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• The Fish & Wildlife Service has made it easier to kill wolves in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Rockies region — even while they remain protected under the Endangered Species Act. Tell Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne that this rule change is unacceptable (Defenders of Wildlife).

I dropped a ton of money in that town – but I love what I got. I’ve got them all lined up next to me. In my humble opinion, the best shops are Nu Aeon, Crow Haven Corner and New England Magic.

So, here’s what I blew my cash on in Salem:

• A silver moonstone triple-moon ring for the middle finger of my right hand
• Another silver ring – a contemporary interpretation of Celtic-style knots and spirals – for the ring finger on my right hand
• “Invocation” Mysteries soap by Crow Haven Corner
• A Bright Blessings Incense Sampler
• An abalone shell incense holder
• Lotus crystals by Sacred Spirit Products – and charcoal to burn them on
• Egyptian recipe “Abra Melin” frankincense and rose resin incense by Nu Essence
• A Blessed herbal “female energy and wisdom” Moon candle (“made when the moon is right”) by Coventry Creations
• A Samhain (Halloween) “Spirit Wheel of the Year” candle by Cypress Moon
• A small, perfectly weighted pendulum by Xeonix.
• “Wise Woman #52 Goddess Potion” essential oil aromatherapy vial (lavendar, mandarin lemongrass and bergamot) by Aromatherapy of the Goddess

Last but not at all least, I really did get a magic wand. I looked for one everywhere I went. The metal wands were very pretty, but somehow not me, and there were a lot of clunky gem-based wands, but again… not me. The one kind that tempted me (in spite of the really quite outrageous price) was a cherrywood “live wand” that took years to make. Honeysuckle had been wound around it to make spiral grooves in the wood. It was too thick and blunt somehow – although it made it to the “final two.”

For me, the purpose of a wand is as a tool of energy direction (like a very precise mouse pointer). It’s amusing that I had held a teacher’s pointer in mind, because that’s pretty close to what I got. It’s about three feet long, made of white ash – not a straight line on it and wonderfully grooving to my hand. It’s the right weight and balance to be an extension of my arm. There is at least one interesting kind of energy surrounding it already, but I’ll do a full “cleansing” of the wand a bit later – to symbolically rid it of the touch of others – and then “infuse” it with my own spirit/energy. I’m uncomfortable with the magickal kind of language for this – I have my own understandings of what I’m doing. But hey – I’m an eclectic anyway.