As October arrives, the natural world begins settling into its darker season. For the ancient Celtic peoples of Ireland and parts of Britain, this turning point was marked by Samhain, a seasonal festival held around the beginning of November that welcomed the dark half of the year.
Today, Samhain is one of the most important celebrations on the modern Pagan Wheel of the Year. Its roots, however, reach back many centuries to a time when the rhythms of daily life were closely connected to the earth and its seasonal cycles.
Intuition can be one of the most valuable tools we bring to our magical practice. It can help us choose the right time to act, sense when something deserves our attention, and recognize possibilities that our logical mind may not have noticed yet.
But intuition can be subtle and often begins as a feeling. Something tells you to wait before making a decision. You suddenly think of someone you haven’t heard from in months. You feel drawn toward one path even though another seems more practical. Perhaps you walk into a place and immediately feel comfortable—or feel that something simply isn’t right.
Most of us have experiences like these. The difficult part is recognizing when that feeling is intuition and when it is simply another thought passing through our minds.
As summer begins to fade, nature offers us countless signs that it is time to follow her into a new season. Around September 22 or 23, the Sun crosses the celestial equator and we reach the Autumn Equinox. Day and night stand close to equal, marking a turning point between the bright days of summer and the longer nights ahead.
For those who follow the Wheel of the Year, this is Mabon, the second of the three harvest festivals. Lammas welcomed the beginning of the harvest season. Mabon celebrates its abundance, while Samhain marks the final harvest and our passage toward winter.
But Mabon is about more than a date on the calendar. The real celebration is happening all around us.
My previous post about using AI-generated images brought some thoughtful responses from readers. Several people raised concerns about artificial intelligence—its effects on artists and writers, jobs, truth and misinformation, and the resources required to support this rapidly growing technology.
These are concerns I share. I’ve heard the warnings about the potential dangers of AI, including concerns raised by people involved in developing it. Some of them are scary. And with AI already becoming part of our everyday lives, I’ve found myself wondering: What can we do about the problems that come with it?
The Full Sturgeon Moon will brighten the late-summer sky this month, offering us another opportunity to step outside, look upward, and reconnect with the rhythms of the natural world.
As July gives way to August, nature begins to whisper that another season is slowly unfolding. The days are still warm, gardens remain full of life, and wildflowers continue to bloom, yet subtle changes are already taking place. Fields of grain turn from green to gold, berries ripen along country paths, and the first harvest of the year begins.
This special moment on the Wheel of the Year is celebrated as Lammas, also known by its older Celtic name, Lughnasadh (pronounced LOO-nah-sah). Falling around August 1, it marks the first of three harvest festivals that continue through the autumn. While many people think of harvest as an autumn event, our ancestors understood that it began much earlier, with the gathering of the first grains that would help sustain their communities through the coming winter.
The Summer Solstice arrives when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky, blessing us with the longest day and shortest night of the year. This Sabbat is usually celebrated around June 20th or 21st in the Northern Hemisphere and around December 20th or 21st by those who live in the Southern Hemisphere. Known to many Pagans and Wiccans as Litha, it’s a celebration of the height of summer and the vibrant energy that fills the natural world.
The most widely recognized and commonly shared tradition of Beltane is the lighting of fires—especially bonfires. Flames symbolize the returning power of the sun and the life and vitality it brings. Beltane is the season of that fire—the fire of life, of vitality, and of growth coming into full expression.
Today, the words “green-energy” brings to mind renewable power and sustainable living, but for our ancestors, this was a description for the living energy within plants. In this article, we’ll explore these views and look at ways we can reconnect to the natural energy of the earth—to support health, bring calm and balance, and create a space of peace around us.
This thoughtful question has come up within our community—one that many of us feel deeply about, and one that touches my life personally:
Do tools like AI truly belong in a nature-centered spiritual practice?
It’s a meaningful question—one that deserves reflection and honesty.
For many of us, Wicca is rooted in connection—to the earth, to the seasons, and to the rhythms of the natural world. So it makes sense that something as modern and complex as artificial intelligence might feel out of place. And yet, like so many things in our lives, the answer isn’t always simple.
There is a personal layer to this topic that I would like to share.
