Breaking bread as ritual to heal rifts

WOLVERHAMPTON, England –The political fight over whether the United Kingdom should remain part of the European Union or not was bruising to people on both sides, a situation which has been echoed in other world events such as last year’s presidential election in the United States. One British Quaker has found what she feels is an important reminder of the common ancestry humans share, and she’d like Witches and other Pagans to join her in expressing that bond: the power of bread. Rachel Arnold “discovered Paganism and the power of Witches,” she recalls, “while recovering from a traumatic experience in the Remain campaign.” It was during that healing process that she hit upon bread as a common thread for all humanity, and began to express that understanding through painting and poetry. From there she decided that breaking bread should be a movement, one in which people share that common history in spontaneous gatherings.

Art, feminism, magic: an interview with Penny Slinger (part two)

[Interview by journalist ZB, special to The Wild Hunt]
Penny Slinger is a British born, multi-media artist known best for her esoteric, surrealist, provocative photographic collage work focusing on spiritual alchemy, the sacred feminine, and female psyche. In part one of our interview, journalist ZB spoke with Slinger about her beginnings, her inspirations, and the early days of her personal and creative exploration. In part two, Slinger discusses spiritual alchemy, sexuality, the Goddess Temple, and her well-known Dakini Oracle projects. ZB: In your work, you address the subject matter of bi-sexuality and embracing the alchemical concepts of uniting the masculine and feminine within oneself. Do you see a connection between bi-sexuality and the integration of the psyche through spiritual alchemy?

Power of art: an interview with artist Laura Tempest Zakroff

SEATTLE, Wash. — Laura Tempest Zakroff, known to many by the name Tempest, is a Pagan artist and Witch from the Seattle area. She travels the country attending festivals and conferences, sharing her work, teaching, and performing. Her art incorporates her visions of the world as well as creating powerful connections to her spiritual beliefs, to Witchcraft, to healing, and more recently to her own brand of political activism. Raised in the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia, Zakroff was the youngest of three children in a mixed-religious family.Her father is Jewish and her mother is Catholic.

Exploring the occult through illustration with artist Glyn Smyth

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — In his home studio in Belfast, artist Glyn Smyth spends his days designing album covers, gig posters and other similar commissions, while working on his own pieces in the off-time. He is a full-time, professional printmaker, illustrator and graphic design artist with a wide range of styles from textile patterns and art nouveau to print illustrations depicting a haunting realism. Despite this artistic range, there is one particular element that does bind all of his work together, and that something is found through his deep devotion to esoteric themes. “Although I don’t align myself to any one school of thought or tradition, my interest in Witchcraft seems deeply rooted on an emotional level. I do feel that many artists — and not necessarily just those who identify with the esoteric or occult — regularly invoke similar forces to those experienced by magical practitioners.

Column: Plaster Divinity

Athena looms. She towers. She stands above me, dominating my entire field of vision. She raises her right hand into the air, as if to bring some other addressee to a pause; she stretches her left hand to me, palm upturned, as though she were offering to help me to my feet. Fabric folds around her body, bunching together at her waist and shoulder – enough fabric, it seems, to wind around the world. Her war-helm rests atop her head; on her breast sits the head of Medusa.