Copper Moon E-zine

The Goddess Guide by Priestess Brandi Auset

Reviewed by SteelWitch

According to the back cover, Priestess Brandi Auset's The Goddess Guide is “the most complete cross-reference ever for the universal worship of the Divine Feminine.” That, gentle readers, is a pretty bold claim. What we get for our $16.95 is a small list of encylopedia entries with about three times as many pages of indexes.

Including the introduction and index the book is three hundred and twenty-three pages long. Eighteen of those pages are the introduction, and approximately eighty pages are three to seven sentence long entries describing over four hundred different goddess from around the world. The rest of the two hundred plus pages are double columns organizing the various goddesses by their correspondences: Names, Attributes, Colors, Elements, Sabbats, Regions, and Feminine Aspects (Maiden, Mother, and Crone). Those two hundred pages are predominantly white space. Its organization leaves something to be desired, as looking up a specific goddess does not tell you her correspondences without cross-referencing her name in an index on the page and then looking up the page numbers on that index to find the lists she is included on and, finally, her correspondences. I am confused about the decision to not include the correspondences in the goddesses' individual entries as it would vastly improve the book's usability.

Gwinevere Rain & Steel Witch's Handfasting

by Gwinevere Rain

It was with much pleasure and excitement that on October 24, 2009 myself and Steel Witch partook in a handfasting ceremony. A handfasting is a Wiccan ritual that unites two people together in a spiritual bond. For some this bond can be set to a pre-determined time frame (most commonly a year and a day) for others it functions as a legal marriage ceremony. Our handfasting was a celebration recognizing our unity in a committed & loving relationship.  It was overseen by our good friend Michelle and performed under a large pavilion at a wilderness park with live Irish instrumental music.

This event took many weeks to plan and was truly magical. With any event bumps can be encountered along the way and ours was no exception: the invitations were a challenge, a dress snafu, long food platter discussions and a couple other incidents along the way. However, what mattered most was our willingness and firm desire to continue beyond any complications.