Magic has always been an element of Witchcraft, but in the Craft its techniques were practiced within a context of community and connection.

Our physical senses and our embodied brains allow us to perceive only a small fraction of reality. We cannot see microbes or untraviolet light, for example. We can hear only a small range of sounds. When we try to describe the otherworld of energies and spirits, we are limited not only by our bodily constraints but by the expectations, assumptions, and language patterns ingrained in us by the culture we were raised in.

A society that could heal the dismembered world would recognize the inherent value of each person and of the plant, animal and elemental life that makes up the earth's living body; it would offer real protection, encourage free expression, and reestablish an ecological balance to be biologically and economically sustainable. Its underlying metaphor would be mystery, the sense of wonder at all that is beyond us and around us, at the forces that sustain our lives and the intricate complexity and beauty of their dance.

Earth Mother, you who are called by a thousand names. May all remember we are cells in your body and dance together.

Systems don't change easily. Systems try to maintain themselves, and seek equilibrium. To change a system, you need to shake it up, disrupt the equilibrium. That often requires conflict.

Magic is another word that makes people uneasy, so I use it deliberately, because words they are comfortable with, the words that sound acceptable, rational, scientific, and intellectually sound, are comfortable precisely because they are the language of estrangement.

There are two kinds of power. One is power over, which is always destructive, and the other is power from within, which is a transcendent and creative power.