Books I’ve read in March. Only two – I must have been spending too much time reading Guardian articles and WordPress blogposts (not to mention spending far too much time on Twitter and Instagram).
Month: March 2019
Transgender Day of Visibility
Happy Transgender Day of Visibility to all transgender, nonbinary, genderfluid, and genderqueer people.
Art print of the trans pride flag by sadiesavesit on Redbubble
Sex, gender, and deities
Do deities have gender? What about sexual characteristics? As non-physical (and some might say, metaphorical) beings, they can manifest in whatever form they want.
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Ethical plant use, an animist perspective on evil, an overview of the LV-426 Tradition, asking for inclusion, sonnets for Mary on Lady Day, and complex societies, gods and morality.
Wonder and delight: Tolkien and Pagan ideas
JRR Tolkien loved ancient Pagan mythology, especially Norse mythology. He also loved trees, flowers, rivers and streams, mountains, woods, and landscape generally. His writing is infused with a love of Nature, as well as an in-depth knowledge of ancient cultures and mythologies. He was, however, a Catholic, both by upbringing and conviction. He wrote his legendarium as a supporting world for his invented languages; though the earliest version was intended “to restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own”.
Gods or Angels?
A guest post at A Pilgrim in Narnia
The Inklings and Paganism
Before he became a Christian, C S Lewis was deeply inspired by ancient Pagan mythology, and he continued to value it as mythopoeia after his conversion, and seems to have sought to reconcile the Christian worldview with the ancient Pagan one (for example in That Hideous Strength). Lewis was also fascinated by the symbolism of astrology: a practice and worldview which started in Pagan antiquity and continued well into the Christian era. Lewis’ book, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, deals in part with astrological symbolism as part of the medieval worldview.
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This week I have been mostly reading The Guardian with great sadness over the horrific murder of 50 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, and growing incredulity at the self-inflicted wound of Brexit. So I have not been keeping up with what’s going on in the blogosphere.
However, I just spotted this excellent post about queer magic by Julian Vayne.
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This week’s noteworthy posts: on relationship with the Land, from Dayan Martinez; an interview with Tylluan Penry at Anima Monday; and on the difficulties of translation, from A Pilgrim in Narnia.
Quirky Oxford
Some of my favourite places in Oxford, UK, where I lived for seven years.
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Noteworthy posts for this week, on unpicking internalized oppression; how to respond to the Anthropocene, mass extinction, and climate change; the hidden life of things.
Dowsing for Divinity 