Tag Archives: protection

The Enchanted Kitchen: an Online Course

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Starts the week of August 15, 2021

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Learn kitchen magic for prosperity, protection, peace, confidence, courage, and nearly anything else you want.

These are quick, easy spells for life’s essentials and life’s joys. Lessons are quick and easy, too.

The way I teach you, a complete beginner can be a powerful kitchen witch.

My style hearth magic fits into your day. Most of it can be done while cooking, cleaning, and other customary activities, which means you can do plenty of witchcraft to manifest the life you want.

Use ordinary household objects, like spoons and culinary herbs, as mystical tools.

When busy, stressed, or ill, it’s hard to find time and energy for spellwork. Learn sixty-second enchantments, manageable for anyone. These spells are so easy and powerful.

And learn longer hearth rituals, for special occasions when you have time and desire.

The Enchanted Kitchen is one of the Faerie shamanism courses I channel: this style of hearth witchery is potent mystically, spiritually, and magically, and we’ll access these immense blessings easily. The Fey Folk add beauty to the magic and reveal mystical secrets. Beginners and adepts gain huge improvement, inside and out. I have something unique in this class—channeled from past lives.

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You receive:

1) Twenty lessons, one a week. Each lesson is a digital Book of Shadows entry (PDF), ornamented by my original shamanic art, which blesses our work.

Course material is spread over 20 lessons to make every lesson bite-sized, so it fits into your busy week. You also get three weeks off for the holidays.

You’ll learn a lot a lot a lot. But I tailored lessons to be manageable even for super-busy folks who have countless responsibilities and constant, unexpected commitments. I want you to have tools to overcome the challenges life throws at you.

2) Four audio recordings, from my Faerie hearth to your Fey heart. Hearing a spell’s words can be enchanting. Each recording is a quick audio snack: a recitation of a bit of that week’s PDF.

3) I’m available by phone for up to 45 minutes. If you have questions about the material, need support because your commitment to doing the lessons falters, want to further explore a particularly tantalizing part of the curriculum, or have other concerns, feel free to phone.

You can divide the 45 minutes into two or three conversations. Conversations must occur during the span of the course or within a month after.

You can also ask for support from fellow students:

4) Access to my website’s exclusive online hearth. This private page is where classmates can support each other, share victories, and ask each other questions.

This sacred discussion is just for students, without “teacher looking over your shoulder,” so you feel free to express yourself. E.g., I won’t check for “mistakes” in your magical viewpoints. You’re a grown up, in your unique process, and if you feel you might be on the wrong track with something in the curriculum, you can ask me about it by phone or ask your fellow students. My students tend to give wise feedback.

I will however pop in regularly to check that no one’s being a meanie. You deserve a safe space.

5) A free bonus: a PDF Book of Shadows for optional journaling about the lessons. Every page has my shamanic art and no text. Either type into the PDF or print the file to handwrite in.

6) A surprise gift: I commissioned fantasy artist Kathleen Marshall to paint a modern rendition of a traditional hearth blessing. You receive a digital file of the art for your kitchen, plus lore about the blessing.

Starts the week of August 15. The course is 20 weeks, which are consecutive except we skip the holiday weeks of Nov 21, Dec 19, and Dec 26. If an unexpected event makes me unable to send one week’s planned material, I’ll extend the course one extra week.

Tuition for this four-month course—20 lessons, four audio recordings, access to our private online hearth, free bonus, and surprise gift, plus one-on-one private support—$600 . Special reduced rate: $200 savings. Your cost is $400. $100 a month for four months.

Use the Subscribe button below for four monthly payments of $100. Enroll securely with PayPal:



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If you need more info or want to discuss scholarship, trade, or payment plan other than the subscription, phone me. No refunds.

My online courses aren’t my oral tradition or transcriptions of oral tradition classes. The online courses are something special unto themselves—spectacularly useful and powerful.

I’ll continue to teach oral tradition classes by phone. My oral tradition cannot be conveyed online.

The online courses are curriculums I’ve worked on for years. I channeled magic tailored specifically to be exciting, effective, and safe when learned online. I was willing to spend years figuring out how to make this course worthy of you. So mote it be.

Upcoming Event

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Trauma, Shamanism, and Victory:
A Three-Week Shamanic Healing and Empowerment

Move from trauma to victory.

During or after crisis, the most basic emotional well-being can feel wobbly at best. Serenity and control of one’s life can feel completely unattainable.

In Trauma, Shamanism, and Victory, we will heal ourselves and our lives, and claim the prosperity, love, and other blessings the Universe sends us.

This course is suitable whether your crisis(es) is past or present.

Traumatizing situations range from current health dangers, to family dysfunction in childhood, to trauma in our DNA from ancestral misfortunes, to the loss of a loved one, to a terrifying societal norm, to economic loss, to portions of the media and social media tailored to emotionally batter us until we feel impotent and alone.

When devastated by misfortune, not everyone has the same trauma symptoms. But here are some rough sketches of what might occur. Most of these examples are extreme and might manifest more mildly:

* You function in a daze, mind clouded and emotionally numb. To avoid feeling helpless, you keep busy to the point of exhaustion.
* Confidence in your perceptions, decisions, and moral beliefs diminish. A belief that nothing can improve pervades your worldview.
* Exhaustion of body or spirit makes you feel unable to bear up under the smallest responsibility. The littlest challenge is overwhelming. You might need an hour—or day—to build up to performing a five-minute chore.
* A minimal stress causes panic and terror. It seems as if your spirit—your very essence—has been stolen. You feel without any purpose. Inner and outer power seem nonexistent.
* For self-protection, you withdrew emotionally. Isolated from the support needed to heal and find your power, your emotional devastation increases.
* You don’t go after what you want because you fear the pain and disappointment that might come if you don’t reach your goals will be unbearable. You reject offers of help you need to recover and triumph. No one seems trustworthy.

Whether your trauma (or traumas) is past or present, I reach out to you with my whole heart and soul to invite you into a safe space.

Join me in tribe. Enter a sacred circle. For three weeks, we’ll meet once a week, for a shamanic healing and empowerment circle.

Hope is not a lie. Here’s why:

1) Trauma, Shamanism, and Victory is down-to-earth shamanism that addresses real life issues.

War vets, incest survivors, and others can tell you my shamanic approach helped them move past suffering. 

2) For over three decades, I’ve developed and led ceremonies to help participants move through crisis and trauma and claim power.

Thus, I have an extensive repertoire of shamanic tools for this event. These decades also polished my shamanic skills to a degree of thoroughness that can only happen over time.

3) I’m not coming to our meetings as an outsider, but as someone who used shamanism to overcome tragedy herself. I repeatedly survived situations that would’ve killed most people, and came out triumphant. This informs our process.

It also means I won’t look down at you, with supposed superiority. We meet as fellow travelers.

4) Shamanically (as well as psychologically, and historically), trauma is an opportunity that could not be better tailored to springboard us into personal power.

Trauma, Shamanism, and Victory (TSV) helps our innate powers emerge, so we can better overcome problems, heal, live fully, and inspire others.

TSV also helps unlock our magic, creativity, and warrior spirit.

5) We can thrive in community. In this upcoming event, we can find wholeness, together.

An extremity of duress, even if past, can affect physical health, spiritual vigor, self-confidence, emotional well-being, and effectiveness. Reclaim them with me. With tribe, in sacred circle, in union with the cosmos, we can move on and claim our lives.

This three-week journey has three powerful aspects:

StarSwirl31) Three ceremonies, one per week, for three consecutive weeks. These rites are via group phone calls. To participate, just dial your phone. These will be major healing and empowerment ceremonies.

We’ll work in old-style oral tradition, which allows immense headway quickly. Enrollment is limited to 16 people, so we can perform ceremonies that can only occur in a small group, and so each participant can receive individualized attention if they want that support.

The rituals facilitate major transformation: energy will continue to shift in us after each rite, and probably snowball long after the three weeks end.

StarSwirl32) Direct spiritual transmissions for three weeks. Between weekly TSV meetings, the transmissions continue to support you, keep the healing and empowerment going, and more.

My transmissions are soul healings. They also bring additional serenity into your shamanic process, increase its power and safety, further your personal growth, and add luck when you do anything to improve your life.

One of each week’s transmissions will be during the group meetings.

I can’t say what “direct spiritual transmission” means for other practitioners. In my case: I was born a good luck charm, generating a beneficial field of energy. I don’t do anything to you; I don’t inject you with energy, rearrange your energy, or even dust off your aura, LOL. I simply give off a blessing energy during a transmission, much like burning incense gives off specific magical energies in a room.

My transmissions adapt to your needs, e.g., physical healing, or the spiritual strength to get back up after life’s knocked you down.

StarSwirl33) In addition to individualized attention during group ceremonies, I’m available for one-on-one support by phone, for up to one hour, should you want to privately discuss a problem, or if you have a concern that would take too long to discuss during a group ceremony.

You can divide the hour into two half-hour conversations. Our talks must occur during the span of the course or within a month after.

No experience needed for this event.

If you’re a shaman or other support for trauma survivors: a study showed that caring for folks in trauma can be traumatizing in itself. Join our circle, to receive the care you need.

Only a shyster or inept facilitator would promise to “fix everything” in a three-week ritual. Trying to do too much transformational work, all at once, can buffet the psyche, doing more harm than good.

Our journey can cause life-changing shifts for you. Many individuals who have gone on short journeys with me call the results miraculous. The brevity of TSV helps keep the process from being overwhelming.

A three-week process is long enough for my particular shamanic tools to foster substantial improvements in your well-being and circumstances.

When the three weeks end, you can continue making major positive changes, in a second Trauma, Shamanism, and Victory group.

After the first TSV group, there will be two weeks for participants, including me, to absorb the transformative work we accomplished.

Then a second three-week TSV journey begins—a different ceremony from the first one, utilizing different shamanic tools.

Enroll in either or both three-week groups.

The first group meets Sundays, 3:00 to 4:00 pm EST, for three consecutive weeks, starting April 19. Reserve Sunday May 10, same time, for a makeup meeting, in case I’m unexpectedly unavailable for one of the planned sessions.

The second group meets Sundays, 3:00 to 4:00 pm EST, for three consecutive weeks, starting May 24. Reserve Sunday June 14, same time, for a makeup meeting, in case I’m unexpectedly unavailable for one of the planned sessions.

Full cost for three ceremonies, three weeks of direct spiritual transmissions, and one-on-one private support is $250. Your carrier might charge you for the phone calls into the ceremonies.

Enroll in both groups before midnight April 15 to save $100. Your total cost is $400.

Use the drop-down menu to select one of three enrollment options. Then pay securely with PayPal:


Options
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Upon payment, your place is reserved. You receive course details—e.g., the phone number to dial to participate in meetings—by email. No refunds. To discuss payment plan, trade, scholarship, or semi-scholarship, or if you have other concerns about the event, call me.

We are not powerless under the brunt of society’s force. Crisis can affect every part of our lives, but together we can move past trauma to live more fully, with confidence, creativity, personal authority, wholeness, and joy. Don’t go it alone or with negligible support. Join tribe. Enroll now.

How an Empath Can Protect Themselves from Group Discord

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If you’re an empath being hurt by a group’s emotional distress, the following liturgy can help safeguard you. The liturgy is also a good idea when you see a group’s emotional uproar on the horizon.

The group could be a family, nation, all nations as a whole, colleagues at your workplace, or other group.

The liturgy also helps provide defense against troubling emotions that an individual in the empath’s vicinity has.

Background:
* An empath is a person who picks up and actually experiences other peoples’ emotions. This experience can be distressing and overwhelming, especially when someone near the empath is having immense rage, terror, or comparable distress.
* An empath can use psychic safeguards to keep those disturbing feelings at bay.
* I believe an empath might pick up terrible national or international ambience—feelings of terror or other anguish. Such a huge group’s uproar can slam into the empath. Safeguards are needed.

I also believe the blows suffered from national or international distress are likely to hit the empath’s subconscious mind. The empath suffers without knowing the source of their pain.

If the liturgy discusses issues that feel irrelevant, I suggest you use it anyway, unchanged, as an experiment. Some things don’t seem useful until you use them. For one thing, the liturgy’s ideas and magics are geared less to how your mind reacts to them, and more to how your gut instincts respond.

Also, I boiled down some of my theories into this liturgy, so this brief poesy covers a great deal of ground, both by implying it and through outright statements. In addition, the best means for conveying my theories was through lyric, to provide experiential learning of the liturgy’s overt and implied ideas.

To use the liturgy, simply recite it, silently or aloud, very slowly, perhaps pausing after each line. The liturgy has two parts, both of which have a title. Those titles, as well as the title of the piece as a whole, are part of the liturgy’s magic, so include all the titles in the recitation.

Empath Protection Liturgy

Part One:
I Repudiate, Reject, and Repel
Invaders and Presumptions:

I am not a dark hole you have a right to fill or to feel.
I am and own the dark emptiness
that is the source of all creativity,
from which springs projects and progeny
I myself—not you—initiate.
My life and soul
—my empty darkness—
are filled and felt by me;
they—not you—are my source.

Part Two:
I Claim My Life; I Live My Life;
I Love My Life; I Myself Fill My Life:

I am and own the dark emptiness,
the originator of all creation and creativity,
the original creation and creativity,
the source of all creativity.
I am the source of projects and progeny I initiate.
My life and soul—my empty darkness—are filled and felt by me;
they are my source.
They are the source of all goodness.

So mote it be!

An aside, which is a theory of mine: one reason a patriarchal culture deprives women of control over their own bodies is it’s an effective way to make women view themselves as mere receptacles for other people to use/fill however they want. Once that idea is instilled, it affects all parts of a woman’s life; she is supposedly an emptiness someone else has the right to fill for childbearing, sex, negative shadow projections, and more. Even when a woman knows better, such a belief can operate powerfully in her on a subconscious level, causing major problems. The feminine void is the original power, but oppressors, not wanting women to know that, try to reduce a woman’s emptiness to a commodity that she has no right to, but that greedy people have the right to use/control. End of aside.
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Dear reader, gaining power can be challenging, but sometimes it can be easy and fun. My book, Baba Yaga’s Apprentice, is an easy, fun read. And it’s perfect for you if you’re empathic, introverted, exceptionally magical, or sensitive psychically. The book has other benefits as well. Check it out: https://stardrenched.com/2017/02/28/baba-yagas-apprentice/

Tree Magic

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Tree Magic:
A Ten-Week Druidic Journey with Sacred Trees
for Prosperity, Protection, Personal Growth,
Inspiration, Magical Prowess, and Lots More

This ten-week course reveals simple, quick, effective enchantments for all parts of your life. Learn:

* how to use the magic of twenty trees sacred to the Druids

* the ancient Ogham alphabet and how to apply it magically. (I painted tiny Ogham alphabet letters to put throughout this announcement to bless this event. There is a large Ogham painting of mine towards the top of the post.)

* a wonderfully innovative, effective metaphysical principle that can make all your tree witchery more powerful. I’ll teach you lots of tree magic principles but wanted to mention this particular technique here. I discovered it experientially and then developed it over time. It is natural, easy, strong, and joyful, and is an underlying principle for all my tree enchantments. I can barely wait for class to begin so I can teach it because it’s so happy-making for me.

* how to have a personal relationship with sacred tree magic, including the Ogham alphabet. In other words, you won’t need to rely on books for information because you’ll receive information through direct experiences with tree magic, and you’ll discover how the trees work their enchantment specifically for you, as they wisely honor your unique character and path. You’ll learn a style of tree witchery that shapes itself to your physical, spiritual, and emotional needs. A personal relationship with the trees is joyful. If you already learn directly from trees, this course will help you do it at a whole new level.

Mind you, I will teach you about each tree’s specific metaphysical nature, but I’ll also show you methods for learning directly from trees, so you can continue to gain new powers from them for decades, if you so choose.

Along with everything above, this event is a true shamanic journey facilitating major transformations. These transformations will happen during our time together and probably snowball long afterwards.

Since there’s so much to this course and its journey, at first I wanted this event to take a year. But I realized a few things:

1) Many people can’t fit a yearlong event into their schedules, or pay the fee for a yearlong course.

2) The Gods didn’t want that long an event anyway.

3) I could create a spectacular ten-week event. What a journey this will be!

4) I developed building blocks for journeying with magical trees. During this intensive, we’ll use them, so they’ll be in your magical repertoire when the ten weeks end. Then, if you’re like me and want to continue journeying with sacred trees over the decades, you’ll have those building blocks, that foundation. I love offering that to you.

To pack everything in, this event has four powerful aspects:

One) Ten lessons, one per week for ten consecutive weeks. Lessons are via group phone calls. To participate, just dial your phone.

This is old-style oral tradition, which allows immense headway quickly. Enrollment limited to 16 people, so we can perform traditional Faerie spells that can only happens in a small group, and so each participant can receive individualized attention if they want it.

Two) Direct spiritual transmissions during meetings help make lessons powerful and safe, further your personal growth, and grant good luck. The transmissions also kickstart your magical prowess or bring it to the next level. They do the same for your mundane powers.

Here’s a quick definition of direct spiritual transmissions. I can’t tell you what it means for other practitioners, but in my case: I was born a good luck charm who automatically generates a field of energy that provides the benefits outlined in the previous paragraph. As such, I don’t do anything to you; I don’t inject you with energy, rearrange your energy, or even dust off your aura, LOL. I simply give off an energy during a lesson, the same way burning incense gives off a magical energy in a room.

Three) Twenty-five pages of digital handouts ornamented by my original full-color talismanic art. This witchy artwork adds further power to your journeying, both during the course and after it is over. These pages make a beautiful addition to your personal Book of Shadows.

Four) In addition to individualized attention during class, I’m available outside of class for one-on-one time by phone, should you need to privately discuss any class material or your personal issues using it, or you need support because your commitment to doing assignments falters, or you have other concerns. Private dialogue can happen after the course ends; it is important an oral tradition teacher be available one-on-one even long after a course ends; I commit to my students.

No experience needed. But even advanced practitioners will enjoy this course.

I’ll be leading two separate groups. One will meet Sundays, noon to 1:00 EST, starting February 3. The other will meet Mondays, 6 to 7:00 pm EST, starting February 4. Both groups run for ten consecutive weeks. If you choose the Sunday group, reserve Sunday April 14, noon to one, for a makeup meeting, in case I’m unavailable for one of the planned sessions. If you choose the Monday group, reserve Monday April 15, six to 7 PM.

Tuition is $354. Your carrier might charge you for the call. Pay securely with PayPal. Choose from two payment options:

Option 1) Use the Pay Now button below to pay $354 now. No PayPal account required.

Immediately after payment, email me to say whether you’re choosing the Sunday or Monday group. Or tell me in the reply field below this post.





Option 2) Use the Subscribe button below to pay in two installments: $177 now, followed by an automatic $177 payment a month later. Payments appear on the credit card associated with your PayPal account.

Immediately after subscribing, email me to say whether you’re choosing the Sunday or Monday group. Or tell me in the reply field below this post.





Once I know whether you’re choosing the Sunday or Monday group, your place is reserved. You receive course details—e.g., the phone number to dial to participate in the meetings—by email. No refunds. If you need more info, or want to discuss another payment plan, trade, scholarship, or semi-scholarship, call me: 814-337-2490.

The course’s approach to tree enchantment is unavailable elsewhere. Though you’ll learn traditional lore when relevant, a great deal of what you’ll receive isn’t the easily available traditional material, but is what I learned from the trees themselves—in direct experiences interacting with the druids’ sacred woods—and from the Goddess, combined with past life memories as a druid, my channeled information, and sensibilities from my family tradition. In my family tradition, I was raised to be a creator of new material. I call my approach Fey Druidry.

I don’t expect to offer this course again for at least another three years. And I turn 70 this year so, if you’re planning on studying with me, now’s the time. Yay!

The Figa

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The Figa
Reclaiming Women’s Power and an Italian Amulet

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A figa is an amulet in the shape of a closed hand. Often, the tip of the thumb peeks out between the middle and index finger. The figa represents a woman’s genitals and is a charm for protection and good luck. It is also a talisman for fertility.

Even as a youth, I was drawn to the figa, not only as a talisman but as an archetype. It held tantalizing mysteries, and its antiquity and exotic roots were a delicious contrast to the American 50s bland norm.

I acquired a new figa recently, and shot the above photo, so you could see it. Isn’t it beautiful? I absolutely love it!

I purchased my new amulet here; the shop has more, each one different: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ErikasCollectibles

I’d already had a figa for … hm, I don’t know how long. It could be 30 or 40 years, or far less. I don’t remember how I acquired it. I was raised in an Italian, shamanic family-tradition. Otherworldly sensibilities were so typically present in our home, a part of daily life. A figa could slip into my life seamlessly back then, the entry not as noteworthy as it could be for people who aren’t constantly surrounded by that sort of thing.

Yet, despite my familiarity with Italian folk culture and my intense draw to this charm, I rarely saw one that I thought beautiful. I was never fond of my old figa, had wanted a new one forever, but couldn’t find one that pleased me till now.

My finally liking one is significant to me as a woman. Read on to learn why.

Seeing my new figa, which is very feminine, sweet, and elegant, I realized by comparison why I’d rarely liked a figa in the past. For one thing, they’re usually quite macho. An object that is supposed to embody female sexuality should … embody female sexuality.

Plus, figa figures are often crude. The crudeness repelled me, though on a subconscious level until I saw my new sweet, elegant figa. The crudeness—again, I experienced this subconsciously—was like being slapped in the face, shamed for being female.

Instead, I adore my new charm. Its sweet, feminine elegance is powerful magic and significant healing.

I was blown away by the shop’s photograph of this piece. And I did my best when I took the photos for this post, but it’s even better to see it in person; its exquisite artistry almost took my breath away. The careful sculpting of an elegant, feminine hand, enhanced by the marbling of its resin, makes it a true treasure.

It triggered a train of thought. The charm must not only be an Italian folk symbol for female sexuality per se, but also imply lot more. The figa must have originally symbolized everything—everything—a woman can be if she is unbound; her full being realized and expressed. The amulet must have once represented this totalness of being and potency in all parts of life. Otherwise, I do not believe the charm would have become so incredibly popular. It is worn not only by Pagans but by many Italians, including Christians.
FigaPic1SmBe clear, when I write, “Everything a woman can be,” I’m implying everything a human can be. I am positioning a woman’s sexuality as potency, the same way a man’s sexuality is often viewed as potency in his business and all other parts of his life.

I love folk art, folk magic, and the place where the two intersect. I also believe one might better understand a piece of folk art if one knows the cultural norms prevalent when the piece was made. That includes pop culture. Enter Kenneth Lane. The figa I bought is a vintage Kenneth Lane.

What was occurring around jewelry designer Kenneth Lane when he had the urge to create a figa that would be neither vulgar nor shaming? What in the political climate impelled him? Or did something solely personal to him serve as motivation? (The political always impacts us personally, but you know what I mean.) Whatever it was, we owe him a debt.

I mean, “figa” is Italian for the demeaning term “pussy.” The styling of most figa figures reinforces that nastiness. I do not object to a figa shaped roughly in a spirit of exuberance, or if a limited skill set did not allow finely honed lines. What I oppose is the consistent vulgar representation and the overall gestalt it feeds, a deeply hurtful cultural norm.

By the way, I see nothing wrong with a masculine figa per se, but there’s something wrong with a feminine symbol generally being masculine.

In any case, Kenneth’s jewelry was popular with Hollywood stars. Although many Pagans wear a figa, the pendant is also popular with non-Pagans. So people can knock pop-culture all they want, but I bet Kenneth’s pendants made women of all kinds proud of being women.

Kenneth’s styling was powerful. It wasn’t until I saw it that I could understand by contrast how demeaning most figas are and reclaim another part of my power. His rendering of the figa was able to heal me from a cultural norm so deeply ingrained and horrible that it still hurt my soul despite my fierce pride in my female nature and witchy wildness. I have a new piece of my magic as a woman and a new piece of my womanly pride.

What had been a sacred image in ancient Rome lowered in value until it became used as a rude gesture. A symbol that once must have honored women came to denigrate them. I believe Kenneth helped change that. I hope my thoughts here help a bit, too.

The profound power that exists in every human is diminished when we reduce anyone’s power through shaming depictions.

But when we shine a light on the wonderfulness of those around us, our own powers shine.

… Now the only problem I have is how to stop myself from buying all the figas in the shop. There’s a gorgeous variety, each piece quite different. I’ve already bought a second one. Here it is on my altar:
FigaPic3SmI will treasure these figas always. Here’s where to acquire an outstanding charm: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ErikasCollectibles