My books are about inclusive Wicca and witchcraft; how to include LGBTQIA people, disabled people, and BIPOC people in ritual and witchcraft; embodied spirituality; and the inner work of ritual. My latest book, Changing Paths, is a companion guide for people changing from one religion to another.
Just before midday Lucy saw a large shoal of fishes grazing on the weed. They were all eating steadily and all moving in the same direction. “Just like a flock of sheep,” thought Lucy. Suddenly she saw a little Sea Girl of about her own age in the middle of them—a quiet, lonely-looking girl with a sort of crook in her hand. Lucy felt sure that this girl must be a shepherdess—or perhaps a fish-herdess—and that the shoal was really a flock at pasture. Both the fishes and the girl were quite close to the surface. And just as the girl, gliding in the shallow water, and Lucy, leaning over the bulwark, came opposite to one another, the girl looked up and stared straight into Lucy’s face. Neither could speak to the other and in a moment the Sea Girl dropped astern. But Lucy will never forget her face. It did not look frightened or angry like those of the other Sea People. Lucy had liked that girl and she felt certain the girl had liked her. In that one moment they had somehow become friends. There does not seem to be much chance of their meeting again in that world or any other. But if ever they do they will rush together with their hands held out.
— CS Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Have you ever passed someone on the street, or in a train or a bus, and made a momentary connection—smiling at them, or saying hello, or stopping for a chat, and you just know that you would get on really well with that person if you ever became friends?
When this happens, it reminds me of the story of Lucy and the Narnian sea shepherdess in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
I was in a queue for the passport check at Heathrow and got chatting with a lovely lady originally from Mauritius. Partway through the conversation I noticed that our passport photos looked quite similar. So she said I was “a sister from another mister” which was lovely.
Last night we were in a restaurant and a lady and I smiled at each other and it again reminded me of Lucy and the sea shepherdess, and I came up with a name for these encounters, “mermaid moments”.
Between 2004 and 2006, I experimented with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP). I’ve often compared it to having one’s psyche scraped out with a rusty teaspoon—in other words, effective but somewhat abrupt.
This was well before any online discussion about whether using Kabbalah practices is cultural appropriation. I’ve already written extensively about cultural appropriation so I have only addressed one aspect of it in this post.
Thanks to Sorita d’Este for the writing prompt.
Continue readingIt’s past time that the world stopped supplying the Israeli government with bombs and weapons.
Demand Your MP Sign Onto the Call for a Full and Immediate Arms Embargo on Israel!
As the catastrophe wrought by Israel’s continued assault on Gaza grows, we’re calling on the Canadian government to immediately suspend all trade in arms and military technology with Israel.
If you were penned in by a wall
Where bombs constantly fall
Where fear descends like a pall
Wouldn’t you rail against fate?
If you were penned in by a fence
And only protected by tents
If you were starved and afraid
How would you face your fate?
If your home was destroyed
And the future seemed null and void
And the smoke and dust that cloyed
Wouldn’t you want to escape?
Seventy-five years of Nakba
(This didn’t start last October)
Homes lost, bulldozed, destroyed
So much death.
Let the people of Gaza live
Let them eat and laugh and love
Once more among the olive trees
In the cooling Mediterranean breeze.
Yvonne Aburrow
22 April 2024
7am
Should I stay or should I go? Exploring a journal prompt from chapter 2 of “Changing Paths”
Excellent post from Jarred reflecting on one of the journal prompts from Changing Paths.
Hello dear readers! It’s Friday morning so that means once again exploring a journal prompt from the wonderful book, Changing Paths…
Should I stay or should I go? Exploring a journal prompt from chapter 2 of “Changing Paths”
Hey everyone, I have been nominated for a COVR award for Changing Paths.
If you enjoyed it, please vote for it. And also vote for items in other categories that you enjoyed.
![Coast path near Bindon Cliffs The path (Axmouth Footpath 2) spends most of its time along this coast in woodland which has grown up on the jumble of broken land. A mysterious touch is added here by the luxuriant growth of harts-tongue fern and ivy below hazel trees. Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved] © Copyright Derek Harper and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.](https://dowsingfordivinity.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/coast-path-bindon-cliffs.jpg?w=640)
Check out some of my previous posts
There’s an old chestnut that one sometimes sees repeated, that the political spectrum looks like a circle. But that excellent tool, the political compass, makes it clear that there are multiple dimensions to politics.
The political compass has four quadrants: libertarian left, libertarian right, authoritarian left, and authoritarian right.
Continue reading
Dowsing for Divinity 