans tend to look cosmically to make sure we are working with the right energies.  We figure out the phase of the Moon and consider if it is Void of Course and what astrological house the Moon is in.  And while we are at it, we check to make sure Mercury isn’t in Retrograde.  But how often do we look at the conditions a little closer to home?

Using the current weather conditions in magical workings can be a powerful amplifier to your personal energies and the energies behind your magic.  The weather is also stupid simple to use.  All you need to do is to call in the weather as you would call in the elements.  Alternately, you can do your working outside so you can feel the wind and the rain on your skin and connect to the weather organically.

While not an exhaustive list of properties and weather patterns, here are a few examples of how to effectively use the weather in your magic.

Doubt

As a Pagan, I believe in balance.  Night and day; sun and moon; life and death; the seasons; earth, sea, and sky.  I also believe balance comes with a spectrum of permutations and commutations.  We are all made up of a balance of character traits and likes and dislikes and experiences that make us who we are.  That’s why when we as people are truly tapped into the fantastic complexities our spirits, our lives feel like they run as they should.

One thing that I think does not get talked about enough in Pagan communities is the balance of faith and doubt.  Simply put, faith is belief and doubt is skepticism.  They are the two sides of the same coin.  I strongly believe there cannot be faith without doubt because faith and doubt exist on the same spectrum.