It's exciting times for Open Coven as our work gets more noticed and we develop more partnerships. I am delighted to share that I have been chosen as an emerging teacher in Effybird's Book of Days Course for 2019. This incredible course is a collaborative venture with a  group of remarkable, talented and spiritual artists from across the globe. We will all be contributing content to a year of art journaling and creativity. 
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"This is an invitation to spend the year with me and my lusciously delicious guest artists and teachers as we bind our own journals (optional), do a deep dive into art journaling, learn new techniques, explore all the ways we use the art journal, and fill our journals up with gorgeous spreads!" - Effy Wild

Effy has been teaching art journaling online for a number of years and has a great following. I am proud and humbled to be part of such an amazing online venture. You can find out more about Studio Effy here.
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Registration opens on November 1st. 

"Take your broken heart and turn it into art." - Carrie Fisher

Open Coven was formed as an act of defiance in 2016. We knew then things would get bad but we didn't know how bad. We knew we would have to fight for our rights and use everything we had in our means to do so. Everything counts, everything.

Art is magick and art reaches people when rational arguments, theories and logic don't. Download these for free with our most ardent blessings. Don't be silent. Use your magick, fight for all of us of every color, gender and status. 

The second annual Goblin Market is happening on November 3rd and we are so frickin' excited! Not only is it run by Hawk and Hawthorne and Blood and Spicebush (two ventures we love) but it is going to be a heady mix of vendors, music and ritual.

This year Open Coven will be a vendor, spreading the word on what we do and selling our totes, stickers, Yule cards, t-shirts, zines and spells. 
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The market will be in the afternoon and is free,  followed by a ritual celebration in the evening that is ticketed. Find more details here. Over a hundred people took part last year so make sure you get your ticket early!

Open Coven is proud to be sponsoring the first Harvest Fest,  hosted by Burton Street Community Peace Gardens and HoodHuggers International. The collective has also be involved in the planning stages.

The event begins with a kickoff parade through the neighborhood led by Brass Your Heart followed by an afternoon of family-friendly fun to celebrate the harvest season and autumn equinox.  The fest will host various musical artists on the stage in the gardens, and possibly an open-mic.  Since Asheville is Foodtopia, folks will have a chance to showcase their favorite creations in the Blue Ribbon Contest: best savory dish-best sweet dish-best preserved food, judged by Asheville Food Tours (prizes for 1st, 2nd & runner up).  Afternoon festivities include kickball and yard games (corn hole etc.) and food/ice cream from Jamaican Flavors and The Hop West, respectively.  To honor the garden/harvest theme, we’ll have a plant walk through the neighborhood, as well as classes on medicine-making, fermenting, etc.

Open Coven's contributions to this day will include a demo on medicine making and conducting a closing, participatory ritual to honor the Autumn Equionx AKA MAbon. This has been a wonderful collaboration and we love the work of both the Peace Gardens and HoodHuggers International.

We have a dark moon coming this weekend so let's look at some ways of working with this special energy.
​Get the below list as a PDF on my "Free Stuff" page, when you subscribe.

Anyone else feel like they've been trapped in a washing machine these last few weeks? Phew! With a full moon and mercury retrograde at the same time, I know I feel like I have been through it all. I am officially on my knees. I often post about dark moons because I bloody love them! I know that people like to do banishing spells at this time, but I prefer to luxuriate in the quiet introspective energy.
I'm introspective anyway so this helps. More and more I am forced to pause in this ridiculous experience of adulting. Dark moons are our companions for pause. They envelope us in velvety, gentle, truth. They show us the way, hold our hand and rub our backs when it gets rough. At least that's my experience. 

If you have been following me, done my online course or read my zine, you will be aware that I put art magick for witchcraft into three broad tenets: exploration, invocation and devotion. These projects are for this time of inner journeying and therefore address the tenet exploration.
For more on contour drawing, watch an excerpt from my online course "Introduction to Magickal Art Journaling"

Blessed Lammas! I have been spending a lot of time thinking about this sabbat and what it means in so many different ways. Creating an altar triptych has been a rewarding way of exploring so much of what this time means. I hope you enjoy the video I made talking about it.

I have been feeling the effects of the coming Lunar eclipse for the last couple of days. As Chani Nicholas says: "Eclipses signal times when our shadow or unconscious habits and patterns are exposed. These are times when we are well served to make our burdens, self-doubts, and self-sabotage conscious so that we can be more fully integrated as humans. Eclipses also signal times of important shifts, changes, and movements in our lives. What happens during eclipse season sets the tone for a long time to come."

Great. So what now? How do we navigate these changes?  Below is a two parter. Part one begins in the morning, to center us and empower us to ride the waves of transformation and part two is in the evening, a soothing and cathartic magick. 

 You will need:

•  A candle.
• Mala beads/prayer beads if you use them. 
• A red pen, pencil or marker
• Some paper, preferably quite thick such as sketch paper.
• A stick of palo santo, smudge or incense stick.

Part one: Morning

• Light your incense, smudge etc.
• Light a candle.
• Breathe deeply.
• Close you eyes and repeat this mantra: "I welcome change as a gift. I discard my patterns of harm." If you have prayer beads, repeat this for each bead. Otherwise repeat as many times as you feel is necessary.
• On your paper draw a circle in red, use as much space as you can.
• Inside the circle doodle feel the harm, the negativity and the lack of confidence and fear leave you and manifest in the red circle. 

Sit with it when you are done. 

Part Two: Evening

• If possible sit with a view of the moon.
• Have with you your red circle.
• Light your incense/smudge or palo santo.
• Cleanse your self with the smoke. 
• Take your incense/smudge or palo santo and burn holes in the circle.
• With each hole you burn, repeat your mantra from the morning:  "I welcome change as a gift. I discard my patterns of harm."
• Do this repeatedly thinking about the habits you have that are harming you, preventing your growth. 
  

When ready you can stop. With the paper that is left you can leave it on your altar to remind you, collage into your book of shadows, burn it and scatter the ashes under the moon. Choose whatever actions feels right for you.
Don't forget to rest! Take a bath, drink some herbal tea. 

Have you ever watched a three or four year old play or make art? I do this a lot since my daughter is three. I love to see her get really absorbed, see the way her face changes, her body language. I admire it. I also like to see how she will use anything she can get her hands on and play with it - glue, paint, buttons, sticks. When do we lose this sense of play? This boundless creativity? 

It's not so easy to just commit to play, we are conditioned so thoroughly to be a certain way as grown ups that 'adult' has even become a verb! How about using some household items, like children do, and incorporate them into our art journaling.