The Full Strawberry Moon is Sunday, June 7th at 2:12pm
This is the time to use the energy of Sagittarius to connect to your higher purpose, the sun in Gemini supports communication of our wishes, dreams and goals to reach that purpose. Now is the time to reveal your plan for your life. To make spiritual and life reparations clear. That dream you've always had of doing that thing you never dared? Now is the time to sit down with everyone involved and make a plan- even if those people are just you and the Gods.

The Moon goes Void of Course on Monday, June 8th at 09:50am EST

The Moon enters Capricorn on Monday, June 8th at 4:00pm EST
Today's energy supports any sort of work to benefit your career success or improve male fertility.

The Moon goes Void of Course on Wednesday, June 10th at 11:30pm EST

The Moon enters Aquarius at 4:53am EST on Thursday, June 11th
This is a good time for dream work and to do work to remove any obstacles that may be interfering with the goals of any groups you support or are involved with.

The Moon goes Void of Course on Saturday, June 13th at 5:04pm EST

The Moon enters Pisces at 5:33pm EST on Saturday, June 13th
This is a good time for dream work, astral travel and journey work and also a good time to do work to support any endeavor that might take you outside your comfort zone.

The Moon goes Void of Course on Monday, June 15th at 9:17pm EST

The Moon enters Aries on Tuesday, June 16th at 352am EST
This is a good time to do any work related to breaking bad habits.

The Moon goes Void of Course on Thursday, June 18th at 5:35am EST

The Moon enters Taurus at 10:22am EST on Thursday, June 18th
This is a good time to do a spell to protect your home and cherished objects from theft.

The Moon goes Void of Course on Saturday June 20th at 8:02am EST

The Moon enters Gemini at 1:01pm EST on Saturday, June 20th
This is a good time to banish any obstacles to successful communication.

Summer Solstice 2009 is on June 21st at 1:45am EST

The Moon Goes Void of Course on Monday, June 22 at 8:20am EST

The Moon enters Cancer on Monday, June 22 at 1:13pm EST
The New Moon in Cancer is June 22, at 3:36pm EST
This is a great time to cast a spell to encourage family harmony and to bless your hearth.

Want to know where I get this information? Check out the article Magical Days for Spellcasting and consider getting yourself a magical almanac.

Since the beginning of time people have claimed a higher state of existence. That some how, some where, there were, if not individuals, beings that understood some secret to the universe that the average person does not have access to. Through prayer, meditations, and rituals these enlightened people have claimed to be able to alter the boundaries of the physical reality man inhabits. Many events in life were also viewed as magical due to the lack of scientific study available at the time, for example lightning was the anger of a god that would hurl hammers, spears, or bolts at the unexpected, undefended planet below. Women were also idolized in many cultures due to their ability to reproduce and bleed for several days with out dying. Scientists have explained these simple anomalies through a greater understanding of the research process and an accumulation of knowledge over time. However, there are still abilities and anomalies that people claim to have to this date that scientists do not have an explanation for, such as the power of prayer to heal or positive reinforcement on a physical level. These abilities claimed by occultists, spiritualists and the sort of the craft have yet to be scientifically proven to the mass, even though there is plenty of experimentation already documented. I won't get into the reason for lack of credibility here, however, just because something can not be proven to exist, does not mean that it can be proven to not exist. Thus begins the circular debate. Well the naysayers have their side of the argument and their theories for the world around them, but other than scripture is there any available theories or debates that hold any credential? There are a few, thanks recently to the wonderful world of Quantum Theory which will hopefully someday be proven through Quantum Physics. Even though these theories haven't been fully formed yet, a theory can only grow if it is logical and stands against scrutiny. This makes these theories just as important as the scientific proof itself. Unfortunately with out informing people about these possibilities, they will never receive the research they deserve. Through my next couple of posts I hope to explain the legends behind religion, spirituality, and magic, along with a possible explanation of 'magic' in the world today.

Today I thought I'd share with you one of my favorite books about herbal magick, The Wicca Herbal by Jamie Wood.

The introduction contains a bunch of information that is, as usual, questionable, but not offensively so. She describes a tradition, which she calls Wicca, which is certainly earth-based spirituality and witchcraft, but is not really Wicca, though the definition of Wicca is so convoluted these days, who knows what it is. She gives a brief ritual outline that is certainly Wiccan and she explains how to get in tune with the energies of plants, which isn't anything in particular. She expounds romantically on how she believes ancient people viewed the plant world as if it were fact, which is moderately annoying, but still romantic and pleasant so it's forgiveable. She also includes handy tips for growing, gathering, storing and preserving herbs, but she's pretty light on general information about making herbal preparations. If you already know all that, you won't miss it.

Finally, we get to the nitty gritty, the plants themselves. For each plant she gives a brief introduction and provides practical information for integrating it into your magical practice. Here is where the herbal preparations are, but you have to find the herbs she's chosen to provide recipes for to get the information.

She wraps the whole thing up with a list of sources and of course a handy index.

I just like this book. It's a good reference and it has lots of neat ideas and recipes. It would be nice, perhaps, if there was more detailed information about the individual herbs, their correspondences, growing conditions, plant identification tips, but I don't think that's what this book is all about. I think it assumes you are already familiar with the plants under discussion and just wants to give you some ideas about how to use them. All and all, a great book to have as a companion to more mundane book with more detailed information about the plants themselves.

Of course you can find lots of information about magical herbs at http://www.sacredhearth.com if you want to know more about the plants in this book.