Burnt Sage & Blunt Truths

Every week in the Pagan corners of the internet, someone shows up asking for a deity who can “fix” their anger… or “heal” their depression… or “stop” their self-harm thoughts. They want a spell, a chant, or a god to reach down like some cosmic EMT, grab the wheel of their life, and steer it away from the ditch they’re sliding toward. Here’s the truth most folks don’t want to hear: No god is going to do the heavy lifting you refuse to do. Not Odin, not Brigid, not Hekate, not the Horned One himself. A spell without work equals nothing. A deity without action equals nothing. A prayer without follow-through? Also nothing. This path isn’t built for spectators. Magic responds to movement. --- When People Go God-Shopping for Emotional First Aid It’s become its own trend: > “Which god helps with anger?” “Which goddess fixes depression?” “Who can stop me from self-harming?” Ma’am, that’s not devotion — that’s outsourcing. That’s trying to hand your life to a divine customer-service departme...

  Some ghosts aren’t dead. Some ghosts have mortgages, thinning hairlines, a widening middle, a favorite recliner, and a Facebook profile picture from 2009 because every angle since has revealed too much truth. And yet—despite being fully alive—they haunt themselves more than anyone else ever could. All you have to do is exist. Not even loudly. Not with intention. Just breathe in the same digital vicinity, and they scatter like roaches when the kitchen light flicks on. These are the ghosts of the living — the ones who fear your presence because they know damn well you carry the part of their story they hoped no one would ever read aloud. It’s not your magic that frightens them. It’s your memory. People love to say, “The past is the past.” But what they really mean is, “Please don’t remind me of the version of myself I’ve been lying about for twenty years.” The truth? Some men never outgrow their own mythology. They reinvent themselves as sages, pastors, leaders, family ...

  I hit two metaphysical fairs this week. Two. Back-to-back. Normally that’s my idea of a good time: stickers on my coffee thermos, antique tarot decks, hand-blended oils, someone selling vintage bone beads out of a velvet box — the whole carnival of curious energy. But let me tell you something: both of these fairs had the same vibe. Sticky. And not in the “sweet, honey-on-your-fingers, beeswing-on-the-altar” kind of way. I mean sticky like when you walk through it you feel like somebody tried to sell you a healing crystal with back rent attached. These two fairs usually pack the room. Normally, you’re fighting the crowd just to even see the tables. There’s a tarot reader in one corner with a line ten people deep, a forest of incense smoke in another, and vendors out here trying to talk you into buying hand-drawn sigils on birch bark for $45 a pop. Not this week. This week felt like someone had pressed pause. Very few quality vendors. Think multiple vendors with duplicate p...

  Someone posted a reply to one of my Facebook posts in a group: "I can't wait to come to your shop and try your coffee." People love romantic business ideas. “Have you ever thought about a cute little coffee shop downtown?” Sure. I’ve thought about it. We’ve all thought about it. The reclaimed wood counters, jazz piping out of speakers, witchy candles in the corner, maybe a bone on the shelf for attitude. People walk in, buy coffee, I smile, life is soft-focus sepia tones. I have beautiful satellite shops on Whidbey Island, by every Ferry terminal, in Pikes Market....etc.  Beautiful fantasy. Now let’s burn it to the ground with math. The 1,200 Square Foot Dream… Until The Rent Bill Comes Let’s pretend I hit the retail lottery and find a 1,200 sq ft storefront in downtown Everett (not picking on Everett, it's just for an example) for $2,400 a month. People say, “That’s not too bad!” They say that before we add reality: Utilities: $350–600 Insurance: $10...

  I finally did a thing I’ve been quietly wrestling with for months — maybe years if I’m honest. I launched a coffee brand. Hollow Bone Coffee Co. is alive. Let me tell you something: building a business is not lighting a candle and chanting your way to passive income. It’s paperwork, legal nonsense, nitpicky website battles, late-night research, and a whole lot of “What the hell is this error message and why is everything suddenly sold out?” It’s a spreadsheet and a spell. A credit card and a prayer. A ritual and a strategy. You don’t slide into alignment — you fight for it. I went through all of it: sourcing actual small-batch roasts deciding which origins to keep and which to cut naming blends from a place of real magic , not Pinterest wrangling Shopify like it owed me rent cussing at dropship sync settings at 2AM writing copy that felt honest, not cute And somewhere in all that mess, something started to click. That’s how you know you’re on the r...

 I don’t need anyone to tell me about economic downturns, climate change graphs, or supply-chain whatever. I listen to the land, and right now, she’s groaning. She’s tired. She’s trying to hold up people who have been holding her up for generations. Drive through Northeast Arkansas right now, and you’ll see what I mean — not by looking at the houses or the storefronts, but by looking at the fields. Cotton bales sitting untouched like gravestones. Soybeans plowed under not because they weren’t grown, but because nobody bothered to take them. Acres of potential just left there to rot because somewhere, a spreadsheet said “not worth it.” These are my people. Folks who pray over seed in February and break their backs in August. People who don’t do TikTok, don’t run trend pieces, don’t have time to explain the difference between perseverance and punishment to outsiders. They just get up before sunrise and do the damn work. They sacrifice silently. No Facebook fundraiser. No glossy ...

And this is where the posers step aside. Some books are easy to buy. Click, add to cart, delivered with the toothpaste and the cat litter. Then there are the others — the deep-rooted ones, the smoke-heavy ones, the ones the land itself protects. The ones you have to hunt. I spent weeks slipping through used-book graveyards, stalking listings like a wolf after a deer. Watching prices spike, vanish, reappear like ghosts. And then — finally — not one, but both of them dropped into my hands like bones from an ancestral altar: 📚 Mountain Magick — Edain McCoy 📚 In a Graveyard at Midnight — Edain McCoy Not reprints. Not watered-down summaries. Not “inspired by Appalachia” cottagecore. The real damn thing. Old-road knowledge, creek-bed knowledge. Magic made from necessity, not novelty. Witchcraft that still smells like woodsmoke and lard, not lavender-aesthetic Instagram filters. I didn’t just buy books. I reclaimed a lineage. --- Why These Two Matter (and why most wi...