The Wolf Witch of Coös

06/12/2026

Well behaved Witches rarely make history!

06/12/2026

Be that weird guy who pulled over and checked on the animal that was hit by a car to see if it was still alive and needed help.

Be the construction worker that left work early while his buddies laughed at him because he found an injured squirrel and wanted to get it to safety.

Be the irritating woman who isn’t afraid to stop traffic because a mama duck is trying to cross the road with her babies.

Be the gross person who isn’t disgusted by a mangy fox and sees it as an animal that needs help from the right people.

Be the aggravating informant who tells the guy buying rat poison what it does to our local wildlife.

Be the uncool kid who stops his friends from trying to hurt a snake they found for fun.

When we start feeling bad or embarrassed for showing EMPATHY toward another and trying to SAVE A LIFE, then we have let the opinions of others mean WAY too much.

Never apologize for being a good and caring human being. There aren’t enough in this world.

Jane Newhouse
Newhouse Wildlife Rescue

06/08/2026

This!

This. There is a difference between wanting to cleanse energetic residue and wanting to bury your emotions like a good WASP. Toxic positivity is part of the New Age to Alt-right pipeline.

06/05/2026

The Department of Defense has reduced its recognized religious affiliation codes from more than 200 to just 31, eliminating Pagans, Asatru, Druidry, and Wicca, along with numerous other minority faiths and secular worldviews, in a move officials say will streamline chaplaincy support for service mem...

06/03/2026

Forget whatever mention of Wicca you remember from Charmed (we still get people asking how to avoid personal gain and that's not even a Wiccan thing, it was a contrivance for the show). Pagan is an umbrella term for several (usually European-based, though some do fold in southern Mediterranean paths such as Egyptian Kemeticism and Canaanite reconstructionism) different modern revivals, reconstructions or re-imaginations of dead religions. There are no fully unbroken Pagan traditions, anyone claiming they are from one is lying to you or themselves (or, like I once did, see folk traditions as evidence without understanding cultural syncretization).

Wicca is just one (or, rather, a few as there are different "denominations" now, but I don't want to bombard you with too much information) of those attempts to revive a Pagan religion. This one happens to have been assembled by Gerald Gardner in the mid 20th century. Wicca is a religion that uses witchcraft as part of their religion.

Witchcraft in and of itself is not a religion but a collection of magical practices that can work outside of or along with any religion. Not every modern Pagan religion embraces magic. Not every modern witch identifies as Pagan. The terms are all fairly broad because they cover a number of cultures and practices, but they are not interchangeable.

It is hard to recommend books without knowing what appeals, as such, I will recommend a short list:

New World Witchery by Cory Thomas Hutchinson

Grimoire: A Guide for Modern Cunningfolk by Peter Paddon

Besom, Stang and Sword by Christopher Orapello and his wife who has changed her name to Matilda Ethel Thorn since the release of the book, which instead uses her old name.

Folk Witchcraft by Roger Horne

The Dabbler's Guide to Witchcraft by Fire Lyte

You will notice that none of my recommendations are about Wicca because I am not a Wiccan. These are all based in folk magic and Traditional Witchcraft (which is different from Wicca for a variety of reasons).

06/03/2026