Beyond Differerences

Celebrating unity in diversity through music and dance. With amazing performances from Bali, India, the Philippines, and other Asian countries. Basbasan Na...

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Alban Arthan

I just started the Bardic Grade course of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD) last month and just appropriately, my first druidic High Day celebration is Yule. With the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I couldn't find time to do the ritual outside so I just thought of creating a small stone circle inside my room. I know, druids-in-stonehenges is a disproven stereotype. But I really just wanted to try this idea. Having done so much rituals in the past - from prim-and-proper Kabbalistic ceremonies to wild-and-freeform Santeria rituals, I find the OBOD solitary ceremonies a bit too simplistic and "mundane" for my taste. But then, I'm probably just putting too much attention on the outer form. OBOD druidry involves a lot of meditation...

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The Druidly Hallows

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."-- Albus Dumbledore This latest Harry Potter movie almost got me snoring in the theatre. But thanks to my love of symbolism and synchronicity, I at least found one thing in the movie that piqued my interest quite a bit: the symbol of the deathly hallows. Incidentally I was learning about the cosmology of the Ár nDraíocht Féin druidic tradition[1], and one of the subjects I ran into was their concept of the Three Hallows: The Fire, the Well, and the Tree. These are symbols that correspond to the three worlds of their cosmology (the Upperworld, Middleworld, and Underworld) as well as the three groups of spirits that they worship (gods, nature spirits, and ancestors). Basically the Three...

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How to Deal with Magical Attack

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."-- Napoleon Bonaparte 1. Shrug your shoulders in dismissal and heave out a sigh of boredom. There are a lot more worthwhile things to do than waste precious moments of your life on some loser who's got too much spare time in his hands. Let them waste their time on yours instead, and get on with your life with a smile. Indifference is power. 2. Avoid doing counter-spells as best as you can. Some occult practitioners tend to wallow in the romanticist and fantastical notion that someone has cast an evil spell on them, and that they have to make use of their magical powers to protect themselves. But the more you spend time on the enemy, the more you empower them and allow yourself to be...

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Hermetic Pathworking with Tarot

Focusing on the Pagan path now, I think that my days of summoning Goetic demons and communing with the wondrous angelic beings of the Enochian watchtowers are over (for now). However I couldn't help myself going back to the world of Hermetics from time to time. I feel that it fills a void in my Pagan spiritual practice in that it offers a more systematic approach in exploring the macrocosm - i.e, the worlds above and beyond the material, or the levels of consciousness beyond the normal waking state. While Paganism keeps me in awe with the world around me, Hermetic practices like pathworking keep me in awe with the worlds beyond. The school of Hermetics offers a couple of cosmological diagrams (mental-maps) that help the mage traverse the otherworlds....

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