Last year I published a number of interviews with magical colleagues, friends and authors whose work I have been inspired or informed by over the years. I took a break from the interviews, but now I am back with a few more to follow in the coming months. I hope that you, my Patheos Pagan readers, will find in these interviews opening gateways to different esoteric communities and teachings, perhaps shining light on new and diverse topics. This interview marks... Read more
Originally published as Alchemy, Innocence and Transformation – The Horn of the Unicorn by Sorita d’Este in SILKMILK, Jan 2010. Read Part 1 HERE, Part 2 HERE. If we look to the Orient, the unicorn was perceived as being one of the four sacred animals there, associated with the element of Earth. It is more brightly hued than its occidental counterpart, with its colours being red, yellow, blue, white and black, or in other words the primary colours and the twin poles of light... Read more
Originally published as Alchemy, Innocence and Transformation – The Horn of the Unicorn by Sorita d’Este in SILKMILK, Jan 2010. Read Part 1 HERE, Part 3 HERE. Of course, it is significant that the Emerald Tablet was said to be the work of the greatest of alchemists, Hermes Trismegistus. Hermes was also credited with instructions on the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone and its properties in the work entitled Aureus: The Golden Tractate of Hermes Trismegistus. Concerning the Physical Secret of the Philosophers... Read more
Originally published as Alchemy, Innocence and Transformation – The Horn of the Unicorn by Sorita d’Este in SILKMILK, Jan 2010. Read Part 2 HERE, Part 3 HERE. “I am the good unicorn of the ancients. Dissociate me into two, And then bond us back together, So that my mortal remains no longer decompose. That is how to get the most powerful medicine. Pay no attention to my wild and poisonous nature, Because, God willing, I cure all sickness and give long... Read more
Occasionally I like looking back at old projects, and Samhain always feels like a good time to be doing that. To look not just at our ancestral bloodline, but also our spiritual ancestors and the history of our own lives. For the last few days I have been sharing extracts from the book The Guises of the Morrigan which I co-authored with David Rankine. It was the first book I published when I started my business Avalonia, and although I... Read more
Stories of the Faerie Queens are often linked to the liminal times of Samhain and Beltane, Halloween and May Day. This is perhaps because their stories are linked to life and death, war and love, passing beyond the boundaries of the ordinary in every possible way. Read more
The Cailleach is intricately linked to this time of the year. Her story is that of the changing seasons in our landscape and are specifically linked to the Wheel of the Year. Read more
No denying it, the Goddess Hekate has become a pop-culture icon. Dozens of artists, writers and creators in the 20th and 21st century have been inspired to include Hekate in their stories and have made Her an object of their creations and art. And thousands, probably millions, have taken pleasure in seeing Her on-screen and forming images of the Goddess in their mind, giving Her space to manifest in these new “spaces”. We can, of course, spend time and energy... Read more
“Cyrene is also the location where Jason used the iynx wheel to cause Medea to fall in love with him. According to Pindar Jason did this to ensure that Medea would follow him back to Athens.” ~ Circle for Hekate, V.1, d’Este The Wheel of Hekate is a symbol that has become synonymous with the Goddess of the Crossroads in the last few decades, and it is confusingly sometimes named as an Iynx or Strophalos – which are ritual tools. A slight variant of the... Read more
There is a little poem, which most people who live in the English countryside knows, it is meant to predict the weather for the summer ahead based on whether the Oak or the Ash gets their leaves first in any given Spring. Here are the words: Oak before Ash, in for a splash Ash before Oak, in for a soak For the last three years, I have been blessed to have large mature Oak and Ash specimens at the bottom... Read more
Adamantine Muse
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