It was 10 years ago when I was truly inspired to write my song “Blessings of Beltane” I remember standing on my hill, quietly gazing and drinking the distance of the early morning golden splendour, barefoot in the grass and drenching my face with the fresh, pristine morning dew, breathing in deep that beautiful unique scented air, a divine gift from the copious may blossom surrounding me in all its radiant splendour. The day was long and silent and filled with inner joy! Photo by Ray Hennessy It was more than enough to just listen to the many different communities of beautiful birds; it ..read more

I participated in my first ritual to celebrate Aphrodite (in this lifetime) when I was a teenager.  I only remember bits of the ritual but one of the things that we did was a guided meditation where we communed with Aphrodite.  In that meditation Aphrodite gave me a rose and I’ve felt connected to her ever since.  One of my favorite things to do on Beltane is dancing the maypole. It’s so playful and so much fun and can be quite empowering.  A couple of times my band, KIVA, played for Beltane festivals and sang some songs from the 1973 Wicker Man movie which was a great deal ..read more

Earth Day is coming soon…but the Earth is our home, every day. How can we honor Her, and pay homage to The Green Man, in our search for a magickal life? One way is to reduce, re-use, and recycle…we’ve all heard that. How does it translate to your daily life as an artist and spiritual seeker? Here are some ways to make your studio a greener place… One interesting way to make your studio a little bit greener is to create sacred art from natural materials. Gather a piece of found wood or bark, to use as a base for this project. You can create a collage to display in your studio or on your altar ..read more

If the delicate fluting of the kazoo is part of your vision for a song you are arranging, you may find yourself faced with the prospect of running a rehearsal that includes kazoos. I have had this delightful experience. I would like to offer my reflections for all of you who find yourself in this situation. Here are some predictable outcomes that I did not, alas, predict. 1)      When you hand out kazoos to your choir, you will utterly lose control of rehearsal. They will regress. The atmosphere will remind you of kindergarten on a Friday afternoon. There is no fighti ..read more

Well, Spring is here. It is more evident if you live in the South, but even here on the shores of Lake Erie there are signs. The buds are just beginning to show on the Maple tree in my backyard and the flowers are just beginning to show green leaves searching for the Sun. We’ve even enjoyed some warm sunny days in March…mixed in with plenty of cold, cloudy, rainy or snowy days too…. Most of us that have gardens have been gathering compost, salivating over the time when the soil can be turned over and the first seeds and plants put into the ground. For all my friends to the South, who have star ..read more

Songwriting is such a strange process. I often spend months and much research on a single idea, and it might take a year for the actual song to emerge and mature. I have even said that a song isn’t a song until I have played it 100 times, because it will morph even after it has been fully fledged into the world. But there is another process that is both fragile and powerful, wherein a song will appear “whole cloth” and the writer must hurriedly capture the moment and the ideas without crushing them. We rush for pen and paper or phone apps or digital recorders. Or we find ourselves without any ..read more

As the season changes from winter to spring, the energies of the earth start to rise with new life. Ostara, the Spring Equinox, is the perfect time to embrace this energy and renew our own spirits. For pagans and Wiccans, it’s a time of balance where light and darkness are equal. And what better way to celebrate than with some spring equinox music?  What is Ostara? Ostara is a pagan festival that marks the changing of seasons from winter to spring. Eostre, also known as Ostara or Eastre, is a significant figure in Germanic mythology, closely linked with the arrival of spring and the dawn ..read more

Welcome to Spring! After a long, crazy winter, with wild weather all over the world, may we finally come to a calmer period. Well, at least in the weather forecast! The season begins at March 19, 2024, 9:06:22 PM MDT. The Sun has just moved into the 6th house, having just aligned with Neptune in Pisces, and beginning a string of points in Aries, starring in the center of most of the solar system right now; just under a trine! Some of the interesting happenings is a wide conjunction with Chiron, Mercury and the North Node. For people born now or those who have planets in mid Cardinal signs, thi ..read more

How many of us as magic practitioners are asked to do a love spell? How many of us have cast one for our own desires or the needs of a friend? I suspect there are more of us who know better than that. I’d like to hope so. I had to learn about the follies of love spells the hard way. In my youth, I had a friend who was extremely lonely and wanted love in their life. I took it upon myself to cast what was to be my first “deeply researched and specifically constructed” spell to bring a lover to this person. Amusingly, (or perhaps not) it worked very well…….it also backfired, and I ended up being ..read more

Dance is a somatic experience and community ritual.  Dance is an art and a mating display.  Dance is small private moments and exaggerated musical numbers.  Dance is strict discipline and a child’s first movements to rhythmic sound.  Dance is grounding and transcendental.   Dance is cultural expression and reaches beyond language barriers.  Dance is secular, spiritual, human, and divine.  Dance is a gift from the God and Goddess, from our ancestors and to our descendants. Dance is a lifelong gift of joy Growing up I loved spinning, hand clapping games, s ..read more