Happy Fall, Y’all

We’re nearly three hours into the Autumnal Equinox from my Northern Hemisphere vantage point in Chicagoland. Fall Equinox, or Second Harvest, is one of my favorite Sabbats to celebrate. I honor my Holy Powers in this gilded season and watch the foliage of my local treescape transform from green to gold. The dying year is prepared for its final resting place in Winter’s embrace. With every falling leaf, I submit to Divine Mystery and ask for the guidance of my Goddesses and Gods to see me through the season of lengthening shadows, while I remember with thankfulness all the forms of abundance my Holy Powers have bestowed upon me.

Happy Birthday, Nephthys!

It’s very fitting that on this fifth and final of the ancient Egyptian Epagomenal Days (according to my reckoning of the Cairo Calendar), this liminal time between the year that is ending and the one that is beginning, that we celebrate the birth of the Great Goddess Nebet-Het (Nephthys), Wife of Set, Sister to Auset and Ausar, Mother of Anpu (Anubis). She is “the Lady of the House,” i.e., the embalming tent, the mourning kite and funerary goddess, the One Who Welcomes Those Who Enter Amenti.

I truly do believe in my heart that She Wyrdly marked me, to borrow the words of Edgar Allan Poe, “from childhood’s hour.” The parade of funerals in my own blood family starting from my early childhood (and shocking deaths too, I might add, such as my being the first person to surprisingly discover my maternal grandfather’s body after he had hung himself; I was 8 years old at the time) were, in hindsight, an Ordeal Path that ultimately baptized me into Her service. Her eerily-lit Underworld pathways are not for everyone but I look back on none of those profound episodes of loss with self-pity. Nephthys is absolutely my heart’s delight, and the Chief Power to Whom I dedicated myself for lifelong service when I became ordained as a Priestess in the Fellowship of Isis nine years ago. She is also the Patroness of my Death Midwife work.

Dulce Domum, the Soul Returns Home: Last Night’s Fellowship of Isis Funeral Ceremony for Grendel the Cat

The reality is that grief from pet loss is not as easily ‘fixed’ as some would have us believe. It’s hard to live in grief that’s judged as unworthy. Grief is about love, and our animal companions often show us some of the most unconditional love we could ever experience. How often, despite our best efforts, do we absorb some of society’s judgments and think, I shouldn’t be grieving this much? Yet when we let these thoughts in, we betray our genuine feelings.

—Dr. David Kessler, You Can Heal Your Heart: Finding Peace After a Breakup, Divorce, or Death (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House Publishing, 2014), p. 136.

 

My role as cat midwife/cat mother has come full circle for my beloved Grendel: On September 21, 2007, I midwifed his feral birth in the woods behind my parents’ house; last night, June 11, 2019, I served as the death midwife who ushered him into the Spirit World after I made the heart-wrenching choice (given his Stage IV stomach cancer diagnosis less than 3 weeks ago) to have him euthanized at home sooner than I was expecting to.

Announcing the 26th Annual Fellowship of Isis Goddess Conference and Festival in Chicago!

Calling all Kemetic and Sumerian Polytheists, Reconstructionists, Polytheist Pagans, Tameran Wiccans, ceremonial magicians, Fellowship of Isis (FOI) members worldwide, devotees of the Gods of the Fertile Crescent, and friends! All are welcome to the 26th Annual Fellowship of Isis Goddess Conference and Festival in Chicago! I’m very excited to announce that, for the first time in our FOI Chicago community’s history, the event will span multiple days: Thursday, October 3, 2019 through Friday, October 5, and will feature a Pagan Cabaret! The location this year is the city’s acclaimed Prop Thtr, located at 3502 North Elston Avenue on the city’s north side.

TENDING TO THE ANCESTORS: A CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR THE WINTER 2018-2019 ISSUE OF ISIS-SESHAT JOURNAL

Seeking Submissions for the 2018-2019 Winter Issue of Isis-Seshat Journal on the Theme of “Tending to the Ancestors, Propitiating the Dead”—Deadline: Friday, January 18, 2019

“Iba se Eggun.”
(“I pay homage to the spirits of the ancestors.”) — Start of a Yoruba prayer recited in Ifá at the outset of certain rituals

I paid a visit to my Oluwo (Godfather in Ifá) last night and we had a chance to catch up on the whirlwind of life events I’ve been experiencing since my father’s cancer diagnosis two months ago. We consulted Ifá, and the voices of my own Orí (Destiny/True Will) and my Eggun (Ancestors) resonated strongly in the oracle’s spiritual prescriptions. The restless spirits of the dead, teeming hordes of the Eggun Buruku, were also vying for my attention, a fact confirmed by my lived experience of increased spirit activity at both my home and my parents’ house, where I recently (and totally by happenstance, and during a thunderstorm, no less!) made contact with the spirits of a young woman and children that had drowned in the river marking the northernmost boundary of my parents’ property. By their clothing, they appeared to have lived during the mid-nineteenth century. The children (blond-haired fraternal twins aged about seven or eight years old), unrelated to the young woman, were lost and crying out for their parents. The sight of them made my heart ache. But I couldn’t focus on them as I quickly realized the other spirit posed actual danger.

Allyships and Familiar Spirits: The Summer 2018 Issue of Isis-Seshat Journal Is Now Available!

Tending to my cancer-stricken father has definitely pushed me way behind in my production schedule for the Summer 2018 issue of Isis-Seshat journal, a quarterly journal of the worldwide Fellowship of Isis for which I serve as the Executive Editor, but I’m pleased to announce that I’ve just launched it and PDF copies are available for immediate download on my Etsy site, JackalMoonDesigns.

Allyships: A Call for Submissions for the Summer 2018 Issue of Isis-Seshat Journal

Seeking Submissions for the 2018 Summer Issue of Isis-Seshat Journal on the Theme of “Spiritual Alliances with the Animal, Plant, and Mineral Kingdoms”

Deadline: Friday, July 6

Anticipated Release Date: Monday, July 23

Many of us who engage with the Sacred in Polytheistic, Pagan, or Animist ways maintain a “this-world” focus, believing that we can enlist the aid of helping spirits from the world around us in our Work. But what does that mean, exactly? How do you know when your pet cat, for example, takes on a role greater than that of household companion and aids you in your ritual magic?

CC0 public domain image courtesy of Pixabay

What about the relationships you have with the plants that fuel your herb magic—how did you initially cultivate those relationships? What guideposts signaled to you that you were on the right path? How do you maintain those relationships with those plant spirits?

CC0 licensed public domain image courtesy of Pixabay

Those are the issues I’d like to explore in the Summer 2018 issue of Isis-Seshat journal, a quarterly journal of the worldwide is open to contributions from all theistic Pagans, Polytheists, animists, shamans, spirit-workers, and related magical practitioners besides FOI members (clergy and laity).

 

Content suggestions may include, but certainly aren’t limited to, the following:

• Personal discovery essays, i.e., how you came to cultivate these Allyships
• Incorporating the use of crystals or other minerals in energetic healing practices
• The history and the role of the Familiar in Witchcraft traditions, and how your practices continue those traditions
• Working with the Fae
• Guided meditations in forming various Allyships with spirits of the land or sacred beasts

So those are some ideas that merit exploring in this upcoming Summer issue of Isis-Seshat. However, I will also gladly accept any of the following:

• Reports of Summer Solstice (Northern Hemisphere) or Winter Solstice (Southern Hemisphere) group or solitary rituals
• Announcements of any special events, clergy ordinations, etc. from any FOI Lyceums or Iseums
• Original works or art / photography tied to the issue’s theme

Again, those are just some suggestions to get you writing!

As always, here’s my laundry list of criteria for acceptable content:

• Essays, articles, poetry, meditations, electronic images of artwork that are yours, not someone else’s—you retain full copyright of your work.
• If your pieces have been previously published elsewhere, that’s okay—just say so (identify where and provide the copyright date).
• There is no word count limit. Previously published essays/articles have ranged from 1,000-4,000 words.
• Please use MLA style when citing references.
• The preferred format for written material is MS Word; kindly don’t send me PDFs.
• The preferred format for digital art is JPEG or .TIF; please ensure it’s a high-res file (minimum of 300 x 600 dpi).

The deadline is Friday, July 6, 2018, and the anticipated release date is Monday, July 23.

This Call for Submissions is open to all Polytheists and theistic Pagans, irrespective of which cultural pantheon one’s honored Powers derive from—i.e., you don’t have to be a devotee of the Kemetic Neteru (i.e., the Gods of Ancient Egypt) to contribute content to Isis-Seshat journal.

I sadly am not in the position to financially compensate Isis-Seshat contributors. All contributors will receive a complimentary copy of the magazine. If you have any questions, please email me at jackalmoondesigns at gmail dot com.

I look forward to hearing from you! Blessings in the name of Isis-Seshat, Goddess of Writing! May She always render you True of Voice!

The 2018 Spring Issue of Isis-Seshat Journal, “People of Prayer,” Is Now Available for Purchase

This is an exciting time! In the four years since I have inherited the mantle of Executive Editorship of Isis-Seshat, a quarterly, international journal of The Fellowship of Isis, this has been the favorite theme I’ve devised: Polytheists and Pagans as “People of Prayer.” Why did I choose this theme?

Announcing the 25th Annual Fellowship of Isis Chicago Goddess Convention: “The Mystical Awakening of Scorpio and Kundalini”

It’s an exciting time for the Fellowship of Isis (FOI) Chicago community—a network of FOI-chartered Lyceums, Iseums, and Temples dedicated to Polytheistic outreach and to carrying the ideological torches of Goddess worship, eco-spirituality, and interfaith ambassadorship as envisioned by co-founders Olivia Robertson, Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, and Pamela Durdin-Robertson in 1976—as we’ve lined up quite a roster of public ritual and educational events for the next few months. The biggest news is that our annual Goddess Convention, traditionally held at Autumn Equinox and which draws FOI members (and friends from related groups) from a variety of countries to convene in Chicago, is having its quarter-century anniversary this year! That’s 25 years of uninterrupted public festival service to the broader Pagan and occult communities; for my part, it’s been a very exciting 16 years of commitment, as I participated in my first FOI Goddess Convention back in 2002. 

Broadcasting the Mighty Dead: Thoughts on My Magick Radio Chicago Interview and the Legacy of Lady Olivia Robertson

Last September at Chicago Pagan Pride, I came across an old acquaintance in the Chicago Pagan community whom, I discovered, runs a weekly AM radio show (streamed online via Que4.org) called Magick Radio Chicago. I was asked about the idea of consenting for an interview with other Chicago Fellowship of Isis members to discuss the organization and our thoughts on Chicago’s Pagan communities (I prefer the plural term because the scene is highly fragmented). I tucked the show host’s business card into my pocket and told him I would get back to him in a few weeks…which turned into four months, when he, to my surprise, attended the La Santa Muerte workshop I hosted at Alchemy Arts bookstore last month and he brought up the idea of the radio interview again. The show’s host, named Drew, was under the false impression that the Chicago Fellowship of Isis community, which is comprised of active members grouped into autonomous and individual Lyceums, Iseums, and Temples, had a “senior officers” roster akin to the leadership found in esoteric initiatory traditions ranked in one sole group, but we don’t as our sense of organizational structure is very different (and much more minuscule). It’s really my Archpriestess-Hierophant friend Demetria (who heads the Lyceum of Alexandria-Mishigami) and I serving as the “mouthpieces” for the tight-knit stellium of small groups. Hence it was she and I who sat in the control booth for the live radio broadcast of episode 127 of Magick Radio Chicago on Saturday night, February 10.