New Worlds of Body, Mind & Spirit Since 1901
The hearth is the center of your home. It may be a fireplace, a woodstove, a central furnace, or even your kitchen range. Wherever it is, it deserves a blessing. Begin by cleaning your hearth—a gesture of care and respect. Perhaps your fireplace or woodstove needs the chimney or flue swept and cleaned, and the floor in front of it swept or polished. A furnace may need its filter changed or vents vacuumed out, while your range might need to be cleaned and polished. Some of these are ...
Love comes in many different flavors. One of these is what the ancient Greeks called storge, or familial love. This is a subtype of platonic love, which is based on affection rather than sex or romance. Storge takes as much care and maintenance as romantic love, just in different ways. Turn off your electronics and pay attention to each other. Shared meals, game nights, and cuddle piles are all good. Pagan families may work spells or rituals together. This work is sacred to Hestia, the Greek ...
I once left an event wearing someone else's boots, the same size and color as mine. They didn't feel quite right, so I returned to the venue and found a woman at the door, searching. When my daughter was small, I made tiny labels that were sewn into all her clothes, so they always made their way home. With my own backcountry camping gear, I have carefully written my name in indelible ink, so ownership is clear. Sometimes magic is disguised as common sense. We can assume our stuff is safe, but ...
Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) has many uses. An adaptogen, it is great for treating exhaustion, stress, and adrenal fatigue. It enhances growth, stimulates immunity, and is effective against bacterial infection. Eaten as seeds, nettle stimulates feel-good energy. Nettle grows throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia and prefers stream banks and damp and disturbed land. Now is the time to harvest it. Be sure to first properly identify nettle. You will need a small paper bag on ...
