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Burning Incense Is Psychoactive: New Class Of Antidepressants Might Be Right Under Our Noses

Burning Incense Is Psychoactive: New Class Of Antidepressants Might Be Right Under Our Noses
Religious leaders have contended for millennia that burning incense is good for the soul. Now, biologists have learned that it is good for our brains too. An international team of scientists, including researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, describe how burning frankincense (resin from the Boswellia plant) activates poorly understood ion channels in the brain to alleviate anxiety or depression. "In spite of information stemming from ancient texts, constituents of Bosweilla had not been investigated for psychoactivity," said Raphael Mechoulam, one of the research study's co-authors. To determine incense's psychoactive effects, the researchers administered incensole acetate to mice. According to the National Institutes of Health, major depressive disorder is the leading cause of disability in the United States for people ages 15--44, affecting approximately 14.8 million American adults. Related:  hedge witch

Top ten ancient Irish charms and spells Celebrate all things mysterious and magical on "Occult Day" with these ancient Irish rituals. Photo by: Getty Images/iStockphoto There are many practicing witches and druids in Ireland today who believe in ancient traditions and folk magic. We’ve put together a list of ancient charms and spells based on this Irish magic. Whether you are seeking a spell for love, luck, or healing, emotional charms, or even potency, these charms and spells will have something for you. 1. On the night of a full moon, walk to a spot beneath your beloved's bedroom window. The night breeze is believed to have a guardian who is compassionate toward requests from mortals between midnight and 1 am (the witching hour). 2. Place two keys in a sieve, cross ways. 3. You will be damn lucky with this one. Light the candle and loop the string in through the trinket and tie it. “A candle flickers, this trinket I pass, good energy and fortune come to me, wealth, knowledge, influence, energy. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Free Stock Photos: 74 Best Sites To Find Awesome Free Images Looking for the perfect stock photo for your blog or website? To help you find them, we’ve compiled a list of 74 terrific sources of high-quality, free photos. Want to use any of the photos in Canva? Click here to sign up if you haven’t already (if you haven’t — are you kidding me?!) upload them (here’s how) and start designing like a professional for free now. Before We Get Started: In order to organize the best resources, we’ll use these star ratings: ★★★★ – Near perfect ★★★☆ – Great resource ★★☆☆ – Not perfect, but still worth checking out ★☆☆☆ – Last resort, but better than clipart Alright, let’s go! 01. Wylio is an easy to use Creative Commons image finder. Searchable: Yes Membership Required: Yes Attribution Required: Sometimes Size of Gallery: 112,000,000 High Resolution: Some 123RF is a popular royalty free resource that offers over 35 million images, audio, videos, and vectors for a fee. 03. 500px ★★★☆ 04. 05. Ever need an image of King William II or the latest in 1845 fashion? 06. 07.

Nine Herbs Charm The Nine Herbs Charm is an Old English charm recorded in the 10th-century[1] Lacnunga manuscript.[2] The charm is intended for the treatment of poisoning and infection by a preparation of nine herbs. The numbers nine and three, significant in Germanic paganism and later Germanic folklore, are mentioned frequently within the charm.[2] The poem contains references to Christian and English Pagan elements, including a mention of the major Germanic god Woden. According to R. K. Gordon, the poem is "clearly an old heathen thing which has been subjected to Christian censorship. Poem contents[edit] Herbs[edit] The charm references nine herbs: Mucgwyrt (Mugwort)Attorlaðe (identified as Cockspur Grass by R. At the end of the charm, prose instructions are given to take the above-mentioned herbs, crush them to dust, and to mix them with old soap and apple juice. Woden[edit] A snake came crawling, it bit a man. See also[edit] Notes[edit] References[edit] External links[edit]

A Pencil Carrier that Straps to Your Arm and Sketchbook = The Arm-Adillo Hearth and Home Witchery Imbolg Crafts and Activities for Children There are so many activities to do with your young ones at Oimelc, many of which can also be done at the Spring Equinox. Older children can help make candles (there are lots of kits out there to make it easier) and candle holders. Younger children can make "candles" from toilet paper rolls and construction paper. If you choose to start your Spring Cleaning, a small brush broom and dustpan, a clean cloth to help wipe down cabinet doors or dust tables or child size cleaning equipment for those little "can I help?" little ones. Make a Priapic Wand ~Reading~ Meagan's Imbolc by Kathryn Dyer The Story of Imbolc by Rachel Walker Making Butter In a clean jar with a screw on top pour in heavy or whipping cream. Paper Brigid's Crown An Imbolc Project By Wendy Sheridan (This is especially appropriate for young girls, since this is the holiday for the return of the maiden). You will need: From: Wendy Sheridan Source:unknown

A Writer's Guide to Horses An Equestrian Writer’s Guide by Susan F. Craft In this motorized era the majority of humanity suffers from equestrian amnesia. Thoughts on equestrian writing by Long Rider authors Jeremy James is a Founding Member of the Long Riders’ Guild. Far be it for me to presume how anyone might tackle such a subject, since we all have our own idiosyncrasies when it comes to what to spout upon the subject of horses, but if there were one suggestion I would advance it would be to stop and think about any piece of received wisdom that people tend to hoy about without further thought. CuChullaine O’Reilly is a Founding Member of The Long Riders’ Guild, who has spent thirty years studying equestrian travel techniques on every continent. Doug Preston is a North American Long Rider who rode from Arizona to New Mexico across the Despoblado Desert, retracing the equestrian route of Coronado, a 16th Century Conquistador. As fiction writers, we cannot be experts in everything we write about. Sex/Age

Earth Witchery Flirting and Writing Good Dialogue | The King of Elfland's Second Cousin I love exposition: flowing sentences, tight action, enveloping description. Prose is great. But for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been wondering what makes dialogue tick. Well-written dialogue is not conversation. Have you ever listened to the way people speak? Writing Dialogue with Game It’s a great feeling when our game is on, and every exchange is tantalizing, enticing, teasing, and provocative. Functional versus Emotional Dialogue Good dialogue works the same way. Less is More: Make Every Word Count When I have been particularly flirtatious (not that it happens often, but it has happened…once…I think), I feel like every sentence, every word I uttered made the other person dig me more. Imagine you’re trying to ask someone out to dinner. Probably the best tool I’ve found to find the happy medium is the comic book panel. A good rule of thumb is for panels to not exceed twenty-five words of dialogue. There. What did you say? Clarity’s another important factor. . . Like this:

Magickal Athenaeum - WikiPagan The Magical Athenaeum is the largest collection of magickal PDF books on the internet, with several hundred files. The resource is maintained by Asiya's Shadows. Books are in the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) and may be viewed and printed using Adobe Reader. Magical Athenaeum Paganism & Witchcraft The Odin Brotherhood Odinism and Asatru Pagan Classics at Scribd The Eddas. Grimoires & Classics General Hermetics Thelema Chaos Magick Qabalah Christian Mysticism Rosicrucianism Tarot Theosophy

Writing The Perfect Scene: Advanced Fiction Writing Tips Having trouble making the scenes in your novel work their magic? In this article, I’ll show you how to write the “perfect” scene. Maybe you think it’s impossible to write the perfect scene. Honestly, I don’t know. But structure is pretty well understood. The Two Levels of Scene Structure A scene has two levels of structure, and only two. The large-scale structure of the sceneThe small-scale structure of the scene This may seem obvious, but by the end of this article, I hope to convince you that it’s terribly profound. Before we begin, we need to understand how we keep score. Your reader is reading your fiction because you provide him or her with a powerful emotional experience. If you fail to create these emotions in your reader, then you have failed. Large-Scale Structure of a Scene The large-scale structure of a scene is extremely simple. A Scene has the following three-part pattern: GoalConflictDisaster A Sequel has the following three-part pattern: ReactionDilemmaDecision That’s all!

The Hedge Wife: Magical Herbalism Part 1 Witchcraft and herbalism go hand in hand and have done so for centuries. In the past, witches were called wise women or wise men and were often the only people their neighbors could go to for healing. Doctors were sparse and so expensive only gentry could afford them or...there were none to be found in general. Today, many witches are returning to their roots so to speak and looking to find a connection to the earth by healing themselves and those around them with herbs and plants. I wanted to do a series of posts to collect data online into one place for easier research not only for myself but for others looking. The following are site and blogs that provide magical herbal information. Wicca.com has a great reference list form A-Z of herbs and their magical properties. Witch of Forest Grove has a great series of posts called Weeds for Witches that include Dandelion and Clover, two of my favorite weeds. I hope you find many blessings in the links given.

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