Just having a look at Twitter, it seems we all haven’t clearly eaten enough over the last two weeks. So here are some food-based fortune suggestions to ring in a prosperous 2012! First, two points: One… a confession. I fucking hate New Years. Yes, that is as clichéd and obvious as saying “I really...
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This is part of the Royal Wedding Series which means I’m still in Scotland as you read this. What you probably didn’t know (or care about) is that I spent all Easter Saturday compiling this series and another one for my muggle blog. When I say “all day”, great chunks of it were spent...
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Tonight’s meal needs to be important. It’s been an insane couple of weeks. There have been earthquakes and missing relatives, visiting siblings, last minute business schleps and a death in the family. All during the most important couple of weeks of my career to date. It may not shock you to learn that all...
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It’s feels like I have crawled over the Friday night finish line like the world’s worst marathon runner (which I probably am). Ever since this started happening. Too many countries, too many meetings, too many family visits and too many massive earthquakes. My partner’s aunt showed up by the way. The reason she was...
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Let me start this post by insisting you all go and subscribe to Devi’s newsletter. I just got the December issue and it’s fantastic. Something in it triggered a plan… An ambitious plan. Like most of you, this is one of my favourite times of year. And even though I’m insanely busy it occurs...
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It’s grey in London. Shocking, I know. Be that as it may, I have been really looking forward to this weekend. Work is always insane at this time of year and I yearn for Saturday the way I would usually yearn for a whole week off. Here it is. Finally. The house is clean....
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Over the last five months I have been looking at ways of integrating magical perspectives into day to day existence. Historically it has been too easy for me to drift away and get very insular with magical studies that end up having minimal impact on my life (excluding spell effects). Food is the current...
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This year I have resolved to explore more than the ‘vanilla range’ of Pagan festivals. As I mentioned earlier, I am also interested in finding ways to secularise; or at least; ‘de-ritualise’ a lot of Pagan customs. And tomorrow is the Ancient Roman Feast of the Larvae. Which itself is part of the festival...
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Here’s my thinking. The mark of a mature festival is that it moves from religious in origin, all the way through centuries of folk customs and then fixes itself in the secular calendar. This has happened already with a number of European pagan festivals (Easter, Christmas, Halloween, etc) but Beltane hasn’t moved beyond ‘folk’...
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Having written a bit of a rant about the appalling culinary state of the modern Pagan tradition, I thought it best to focus on one of the incidental positives of becoming a more proficient home chef. Namely, you have a much better supply of impromptu magical ingredients. Take today, for instance. A few things...
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