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The reviews are coming in!
“If you gave this book to any baby witch, you would be giving them probably one of the best books available. Sam Wise understood the assignment.” Thanks so much to Planets in Gatorade for the video review of Witchcraft for Everyone!
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2022 Theme: Radical Love
I’m trying to get away from measuring my growth through productivity, so instead of a resolution, I’ve chosen a theme/intention for 2022, which will hopefully inform my choices and actions. The theme, of course, is radical love. The image on the first slide is the Justice card from the gorgeous Next World Tarot. Many thanks…
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URL Change
There is literally no deep meaning behind this change. “The Illuminated Witch” is a name that I picked when I was still incorporating New Age elements in my practice, which is no longer the case. “Soy Viking” is something a white supremacist once commented on one of my YouTube videos, intended as an insult, and it was…
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“Structured” vs. “High Demand”
You know, at this point I think it may be useful to talk about the difference between highly structured religions and high-demand religions, because I realize the terms sound very similar but have very different meanings, which may be confusing for newcomers. Highly structured religions are exactly that — religions with a lot of internal…
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Some thoughts…
I’ve often heard Americans and Europeans (i.e., people from culturally Christian societies) argue that Buddhism isn’t a religion, but a philosophy — even though most Asian Buddhists would tell them that of course it’s a religion. I think this gets into a larger cultural (mis)understanding of what a religion is and what it means to…
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PSA
It’s okay if you don’t feel like doing a big ritual for Samhain this year. It’s okay if you don’t feel like celebrating Samhain at all.It’s okay if a holiday that, among other things, involves meditating on and embracing the reality of death would not be healthy for you right now, given that many of…
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How To Dry Herbs in the Oven (video)
This is the method I use to dry all the herbs I grow and forage. Honestly, it’s way easier, less messy, and more convenient than drying them by hanging. All you need is a conventional oven and a few hours to kill!
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Southeastern Foraging: Sassafras
I had my first successful foraging experiment yesterday! My partner and I literally stumbled into some sassafras growing in a friend’s front yard! I took some leaves home, dried them in the oven, and ground them into filé powder, which is an important ingredient in Creole cooking. Filé is used as a thickening agent and…
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Queer Polyamorous Love Spells
As Pride Month winds down, I wanted to share some love spells for a subculture-within-a-subculture that often gets overlooked: queer polyamorous people. Polyamory (sometimes called Ethical Non-Monogamy – as opposed to unethical non-monogamy, a.k.a. cheating) is an umbrella term that covers many types of relationships in which everyone involved knows that their partner is seeing other people and is okay…
Sam Wise 