I’m back from California Witchcamp and Redwood Magic. Unlike last time, when the spiritual work I started at camp confounded my desire to write publicly for most of a year, this time I find myself wanting to post everything that I can find time to dig into… After all the magic around web-weaving at camp–unweaving …
Author Archives: cbcabeen
Pagan Families Posts
For the last year, I’ve had the pleasure of posting irregularly to the Pagan Families blog on Patheos. Pleasure? Okay, at first I felt awkward to be writing publicly about religion and magic–you can read an awkwardly long post about my personal battle with religious awkwardness here–but, you know, I’ve been feeling less and less …
The Invisible Art of Play
Originally posted at Pagan Families, 5/27/15. Has creating spells and making magic helped you hone your parenting skills? I haven’t seen any experts list spellcrafting or analogical thinking as an important parenting ability, but maybe they should. Let me tell you a story. One time this rainbow snake toy saved me from the minor embarrassment …
What Nights Are For
Originally posted on Pagan Families, 2/23/15. I lie awake in the dark with my children beside me, one on each side. The little one snuggles with her whole body, the big one with just an outstretched hand. I remember when she followed me in her sleep like a sunflower follows the sun; now when she …
Review: Parenting With A Story
Originally posted at Pagan Families, 12/19/14. I received a complementary review copy of this book. Paul Smith, Parenting with a Story: Real Life Lessons in Character for Parents and Children to Share (AMACOM, 2014). 272 pages. Once upon a time my mother stepped out of a friend’s car and down an open sewer grate. Fortunately …
Enchanted Composting
Originally posted at Pagan Families, 11/24/14. “I’m going out to the compost. Does anyone want to come with me?” I asked, and a moment of near panic followed when the kids thought I might get there without them. “Coming, coming!” piped the one year old, and the five year old chimed in, “Wait just a …
Haunted Time
A version of this was originally posted at Pagan Families, 10/16/14: My oldest child turns five this month, and I’ve been looking back at my journals from the first two weeks after she was born. I haven’t seen a lot of postpartum writing I resonate with, so I wanted to share a couple journal excerpts …
Of Children, Paint, and Unplanned Sabbats
Originally posted to Pagan Families, 9/22/14. When Beltane came, we’d planned to dance a May Pole at my older daughter’s preschool. Not exactly pagan, but I don’t know many pagan families locally, and the school May Pole was as close to traditional as we were going to get. Well, my daughter lost all interest in …
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Off To School Altars
Originally posted on Pagan Families, 8/19/14. Last year my almost four year old spent the first event of the school year in hiding. She’d enjoyed preschool in the Spring, but now that school was about to start again, she was worried and didn’t want to talk about it. I felt helpless. Her initial transition into …
To The Gates Of Dreaming: Using Guided Meditation to Help Children Sleep
Originally posted on Pagan Families, 7/16/14. I’ve spent countless hours helping my daughters fall asleep, nursing and bouncing, massaging and singing and praying, lying absolutely quiet or else reciting Mother Goose. By the time my eldest was preschool age, I turned to magic. I began using guided meditations with my daughter around the time she …
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