editorial
Imbolc. The first green shoots in the cold earth. Snow still in the mountains; cold fogs. The beginning of things; inspiration; the first lineaments of that which is to come.
This issue of Widdershins discusses inspiration, appropriate to this season of beginnings. We write of castles in the air, fantasy worlds, the Muses and the inspiration that comes from lost love. We write too of our hopes of love to come, the ideas that hover about Valentine's Day, our latter-day Lupercalia. In the Roman Lupercalia, the wolf-priests, the Luperci, ran through the streets with whips made of wolf-skin, flogging women who chose it for fertility. Banned for its licentiousness, the festival was brought back by popular demand. So... is that a Valentine in your hand or a wolf-skin whip?
Imbolc is traditionally the time of witches' initiation, so we write here also of magickal initiation, that door through which we walk, either meaning to or dragged by circumstance. We speak too of witches' history, in a review of the recent book Triumph of the Moon, by Ronald Hutton, which documents the history of British pagan witchcraft.
Imbolc is a time of healing, so we discuss shamanic healing. One technique that will help heal your personal energy on an ongoing basis is grounding your home, your personal space, for which we give a technique within.
And as always, we talk about magick. How else? The energy that makes the world go 'round. The force that through the green fuse drives the flower. The bursting power that sends the first shy shoots through the cold earth of Imbolc.
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