Circle Magazine (formerly Circle Network News)
Too often you go to the supermarket and you see the usual on the shelves: shitty trendy magazines with anorexic supermodels with every other page advertising for Toyota, Ford, Maybelline, Loréal, cereal, and useless trendy clothing. These magazines, of course, are a real sad example of the worst Corporate America has to offer. One magazine you’re not going to find at your local Safeway is Circle Magazine (which, until 1999, was called Circle Network News). The reason for that is the content, and the totally anti-corporate appearance of the magazine. The subjects cover Paganism, Wiccan, nature and Earth-based spirituality and much more.
Articles ranges from various Gods and Goddesses to the various Sabbats, as well as different rituals and subjects on every stage of human life from birth up until death. The wonderful thing is as you skim through all the pages, you won’t find one useless ad at all, instead you get treated with the occasional poem, some beautiful Pagan artwork by various contributors, and nice black and white photos.
Circle Magazine is published by Circle Sanctuary which is based on a Nature Preserve near Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin. The magazine is divided in to “Readers’ Forum” and “Regular Features” (which includes articles like “Inner Journeys”, “Circle Craft”, “Pagan Spirit Gathering”, “Pagan World News”, and much more). You’ll find many recurring names in the magazine such as Selena Fox (founder of Circle Sanctuary way back in 1974), Mari Powers, Kia, Mara Friedman, Susan Beyer, and many more. The only drawback of Circle Magazine is you only get four issues per year (one for each season), but it’s well worth it (you can subscribe by clicking on to the website given at the end of this review). Each season will have articles pertaining to the time of year the issue was published, so if you get a Spring issue, expect to find stuff on Beltane rituals, if you get the Fall issue, then expect stuff on Samhain (or Halloween, as most people know it better as), for example. The back of the magazine includes classified ads that cater exclusively to your spiritual needs be it candles, jewelry, statues, books CDs of music artists with a Pagan/Wiccan/nature-based spiritual slant, as well as events and workshops being held.
As you read this magazine (or any similar book on this subject), you’ll learn real quick that all the lies certain Fundamentalist Christians (of the Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell variety, or your typicial “fire and brimstone” screaming Southern Baptist or Pentecostal preacher) constantly speak of about Pagans, Wiccans and the like, are just that, lies. There is nothing I like more than something that’s not trendy at all, and this magazine is just that: not trendy, allowing it to focus exclusively on the content. It’s such a big relief to find a magazine that don’t act like everyone’s life circles around the shopping mall (Circle Magazine comes to demonstrate a lifestyle far more interesting than the mall, and far more in tuned with nature and of other people).
I don’t claim to be an expert in the field of Pagan, Wiccan, and Earth-based spirituality, I am someone who is merely curious on the subject, so I’m sure there are details that I missed about the magazine. Incredible magazine, to say the least, and if you’re looking for a magazine to cater to your Pagan, Wiccan, Earth-based spiritual needs, you only need to subscribe to Circle Magazine.