Today is April 30, which means it's May Eve. It's the traditional time to begin observing the fertility celebrations of Beltane. If you lived in rural England a few centuries ... Read More

Florida lawmakers are toying with the idea of adding a specialty license plate that says "I Believe", which includes a stained-glass window and a cross. Specialty plates cost $25 extra ... Read More

In an absolutely Monty Pythonesque chain of logical weirdness, a Hampshire, England, newspaper associates the recent discovery of a headless deer with the fact that witches once frolicked in the ... Read More

According to an article published in the Canadian paper The Edmonton Sun News, there are three times as many Wiccans in prison now as there were in 2002. The number ... Read More

Do you have your altar all prettied up for Beltane? If you'd like to share a photo of yours with the rest of us, you can send it in as ... Read More

In an interesting legislative maneuver, the South Carolina senate has approved a bill that would allow municipal governing bodies to hold a prayer before starting their public meetings. Not only ... Read More

Thought I'd pass this along to everyone, because it definitely looks like it's worth checking out. There's a new print magazine available called Modern Witch, which will be coming out ... Read More

Remember Green Bay city council president Chad Fradette, the guy who placed a nativity scene on top of city hall last winter, which led to the filing of a lawsuit? ... Read More

Some mystical, magical news from the folks at BBC: back in February, a rare white stag was seen roaming the Scottish highlands. Fran Lockhart, a partnership manager for the John ... Read More

This is neat. If you go to Yale you might get the chance to discuss the theology of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Divinity student Danielle Tumminio has an academic ... Read More

If researchers ever dig up my back yard, they'll discover very few things of interest -- maybe some old candle stumps, a dead pet or two, and my son's missing ... Read More

About a year ago, the Tangipahoa Parish School District in New Orleans found themselves as the defendants in an establishment clause lawsuit. Well, an opinion has come down from the ... Read More

Here's an interesting one to ponder. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times (which is About.com's parent company) takes a look at a California researcher who believes that harsher weather ... Read More

Beltane's right around the corner, and no Pagan or Wiccan event is complete without food. Let's face it, we'll have a potluck at the drop of a hat. If you're ... Read More

From the BBC news: yesterday the city of Rome marked its anniversary. Rome was founded, according to legend, on April 21, 753 b.c.e., by twins Romulus and Remus. To observe ... Read More

It's April 22, and that means it's Earth Day! Find a way to celebrate -- do something special. For tips on how you can help make the planet a better ... Read More

In a recent inmates-rights case, that of Gelford v. Frank, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that prison officials were within their rights in denying a prisoner access ... Read More

Blog reader Celia (and two or three other folks) have asked: I am Jewish and I am also a pagan, so how exactly would I go about doing the stuff ... Read More

A Mount Vernon, Ohio, middle school teacher was told by local administrators that he needed to remove a bible from his classroom. Now some of his students are standing behind ... Read More

For a lot of Pagans and Wiccans, a significant part of our path involves respect for the earth and the gifts within it. It's no real surprise, then, that Earth ... Read More

Spring is well underway, and the soggy chill of March is past. Now that April's here, it's still soggy in a lot of places, but there's hope yet, because as ... Read More

It's no secret that it can be hard to get teenagers to use the libray -- after all, they tend to spend a lot of time focused on other stuff. ... Read More

May Day has been celebrated for a long time, in a variety of ways. Did you know that the Puritans outlawed those big phallic Maypoles? Or that Beltane is a ... Read More

From the Pagan/Wiccan news files: an Oregon barista claims she was fired by java giant Starbucks, but they've got documentation that says it was her poor attendance which was an ... Read More

In an update from Arkansas, a judge has told attorneys for the West Memphis Three that he'd really like to see the case wrapped up, one way or another. Judge ... Read More

Part of the celebration of the greening of the earth includes, naturally, flowers. They're everywhere this time of year, blooming and blossoming as we welcome the warm days back into ... Read More

Some neat news from the folks at Discovery. No, not that Deadliest Catch returns tomorrow night (yes, I've already set my DVR). Apparently, a recent excavation of a seventh-century Anglo ... Read More

Three and a half centuries ago, a 39-year-old woman named Mary Sandford was accused by her neighbors of being a witch. She had been charged with such abominations as consorting ... Read More

In Salem, Massachussetts, a panel called No Place for Hate will be meeting this evening, and will feature an open panel and discussion board. Guest speaker Margot Adler will be ... Read More

Beltane is approaching, and for many Wiccan and Pagan traditions, that means it's time to celebrate the fertility of the earth! Whether you're planning a big public ritual or a ... Read More

Nearly two thousand years ago, a Roman soldier was sent to an outpost far from his home among a race of people he likely viewed as savages. As people often ... Read More

Ask me to name off ten places I want to visit before I die, and I guarantee that Stonehenge will be in my top three. People have been puzzled by ... Read More

In a small village in the mountains of India, some two dozen miles from New Delhi, a one-month-old baby is being revered as a goddess. Up to a hundred people ... Read More

Great Britain is finally repealing its Fraudulent Mediums Act, which was used as a replacement for the old English Witchcraft Laws. However, the Mediums Act is being replaced by a ... Read More

A few years back, South Carolina Wiccan Darla Wynne made headlines when she successfully sued the Great Falls city council, saying they had violated the church and state separation clause. ... Read More

Okay, I've finally gotten around to setting up the Ostara altar photo gallery. I didn't get a lot of submissions, but the ones I did receive are lovely. There's room ... Read More

Beltane is approaching, and with it comes the opportunity to get out of the house and celebrate. If your group or organization is holding a public event that anyone is ... Read More

In what is surely guaranteed to sent his right-wing opponents over the edge in a frenzy of bible-thumping, Libertarian presidential candidate George Phillies seems to be happily courting the Pagan ... Read More

The advocacy group First Freedom First has aired a documentary online about the First Amendment and all it entails. It's an interesting bit of broadcasting, and was simulcast on March ... Read More

Oh, this is cool... last week I blogged about the BBC's planned production of Merlin, which looks at the young wizard's conflicts with Arthur, the man who would become the ... Read More

There's a new moon rolling in on April 5, so mark your calendars. April is when we're getting ready to plant things, and starting our seedlings before burying them in ... Read More

It's rare for me to put a commercial business link into a blog post, but every once in a while I make an exception. In this case, it's because I ... Read More

Blog reader Merle asks an interesting question, wondering how to make black salt, an ingredient sometimes included in hoodoo workings. It does occasionally pop up in Wiccan ritual as well. ... Read More

Blog reader Sara writes in with an excellent question: What do you do with your altar objects after the sabbat or solstice? Do you save the altar cloths and reuse ... Read More

Recently, a dear friend who feels obligated to forward me every single email that comes down the pike sent me a little happy note cheering about the upcoming National Day ... Read More