National Geographic has a neat piece about the upcoming Leonid meteor shower, in which you might be able to see anywhere from 30 to 300 shooting stars an hour. Viewers in North America and Europe won't be able to see much when the shower peaks around 445 pm, but scientists say if you go out about twelve hours earlier -- yes, between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. -- you might be able to catch a glimpse. Observers in Asia will probably get the best view.

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A reader writes into the magical e-mail bag, with some concerns about a spell she's read about. She says, "I read about a spell that involves using my own menstrual blood. This is disgusting. Do I have to use it? And do people still use gross stuff like that in spells in 2009?"

Well, first of all, that "gross stuff" comes out of our bodies, and has done so for thousands of years. It's not really all that squicky - in fact, when it first comes out, it's pretty sterile, but that's neither here nor there. Your original question, about "do I have to use it" has a very easy answer -- and that is, "Not if you think it's disgusting."

The second part of your question, about whether people still use bodily fluids in spellwork, can be answered with a "Yes, some folks do." Although it's not used in every single magical tradition, there are a number of trads where the use of body fluids is considered perfectly normal and acceptable. Human fluids, be they blood, semen, urine, or whatever else you can think of, have long been viewed as having some pretty potent magical properties. If you look back at magical practice through history, the use of bodily fluids is nearly universal.

However, if you think it's repuslive, I'd simply recommend you don't use it. For more information on the use of bodily fluids in magic, read on: Body Fluids in Magical Practice.

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Remember the horrific case last month of the Sedona sweatlodge in which three people died? Now a Lakota tribe has filed a lawsuit against the United States, the state of Arizona, James Arthur Ray and the Angel Valley Retreat Center. The complaint states that Lakota ceremonies are sacred, and as such, should never have been appropriated by Ray or anyone else who's not Lakota.

The suit cites the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which says, "if bad men among the whites or other people subject to the authority of the United States shall commit any wrong upon the person or the property of the Indians, the United States will (...) proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also reimburse the injured person for the loss sustained."

The lawsuit also charges Ray with committing fraud by "impersonating [an] Indian," and says he "must be held responsible for causing the deaths of the victims and injuries of the survivors, and for the destruction of evidence through the dismantling of the sweat lodge."

In addition to the lawsuit, a number of Native American leaders have gotten together to form the Council of Indigenous Traditional Healers, in hopes that they can "provide guidance and oversight in regards to sacred healing ceremonies." Council members say their goal is not to shut down healing centers that are non-native, but instead to protect people, and make sure that native ceremonies are being performed safely, by those who are qualified to run them.

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From Mexico, there's a report that Santiago Iniguez Olivares, a 78-year-old man, has been arrested for the 1998 murder of a woman he believed had cast a spell on him. Modesta Navarro Nieves and her husband were bludgeoned in their home in Guadalupe del Cobre eleven years ago. Nieves died from her injuries, although her husband survived the brutal attack.

Authorities say Iniguez Olivares went into the home and accused Modesta Navarro Nieves of "putting a witch's spell on him." He then started beating her with a club. Her husband came home and Iniguez Olivares attacked him as well. No word yet as to what prompted the accusations, but this isn't the first time it's happened lately. CNN says that it's the second murder charge filed against someone for killing an alleged witch in the past eighteen months.

In some parts of Mexico, witchcraft thrives alongside Catholicism and traditions carried down from Aztec cultures. Today's witchcraft, or Brujeria, has a long line of ancestry, going back hundreds of years.

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