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.
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Heresy and haeresis
In Ancient Greece, a haeresis was one of many schools of thought. Christianity made heresy a bad thing, a deviation from the norm. In Paganism, having many schools of thought is a good thing.
Non-occult books that inform magical practice
My magical practice has definitely been influenced by books other than specifically occult ones.
Continue readingOn tradition
Tradition is a living, breathing, growing thing. It develops new practices in keeping with the spirit of the original. Trying to keep a tradition as an unchanging thing will cause it to stagnate and die.
Queer Pagan Reading List 2022
New titles this year by Enfys Book of the Major Arqueerna blog, Casey Giovinco, Fire Lyte of the Inciting a Riot podcast, Aaron Oberon, Fio Gede Parma and Jane Meredith, Lee Morgan, Devdutt Pattanaik, Roberto Strongman, Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley, plus translations into other languages of Mat Auryn’s book Psychic Witch.
Check out the 2015 list, the 2018 list, the 2020 list, and the 2021 list.
Continue readingBooks I read in 2021
At the start of the year, I figured I’d try to read around one book a week. Then I faffed around in January starting books and not finishing them, and thought I’d fall well short of 52 books, so I reset my Goodreads target to 42 books (42 being a resonant number for Hitch-hikers fans).
Around the middle of the year, I did a lot of reading, especially while we were camping, so I got ahead of schedule, and ended up with 52 books by the middle of December. Of course, I don’t read to complete targets, but since the advent of smart phones, I find it is good to note the amount of books I am reading, just to remind myself to put down the phone and pick up a book.
So here’s a list of my 2021 book review posts, and a list of books that I have read.
Continue readingBooks I read in December 2021
This month has been an odd mixture. I finally finished Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals, which I started in November. And I read Rewards and Fairies which is quite a melancholy book. I also finally got hold of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows in book form, for which I’ve been waiting for a long time, but it’s more of a dipping book. I read Esmond in India and found it a bit depressing. Then I read a collection of interviews with Ursula K Le Guin.
Continue readingUnexamined Baggage
Both individual Pagans, and Pagan traditions, have unexamined baggage from their childhood. Individual Pagans have intellectual and emotional baggage from the tradition they grew up in (even if that tradition was atheism). Pagan traditions have baggage from the era in which they emerged.
Continue readingThe Rose
The rose is the flower of Venus and the symbol of love in all its delicious variety. It is symbolically linked to Adonis, Aphrodite, Dionysus and Eros. Greek lovers gave roses as a courting gift to their eromenoi. “So must you beautiful boys arm yourselves with roses,” wrote Philostratus in the second century CE.
Continue readingGender and the English language
English can sometimes be a really good language to be nonbinary in; and sometimes it can be awful. This is mostly because of the unmarked default, and sometimes it is because of words that have been badly imported from elsewhere.
However, I want to reiterate what I’ve stated elsewhere: people’s needs and lived experience are more important than grammar or linguistics. Uncontroversial case in point: the word Wicca meant a male witch in Old English; now it means a whole tradition.
Continue readingBooks I read in November 2021
November seems to have been a month of starting books and not finishing them. I started a novel by Isabel Allende and did not finish it, as it’s rather depressing. I started reading a book by Nigel Pennick written in 1992, and then learned that he has links with the far right, and haven’t felt like continuing with it (I probably will finish it, because I can read critically, but just felt sick at heart after finding out about it). I have managed to finish two books, though.
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Dowsing for Divinity 