Author Archives

Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is a published author and freelance editor. Her newest book is Secret Lives, a novel about grandmothers who do magic. Her earlier nonfiction books include the daybook Pagan Every Day, Finding New Goddesses (a pun-filled parody of goddess encyclopedias), and Goddess Meditations. When she can get away from the computer, she goes to the theater as often as possible—she loves musical theater and movies in which people sing and dance. She is also an active CERT (Community Emergency Rescue Team) volunteer and a member (and occasional secretary pro-tem) of a neighborhood organization that focuses on code enforcement and safety for citizens. She has been an AIDS emotional support volunteer and a literacy volunteer. She is an active member of the neopagan community and is well known for the rituals she creates and leads.

• Happy Birthday, Dear Brother by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on April 7, 2019 • ( 15 )

  

  Today would be my brother Dale’s 75th birthday. To honor him, I’m rewriting an article I wrote for a business magazine in Orange Co., CA, in 1992. Although I was a regular columnist for that business magazine, I seldom wrote… Read More ›

• Practical Lessons in Kindness from the Grasshopper and the Ant (With apologies to Jean de La Fontaine for significant changes to his fable) by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on March 3, 2019 • ( 12 )

  

  Note: This story was originally posted early in 2016. I’m posting it again because, thanks to the state of UNkindness the Abuser-in-chief has pasted all over the semi-civilized Semi-United States, we need lessons in kindness more than ever before. I… Read More ›

• Seeking Enlightenment? Let’s Try Endarkenment by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on February 3, 2019 • ( 16 )

  

  In the version of the calendar I follow, February 1 is the true beginning of spring. That’s because early February is when we can see the light coming back. We know spring is really coming. February opens with a holiday/holy… Read More ›

• 2019: Hopefully a Happier New Year by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on January 6, 2019 • ( 20 )

  

  We’re nearly a week into the new year. I almost wish I were a prophet and could predict with assurance that 2019 will be better than 2018—less filled with hate, name-calling, lies, and all-round trumpery (pun intended: “trumpery” is “worthless… Read More ›

• Celebrating the Winter Solstice by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on December 2, 2018 • ( 15 )

  

  Even though Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus, first Roman emperor, the empire didn’t celebrate that birth until three centuries later when his birth date was moved to mid-winter to match the birth date of the sun god… Read More ›

• When the Gods Retire by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on November 4, 2018 • ( 16 )

  

  Come with me in your imagination to an old land, a Demi-Olympus, a fabled and possibly invented land to the north of Mount Olympus, home and throne of the fabled Olympian gods. It is to this Other Olympus that the… Read More ›

• What to do with Trump? by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on October 7, 2018 • ( 8 )

  

  The United States used to get some respect. But now, except for the most gullible Trumpeters, people all over the world are seeing the damage the Troll-in-Chief is doing to our nation with his narcissism and corruption. What can a… Read More ›

• A Ritual to Bless Our Children by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on September 2, 2018 • ( 14 )

  

  It was maybe twenty-five years ago that I first got addicted to the Sunday morning news/talk shows. I’d turn on the TV at 7 a.m., watch an hour of local news, then Stephanopoulos at 8 a.m., then MSNBC until noon… Read More ›

• Lessons from Candide by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on August 5, 2018 • ( 13 )

  

  Candide, ou l’Optimisme (in English, Candide, or Optimism) is a satirical, picaresque novel published in 1759 by François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, who was possibly the smartest author of the Age of Enlightenment…but he annoyed so many courtiers and… Read More ›

• America’s Two National Goddesses by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on July 1, 2018 • ( 29 )

  

  I bet almost no one knows this secret: the United States is being watched over by two goddesses! One of them stands on top of the Capitol dome in Washington, D.C. The other stands on an island in New York… Read More ›

• Toil and Trouble (Part 4) by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on June 3, 2018 • ( 4 )

  

  Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. When the Amazons land in the capital city, they find themselves standing on the wide lawn in front of the Golden Tower in which El Presidente lives and rules. And look—El Presidente… Read More ›

• Toil and Trouble (Part 3) by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on May 6, 2018 • ( 6 )

  

  Continued from Part 2 The magical school bus, carrying twenty-seven young women, drives across two or three states almost as quickly as the magic carpet flew a few days ago. The bus seems to fly, guided by Bunbury and Icarus… Read More ›

• Toil and Trouble (Part 2) by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on April 3, 2018 • ( 8 )

  

  Continued from Part 1. “Mirror, mirror, on the table, Show us all that you are able…” The witch and her ad hoc coven and the ravens are leaning forward to see and hear more clearly what the mirror is showing… Read More ›

• Toil and Trouble (Part 1) by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on March 4, 2018 • ( 6 )

  

  …and Ella can’t remember the last real meal she had. After supper with the refugees in the witch’s house, she and the witch put their heads together to begin making significant plans. She’s also been meeting all the refugees who… Read More ›

• A Rescue Remedy, Part 2 by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on February 4, 2018 • ( 13 )

  

  The handsome but uncharming prince having been magicked, the witch and her coconspirators know it’s time to focus on finding Ella. The witch looks around the table. “Mrs. Janedoe and Mrs. Worthington,” she says, “you are two of our most… Read More ›

• A Rescue Remedy, Part I by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on January 7, 2018 • ( 16 )

  

  A year, now. It has been a full year since the phony election that put El Presidente in the Golden Office. A year since people began leaving the capital and the nation’s other large cities. While some of the refugees… Read More ›

• Hooray! The Holiday Season Is At Hand! by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on December 3, 2017 • ( 4 )

  

  December seems to have more holidays than the rest of the year put together. Days to honor Ix Chel, the Virgin of Guadalupe, St. Lucy (aka Santa Lucia), the Declaration of Human Rights, and the publication of the Rider-Waite Tarot…. Read More ›

• Tonight Is Guy Fawkes Night by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on November 5, 2017 • ( 15 )

  

  Mark Twain is reported to have said that while history does not repeat itself, it often rhymes. Let’s see what rhymes we can find in Tudor and Jacobean England and Trumpean America. Here’s the history lesson. What has changed in… Read More ›

• Are These Three Novels Prophetic? Part 3: The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on October 1, 2017 • ( 10 )

  

  Members of this community (and others) have been feeling that the world is out of balance since the 2016 election. There’s a feeling that people are becoming less kind and that some men (following the model that lives and tweets… Read More ›

• Are These Three Novels Prophetic? Part 2: Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on September 3, 2017 • ( 10 )

  

  Members of this community (and others) have been feeling that the world is out of balance since the 2016 election. There’s a feeling that people are becoming less kind and that some men (following the model that lives and tweets… Read More ›

• Are These Three Novels Prophetic? Part 1: Gibbon’s Decline and Fall by Sheri S. Tepper by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on August 6, 2017 • ( 10 )

  

  Members of this community (and others) have been feeling that the world is out of balance since the 2016 election. There’s a feeling that people are becoming less kind and that some men (following the model that lives and tweets… Read More ›

• Wickeder and Wickeder by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on July 2, 2017 • ( 11 )

  

  The raven was standing on the little table in the wicked witch’s private room. Expecting a new kind of feast, he dipped his beak into a bowl of wiggly white worms. And spat them clear across the room. “Great Suffering… Read More ›

• A New Story for the Summer Solstice by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on June 4, 2017 • ( 7 )

  

  This year the summer solstice occurs on Tuesday, June 20 in the Northern Hemisphere. (In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the winter solstice and it occurs on June 21.) For us in the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice is the longest… Read More ›

• Do We Need Wonder Woman Today? by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on May 7, 2017 • ( 25 )

  

  We all remember the protests—and the pink knitted caps with the pussy ears—that filled the streets of our major cities after the inauguration of the Troll-in-Chief. Some members of this FAR community went to those marches and wrote about their… Read More ›

• Finding Quantum Magic with the Wicked Witch by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on April 2, 2017 • ( 11 )

  

  When El Presidente decided his war against his people was insufficient, his toadies began throwing very, very tremendous bombs at the university. When one of those very, very tremendous bombs blew up the university library, pages from exploded books floated… Read More ›

• Springing Forward with the Wicked Witch by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on March 5, 2017 • ( 10 )

  

  El Presidente was enlarging his war against his citizens. This meant the roads were more crowded than before with refugees fleeing the capital city for safety among the farmers on the plains and up in the hills. Some of these… Read More ›

• A Light Story by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on February 5, 2017 • ( 7 )

  

  Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— —first there was a dark eye at the window. Then a tap-tap-tapping. Then a long black beak came around… Read More ›

• Happy New Year by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on January 1, 2017 • ( 16 )

  

  Here we are, beginning a new year. Let’s hope it’s a good new year. I grew up in a working-class family in St. Louis. We were Calvinist and Republican. I’ve escaped from the last two, but I still claim my… Read More ›

• A Midwinter Ritual by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on December 4, 2016 • ( 16 )

  

  Midwinter, the winter solstice (December 21), is the shortest day and longest night of the year. I like to think of Yule, an old pagan name for the solstice season, as a time when we get to take a nice, long, peaceful… Read More ›

• A “Wicked Witch” Discovers Gratitude by Barbara Ardinger

  By Barbara Ardinger on November 6, 2016 • ( 16 )

  

  Once upon a time there lived a youngish woman and her husband on a tiny farm outside the capital city. Their life was satisfactory. But when el presidente declared war on another country, the husband was press-ganged into the army, leaving his… Read More ›