Althaea Sebastiani's Blog

A Short Winter Story

His conversations with them are secure in the night. Far too late, far too cold for other eyes and ears to take notice, he’s always alone when the deer come walking out of the forest. The large doe, matriarch of the small herd, stops just at the edge of the trees, her eyes locked upon his still form, her ears pointed and searching. The glow of the end of his cigarette illuminates his face for a moment and he turns his head slowly, away from the doe, and exhales quickly.
“I’m not going to bother y...

Nature Reverence Isn’t Enough

Dismantling Toxic “Respect” to Forge Deep Relationships with the Land & its Spirits Regardless of the trappings and labels we may latch onto and tie into our crafts, one thing lays at the heart of witchcraft that binds us all. This is our connection with the land and its spirits (conjointly called the Land). Our connection with the Land and the effort we put into our relationships with these spirits, the genius loci, touches all aspects of our practices. We see this in the tools we use—h...

Offerings: The Cornerstone of Devotion to the Gods

Though we may each approach the Gods through the lens of sometimes very different traditions, devotional practice remains constant among them as a means for us to forge strong relationships with the Gods. What devotional practice looks like for each of us will look different—as it should. Our relationships with the Gods must be personal, reflecting the time and effort spent to know Them intimately. Just as the way you know your best friend will be different than the way their parents know...

Brand New Book Release

So pleased to finally be able to announce the title of my brand new trad pub and that it is now available for preorder on Amazon!

Paganism for Beginners: The Complete Guide to Nature-Based Spirituality for Every New Seeker is a comprehensive and inclusive overview emphasizing the beautiful diversity of the modern Pagan movement.

If you follow me on twitter or instagram, expect to see some excerpts (and maybe a giveaway) as we get closer to the release date!

When Autumn Stirs a Fire within You

This acorn fell, hit the ground, bounced, and then hit me in the butt. New best friend. Happy Autumn!Autumn sits heavy on the land in the northwoods. There’s a stirring in the air, unsettling, electric. There’s something deep and primal that the changing of the season stirs in us. Even so removed from the land, as many of us are thanks to the qualities of our society, that stirring happens. We find interesting ways to put that unease, that restless to work, different avenues to funnel it into...

Leaving the Desert

There’s a heavy cloud shadow sitting on the mountain. A single opening allows the angled sunlight to find a way through, to find a way to make the hard stone glow. The monsterman won’t look out the window of the truck. I point, tap the glass, but nothing. The mountains that will soon be a faint memory to him can’t draw his eye. As always, he does what he wants and rawrs at me.

He’s known nothing but desert, mountains, and arroyos. Third birthday so very soon, he knows nothing of rivers,...

Site-Wide Sale

Because it's late, because I can, because these eclipses are making all our heads spin, all courses and Bone Readings are marked down through Imbolc (February 1.)
Witchcraft Courses
Be a Local Witch
Intro to Spirit Work
Intro to Ancestor Work
Bone Readings
Ancestral Reading Service
In-Depth Bone Reading
Basic Bone Reading

Working with Ancestors in Witchcraft

If there is one constant regarding families, it is that families are complicated. Very few people have families or a family history that is neat and clean. Rather, we have problematic relationships with our kin, parents who failed in their responsibilities to their children, grandparents who didn’t care about their grandchildren let alone their own children. We have family histories that travel about the globe, with ambiguous origins and stories filled with violence and mystery.

But that...

Practical Prosperity Magick, pt 2: Practice

This is part two of a brief series on Practical Prosperity Magick. The previous post in this series looked at what we mean by prosperity magick and the ethics of working money magick (and witchcraft, in general.) This post rounds out this short series by looking at how to determine the best approach for your prosperity magick, short-term vs long-term goals, and several simple yet effective ways to work money magick. As always, there are no tools or complicated rituals required for any o...

Practical Prosperity Magick, pt 1: Theory

This is part one of a short series on Practical Prosperity Magick. This series will focus on what we mean by prosperity, ethics of working magick for personal gain, short-term vs long-term focus for magick, and will wrap up with a handful of tried and true short-term prosperity magick techniques.
What is Prosperity Magick?Prosperity is the state of flourishing within the physical realm. This largely relates to abundance in terms of how we support ourselves, such as the amount of money flowing...