Femme Occulte: 2022 Issue 12 Winter - Touch & Smell
Welcome to the fourth and final season of the year. Once again, Femme Occulte texts and creations will gladly accompany it. Winter is a time of imaginary ending, transformation, and reflection, which is why most of our chapters conclude their year-long cycle at a natural pace.
Femme Occulte: 2022 Issue 11 Autumn - Taste
The Wheel of Cerridwen turns a bit again through the flow of words. In addition to the sense of taste, our visual senses will be delighted by an interview with one of the fascinating Czech pagan artists.
Femme Occulte: 2022 Issue 10 Summer - Sight
Should someone be burned by the flames, the beneficial power of the tree of immortality and rebirth, the apple tree, will come to their aid. More plants with a fiery spark in their bodies will not wait long, and other spirits will visit the hearth.
Femme Occulte: 2022 Issue 9 Spring - Hearing
Besides opening the door to new themes for 2022, our Garden has also opened its doors to the fresh scents of plants - seedlings who will share their magical practice with us.
Femme Occulte: 2021 Issue 8 Winter - Silence
Silence, darkness, and birth are attributes of the winter element of the Earth, which we learn more about through its creatures and plants.
Femme Occulte: 2021 Issue 7 Autumn - Will
The Will became the guide of the Water, the third part of the magical pyramid. We already started to lightly deal with the Will in the previous issue of Femme Occulte. It manifests through our chapters in its many forms.
Femme Occulte: 2021 Issue 6 Summer - Courage
The theme of the first issue focused on its first side - Knowledge. Which of the sides would belong to the second issue, however, meant a difficult decision between Courage and Will. In the end, based on the research of many correspondence systems, we chose Courage as a side more related and in warm harmony with last year's summer theme of Fire.
Tomten
Tomte, nisse, brownie, domovoi, drac... Beloved by children and the young at heart, the red-capped, snowy bearded gnome is known by many names around the world. While these days we see him most often at Christmas, this household spirit is in fact far, far older than our modern conception of the midwinter holiday.
The Ring of Truth
Haunted by fascination, a teenage boy undertakes an ancient ritualistic working for answers to questions unfathomable by science and religion. Submitting himself to the mysteries of the magic circle, he risks spiritual sacrifice in a gamble to step into adulthood without the loss of childhood wonder.
The Riddle of the Sphinx
The artist’s life presents those who dare take it up with a unique set of possibilities and challenges, among them a chance for renown long after the end of their days on earth.
The Pleasure
As many a seasoned hiker can tell you, an incautious encounter with poison oak can turn a happy memory of a forest walk into a drawn-out ordeal of incapacitating anguish. The merest brush against the plant’s green and ruddy leaves—or even its bare stem—is apt to trigger a singular suffering perversely described by some as the pleasure.
The Place of the Song-Dream
This illustrated essay explores the profound mystery of “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” the central chapter of Kenneth Grahame’s masterpiece The Wind in the Willows, a beloved book bridging the worlds of animal and man.
The Nearly Perfect Necromancy of Lady Mondegreen
Although the tragic love between Lady Mondegreen and the Earl Amurray existed nowhere in the pages of history or literature, it couldn’t have been more real in the mind of the young girl who dreamed the lovers into being after mishearing a verse of classic poetry. She let her imagination fill in the blanks to create a new reality, inhabiting it heart and soul.
The Lark Ascending
Written in 1881, Meredith’s poem takes inspiration from Shelley’s “Ode to a Skylark” and in turn inspired Ralph Vaughan Williams’ violin masterpiece of 1921. One century on, our Peculiar Parish Edition is offered in humble commemoration of the “silver chain” of influence wrought by the best of the arts.
Our Bogeys, Our Shelves
Your home library is more than a mere collection of fact and fantasy. By acquiring and keeping each of the books that line your shelves, you craft an ever-changing self-portrait made of memories, knowledge, hopes, and secrets unique to you alone.
Nine Defenses Against the Basilisk
In antiquity the wild places of the world were menaced by the dreaded “king of all reptiles,” the basilisk, a creature so vile that it could turn brave heroes to stone with a mere look. Today we face the basilisk every time we are gripped with anxiety so strong it stops us in our tracks.
Exploding the Tangerine
Magical duels are depicted in film and other popular fiction as flashy affairs full of supernatural fireworks, and they’re often given as proof of a person’s ability to use “real magic” for self-defense and to influence the world around them.
Enchantment Dismantled
Have you ever crossed your fingers or wore a special piece of clothing, telling yourself you’ll be luckier because of it? We all engage in superstitious behavior to some extent, even if we’re not sure whether it works.
Christmas at Sea
Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Christmas at Sea” was first published in the 22 December 1888 edition of The Scots Observer, in the poet’s hometown of Edinburgh. Two years later it was selected as the closing work in Stevenson’s Ballads.
Armchair Demonology
Mystics and intellectuals have extolled the virtues of stimulants throughout all of human history, believing that the use of certain substances can bring them closer to the ineffable. Although arduous journeys along “the poison path” appeal to many psychonauts, there is also much magic to be found in the use of milder stimulants.