Today is Orange Shirt Day, the day for remembering Indigenous children who died in residential schools and honouring the survivors.
It was organized by grassroots Indigenous activists for many years before it was officially adopted as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Continue readingThe Occult Clerihews Challenge! Write a Clerihew about a famous occultist (and post it in the comments or link back to this post so I get a ping-back).
The only rule of clerihews is that they have four lines with an AABB rhyme scheme, and the first line ends with the subject’s last name. I’ve bent the rule slightly because it’s hard to find words to rhyme with Gardner and Valiente. Clerihews don’t have to scan, nor be a complete biography of the person they’re about, and they’re comic rather than serious.
Continue readingThere are three harvest festivals in the Pagan Wheel of the Year. The first is Lammas (also known as Lughnasadh) which is the grain harvest (wheat and barley). The second is Autumn Equinox, which is the fruit harvest (particularly relevant in southern Ontario with the huge fruit-growing region of Niagara). It is also the time when day and night are of equal length, but the nights are going to get longer until the Winter Solstice. The third harvest is Halloween (known in Scots Gaelic as Samhain, in Irish as Samhuinn, and in Manx as Sauin), which is when farmers would traditionally slaughter any animals they could not feed during the winter, and salt down their meat for food supplies over the lean cold months.
Continue readingInspired by the title, and the quasi-animism, of Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon, which I only found out existed today, as it was featured on CBC.
Continue readingA wonderful novel given to me got my birthday by a friend, a hard science fiction murder mystery, and a couple of books I read as research for my upcoming book, Changing Paths.
Continue readingAre you entering Paganism, leaving Paganism, or changing traditions within it? How do you explain your new path to friends, family, former co-religionists, and yourself? How do you extricate yourself from your previous tradition and its associated ideas? How do you unpack your complex feelings about your path, and why you are changing direction?
If you have ever changed paths or considered changing paths, this book is for you. It is a guide for people who have entered Paganism from another tradition, people leaving Paganism for another tradition or none, and people changing from one tradition to another within Paganism.
Find out more at the Changing Paths resources website, where I have created a list of further reading, where to get help, and a Spotify playlist to accompany the book.
A varied month: bisexuality, climate fiction, and essays.
Continue readingRecently some transphobic people claimed that they are more traditional than Gardnerians who are welcoming and inclusive. Several people have written or spoken to refute their transphobic nonsense and their claims to be more traditional, including me, Mortellus, Jack Chanek, Jason Mankey, Ash the Gardnerian Librarian, and Dylan. I’m going to try to collect all the YouTube videos, Instagram videos and posts, blogposts, and tweets here — so please add a link to yours in the comments if I missed you out.
Continue readingAbsolutely brilliant post from Dylan, High Priest of the Beacon Hill Coven, Boston MA.
Those who seek initiation into our coven often ask, “How do you decide when to initiate …
Weaponizing Polarity: A Critical Response to “Traditional Gardnerians”
The Overton Window is in different positions in different parts of the world. What seems obvious to many people is baffling to someone else. This is exacerbated by the different social media bubbles that we all inhabit. One example of this polarisation is the argument about trans rights. So here’s an attempt to explain it for people who are sitting on the fence, or not familiar with the arguments.
Continue reading
Dowsing for Divinity 