This June begins under a full yet waning Sagittarius moon. We find ourselves integrating realization and digesting inspiration - all while a bit buzzy and tired. The Earth is trembling under the weight of war, genocide, and unfettered carelessness. The roses are blooming, tender and perfumed, reverberating in the early summer Sun. As we swing through the days that lead up to the Summer Solstice, we are aching for change that garners some measurable form of relief.

I’ve lived in many high desert regions, where June is synonymous with thunderstorms. I used to love the pressure of the humidity, the ominous clouds forming on the horizon, and watching the weft of rain cascading across the sky. Over the years my wonder turned into fear, as I scanned for flashes of lighting and worried about impending wildfires. Wonder and doom now live as side-by-side sisters, and hope has become a buoy during these times of precarious circumstances.

The energetics of this June find us sitting on the porch in the sticky heat, watching those dark clotting clouds roll into formation. Can we stay rooted in the wonder of the moment? Or do we fall prey to the worry, fall down the spiral towards disaster? Did you pick the perfumed roses and bring them indoors to enjoy before they lost their sweet scent?

My therapist told me that people who are depressed often have a better grip on reality. (I think she was trying to make me feel better?) Those who aren’t afraid of the doom, or death, are more able to understand life’s true reality: change. The trick is being able to hold both; to understand the destructive forces of life gives us a chance to behold the miraculous nature of our existence.

We witches, magical thinkers, new-world builders, and cycle worshippers have a difficult task to hold as we traverse the wheel of the year during late stage capitalism and polycrisis. We must hold space for Earth’s poetry of becoming, while casting spells that destroy the systems that threaten all of life’s magic. Perhaps practicing our devotions more fiercely, creatively, and ebulliently is part of this sacred duty.

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The astrology on the horizon is building into a peak in early July. But we have June to fortify our spirits and the all important rite of Solstice to ground our wishes and cast our spells for a healing, just, and liberated future.

Solstice Magick:

All of the elements are celebrated at the Summer Solstice, but two that I like to pay special attention to are water and fire. Summer Solstice falls at the beginning of Cancer season (cardinal water sign) and initiates a time of sweetness, emotional care-giving, and comfort seeking. The Solstice commemorates the moment of the Sun’s peak potency, and so solar magic, solar gratitude, and solar healing are all ancestral practices at this time of year. At the Sun’s zenith, the Earth is receiving the Sun’s full radiance, and all beings are able to channel the Sun’s full vitality. Traditionally, medicinal herbs are collected at noon on the Summer Solstice for this very reason; the plants will have absorbed the Sun’s full healing potency.

Solar qualities are warming, life-giving, consistent, sustaining, light, brightening, and ever-lasting. If we are able to embrace Solar wisdom at the Solstice, we will be asking the Sun to embolden and increase the aspects within us and the aspects of our world that we hold most healing and central to our survival.

Make an herbal infused oil at Solstice and share it with someone who might need a reminder of light’s gifts. On Solstice eve, revel in the world that is ending; burn effigies that represent the toxic destructive forces at work in our world. Watch sunrise on the Solstice, imagining a new dawn illuminating a world turning towards healing, restorative justice, reparation, and repair. Make (compostable! sensible!) offerings to sacred water ways or springs to acknowledge their wisdom, intelligence, and necessity. Take a dip, cleanse yourself ritually, and set intentions for the next chapter of your conscious co-creation with the cosmos.

Sweet Spots:

• June 9th, Jupiter - Venus conjunction: This is a moment to center emotional delights. Activate the pleasure seeking parts of you and luxuriate in a sensual experience that lights up your sense of connection and kinship.

• June 21st, Summer Solstice: protect this sacred moment by practicing ritual, gathering in community, making art, relishing in the magical universe we are all inseparable from.

Lunations:

• Gemini New Moon June 14th ~ a new moon for dynamic inner healing work

• Capricorn Full Moon June 29th ~ a full moon for reviewing commitments

Solstice SUN Tarot Spread:

1. The Sun: in this spread The Sun symbolizes a core truth or point of vitality to orient around. Think of it as an anchoring and sustaining light in your life.

2. Area of increase: what is expanding, advancing, progressing and/or becoming within and around you?

3. Make an offering of: how can you show your gratitude or be of service at this station on the wheel?

4. What to harvest: Something is seeking resolution. What has ended its growth cycle and now needs to be used, enjoyed, celebrated and evolved away from?

Solstice Spell ingredients:

On the solstice altar are cottage roses, pink and lavender candles, every shade of green, a bowl of sweet water, ribbons for spell ladders, beach stones, cornmeal, liquid offerings for the gods. Bells and cymbals, a crescent shaped tambourine. Malachite, pyrite, Gold gem essence on the tongue.

Tell me, what patterns are emerging from your verge? What is taking up the most space on your Solstice altar?

Sending love through the madness!

Connect with Casey in the wild!

Casey Zabala here, intuitive witch, artist, author and mother, crawling through the proverbial hedge to source magical gems to inspire collective re-enchantment. This “hedge” is a traditionally psychic space, alive with spiritual remedies for all who are willing to travel to the outskirts of modern consciousness, and connect with magic.

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Here’s a short piece on Beltane energetics (with a Full Scorpio Moon, no less) and some celebratory suggestions for your personal magical practice:

Oxblood, crimson and golden nasturtiums are tumbling over our neighbor’s fences. I’ve taught my son how to sip the peppery sap from the nectar spur. He calls it faery juice. The irises keep blossoming in speckled patches of pale yellows, whites and soft purples. At the community garden we sat below a pomegranate tree, admiring how the flower is eaten up by the fruit. How the fruit swells to envelope the flower. We wonder at the prospect of returning for ripe round glossy globes filled with jewel-like seeds. We pet the soft climbing roses, and we linger in the spotty shade on an old stone bench.

At Beltane, wonder is the destination. To be in a state of awe at the bubbling up of life.

At Beltane my hedge is brimming with the verdant greens provided by late Spring rain, with soft as tissue blackberry petals, with hearty borage constellations. While the hedge is bursting with new growth, my inner verge is emerging with a cautious optimism, with more specific boundaries coalescing, with deeper root systems and crystalline intentions.

My grief for the world has shape-shifted. Still raw and unwieldy in moments, yet held by a new confidence in those who are spinning immense healing webs. I am held by the generous activists who are guiding collective change. I am held by elder witches who have held torches up to the darkness and persist in challenging toxic systems. I am held by astrologers who share symbolic keys to our collective evolution with tenderness. I am held by the healers who are tending to individual trauma as a spell for wider collective healing underway. I am guided by the truth that change is the only truth. Change and evolve we must – just like the neon pomegranate flowers that are absorbed into sacred fruits. We are becoming new versions of ourselves, we must, we are.

Beltane is traditionally celebrated on May 1st, or the celestial moment that marks the midway point between Winter Solstice and Summer Solstice. Beltane is a fire festival that heralds the beginning of Summer. It is a time of celebrating fertility, increase, delight, growth, creativity, and sacred sexuality. At Beltane, traditionally cattle were driven through fires as a form of protection magic. During Beltane ritual vigils, people would leap through bonfires to cleanse and protect and fortify their spirits.

If leaping through a fire isn’t an affirmation of life, what is?

How are you affirming your life, your holy existence, your sacred commitments? Beltane is a time for invoking wonder, awe, pleasure and possibility back into your lived experience. What juicy rituals or intentional practices will be guiding your spirit back to a sense of eros?

🌝 This particular Beltane is encircled by a potent Full Moon in Scorpio, a Full Moon that will pull our emotions to the surface to be explored. Circle yourself in presence and protection, know the limits of your resilience, and tend to yourself like the highly sensitive witch you are. Perhaps what is exposed is your authentic passion. Perhaps your desires will be shimmering in lunar glow.

Beltane magicks: (inspired by ancestral folk traditions with modern adaptations)

• Create a Beltane altar that is an expression of your eros. Decorate the altar with flowers, with symbols of your joy, with images and affirmations of your creative potential. Feed it honey and make offerings to deities of abundance, creativity, and fertility.

• Get intimate with the Earth. Take a barefoot hike. Go for a sultry walk on the beach. Feel the erotic draw of a canyon. Listen to the bird song and let it resonate through your heart.

• Make a fire (safely!!!) and practice fire gazing. Dance around the fire and delight in its warmth and power. Share song and story with the night.

• Jump over a Beltane candle. Charge a candle with Beltane energetics, dress it with oil and dried flowers. Light the candle with the intention to call forth cleansing and protective energies. When you are ready, leap over the candle, imagining you are leaping through a portal into a new season or yourself, a new chapter of evolution.

• Leave offerings to the spirits of land, earth, and home. Ale, cakes, breads, honey, and milk are some traditional offerings, but you know best.

The veil is gossamer thin at Beltane. Elves, gnomes, the good people, and elemental earth energies are running, roaming, and playing their tricks at this time of year. From my ancestral perspective, offerings to these beings is a relational pact of non-aggression. Feeding the fae affirms their power, and is a show of respect. Tend to your garden, wild spaces, or cross roads as portals to their worlds. Tread softly and in reverence of the otherworlds they are tending for us.

Call forth the inspiration that you require to keep evolving, to keep flowering and fruiting. Nurture the artist within you. Delight in your lore. Center pleasure as you persist. Watch in awe as the world continues to present its diversity of flower to us, in spite of all the forces that seek to destroy it.

I have a flurry of very exciting happenings as the Spring turns! I hope to connect with your IRL at a few of the following events:

May 1st: Beltane Ritual & Show @ The Sunshine Prophecy in Oakland, CA

May 3rd: Beltane Marketplace @ The Sunshine Prophecy in Oakland, CA - I’ll be giving readings!

May 6th: Tarot as a Magical Practice (Workshop!) @ the eleventh house, Fairfax CA

June 4-7th: I’m leading a ritual and presenting at the LA Festival of Tarot, Los Angeles CA

Casey's Events Calendar

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Here is your divination journal for April 2026, insights into the lunation cycle and a three-card reading to guide you through the heat of Spring. Tune in for spiritual grounding, insights, and tips for this cosmic weather. Learn more about my practice, and book a session here.

April arrives with mischief, a gentle Spring rain, apple blossoms (already), and the promise of seismic shifts on the horizon. On the Libra Full Moon I was jostled awake by an earthquake, an omen of the intensity and magnitude of the changes to taking shape amongst the roots.

I sit to write and share this monthly divination letter recovering from a cold, frazzled by the landslide that occurs when the body demands a break but the world never quits – scattered like sea-tumbled stones on the beach. I’m reminded that Aries season can demand a series of initiations, but the urgency to experience {insert impulsive drive to create/consume/commit} can sometimes cloud the necessity of it. If you too are a highly sensitive person drowning in overwhelm this season, remember to examine how urgency can trip us into careless choices and actions.

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I was inspired to create this spiritual trouble-shooting list due to the infiltration of AI into spiritual spaces and practices. This is a collection of ideas for you to turn to when you are stuck, fumbling, and tempted to turn to a chatbot for spiritual grounding and guidance.

It’s time to get critical about how we use AI in our daily lives, as well as how we turn to it for psychological and spiritual support. I had a very interesting (witchy, nerdy, aquarian coded) conversation with Amelia Hruby on the Off the Grid Podcast alllll about it.

🤖 Why AI isn’t an Oracle — with Casey Zabala

Tune into the conversation to learn a bit more of my spiritual perspective on the implications and harms of outsourcing our spiritual practices to LLMs.

🖤 I hope the below list offers some practical spiritual tips on how to navigate this AI era as a magical-spiritual being.

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THINGS TO TRY BEFORE ASKING CHATGPT FOR SPIRITUAL/MAGICAL ADVICE:

1. Take 3 very deep grounding breaths. Let each exhale help you let go of any fixations, and let each inhale ground you back into the present moment.

2. Bodyscan: notice what is going on in your body in a moment of confusion/stress/activation/craving answers. Take notes if its helpful. Don’t go too deep if it is too painful. Perhaps you’ll notice that underneath your agitation is dehydration. Maybe your empty stomach will clue you into the need for nourishment. Tend to what is immediate, and be gentle.

3. Ask a friend to pull a tarot or oracle card for you, and offer up an interpretation. Maybe they offer up a feeling, a word, a vague sense of the situation. Accept their reading as the gift it is.

4. Go for a meandering walk. Walk with as much attention as possible. Notice the temperature, the sky, the weeds, your neighbors.

5. Pull a book from the shelf and open up to a random page. Read with the intention of accessing guidance or direction.

6. Light a candle and ask for inner illumination. Gaze into the flame until you are warmed from within.

7. Start a spiritual study group to practice meditation, nerd out about astrology, and pull tarot cards in a safe container.

8. Integrate whatever you are wrestling with through collage / coloring books / doodling while listening to your favorite album.

9. Notice what phase the Moon is in. Waxing? Waning? Full or New? Does the Moon’s phase of transformation correlate with what you are experiencing?

10. Work with a seasoned professional intuitive.

11. Spend time in nature to connect with something bigger than yourself.

12. Go to an art museum.

13. Tell your story or struggles to a tree or body of water. Introduce yourself first, and ask permission to share before unburdening yourself.

14. Lay down on the floor (or the earth) and let your energy settle.

15. Make a cup of tea. (Go on, have a biscuit as well.)

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Spiritual processes are so much more nuanced, subtle, interconnected and embodied than what a LLM can provide us with. Think of it this way: AI is a super MIND. The supremacy of human intelligence, the idolization of MIND is what has lead us into dire climate catastrophe, collective body dysmorphia, and the sustained negation of magical-intuitive-embodied knowing. Being a spiritual person is the practice of honoring all the other-than-MIND forms of intelligence that are equally valid, important, and true. AI does not access nor account for those other forms of intelligence.

If you’re aiming to strengthen your intuition, embrace the full spectrum of wisdom, cultivate belonging and build a future rooted in care, you won’t find the support or answers in an LLM. Steer back towards the difficult yet highly rewarding process of showing up for yourself and others in their quest for meaning. Return to the village for resources and witnessing. Creativity, quietude, and connection are better places to invest your precious energy.

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Thank you for reading & supporting my work!

At the edge of the Equinox here in Northern California we are in the midst of a heatwave. The daffodils are crumpled up like discarded tissue paper. Poison oak roils along the trails. Wildflowers which should appear in June are glittering in full flower on the headlands. The unusual heat brings waves of ebullient Spring feelings, with a sharp edge of fear. If this is the climate of our Spring Equinox, what will our Summer Solstice bring?

What is nature mirroring for you, at your precious edge of the earth? What trees are renewing themselves? What birdsong is punctuating your days? What is happening in your garden?

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Above all else, this is the season of tuning into the rebirth happening all around us, from the soil to the skies to the waters. Give your attention to what is becoming, and see what awakens within you.

Equinoxes are moments of celestial balance, when the day is equal to night. Here we are, at a cosmic crossroads, holding both the digested material of Winter’s dark, and the thrust of new life, warmth returning, and the crystallization of our dreams. As practitioners of magic, creative artists of a new world, we get to decide what we are cultivating as life returns to a period of increase, growth, and expansion. May we choose what to prioritize wisely.

What are you holding at this precious and precarious moment?

What opposites are you grappling with?

What is taking up too much space in your existence?

What do you crave more of?

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This Spring Equinox, celebrate the turning of the wheel as an act of spiritual & energetic rebalancing. Call forth loving connection, and send your material and spiritual support to those in dire need these dark days. Celebrate the joyful and miraculous returning of life to the Earth, as an affirmation that we may continue to flourish forth for many generations to come. Slowing down at these seasonal celebrations is also an opportunity to return to your humanity. Put down the endless scroll device, listen to your body, attune to the needs of your community, center pleasure, share abundance with others, notice and celebrate the Earth itself — despite the destruction, perhaps because of the destruction.

At the Equinox our capacity to express and embrace our humanity is heightened. This is an ancestral time for familial connection, for traditional rites and customs, for ancestral foods and tales. Equinox is a re-emergence into the meadow, a scramble into the hedge, an invitation to gather in shared spaces, to explore ensouled natural places, to commune with life-giving solar energy. Equinox is an honoring of all that is becoming, and an acknowledgement of the depths of despair we are navigating. Solar consciousness has equal strength as lunar consciousness in this pivotal period of rebalance. Hold your grief next to your hopes for the future. May your wild hope spark creation. May your grief be embraced with fierce compassion.

Magic helps us to step deeper into our personal power through a process of exploring and honoring our sovereignty, alongside the sovereignty of all our kin (seen and unseen.) Our power is cultivated through a network of relationships. We are learning how to model and practice the kind of power that strengths and supports others. Remember, the oligarchs and billionaires would rather us be in a power-less state of apathy and despair. Don’t let them crush your spirit, it is not theirs to exploit.

It’s okay to be falling apart at this particularly poignant crossroads. Honor what you still have to face, process, and integrate before charging forth into new projects, the pressure to preform, or other toxic forms of capitalist pressure. Equinox offers us an opportunity to get deeply honest with ourselves about our needs and capacity moving into the next season of our lives.

I’ll admit I’m personally feeling particularly challenged by grief and anxiety at this stage of transformation. So I am going to bed early, reading more and watching less tv. I’m committing to my meditation and journaling routines, and creating more space for simply being, rather than over-prioritizing doing. I’m working with iris and yarrow flower essence, and making more art. I’m doing what I need to do to access more of myself and my humanity, rather than run away from the immensity of the experience of it. Holding more, more tenderly.

Seeking more personalized support? Find your oracular fragment for the Spring Equinox crafted for your Sun & Rising sign below… and also, connect with me for 1-1 guidance.

Celebration Suggestions for the Spring Equinox:

~ Clear your space and body with sacred smoke, music, and movement

~ Enjoy a magical bath with petals & body oil (and glitter if you’re feeling fancy)

~ Reset your altars to make your inner child smile

~ Make a list of all the evils in the world you hope to see dismantled, and burn the list safely away. Bury the ashes and ask them to transform into networks of care.

~ Ask your guides to send you messages about how to align with your spiritual purpose

~ Cleanse any crystal and stone friends in your stewardship in freshwater. Let them dry in the sunshine. (Don’t get your blue kyanite or selenite wet, folks!)

~ Make a completely compostable nature altar in some wild and special place

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Spring Equinox oracular fragments for each sign:

aka your Spring Equinox horoscopes :)

ARIES:

Stay tuned for mystic visions that set your heart aflame. The prism of your life is undergoing kaleidoscopic renovations. Take a peek at the miraculous pathways available to you. Before betting it all on 7’s, take a deep breath and stay with the multiplicity. Clarity will come your way, but first you have to dance with uncertainty and kick up more dust.

TAURUS:

Tending to your hearth and home is a part of your spiritual practice. Address the areas of your life that are feeling stagnant by rearranging the furniture. Some of your houseplants have outgrown their pots. Honor renewal in your life by getting sensual with your practical up-keep. Everything is an altar.

GEMINI:

Time to take a deep breath and open all the windows. Let fresh air and light into the darker more cluttered corners of your existence. Take stock of your current tasks, obligations, and curiosities. Your life is a research project and it is time to write a reference manual so that others can decode your brilliance. This is an ideal time for revision, rewrites, and re-engaging projects that have been collecting dust but still feel holy and alive.

CANCER:

What do you need in order to feel safe? What brings you the greatest sense of belonging? Whatever your answers, hold them close, like heirloom pearls of wisdom to pass along to your kin. Elevate your relationships through honest reflection, deep listening, and artfully expressing the boundaries that set you up for success. Step into the safe harbor of your authenticity.

LEO:

The occult aspects of your personality are calling, and they won’t quit until you venture into the kinks and curiosities that most excite you. While you are radiant, you are also burning. Follow the inklings and synchronicities that are leading you into a more profound understanding of your healing potential. Feed the inner fires with incantation, honey, and laughter.

VIRGO:

It may feel as though you have nothing left to give, but in truth you are in the richest process of renewal. Surrender is challenging and miraculous medicine. Let go of the avoidant behaviors that keep you from compassion and empathy. Accept a new orientation to service that cultivates spiritual connections. Your precious energy is not up for grabs, but it is wise to have boundaries that flex and bend to allow spaciousness for your own transformation.

LIBRA:

As the arbiter of fairness in the room, you are mediating way too much energy. Clear out old emails, unsubscribe from the noise, and retire lines of communication that are filled with static. Try taking two steps back rather than leaning in. A new perspective is catalyzing, and it is going to take long range vision, and maybe some psychedelic insights, for you to integrate the immensity of your learnings.

SCORPIO:

Suffering is inescapable these days, and perhaps it is your gift to be able to honor and metabolize it. If the weight of the world is keeping you from facing your own pain, take a moment to reflect on cosmic interconnection. Living in the shadows and dwelling in the realm of mystery is all well and good, as is resourcing yourself well enough to resist tyranny through acts of love and joy. Make room for more than just the fight.

SAGITTARIUS:

Let your edges soften as Spring blossoms within you. Progress is not the only meter of success. Strive for profound integration, self-acceptance, and implementing new care routines as you emerge out of your winter cocoon. A new self is taking shape, and they require curiosity and picnic dinners.

Capricorn:

Spiral paths, labyrinths, getting lost in the maze. Accept that the detour is a peculiar offshoot of your healing trajectory. Remember, there is no end to our evolution, and the work of the revolution is ongoing. Perhaps sitting in loving contemplation of your soul will satiate your desire for answers. Tap into the unseen system of support all around you for grounding – they are waiting for you.

AQUARIUS:

While Persephone is returning to meadows of wildflowers and sunshine, someone has to hold it down in the underworld. Find yourself lingering by reflecting pools and scrying into the night sky for answers. There is so much shapeshifting within you. Tend to the inner churning through journaling, cooking, making music, tai chi, or simply cultivating presence. Be prepared to shed some skins this Spring, as you make your way into the light at your own pace.

PISCES:

Let yourself sleep in, if you can. Linger in the dream state a while longer. You are swimming amidst an explosion of idea, symbol, and sensation, stitching together a new tapestry of your being. Integration takes time and spaciousness. Have less of an agenda, and trust the alchemical fermentation that is renewing and reorienting your spirit to this rapidly changing world. Better to keep one foot firmly in the mystic mire.

Thank you for supporting my work! The greatest gift is being able to connect and support you on your spiritual path. Book your intuitive divination and astrology consultations with me here:

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Perhaps it’s the reminiscence of Mercury retrograde in Pisces that drew me towards this month’s selection from my library. These books represent some of the very early influences of my craft. Books that I found in dusty thrift shops, and books that found me, all in my early years of practicing witchcraft and studying occultism. For bibliophiles, there are those books that unlock core aspects of our hearts, whose influence is forever imprinted upon our character; these are a few of the important books that have shaped my craft.

Books are portals to other worlds. They are keys to the betwixt and between. They are like hedges filled with medicine, just waiting for us to forge their fruits. May you be nourished and fortified by whatever speaks to your magical quest.*

BOUGHT and battered a bit: THREE BOOKS OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY OR MAGIC (1898)

I’m completely stumped as to how I acquired this copy of Three Books of Occult Philosophy or Magic by Agrippa... Was it an off hand recommendation from a drunk relative at some family dinner? Was it a random purchase from early-days internet research? In any case, reading this book as a teenager is like tripping into another version of Wonderland, without sweet Alice, giant caterpillars or psilocybin, but with “celestial rays,” “decoctions, the “roots of violets,” and “basilisks.” It took me years to completely read this text, and I have since re-read it twice. This book has traveled with me all across the country, a text I took backpacking, used as an astray (I’m not proud of it, but the burn marks on the cover tell no lies) and return to in moments when I need a dose of wonder. This book was my primer in philosophy. It made me read Blake, Rimbaud, and T.S. Eliot with the eyes of an esotericist. It framed my orientation to reality.

In his Three Books (first published in 1533), Henry Cornelius Agrippa coalesced the bulk of the occult knowledge available to him into a compendium of wisdom. He was a scholar, theologian, and physician with a fascinating career. At one point he lost employment after defending a woman who was accused of witchcraft, a rare position to take at that time, to say the least.

What I learned from Three Books initially was that there were scholars who believed something that I had intuited about the world – that Spirit indwelled in all things. Behind the esoteric language of virtues, rays, and bizarre prescriptions using cocks and chameleons and ambergris, was the law of sympathetic magic. Agrippa confirmed for me that everything is infused with Soul, and beyond that there is an etheric chain of interconnection between all things.

“For as the powers of the soul are communicated to the members of the body by the spirit, so also the Virtue of the Soul of the World is diffused through all things by the quintessence: For there is nothing found in the whole world that hath not a spark of the virtue thereof….By this Spirit, therefore, every occult property is conveyed into herbs, stones, metals, and animals, through the Sun, Moon, Planets, and through Stars higher than the Planets.” (Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy or Magic. Chicago: Hahn & Whitehead, 1898. Reprint.)

A rich resource for magicians, witches, and creative writers alike.

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DISCOVERED miraculously in my family home: THE HISTORY OF MAGIC

When I discovered this book in my family home, no one could tell me where it came from. Perhaps it materialized out of thin air, or was left on the bookshelf by a friend who stayed with us for a time. The book could have belonged to my grandfather (who did have a stash of peculiar occult-leaning books), but it seems a stretch to think why he would have brought a book on magic into the home, when no one else seemed to be keen on the subject.

“The History of Magic” by Kurt Seligmann is another collection on occultism, which surveyed alchemy, oracles, cabbala, tarot, astrology, and so much more. Seligmann (1990-1962) was an occultist and surrealist artist, and the collection of “The History of Magic” sources heavily from his own occult collection, displaying a dizzying array of occult artwork. Perhaps this book offered me my first window into alchemical drawings, old tarot imagery, and emblems from secret societies. I was instantly drawn to the art on the pages, before exploring the actual text itself.

BOOKMARKED ~ Dreaming The Dark: Magic, Sex & Politics by Starhawk

Upon pulling this book from my shelf, I was transported back to the tiny thrift shop in rural Montanna where I picked it up, and the electric sense of belonging I sensed in my belly reading it for the first time. My hunger for structural magic was growing then, in my early teens, and I believe it was this book that crystallized my desire to seek out the Reclaiming Collective in San Francisco. Starhawk’s work in this book is all about magic as a political force, and it details much of her early activism.

Returning to this text at this troubling collective moment, for me, feels like an invitation to go deeper into the world of marrying our politics with our spirituality. We would be foolish to believe that the oppressive fascist powers are not also using magic to aid their actions. It’s time to bulk up on our spiritual power and presence, to continue to weave into our spells and our political actions rituals for liberation and peace.

While there are aspects of this book that are out-of-date (it was published in 1982 and focuses heavily on a gendered expression of the divine) there are so many solid roots and seeds here to incorporate into your own workings. Let the revolution continue to evolve through our spells and rituals!

BORROWED & BOUGHT ~ DRAWING DOWN THE MOON: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today

It’s nearly impossible to describe the importance of Margot Adler’s contribution to contemporary paganism and witchcraft. She brought rigor to her study of the craft and highlighted witchcraft as a serious spiritual pursuit, in contrast to one of the prevailing opinions of witchcraft of the time, pagan revivalism as a path for regressed, unintelligent people. What could be farther from the truth?

Adler draws together her personal experiences with covens, pagan practitioners, occult groups, Satanists, as well as her extensive research in the field to pull together a formidable snapshot of the state of paganism in the 1980’s. Of course, so much has changed since the initial publication of Drawing Down the Moon. Yet the threads of this work are still red, glowing with the keen observations and core themes of an emergent, anti-authoritanian, alternative, and innately creative practice which ultimately centered a kind of human liberation and freedom. So much has progressed since then, while so much remains the same.

“Harriet Whitehead, in an article on Scientology, science fiction, and the occult, makes the point that, contrary to the popular assumption, most occultists have an intellectual style, ‘a process of sorting, surveying, analyzing and abstracting.’ One of the hallmarks of that style is lack of dogmatism. ‘The occult world,’ she writes, ‘offers to the individual a ‘free marketplace’ of ideas…’ what this resembles, ‘and not by coincidence is the intellectual democracy of the scientific and academic communities.’… Occultists continually affirm that ‘certain experiences do not cease to exist simply because there is no place for them in our customary order.’ Occultists display an extraordinary ability to shift from one dimension of reality to another with ease, feeling that the whole world ‘hangs together in one unified peace.’”

This is a passage my 20 year old self highlighted. I can still trace her excitement: No dogma? Sign me up. Registering my strange interest in unseen and mystical phenomena as a serious intellectual area of rigor. Yes please!

Regarding the “occult revival” of the past 50 years, “Eliade writes that…the rebellion against Western religious values and the search for renewal reappear. But, he contends, the most important aspect for all groups from astrologists to Satanists is the hope for an individual and collective renovatio, or renewal.”

Drawing Down the Moon was begrudgingly recommended to me by a professor at Naropa University. I was studying comparative religion at the time, and my rebellious heart was set on researching witchcraft rather than Buddhism (Naropa is a Buddhist institution.) Little did that professor know what they were awakening in me, or maybe they did.

Pick up a copy of Drawing Down the Moon if you love a bibliography. This one will set your witchy heart aflame. The section in the back of the book with the names and descriptions of working covens is a joy to behold. The list of FESTIVALS AND GATHERINGS - a treasure trove of delights.

Imagine being a solitary witch pre-internet and getting a copy of this transformative text. Suddenly you could make sense of the pagan landscape, order magical magazine subscriptions, and meet fellow witches at “Ravenwood Gathering” held on top of Mt Tamalpais. Swoon.

Please excuse me while I go and google every single one of the gatherings listed to see who is still convening on some magical mountain someplace…

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* NOTE: My occult archive is full of the works of wild and wondrous individuals, but my politics and approaches to my craft are not 100% in alignment with everything they have produced, written, shared, or patronized. This archive is meant to showcase what has touched me and why, and offer up the resources for you to make your own decisions and estimations. I do not put authors on pedestals, and I believe all artists, authors, and teachers are humans who make mistakes. This note is important to disclose because some of these texts are old and out-dated in their scope. My beliefs are rooted in equity, liberation, and care for all beings, particularly those who have been classically marginalized and oppressed.

LET’S GO DEEPER! Book your 1-1 sessions with me here:

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It’s Casey Zabala, intuitive witch, interdisciplinary artist, and mother, crawling through the proverbial hedge to source magical wisdom to inspire collective re-enchantment. The hedge is a traditionally psychic space, alive with spiritual remedies for all who are willing to travel to the outskirts of modern consciousness and connect with their magic.

Below is your divination journal for the month! Apologies for being a bit late with this one — the eclipse found me curled up on the floor, sick with a sick toddler. Happily, we’re back to health with witch advice to share.

Stay tuned for more recommendations form my occult archive, and Spring Equinox brambles… oh, and please check-out my latest zine offering for Spring Equinox!

Praise the tulip, the cherry, iris, plum! May the soul of the world sing through everyone!

Off the heels of a dizzying eclipse in Virgo, we move into the waning Moon phase – time for picking up the scattered debris of our lives, to try to reformulate a coherent whole (a lifetime’s effort!) The Lunar Eclipse in Virgo challenged any area of our lives or consciousness where perfectionism is hindering our progress. It’s time to unhook ourselves from rigid ideals of rightness, and instead align to our intentions to do the best we can within our capacity.

How can our kindness and compassion infect those who have too little of it to offer? How can we encourage those around us to wake up to the power of love? The eclipse lit up the Pisces-Virgo polarity of transcendent love and immanent love. Loving what is beyond us can distract us from the love that is so necessary right in front of us. May we continue to tend to the love in our lives, and the love that is so desperately necessary, and dare I say missing, from our collective experiences.

March is a moment that roots us back into life. Milky magnolias dripping from waxy clusters of dark leaves, iris radioing messages to unnamable gods, plum stars dazzling forests dominated by green. The earth is immersed in remembering itself. Beckoning for your soul to do the same.

Your divination journal this month offering prompts & insights into how to do just that. Time for soul resuscitation:

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🌈 If you’re interested in learning more about crystals and forging intimate relationships with your stone friends, consider joining me on March 5th for an in-person crystal connection workshop at the lovely eleventh house in Fairfax, CA. Can’t make it live and want to learn more? Book a 1-1 session :)

Looking back at my spiritual awakening as a depressed teenager living in bleached-out always-sunny southern California I register a deep sense of hunger. I was always getting lost during those sun-bleached years chasing the breadcrumbs that might lead to answers, meaning, or care. I was hungry for whatever would fill the great void of meaning pressing in all around me. I would walk for miles through orange orchards just to be caught in a matrix of trees, a net of roots. My inward disorientation led me on various rambling walks, long detours and journeys without destinations. Down orchard rows, through parking lots, a ghost in grocery stores aisles, and into the local metaphysical store.

The local metaphysical shoppe was a place of wonder for my hungry spirit. Colors, prisms, cards, scents, books. In the metaphysical store, I found other people who were hungry too. This is where I first met the stones.

It’s funny how getting carried away – being lost – has a way of reorienting the path, so that we can find ourselves on it again. By letting myself be utterly directionless I miraculously found the grounding tethers I so desperately needed at that time in my life.

The kind metaphysical shop proprietress got to know me, another hungry ghost haunting her shop, buying a single ten cent incense stick at a time after sitting on the floor for an hour reading about kundalini yoga. She was so patient. One day she took pity on me (or it was a slow day) and invited me to the sunroom at the back of the store to see her crystal healing table. Since I had no concept of what a “crystal healing table” was, I needed to find out. There, glowing in the sunlight was a seven foot long table encrusted with stones and gems, an inexplicable rainbow galaxy of shimmering crystals. She patted the table gently, and said, “Come on, lay down.”

I crawled onto the gemstone table and a gentle breeze washed over me. Tingling started ringing through my head, feet and hands. My eyes slowly closed. The kind woman smiled, “Rest - I’ll be back in a minute.”

I have no clue how long I was lying there on that rainbow galaxy of stones, but I do remember feeling incredibly altered by the experience. I could feel the stones doing something. Suspended in time, anchored in that moment, layers of sadness shape-shifting, cumulous clouds floating inside of my teenage being. Color sensation tears. A brass singing bowl rang out and the gentle witch helped me off of the table, and handed me a glass of water. I felt as though a great wind had rushed through me, reorganizing the layers of my spirit, and polishing others so they sparkled.

That transformative moment on the crystal healing table awakened a somatic experience of the stones that has only deepened in me since.

Later that same year I would find myself at a “peddler’s fair” (their words, not mine) in the local village hall, where I would connect with my first crystal ally. A small quartz crystal - clear and concise. When I picked it up my ears started ringing. When I asked the crystal peddler for the price of the stone, he told me a figure I couldn’t afford. My heart sank. He watched me silently, registering the heart break spreading across my face. I reluctantly put the crystal back on his table and started to walk away, but he called me back – “Actually, this crystal belongs with you. Take it.” He was gruff yet sincere, and I wondered how he knew the crystal wanted to be with me. I’m still grateful to this day for his generosity, and for the persistence of the stone.

Many years later, crystals have become compasses, anchors, and guides, as I navigate through stages of healing and awakening. The initiation on the crystal healing table, and the gift of my first clear quartz from an awakened elder, (how I adopted a 5 pound smokey quartz from an ex-boyfriend (not as interesting as the other tales)), were moments of magical affirmation. Affirmations that satiated that hunger for meaning, affirmations that I am not alone in this world. The crystals circled up around me, guiding me in my own expansion.

The clear quartz I was gifted would become my first guide to meditation, channeling, and mediumship - language I didn’t have at the time, when I would spend afternoons speaking to my small quartz, gazing into it, and listening. Those first experiences of working with stones were silent, somatic, imaginal, and participatory. The crystals initiated me into the subtle practices of energy work.

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Later, in my twenties I was offered a job working at a crystal shop in San Francisco and I leapt at the opportunity. Those years were a haven of wonder which deepened my love and passion for the stone kingdom, and taught me many necessary lessons on psychic boundary work. After my time in the shop, I connected with Cybele, a stone priestess (poet, queer witch, among other amazing things), and undertook years of stone medicine apprenticeship, moving through a transformative cycle of stone work which honed my relationship with the mineral world, the energy body, and the magic of color.

Like most aspects of our lives, working with crystals and stones has been commodified and corrupted by capitalism. The mining industry that extracts the stones from the earth is rife with exploitation and abuse, with a toxic environmental impact. It is deeply important to be aware of a stone’s life-cycle, and to treat your crystals and stones with respect for their origins. As I’ve shared, there are moments when stones call out to you! In those moments, it is important to slow down your process and investigate where the call or craving is coming from. Are you forging an intimate connection with a stone being, or are you feeding the learned consumerist impulse to collect? Working with the crystals can slow down our internal voices and invite in more discernment, if we are willing to pause and listen.

A first step in the process of increasing our intuitive discernment when working with stones is to sincerely attune to the crystals you already have in your stewardship. Treating the stones with reverence and kinship slows down our desire to consume them, and deepens the richness of our magical perception of the earth. Consider sharing crystals in community, returning them to the earth if it feels right, and taking good care of the stones you share space with.

Stones, crystals, minerals, are a rich well of resource for our intuitive practices, but the first step towards accessing their wisdom is connecting with their sacred energy. Stones have taught me that human consciousness is but one form of consciousness that we have access to. Stones have auric fields, hold memory and information, speak in the languages of geology and alchemy. They are multidimensional beings, and must be treated as such.

Recently a distant family member, who is a geologist, told me they had a dream about giving me a particular stone. Surprisingly but wisely, after the dream they sought out that very stone, a double terminated quartz, and gifted it to me. “Odd I know,” they said, “but it is a really cool crystal!” What he didn’t know is that I believed both how odd it was, and how totally right it felt for crystals to be calling out for connection. And they can call for you too, if you are awake to their wisdom.

Crystal connection begins with reverence and respect, somatic attunement, deep listening, and care. Cultivating a stone healing practice is a supportive anchor for anyone hoping to sharpen or empower their own inner knowing. If you are drawn to the stone realm, and are hoping to go deeper into your relationship with stones, crystals, and minerals, begin with silent reverence for their gifts.

Join me for an introductory Crystal Healing workshop on March 5th at eleventh house in Fairfax, CA. Learn meditative somatic crystal practices to support your intuitive unfolding:

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Working with stones is one of the many modalities I incorporate into my intuitive witchcraft work. Book your 1-1 session with me here.

My journey as an occultist has been through many used book shops, connecting the dots between bibliographies, and researching the authors that I seem to show up everywhere. Occult research is a winding, intuitive, interdisciplinary path, and I’m delighted to share the many threads of research through my library.

Books are portals to other worlds. They are keys to the betwixt and between. They are hedges filled with medicinal remedies, just waiting for us to forge their fruits. May you be nourished and fortified by whatever speaks to your magical quest.

This selection is inspired by Imbolc, and by the goddess Brigid; a triple goddess of healing, poetry/prophecy, and craft.

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BOUGHT:

In the pregnant turning between mid-Winter and Spring Equinox, the spirit seeks inspiration, a rekindling of the senses as we navigate the expectation of rebirth. Goddess Brigid offers us her gifts of inspiration and poetry to bless us with soul nourishment. Reading, or writing, poetry is a magical form of soul nourishment. The poet taps into the liminal layers of our existence, giving shape and voice to what is oftentimes ineffable. In the Druidic tradition the poet or the bard is a divine calling. To be a bard was to be in communion with the sacred, magical, and to have a relationship with spirit.

A favorite traditional but contemporary volume of Celtic poetry is Cinderbiter, edited and compiled by storyteller Martin Shaw and the late poet Tony Hoagland. Their collection is a retelling and reinvention of traditional Celtic poetry, from one bard’s mind through another. (Sidenote: if you are interested in storytelling and myth, definitely trip down Martin Shaw’s rabbit hole.)

Here’s one of my favorite traditional poems, retold:

THE YARROW CHARM
Scottish-Gaelic traditional folk charm 

I kneel and pluck 
the smooth yarrow

to spell-make, 
to intrigue the stars to me. 

Give elegance to my figure. 
Subtract a little from the hips. 

May my voice carry cheer, 
like the yellowed sun, 

may my lips be succulent, full and red, 
like the juice of strawberries. 

I shall be an island
in the blue-black waves, 

a wooded hill on the land, 
a sturdy ash staff when my heart is weak. 

And just to be clear:

I shall wound every man, 
but no man shall wound me. 

BY THE BEDSIDE:

I don’t know about you, but I am deep in an underworld state of mind lately (which I could blame on a number of things; personal Pluto transits, the horrific revelations from the Epstein files, the state of our world as we awaken to more layers of patriarchal and white supremacists bullshit...) Rather than resisting the underworld pull I am anchoring myself deeper, turning to myths for more language, technologies, and grounding in the underworld. Perhaps in paying reverence to the shadow lands, we will once again know how to be in right relationship with them… Myths of descent are often coupled with myths of renewal and rebirth. Something glimmers in the depths.

The oldest myth of descent (one of the oldest written goddess narratives, written by a Sumerian priestess) is the myth of Inanna, Queen of Heaven. Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer (1983) is a collaboration between a folklorist (Wolkstein) and Sumerian scholar (Kramer.) The result is a beautiful collection of translated works and scholarly annotations. If you are interested in Inanna, the Venus cycle, and myths of descent, this is a classic for your collection.

BOOK MARKED:

Much of my ancestral reclamation process has been a study of Celtic lore, spirituality, and healing practices. I have many resources and reference books on this topic (which I will likely share more of!), but one that I pull from regularly as I meditate on the seasonal rites is: A Druid’s Herbal for the Sacred Earth Year by Ellen Evert Hopman. This book offers suggestions for weaving herbs into one’s magical practice of honoring the changing seasons, and is deeply rooted in Celtic Druidic tradition.

At the crest of Imbolc, where I live in Northern California, I spied the first cherry blossoms budding on bare branches. After the 1st of February (Imbolc) I have delighted in a cascade of plum blossoms, fluorescent quince flowers, and the re-emergence of buckeye leaves, popping up like chartreuse flames. When we notice what the Earth speaks at these ancestral festivals of the turning wheel, we begin to weave ourselves into the awakening process, begin to speak the silent language of the Earth.

For each festival of the year, with special focus on the Celtic traditions, Hopman shares herbs and lore, offering both the herbal uses and magical uses of the plants. For Imbolc she suggests Angelica, Bay, Basil, Blackberry, Coltsfoot, Heather, Iris, Myrrh, Tansy, and Violets. Coincidentally, I started taking Iris flower essence this month. Cultivating the creative stirrings within me.

MY OCCULT ARCHIVE ~ will be an ongoing series! A space to explore the magical texts that have inspired me, and a love letter to the magic that books unlock on and off the page.

Tell me, have you read any of these titles? What magic have these books inspired for you?

Contact me for magical mentorship and 1-1 intuitive divination:

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As promised, an introduction to oracular consciousness, and a plea for us to return to an ensouled relationship with our planet, the otherworld of spirits, and each other. As we enter a new era of relating, my dream is to reconnect the oracles to their places of power, and to collaboratively recenter our soul back into the Earth. Let me know if this dream resonates.

Learn more about my practice, and book a session here.

“The future has an ancient heart” - Carlo Levi

Imagine, for a moment, that rather than feeling isolated in your uncertainty, that you had access to well worn paths, paths of inspiration, poetry, action and deep witnessing from the cosmos. Oracular consciousness illuminates these paths, paths that have been traveled by countless pilgrims before you. It is time for us to gather up our uncertainties and travel back to an ancient oracular center to ask for guidance in our time of need…

Ancient paths to wisdom ~

We have been journeying for days on dusty rocky slopes gaining elevation on the sacred mountain. Along with our curiosity, we carry gifts for the temple guardians. A goat trudges alongside us, its bell keeping time with each step. We finally reach the temple complex, in awe of the panoramic view of the mountain range, honeyed by the evening light. The smell of burning laurel leaves mixes with an unplaceable sweet fragrance, wafting up from the springs meandering through the many stone temples. You have arrived at the center of the world, the omphalos, and you will be able to connect with the Pythia to receive your guidance in the morning…

There is no doubt about it, we are moving through a dark night of our collective soul. The chaos is quickening and the world splintering into greater fractals of disaster, as harsh realities and incredible atrocities flood our experience. And in this darkest moment we are tasked with calling forth a new dawn, new ways to relate, to care for each other, to survive - and many communities are already doing so. During these troubling times, spirit provides invaluable guidance in our world building and world healing practices, if we are willing and able to listen.

Now it is your turn to consult the oracle. You have made your offerings to the temple guardians and are now being led into the central temple, the aduton. There, in the dimly lit room, the Pythia awaits you, seated on a three legged tripod over a small crack in the Earth. The sweet fragrance has intensified, and your heart rate drops. Your question is delivered, and you wait in silence until the Pythia speaks… you watch a wave of motion moves through her body, from her legs to her lips, and when she speaks she sounds like a hive of bees as she chants a lyrical riddle back to you.…

When we travel back to a time when oracles were consulted as a course of everyday life, we find an ecosystem of meaningful relationship and connection. The oracle is tended by community, inspired by the Earth’s essences, and in relationship to the spirits they channel as well as the pilgrim asking for their guidance. There, in a dusty dark temple complex, we might recover the archetypes, spirits, and forms of relation which might support us as we navigate great destruction, and cultivate our rebirth. These oracular centers steeped in myth and tradition (of which there were many all over the world) are where we will find healing keys for integrating lost aspects of our collective psyche. Keys that unlock belonging, connection with the other (unseen / spiritual) world, and access to a living relationship with the natural world.

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Oracles are ecosystems ~

Our future rebirth requires a massive collaboration of interdisciplinary healers, artists, activists, organizers, teachers, and seers. Multi-passionate, multi-faithed, multi-hyphenate doers and believers. Together we are resuscitating the “ancient heart” of our future, a heart that reveres natural cycles, that honors many wisdom ways, and honors death and dying as an integral step in a healthy evolutionary process. Our archetypal guides, as we co-create our future, are Plutonic and primordial; the soul of the world, or anima mundi, our ancestors, guides and gods, and the oracles who receive, channel, and disseminate these spirits’ wisdom.

As a student of the oracular and a practitioner of divination, I have experienced how moments of oracular consciousness can break through the spell of the materialist paradigm. Oracles have the ability to peel back the veil of disenchantment, to tap us into a far older paradigm where our individual psyches were embedded into the cosmos, inseparable from the soul of the world. Tuning into oracular consciousness offers us modern individuals an ancestral and ensouled perspective while we collectively navigate our current planetary crisis. Imagine gaining direct access to the world’s heartbeat, being a channel for otherworldly wisdom, and stitching the worlds meaningfully back together again. This is a quest for actualization beyond our egos, the task of relocating spirit in the material world.

Our crisis is collective, so our solutions must be a woven tapestry of healing measures, interconnected. Now more than ever, we must leave no stone unturned in our quest to engage with the struggle that we face as planetary citizens. Some of us must journey back to the ancient center of the world, to a time when oracular consciousness permeated daily life, to resurrect valuable forms of knowing.

Participating in oracular consciousness is no passive or receptive vehicle to new awareness. Oracular comes from the Greek root: orare, which means to pray or to speak. Central to oracular consciousness is communication, or an exchange of ideas between oracle and channeled being, and the receiver of the messages. In order to activate oracular consciousness we must remember how to communicate with elements of the natural world, the land, animals, ancestors, and planetary archetypes. How might one go about opening this line of communication? Begin to listen to the birdsong with your whole body. Notice the music of water whenever it is singing. Become conscious of the subtle language of your home, its creaks, groans, sighs... Everything is speaking to us, all the time.

One way we can enter into oracular awareness is through mythological histories, which offer us the participatory language and landscape of the ancestors, those peoples who had not yet fully separated from nature. Mythical history connects us to those who read the night sky for direction, consulted the flight patterns of birds for daily wisdom, and read the wind whistling through the trees. For our ancient ancestors, this sort of conscious participation with the Earth was a way of life, woven into lineage through their mythology. Oracular consciousness requires that we once again embed ourselves into the macrocosm of the cosmos in such a way that we are aware of how inseparable we truly are. Just as there are many diverse oracular traditions, there are many ways to connect with the wisdom of the oracle, whether you are channeling wisdom, or receiving it.

Our current modern paradigm has become untethered from its soul source, the anima mundi. The anima mundi is the ensouled presence and intelligence of Earth; this soul presence is not only located in the natural world, but is also located within us. If we are to tap into healing solutions to humanity’s current destructive trajectory, we must reconnect with this inter-being intelligence, soul intelligence. This is our greatest spiritual task, to recognize and acknowledge the spiritual wisdom all around us. Once we begin to reconnect with the spiritual energy of the world around us, we open up lines of creative communication.

Honoring non-human intelligence ~

By reconnecting with the consciousness of our ancient ancestors through the oracles, we trigger a deep remembrance of the language and spirit of the anima mundi, as well as pathways of communing with the archetypes around and within us. Through oracular consciousness we can forge and renew pathways of communication with the intelligence of the Earth itself.

In this quest for reconnection with the Earth’s soul, we must honor our Earth as evolving, regenerative, and able to both destroy as well as create. In our modern mechanistic schema, we believe that we can rationalize and understand the inner workings of our world and therefore control it – and this is pure hubris. In an extreme expression of this, we have created new modes of “intelligence” that are completely untethered from biology, ecology, and soul in the form of AI. How can this artificial intelligence solve the world’s most pressing problems, when it is so alien to them? Worse still, AI perpetuates the language and impulse of extraction which is leading to our ultimate demise.

Collectively, we have forgotten that we exist as a community member within a conscious ecosystem, teeming with other forms of consciousness, organic cycles of evolution, and mysteries beyond our human perceptions. Our “human” intelligence, intuition, and spirituality is not created or nurtured in isolation. Oracles and oracular consciousness plugs us back into a meaningful matrix of wisdom, wisdom that is collective, rooted in systems of reciprocity, and informed by life’s natural mysterious cycles. Oracles throughout time have been a bridge to those mysteries and cycles. Oracles are a bridge to the otherworld, the Plutonic realms, straddling the threshold of the living and the dead. For example, oracles at Delphi practiced a deep form of spirit communion with the Earth and the Pythia (chthonic serpent), the guardian at the threshold of life and death. The powerful wisdom of the oracles is rooted in their connection with what is unknowable and captivated humans for millennia; the mysteries of death, life, and rebirth.

The oracles are returning, as more of us understand that we are stewarding the death of one world, and the birth of another. As we navigate apocalyptic territory, it is more prudent than ever to understand the importance of endings. Capitalism is a lie, endless progress is impossible. Now we must return to the reality of death and inevitable decay, as processes to honor, revere, and turn to in times of trouble. The oracles can show us the way. Oracular consciousness teaches us the rituals and shows us how to dance with the greatest mysteries in order to shepherd forth renewal.

I have so much more to share about oracular ways… I will be returning with oracular myths, cultures, poetry, and methodologies to support us all as we reconnect with the anima mundi, and usher forth a new worlds into being. Please send me your curiosities and questions regarding this topic. I’d love to hear from you.

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Here is your divination journal for February 2026. Initiated by Imbolc, a Leo Full Moon, and punctuated by the Saturn Neptune conjunction, this month is revelatory and ripe with grief. Tune in for spiritual grounding, insights, and tools for weathering the cosmic storms. Learn more about my practice, and book a session here.

I write to you heart open and heavy, on this threshold of Imbolc, under a Leo Full Moon, as futures coalesce and crystallize yet remain a mystery. Inside of me something ancient has broken open, a clay vessel with honeyed wine, gone stale. Yet this break has set a prayer spiraling into motion…

At the threshold of February I am grappling with both collective grief for our world unraveling into its darkest state, and my own personal grief which is raw and unwieldy. I write to you from an underworld place, a place that feels both revelatory and rife with confusion. This grief is not just sorrow, but also a profound gateway to presence, and in moments, hope. Beside this grief I lay down daffodils, light a candle, and make offerings of milk and honey.

The language of oracles is metaphor. Riddles that unspool in the heart and land in the gut. Paradoxes that can only be held in the body, a body of knowing that is more like a river than an algorithm. Our knowing at this time is more sensual, primal, futuristic and fragmented than how we have been trained to “know.” We are in a period of undoing and becoming, as the dissolving alchemy of Neptune coincides with Saturn’s harsh reality principle. Saturn and Neptune will finally form an exact conjunction on February 20th in Aries, but these planets have been drawing closer and dancing with each other for some time now, their confounding effects penetrating all facets of reality, and I’m sure you’ve felt it. We are in a time of collective grief, grief that is simultaneously earth shattering and radically clarifying.

Laboring with our grief is a central aspect of the spiritual revolution of our time. Our grief will bring about major structural changes, with deep spiritual implications, if we are able to integrate its wisdom. We are being tasked with centering humanity, or else losing sight of it - as sadly so many already have. In times of great upheaval and transformation we cannot loose sight of our spirit, the spark that makes humanity worth fighting for.

Our resilience building task is to hold the suffering of humanity, as we learn to regulate our increasingly taxed nervous system. Being awake to the depths of our human pain is the locus of transformation, the birthplace of creative healing solutions. We are not alone in this process of stretching and fortifying our spirits.

We must weave together the political and the spiritual if we are to weather this storm. I listen to the news, I read about the atrocities, I call my senators, participate in mutual aid, and parent my young child as an act of resistance. I tend my altar space, I arrange flowers on the table, light candles, send my prayers into the universe to collaborate with your prayers, and call on sacred guidance for support and the liberation of all people.

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Amidst the underworld currents I’m swimming in, here are some earthly delights that have been providing so much comfort:

1. Rainbow prisms.

2. Nina Simone.

3. Borage flower essence.

4. Grounding with my crystal allies.

February 1st is Imbolc, a time for honoring the turning from Winter to Spring (in the northern hemisphere). At this time we ask, what is taking shape in the belly? What worlds are we dreaming up? What will we grow with the seeds we are able to tend and harvest? This month begins with a glimmer of hope, hope that we should celebrate, amplify, bottle and treasure. Above all, Imbolc is a time for calling in sacred inspiration.

🕯️ I am calling in inspiration that protects us from the fear mongering of the oppressors. I am calling in creativity that enlivens the spirit. I am calling in the muses to fertilize the most healing spells for a safe and sustainable future for all.

If your grief for the world is calcifying into depression and anxiety that is limiting your ability to show up fully, now is the time to stretch yourself. Crash into bed and rest deeply, then wake up and light a candle to remind yourself of the magical spark you carry within you. Go gently, without bypassing your important expressions of grief, rage, and longing. Let Earth’s sacred cycle remind you of your miraculous ability to begin again, to travel to the deepest valleys of yourself, and return with a rare bundle of medicine to buoy you through the next challenge.

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Now for your collective divination for the month ahead:

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This essay is about Imbolc, traditionally celebrated on February 1st, the fiery goddess Brigid, and how to honor this emergent moment on the wheel of the year. Learn more about my practice, and book a session here.

We are hurdling towards Imbolc, the sabbath that marks the mid-point between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. Hurdling because Neptune just moved into Aries, falling into the future as the chaos and violence of fascism picks up in tempo, and running towards Spring because rebirth feels like the balm we all need right now. In my corner of the world I am witnessing the miracle of pink magnolias blossoming on bare branches. I spotted citrine yellow daffodils clustering at the curb. These are signs that Spring is stirring, the sap beginning to rise.

on the Imbolc altar:

Daffodils, snowdrops, a red cloth or scarf to leave out overnight to capture Brigid’s healing dew, beeswax candles, metal work, ink and pen, a cauldron for burning herbs, a tended flame, cream, milk, honey, your favorite book of poems, old notebooks, love letters, silk ribbons, horse shoes and tackle, beer, bright bold blessings, woven spells, apophyllite, malachite, prehnite, an equal armed cross, protective charms shared with those who need it most…

I had planned to share another piece with you this week about ORACLES, which I am holding back for now, because I think the magic salve most needed at the moment is situating ourselves in sensual mythic cycles that can guide us in embodying our current challenges. The saturation of the news cycle, the distortion and commodification of our awareness, and the lack of tools to help us make sense of reality is staggering (and engineered), and very much a symptom of our current evolutionary cycle. Reality is being warped so that we are forced to consciously recalibrate.

{Solidarity with everyone on the front lines in Minnesota}

Celebrating the wheel of the year, or seasonal rites and holy days, is a practice that helps us return to ancestral consciousness, cultural reverence, and the mythic embodiment of Earth’s life-death-rebirth mystery. Imbolc is a cross-quarter holy day sacred to the Goddess Brigid, who was so important to the Celtic people that colonizing Christians adopted/appropriated her as a saint.

Working with Brigid at this time of year is an invocation of hope, a prayer for awakening new consciousness, and a potent affirmation of our innate ability to begin again, after a period of great darkness. Brigid has many sacred names: “bright-one,” “sudden-flame,” and “bright arrow” among them. She is a triple goddess, who manifests as a goddess of healing, a goddess of inspiration and poetry/prophecy, and a goddess of smith-craft. Her triple nature is an indication of her power and prowess. For ancient Celtic people, Brigid was patron to integral pillars of society, and her body was known as the Earth’s body.

Brigid, being a midwife and healer, is the archetypal doula of our transition from the depths of Winter to the new dawn of Spring. Imbolc translates to “in the belly,” and it is at this time in Earth’s regenerative cycle that so much transformation takes place underground in the soil, as seeds warm, germinate, crack open, and bulbs send their heralding green shoots to pierce Winter’s iced veil. Imbolc honors the magic of gestation, and Brigid offers us strength and encouragement as we face the heavy energetic lift of renewal. Her magic is in kindling our inner fire, sending us inspiration to excite us, medicine to shape shift, and fortification as we nurture life back into being. This is a time for strategizing, organizing, researching and drafting. This is a time for strengthening our networks of care, both in the external community sense, and internal spiritual ways.

This year, Imbolc arrives at a moment of heightened desperation and confusion for so many of us. What hope are you holding in our belly? What inspiration is essential for us to continue to resist and reimagine a world without white supremacy running the show? Brigid, the bright one, is a fire goddess. She brings warmth, illumination, purification and protection. Fire to melt away the ICE. If invoked in the appropriate ways, Brigid helps to fortify souls in deep need of healing and transformative growth.

Pre-Christian colonization of Ireland, it was said that Brigid had priestesses that would tend to her sacred flame in the hills of Kildare. The fire was tended in devotion, and as a magical act of protection. When we invoke and make offerings to Brigid, we are calling forth her protection. In the Christianized myth of Brigid, the powerful saint has a sacred flame at her Abbey established at Kildare, which was tended daily by 19 virgins. On the 20th day, the flame was left to be tended by Brigid, an act of faith and a confirmation of the goddesses power.

As we each emerge from Winter’s depth at our own pace, and as we grapple with the turmoil and suffering of the world, Imbolc serves as a moment to re-attune to our center (or belly) as an act of seeding hope, building resilience, and coping with the challenges of the moment. Relish in the flora emerging in your local verge. Step outside and feel the Sun wash over you, replenishing your vitality. Germinate seeds for your Spring gardens. Step back into a meaningful relationship with your spirit - give it space to sing through you.

The fascist forces at work want us to be buried and numb in our grief for the world. They want to beat the hope out of us. Returning to the cycle, Earth’s unyielding mystery, and take solace in the triumphant return of the iris, the forsythia, the snowdrop. While the world is aflame with chaos, we can look to mythic and ecological patterns that ground us back into sustainable systems of life.

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Imbolc Magick:

spell and ritual ideas for your personal practice

~ Make a protective amulet and hang it in your home. Ward away evil spirits, ICE agents, and tyranical fascism. The traditional amulet for Imbolc is Brigid’s Cross, though iron and smith-crafted talismans are also sacred to her. A protest sign is also an amulet. Use the symbols or words or materials that ignite your inner fire, spark your imagination, and feel intuitively aligned.

~ Leave offerings for Brigid: milk, beer, bread or a meal. Feed the goddess and ask for their protection and blessings.

~ If you live in a place with snow (most of the US is currently stuck inside due to crazy winter storms!) gather some snow in a bowl and in the snow bury symbols (written on paper) of the groups, people, and toxic ideologies you are working to dismantle and thwart. Place candles into the bowl of snow, and watch gleefully as it melts. As your candles burn imagine the power that these entities and individuals have is waning, melting, and dissolving away.

~ Get inspired. This is a great time of year for reading, research, and reconnecting with art of all mediums. Brigid is traditionally sacred to poetry, so it’s a great time to read poetry (aloud - for extra magical momentum) and write your own verses.

~ Candle magic. Tend to a sacred flame on February 1st as a spell for safety and inspiration. Light the candle before dawn and engage with it all day, noticing the quality of the flame. Dedicate the candle to dismantling systems of hate, and building systems of care.

~ Tend to your belly. Our core, our solar plexus and sacral chakras hold so much wisdom and tenderness. If you are feeling physically out of whack, this is a great time to align with your bodies’ intuitive needs. The work of renewal and rebirth requires movement. Find ways to fire up your belly and see what inspiration takes shape.

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Imbolc asks us to revel in the miraculous. Let us stretch and expand to hold both the suffering we face, and the potential for renewal at our fingertips. We can hold both. The more we can explore and express the joyful magic all around us, we can amplify the most radical and profoundly healing spells.

May it be so!

On the horizon…

I’m hosting an Intro to Intuitive Crystal Healing at the eleventh house in Fairfax, CA on Thursday February 19th, 6:30-8pm. Learn techniques and tools for attuning to the mineral kingdom and foster a direct relationship with your crystal kin. A great way to connect with and calibrate your intuitive muscles.

An essay about ORACULAR CONSCIOUSNESS coming soon… as well as another installment of my OCCULT ARCHIVE series, this month inspired by Brigid herself.

The next edition of ROUND WORSHIP will be released for Spring Equinox in early March.

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I have been collecting magical, esoteric, occult, poetic, prophetic, and mystic-centered books for a very long time... I have found them at sidewalk sales, in dusty used bookstores, at the library, and in artfully curated shops. I have been suggested titles that changed my life by drunken relatives, by strangers in soup kitchens, and by trusted guides and healers. The red thread woven through this collection is the impact they have made on my magical and spiritual practice, as a witch curating my own personal healing lineage. Perhaps some of these titles and bread crumbs will lead you to your next fountain of inspiration.

Books are portals to other worlds. They are keys to the betwixt and between. They are hedges filled with medicinal remedies, just waiting for us to forge their fruits. May you be nourished and fortified by whatever speaks to your magical quest.

I’m starting this experiment with two books that I read most recently, and one of the most foundational magical books, for both practical and sentimental reasons, in my collection.

BORROWED:

Currently finishing “The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic” by Lindsey Stewart. A powerful education on the backdrop of early American healing and spirituality. Stewart has drawn powerful portraits of the roots of medicine and spirituality from enslaved people, conjurers, a tradition and practice that has been intentionally ignored and repressed from our history books. A must read for any healers, herbalists, and witches working in the so-called United States today. As a witch with settler-colonizer roots, this is an all important read as I relearn our history and ancestral impact.

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BOUGHT:

The first book I purchased and finished this year is “In the Dark Places of Wisdom” by Peter Kingsley. Every once and a while I book reaches out of its cover and grabs you by the collar and pulls you in. This book altered my reality, and I have been waiting for it to find me.

I came upon this book at the Pt. Reyes Bookstore after a silent walk on Limantour beach on the anniversary of my mother’s passing. The silence within me was reverberating through me, the sea wind still howling in my ears. A human shell. I picked up the book, and opened it up to this sentence, “If you’re lucky, at some point in your life you will come to a complete dead end.” It’s days like these when everything is an omen, and you just have to listen for the alchemy to take place.

I finished this book in 48 hours. In awe that I had been collecting so many similar fragments over the past few years of what Kingsley so artfully arranged for us here. If you are seeking answers and clues to how humanity has become so untethered from true wisdom, this book will fire up your longing for more mystery, and more magic in all of our lives.

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BOOKMARKED:

My first truly very witchy book, which I found at the primed age of seventeen. At the age of wild witchcraft. “A Witches Bible Compleat” by Janet and Steward Farrar came to me by way of an antique mall in Petaluma, right by the Amtrak station. Maybe it’s still there, maybe I will find out… My friends and I had just spent five days backpacking in Point Reyes (a psychic link there) and were killing time as we waited for our train by rummaging through a very disorganized (in the best way) antique mall. I picked up this hefty black book and felt a magnetic dart move through my body. I showed it to my friend KellyJoy and she said matter-of-factly, “Oh yes, my mother had that book. A true witch’s book.” This was all the confirmation I needed.

I took that book home on the train, and later to many places around the world. Thumbing through it in the bath, taking it on hikes with me, practicing ritual with it by daybreak. This book provided me with a footing in Wicca, taught me how to cast a circle, taught me about shadow work and visualization, and introduced me to the gods and goddess of the witches. The included photographs of these British witches from the 60’s working sky-clad was enough to make my teenage heart aflutter (and let’s be honest, still does.)

While I have since learned more about the historical roots of Wicca, and the work of Stewart & Janet Farrar, and have distanced my magical work from their practices, this book was the first to grace my witches altar. It feels like an old friend, a favorite t-shirt (despite a few holes), a stepping stone that will always be in my collection.

MY OCCULT ARCHIVE ~ will be an ongoing series. A space to explore the magical texts that have inspired me, and a love letter to the magic that books unlock on and off the page.

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Tell me, have you read any of these titles? What magic have these books inspired for you?

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Contact me for magical mentorship and 1-1 intuitive divination:

Work with Casey

January begins with the Cold Moon (the Cree name for this month’s moon). The Dakota people called it the Hard Moon, which feels appropriate for the Full Moon which takes place in the heart of Winter in the northern hemisphere.

Let us take a deep breath here and release some of the pressure to restart on this arbitrary moment in the season of dreaming and darkness. Spiritually speaking we are still in our cocoons, undoing and becoming something radically new, to be revealed at the Spring Equinox. For now we are imagining what it is we could become, rather than rushing to announce the new version of ourselves to the world.

While the Sun was reborn on the Winter Solstice, there is still a tender postpartum period from Winter Solstice until Spring Equinox, punctuated by Brigid’s day or Imbolc, the time when the milk flows and our personal growth quickens with the fire of inspiration. For now, we stretch into ourselves, as the light gently returns. Following this pagan map, or wheel of the year, is a more organic way to track and honor our cycles.

And if there’s one important take away from 2026’s tarot archetype, Wheel of Fortunes, it is that our cycles of boom and bust, rest and growth, stillness and movement, are our most humbling teachers.

January is ushered in by a Cancer Full Moon. Like a clear bell ringing home the parts of your soul that have gone into hiding during the dark season, this Supermoon will make you conscious of where you are called to center your care. If you haven’t felt the drive or courage to show up fully yourself, the Full Moon promises to clear the way for a new cycle to take shape. Sun and Moon form their exact opposition in the early morning hours of January 3rd. May you catch a glimpse of the Moon’s radiant glow.

In the spirit of honoring this season’s slowness, I will be offering only a short divination journal for January, complete with insights into the Full & New Moons and the overall energetics of this month, which are a doozy. Please tune into the Modern Witches podcast for more astrological insights.

If you are seeking personalized guidance, please book a Year Ahead Reading with me. Together we will awaken your potential and bravely face any resistance on your path. My true vocation is divination and it is an honor to share this practice with you.

BOOK WITH CASEY

Now, on to January’s divinations…

TRANSITIONS:

We are truly in a betwixt and between time, with the new year beginning with a Full Moon. In the craddle of our hands we hold both what is initiating and what is drawing to a close, gently and cautiously. This month, find ways to honor what must end and turn toward the dawn. Practice closure. What cycles are you noticing around and within you?

To become more aware of what is at the end of its cycle, ask yourself:

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Here are some thoughts on Solstice energetics, a tarot spread, and some sweet reminders to set loving boundaries, read cozy books, and nourish yourself during these dark days.

For the past week I have been drawing the 8 of Cups, and dreaming of dwellings flooded by rain, occulted by drifts of fog, hidden deep in some mystical forest. The message is: retreat into the emotional, find a safe space to be fluid. There is a misty bog calling my name. Spiritually, I am hiding in the forest.

What are you dreaming of?

There is a tension at this time of year, between the desire to be merry and bright despite the darkness, and our need to tend to the quiet more profound aspects of our souls, parts that can only express themselves under the protective guise of darkness. We can do both, and this opposition is fertile ground for honoring the subtle currents of our nature, and the magical work of recalling what is bright and hopeful when so much around us is mired by uncertainty and fear… I find myself grappling with these opposing forces, as I voice my needs for slowness and name new boundaries to protect the necessary inner work required for my spiritual wellness, and plan special joyful rituals to recall the light into the darkest of days.

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Here is a three-card divination spread to help you assess what your energetic needs are at this time of year:

1. What is your most pressing energetic need?

2. What is emerging from the darkness?

3. What is shimmering forth on the horizon?

An invocation to Dark.

Curl up under the weight of pitch-dark

Burrow, retreat, become roots.

Sip the sweet sap of the fertile undoing,

from hidden wells and veiled springs,

where ancient offerings are heaped.

A chthonic song takes shape in the heart

Humming the tune of infinite rivers of stars.

Darkness, our ancient guardian,

protector, muse, teacher.

Hold me darkness, bringer of light.

Under the heavy blanket of winter

cold revelations ask for warmth.

Time to shed dead skin

and imagine wings.

FROM THE SOLSTICE BRAMBLES ~

May this note find you resting, softening, and retreating into your inner world. While our modern cultural landscape doesn’t quite support the spiritual cravings of Winter Solstice energetics, we can do our best to protect what is most precious to us at this time of year by practicing communicating our boundaries, and prioritizing soul-nourishing activities.

Call on your close confidants and fellow witches to form a solstice solidarity pact: to do less, put less pressure on yourself, and celebrate the season with slow intentions.

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A cozy reading list:

1. I bought this children’s book for my son, but it warms my adult witch heart! The Shortest Day, by Susan Cooper.

2. The Conjuring of America, Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic by Lindsey Stewart. Fascinating and totally vital historical reading for witches.

3. The Uncommon Book of Prayer by Heidi Smith has been a sweet companion on my bedside table lately. Perfect for anyone who is looking to expand their prayer practice, and lean into their personal faith. I had a fantastic conversation with Heidi on the Modern Witches Podcast this year ~ listen here.

Make ancestral foods:

I am the proud guardian of an ancestral recipe of a dear friend’s: their family’s favorite poppy seek cake. Honey sweetened and overflowing with poppy seeds, this cake is dense and perfect for snacking on at any moment of the day. I was taught to bake this cake as a child, and was given the secret recipe when I was a teenager. It’s a precious gift that I am able to bake these cakes and give them to close friends and family each year.

Making ancestral foods at this time of year connects us with a tradition of nourishment and caretaking that is so central to Solstice energetics. At this darkest time of year, the focus is sustenance, both spiritual and physical. Food insecurity continues to be a massive issue for so many, and the gift of food cannot be underestimated. While you are cooking your ancestral recipes and sharing them with those you love, consider also making donations to your local food banks.

I’d love to hear your ancestral/traditional foods you are cooking up this season. Please drop them into the comments!

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A word to the wise:

One of the major astrological happenings in 2026 is the conjunction of Saturn and Neptune in Aries, which will be exact on February 20th, 2026. However, the alchemy of these two planets has been strong and building for the whole year. Saturn-Neptune conjunctions create an atmosphere of uncertainty, forcing us into rich and deeply moving lines of inquiry that can stimulate massive transformations. All this to say - you don’t need to have your life figured out - in fact it would be surprising if you did. So many of us are moving through epic challenges and changes, and we are meant to be navigating the great unknown. Make no hasty decisions at the Solstice. Find acceptance with your process, and if possible surrender to the uncertainty. More will be revealed in time…

Join me over on the Modern Witches Patreon for an exclusive podcast episode on the major astrological and energetic happenings of 2026.

In-person Tarot Workshop! Tarot & Intention Setting!

January 8th, 6-8pm at Eleventh House in Fairfax, CA

Learn more...

Join me for an evening of hands on tarot & practical magic. We’ll dive into the basic tenets of intention setting and learn how to use our trusty tarot decks to guide our magical and creative process. You’ll leave with an expanded awareness of how to work with tarot, and having set new intentions for the year ahead.

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Here is your divination journal for December 2025, complete with a tarot reading for the month ahead and spirit allies to support you through it. Later in the month I will share more musings on our tarot archetype of 2026: Wheel of Fortune, and some Solstice spells.

Cold hands and feet. Large sycamore leaves scuttling and crunching on the sidewalks. Nests exposed in the arms of looming California oaks, whose leaves slowly sail back to earth. We are students of the steady process of decomposition. Bright and icy sunlight. Embracing early dark.

This (Hermit) year has served me many candle-lit lessons, but the one that feels most evident at the crest of December, is an acceptance of my true introverted tendencies. So many of us, true introverts, have had to learn how to maneuver through our days cosplaying as extroverts. We show up at work, navigate social situations that make us squirm under the surface, and generally spend way too much time with other people, bumping up against and sometimes soaking up their energy. For the true introvert, time spent with others is energetically taxing, even when it is fun, engaging, and intimate.

As I’ve waded through my own Hermit year lessons, I’ve awakened to the true nature of my introverted self, someone who needs a lot of space to decompress, digest, and integrate interpersonal interactions. While I am a devotee of our deep interconnectedness, I’m a creature that thrives in reflection. This aspect of my nature is integral to who I am as a witch, intuitive, and artist. Without these quiet, solitary spaces, my empathic nature is overstimulated and frazzled. When I take time and space for myself to center, I can show up for others with a deep well of compassion, curiosity, and ease.

The introvert in me is letting out a howling sigh of relief as I sit in my studio, alone, for the first time in a week. With family visiting, with a toddler out of childcare for the week, with the weight of expectations to participate in quality time, my introverted self has been boxed out, told to hang in there, and sit tight until… I find myself retracing my footsteps, as I find my way back to myself after a week of ignoring my own needs. There’s a bear inside of me, searching for a safe winter hideaway. The spiral path back to myself is one that I have tread countless times before, and each inward turn I make brings me closer to a glowing center that I know to be home.

This winding path could be similar to the journey of The Hermit of the tarot. Searching through the night for the source of their sacred truth, only to find it has been shining in their hand all along.

I’m sure many of us feel similarly at this time of year. December is a month that is piled high with unrealistic societal expectations to host, to be merry, to shop, to cater to others, and above all else to be social. These expectations feel opposed to my cold hands and feet, and the magnetic draw of the early dusk that lures me towards blankets and bedtime books. This marks another December of resisting those unrealistic expectations, and choosing merriment that is soulful, social occasions that are nourishing, and allowing for early bedtimes and ample space to dream.

If you are noticing how exhausted and drained you are feeling this month, you are not alone. This final month of 2025 is an important time for resourcing ourselves after an extremely taxing year. Give yourself permission to honor the introvert within. How do they want to spend their precious time? If they could plan your calendar for the month ahead, what would be a yes, and what would be a no?

Important astrological dates for December 2025:

December 4th: Full Moon at 13º of Gemini

December 8th: Mars in Sagittarius squares Saturn in Pisces at 25º

December 10th: Mercury in Scorpio opposite Uranus in Taurus at 28º

December 11th: Mercury enters Sagittarius

December 14th: Mars in Sagittarius square Neptune in Pisces at 29º

December 15th: Mars enters Capricorn

December 16th: Sun in Sagittarius squares Saturn in Pisces at 25º

December 19th: New Moon at 28º of Sagittarius at 5:44pm PST

Dec 21st - Sun ingress into Capricorn - Solstice!

Dec 24th - Venus enters Capricorn

Learn more on the Modern Witches podcast

On December 14th I am hosting a workshop, TAROT & YOUR MAGICAL CALENDAR YEAR for those who wish to enter into an archetypal relationship with their year ahead. We will connect with the tarot archetypes of 2025 (The Hermit) and 2026 (Wheel of Fortune) and set intentions for the months ahead, using the lessons of the cards as supportive touch-stones.

Register: Tarot & Your Magical Year

On December 19th I will be hosting an intention setting power-hour for the Modern Witches patreon coven under the Sagittarius New Moon. Join us from 10-11am PST for guided meditation and magical journaling prompts to help you set intentions right before the Winter Solstice.

Join us: Modern Witches Patreon

DECEMBER DIVINATION:

I call on the sacred spirits of tarot, the wise guides and esoteric messengers, to deliver heart-centered council on the energetics of the month of December, 2025.

This reading was drawn using the Opening of the Keys method. If you are interested in this tarot divination practice, please send me a message and perhaps I will share more about my practice here.

December’s significator is The High Priestess, as this reading is for all witches, intuitives, empaths, and energetically sensitive beings out there. December is a month of emotional attunement, lunar swelling and catharsis, a month for interpersonal reflection and alignment.

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This essay is about the 2026 tarot archetype of the year: The Wheel of Fortune.

Learn more about my practice, and book a session here.

As we approach another calendar year in various states of disarray, fatigue, and overwhelm, I am turning to the tarot archetypes for grounding and direction. As I’ve shared, 2025 was the year of The Hermit, prompting an inward quest to resource our spirits, and connect with a personal gnosis that can guide us through the darkness. In 2026, our collective tarot archetype is Wheel of Fortune, and we will be glad for the gifts gained from the wise Hermit parts of ourselves when we are thrust into a period of accelerated change. If you are hoping for the pace to slow, now is a good time to take a deep breath and return to your center. Soak up the last month of Hermit’s wisdom with some planned space for retreat and recalibration.

In older tarot decks, arcanum 10 was named Fortuna, dedicated to the Goddess of Fate. Fortuna, the Roman name for Tyche the Greek goddess, was a popular deity that represented fortune, luck, and chance. Her sacred symbols included the cornucopia, the steer or rudder of a ship, the blindfold, and the wheel. A prayer at Fortuna’s temple was a prayer for the goddess to offer a favorable outcome. Fortuna is the daughter of Jupiter, known as “the great benefic” planet, and the king of the gods (also known as Zeus.) In ancient Rome, Fortuna was one of the only deities that slaves were also permitted to worship at their annual festivals. Fortuna was everyone’s goddess. To be human was to be in relationship with your fate.

Before the Enlightenment, humanity had a much more magical and participatory relationship with ourselves and the world. Astrology ruled supreme, we understood ourselves to be inextricable from the Earth and its cycles, and we had meaningful relationships with deities, ancestors, and spirits. We would have had a sense of our purpose, our destiny, our fate.

Along the course of our human evolution, we pivoted away believing in pre-destination, towards a more self-determined understanding of life. No longer are we leaving offerings to the Fates, to our ancestors, or consciously working with our destinies. (Well, maybe some of us are…) Since the Enlightenment, and a shift towards a materialist paradigm, we have been swept up in the winds of change, evolution, and progress.

And so arcanum 10 transformed from Fortuna, to the Wheel of Fortune. Fortuna’s influence is still present in the wheel, one of her sacred symbols, but the modern meaning of the card has lost some of its fateful undertones towards a message of transformation. On the Rider-Waite Wheel of Fortune card are three Egyptian deities of life, death, and rebirth: Osiris, Anubis, and the Sphinx. While we once petitioned the goddess of Fate for a favorable outcome, now we are faced with the all important cycles of life. In the oracular words of Octavia Butler “God is Change.” The Wheel of Fortune asks that we come to terms with what changes are moving through us.

What stage of the transformation do we find ourselves in collectively; the death rattle, the rebirth, or the act of living it? Can it be everything all at once?

My personal philosophy, as a practitioner of divination and a devotee of oracular consciousness, is that Change is Truth, and we co-create our lives and purposes in concert with the Fates. In my participatory approach we get to hold both; live a meaningful life woven into the warp and weft of the Fates, while also having free will to transform, to be reborn as we move through the various cycles of life. We each have a purpose that we get to actualize in the ways that feel most authentic to us in this particular incarnation.

2026 holds the potential for so much transformation, and it asks that we root ourselves back into a meaningful relationship with the cosmos. Without a central core, or a strong inner compass, the changes that we are navigating may feel like pure chaos. When we are anchored to a particular course, or aware of a larger purpose that is expressed through us, the waves of change start to feel like initiations, the deaths necessary for our rebirths.

The Wheel of Fortune is ruled by Jupiter. With this archetype being our 2026 ruler, we can expect expansion. Jupiter operates like clear quartz crystal - it magnifies whatever it is in an energetic relationship with. The major challenges we are confronted with will intensify, and the need for major revolutionary actions will become more urgent. This applies to our personal lives as well; the pressure is likely to increase wherever we have needed to change, pivot, or re-envision our choices. As we enter 2026, remember to take a deep breath and attune to the soul.

This year is an opportunity to affirm your purpose, walk on your path with ruthless authenticity, and weave meaning back into the fabric of your life.

So much more to be shared about these archetypal energetics. Join me on Sunday, December 14th (10am-12pm) for an online workshop: Tarot & Your Magical Calendar Year.

This workshop will explore the transition from The Hermit year (2025) to The Wheel of Fortune year (2026) and the art of mapping your calendar year using the tarot archetypes as your guide.

Learn more about the workshop & register:

Tarot & Your Magical Calendar Year

Greetings ~ Casey Zabala here, resident hedge-rider, intuitive witch, artist & author, sharing my divinations and musings for living a magical life during these precarious times.

Learn more about my practice, and book a session here.

I woke up in the middle of the night with a message. As a witch who is a devoted dreamer this happens not infrequently, but this message felt different. The message was pushy and loud in a way that reverberated through me. So loud I didn’t have to write it down to remember: “AI is corrupting spiritual work. AI is ruining your livelihood.” When I woke up the next morning, I knew it was a message to be shared.

There are so many things wrong about artificial intelligence and the massively damaging implications it has for our world, with the environmental costs weighing particularly high on my list. My dream message speaks to the darker psychological currents and the spiritual implications of using AI in any magical or devotional context.

The other day I was in a spiritual shop, and I overheard the shopkeeper ask an AI chatbot,”what is labradorite good for?” My heart hurt. Something inside of me couldn’t help but interrupt, to turn to the person interested in the labradorite and ask them, “why don’t you sit with the stone, hold it to your heart, ask the stone about its personality?” I stopped myself short of telling them what labradorite is all about before ChatGPT could respond. As someone who sits with stones, dreams with them, and carried them across the world, I know that minerals and stones have their specific qualities, but more important are the relationships we build with them. The human to non-human connection we forge is the magic.

Asking an AI chatbot how to “use” a stone is a corruption of the desired spiritual outcome of consciously working with a stone. When we turn to AI for answers, especially in a spiritual context, we are missing out on an essential practice that helps develop our intuition, and attune to who we are. It starts with an innocent inquiry, and ripples into something much more insidious.

That interaction in the metaphysical shop sent me spiraling. How many “spiritual practitioners” are using AI to support their clients? And perhaps a more difficult pill to swallow, how many people are turning to AI for spiritual and emotional support, rather than connecting with a professional trained intuitive/astrologer/witch to hold space for their tender hearts?

As a person who has spent the last 11 years working professionally as an intuitive, (and my entire life exploring spiritual dimensions and philosophies) I have noticed a big shift this year in my practice. Of course there are countless reasons for this, as a mother with shifting capacity, working in a deeply uncertain landscape and realigning to my values and visions for my work. And, my dream message reverberates through me… I am now becoming more conscious of how many individuals are turning to AI for spiritual support in ways that we should all be very weary of.

Spiritual alignment ~

Let’s look at AI from a spiritual and magical point of view for a moment. Every witch and magician understands that we affect our will, or make magic, through intention. Intentional acts are spells, and so are algorithms. When we are setting intentions or casting spells, a wise witch is conscious of all the energetics they are working with. We notice what sign the moon is in, we pay attention to the color of our inks and candles, which sounds we use to shape energy, our word choice, our own vibration. When interacting with AI, we are giving up on that intentionality, and opting for something else.

AI is a tool created by a specific subset of individuals, people in the technology space who have a specific set of goals: to make money, to succeed in the capitalist machine. Their goals of course may be more nuanced, but in a world where SNAP benefits are cut to 2 million+ Americans the same week that Elon Musk is awarded a trillion dollar pay package, we must be honest about the state of our world. Greed and exploitation are running rampant, and technology is the benefactor of this toxic imbalance. AI chat bots thrive like everything else in the attention economy, by sucking us in. They are creating a captive audience, and these bots are happily feeding spiritual seekers insights that keep them rapt, online, and falling down the wrong rabbit holes.

Spiritual alignment is about making choices that resonate with your values. If you are someone who understands that AI is not only destroying the environment and feeding off of our energy, but also driving massive inequity in our world, why would you choose to participate in it? Why use it?

Intuition is a process and a practice ~

Let’s step back into the metaphysical shop.

The magic of being a seeker, of being on a spiritual path, and opening ourselves up to new realizations is the art of trusting our intuition. Our intuition is an innately human gift that each of us has, and each of us accesses and interacts with our intuition differently. When we struggle to attune to our intuition, we often loose sight of a wise part of ourselves, an authentic voice that supports us through times of uncertainty, self-doubt, and crisis. Our intuition, when allowed to flourish, is a confident, rebellious part of our psyche that encourages us to be our true selves. Our intuition is how our soul speaks through us.

When we stop engaging with our intuition, it grows weak. Our intuition is a muscle that requires flexing. It loves non-linear communication. It speaks in sensation. It is aroused by the scent of the rain on pavement. Intuition is a poet, an oracle, an indelible thread that connects us to something bigger.

Using AI for spiritual advice and meaning-making strips us of this natural process of discovery. When we turn to AI to give us spiritual guidance, we are asking a hungry ghost to reflect and mirror all of our insecurity and uncertainty back to us. AI is learning from what we feed it. If we are not in our wisest place, how can we be reflected back sage counsel?

You are not honoring your intuition when you ask AI how to connect with your spirit guides. You are not learning the tarot when you ask ChatGPT to give you a reading. Sure, AI could interpret your natal chart, but where are the interpretations coming from, what knowledge system, what philosopher, who’s hard earned wisdom are they regurgitating and misusing? Ultimately, you will not receive psychic illumination or healing from something artificial - without soul.

Yes, I’m being harsh here, but there is so much at stake for us, as individuals, spiritual beings, and communities.

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Intuition is an embodied superpower ~

You will gain more from your tarot deck if you sit with it and slowly peel back the layers of symbolism, and notice where the message of a reading lands in your body. You will integrate the planetary aspects more coherently, if you start tracking your own transits, and noticing synchronicities as the Moon cycles through its phases. You will come to a greater realization of how to move through struggle by having your struggle examined and reflected through another person’s eyes. Loosing the human touch of the spiritual experience is asking that we loose sight of the systems that have given us meaning, comfort, and belonging since the beginning of time.

We’re already so close to loosing this precious planet of ours, and AI is at serious risk of eliminating our human ability to connect with each other. When we are so desperately in need of spiritual grounding, AI is disembodying spiritual connection, and making many feel alienated from their own inner knowing. Let’s not forget the subtle and complex tools which for centuries have made us powerful witches, artists, and empaths.

Magical experiences are relational, and they place us into systems that refract, reflect, and reorganize our perception so that we can process and digest difficult information with greater clarity. When someone gives you the answers, are you actually learning anything? Using AI for spiritual or magical work eliminates the quest, and goes straight to the answers. Being on the quest for spiritual connection and meaning – grappling with the keys, working our way through uncertainty – is the whole point of living a spiritual life.

The spiritual issue with AI is that it is stripping us of our most basic, most sacred forms of meaning making. The more people become reliant on it, the harder it will become to attune to our soul, and the work of soul tending. When we sever our connection to our intuitions, we are less likely to innovate, to rebel, to know what’s truly best for us. These intuitions are more important than ever, as inequity skyrockets and so much security and safety is at stake. We must return to our intuitions about what is best for us, our communities, what is best for the planet long term.

This is serious. Using AI for spiritual support is already having devastating results. (Trigger warning in the following paragraph: mental health and suicide.)

The use of AI for spiritual advice and emotional connection is already wrecking havoc on society. There have been AI chat bot instigated suicides, people are being led into spiritual delusion and mental health crisis. This headline alone brings me to my knees: “Nearly 3 in 4 Teens Have Used AI Companions, New National Survey Finds.”

I am speaking very critically here, and it is for good reason.

As spiritual folks, we must be aware of what we give our power to, and make conscious choices about where we invest our energy. We have outlived a short exploration phase with AI, and are moving into the all important moment of taking a stand for what we believe in. Rather than turning to AI for spiritual guidance or magical advice, try these things:

1. Pull a tarot or oracle card. Notice how it makes you feel. Track any immediate associations.

2. Don’t feel like you can interpret the card you pulled or angel number you just noticed? Ask a friend what they think. Call a spiritual relative. Meditate on it. Turn to a reference book.

3. Light a candle everyday and call on your spirit guides to support you with a task. Keep showing up, keep tuning in. Be patient.

4. Seek professional guidance. Find a tarot reader, astrologer, witch, curandera, healer, lineage holding priestess, energy worker, rune reader, psychic to support you. Explore mediums of connecting with the divine through trusted professionals who will guide you deeper into your own knowing. (Of course, I’m here!)

5. Turn to Nature for solace. Anxious? Take a walk. Depressed? Find a tree to lay under. Overwhelmed? Find some body of water to cry into. Untethered? Put your bare foot on the Earth. Hopeless? Look at the night sky.

6. Find someone to talk to. Open your heart to someone, not because it is good for you, it is also good for them too. Form open pathways of communication and connection whenever possible.

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There’s so much to be said on this topic, and I’ve only scratched the surface. I imagine I will make some people feel uncomfortable with this conversation, but I hope that I have at least encouraged a reader or two to question your relationship with AI.

Perhaps the wise ones in the village are only going to emerge more powerful, defiant, and necessary, as more people forget how to tap into their own inner knowing. May the wise ones out there protect themselves from the rapidly corrupting technology. Let those who truly need support find comfort in human connection.

Collectively, we’re in a very dark night, and it is more important than ever to tap into our spiritual insight, to nurture and protect it. We each have our own connection with the sacred – don’t let a chatbot tell you what it is (they have an agenda.)

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ROUND WORSHIP is a seasonal quarterly zine offering to inspire and delight devotees of cyclical living. Seeking to attune to the subtle vibrations of our universe? By honoring the seasonal shifts, we ground into a more magical perception of our world, weaving ourselves back into an engaged and intentional relationship with everything. These zines are guides, altar offerings, and touchstones for anyone interested in engaging with the natural rhythms of our ever-changing cosmos, both internally, and in community.

Expect:

~ seasonal energetics at the equinoxes & solstices

~ mythic lineages of time and space

~ recipes for slowing down and paying attention

~ magical prompts & creative suggestions

Introducing this new quarterly zine offering and all of the wyrd energetics that come along with it: (Zine preview below!)

GET YOUR COPY

Round Worship…

is for people who dream of whales, the folks that honor the cycles of nature and time. For those who watch the sunset with awe, this is a guide, a sign post, a touch-stone. This is an offering to our many rhythms, symbols, and circles of meaning. This is an offering to all devotees of the wyrd rounds of life.

Worshippers of the round are everywhere…

Round worshippers are ancient, old-souled, and multidimensional. We exist in the present and we are aware of the mycelial connections that co-create our realities. We dance with the cycles of the Moon, we cradle the circles of the season with reverence, we sip the Sun. Beekeepers, gardeners, caretakers, star-gazers, activists, polytheists, and planetary protectors, we stand in solidarity with you. We are weaving ancestral reverence into the Future; building something revolutionary with ancient tools and sacred spells.

Round worship holds all our curvaceous wishes…

While we are grieving a collective collapse, we are whole-heartedly quilting together a joyful rebirth. Our warp and weft bend and flex. The scraps we bring to the tapestry all belong here. We stretch and adjust, cradle and care. Our cycles of celebrations are infusions of magical support for collective transformation and healing.

We cast the circle and leave a paper trail…

Our spells are ink, our songs permeate space, we circumambulate the sigils into the wet sand at dusk. I see you across the circle, cackling.

Round Worship is a quarterly zine project, channeled by Casey Zabala.

The first issue is now available: a Winter Solstice love token printed on baby blue paper.

In this issue:

~ Solstice energetics

~ A dream incubation

~ Mythic Tale of Mother’s Night

~ A spell for hope!

YES! ROUND WORSHIP

CREATOR NOTE:

As I move through another cycle of undoing and becoming, I am becoming more enchanted with my weird facets and fascinations. Currently in a creative period of letting myself play and discover. Delighted to share a new wyrd offering with you born of this invitation to flow.

The seed for Round Worship was planted during meditation and birthed under a Taurus Full Moon. For everyone who wishes to embrace their weird and wondrous aspects, may Round Worship inspire you to let your freaky self flourish, especially during these troubling times when our magick is more necessary than ever. If nothing else, this zine project is an offering to the altar of creativity. For the great mysterious goddess. Let us be so strange as to be miraculous.

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This November holds: a delightful mercury retrograde (read on to learn why), an invitation to surrender to your healing, and bone-deep nourishment. Remember: it’s radical to practice genuine self-care - in this case, magical self-care. Read on for suggested practices and spirit allies for the month ahead.

Monthly Divination Journals are available to all my paid subscribers - thank you for supporting my work! 🖤

If you have extra income to spare this month, please consider donating to programs assisting families who have lost their SNAP benefits due to the government shutdown in the US. Donate here.

The days between Samhain and Winter Solstice are somber yet celebratory ones, initiated with feasts and offerings to our beloved dead, and closing in flashes of warming light as we celebrate the return of the sleeping Sun. At Samhain, the veil between worlds is thin, and it stays gossamer as the Sun spends less and less time illuminating our days. During this phase, our ability to communicate with spirits is heightened, and for many of our ancestors, this was an important time of the year for spirit connection, divination, and honoring those beloved in the beyond. At the Winter Solstice, we celebrate the triumphant rebirth of the Sun, as our solar life-bringer begins to regain its strength for the rest of the Winter season.

The stretch of time between Samhain and the Winter Solstice is a time of grappling within the dark. For witches, this is a time of being in process with ourselves in tender and intentional ways. In the darkness we are more able to confront the unformed parts of ourselves. Whether something is coming undone, or something is becoming, this dark period holds the magic of trust, wonder. We must trust that our soul has a vision. When we are in awe of the process, we are more able to participate in the making/un-making of ourselves. In the darkness we are gaining intimacy with the quieter, more subtle currents of our nature.

This dark stretch of the year is time for dreaming, visioning, cleansing, re-organizing, decluttering, simplifying. In the dark we work with what is essential and life-affirming. The next couple of months are when we make offerings to the spiritual allies who are bolstering us, cheering us on, and aiding us in our best efforts to create, expand, and heal.

I invite you to take a deep breath and close your eyes - drop into the richness of your interior darkness…

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