Other religious traditions have formal support groups for leaders in their traditions. In Wicca, we tend to have informal support networks.
Given the potential for stress and burnout, and the occasional need to discuss issues that arise in a safe and supportive space, I think it would be a great idea to organize slightly more scheduled and formal support groups.
Continue readingPolish Folk Witch (on instagram and Patreon) has an excellent article on dual faith practice and syncretism among folk witches: Dual Faith: the elephant in the room of the witchcraft community.
The topic of dual faith keeps returning on a regular basis in the broader witchcraft community online, especially on the intersection of folk magic, paganism and christian occultism.
Folk witches often practice some form of dual faith, developed based on the mixture their cultural background, religious background, as well as bioregional features and animistic immersion in the world around them. Each folk witch’s exact praxis will therefore vary.
—Joanna Wiedźma (Polish folk witch)
This reminded me of my articles on dual faith practice based on an essay I wrote for my masters degree.
Dual-faith practice (part 1 of 4)
Dual-faith practice (part 2 of 4)
Dual-faith practice (part 3 of 4)
Dual-faith practice (part 4 of 4)
And this article that I wrote about my personal experiences of practising more than one religion (not the same as syncretic practices):
And here’s one that I wrote about my spiritual wobbles:
I like my name.
Yvonne means a yew bow or yew tree. The yew tree is associated with death and is used as a guardian of churchyards (the tradition of it guarding a burial place is pre-Christian I think). On some social media sites, I used to go by Yewtree as that’s a translation of Yvonne.
Aburrow means “at the walled town” — I had hoped it was “at the burial mound” but that would be Berrow, derived from Beorh, whereas the —burrow part is from burh, whence we also get borough, and the wall is meant to keep out invaders as it’s an Old English word. The Norman castle was meant to keep the population subdued; the Old English walled town was meant to keep out Viking raiders and Norman invaders.
My dad wanted to call me Angharad, which is Welsh for “beloved” so I used that sometimes.
And I also used to have Wyvern as a nickname — it started because someone jokingly called me Wy-Vonne and I said if you’re going to call me that it should be Wyvern like the type of dragon 🐉 But I’m only called that by a very specific group of people.
Aburrow is my “maiden” name—as a feminist I don’t go in for changing my name to my husband’s name.
Secret magical names are another matter altogether, and they are a secret. 🌹
Do you like your name and/or nicknames? Have you changed your name?
Indigenous people in Canada often have an English, French or anglicized name, because they were made to take them, and a name in their Indigenous language. Sadly it’s very expensive to legally change your name in Canada so they’re stuck with the English or French names.
Thanks to Crow for the writing prompt, what’s in a name? ✍️
The Changing Paths challenge for May 2023. Feel free to skip a day or post something different from the topic of the day, but if you do the whole thing, I think you’ll arrive at a new perspective on your path.
Continue readingJames Gardner Davis has written an amazing reflection on changing paths in response to my guest appearance on the Missing Witches podcast.
Continue readingI had the great pleasure of being interviewed on the Missing Witches podcast recently and they’ve just released the episode.
Recently 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 readingI am very keen on rejecting, resisting, and repudiating the infiltration and co-opting of Paganism by the far right, and so I found Amy Hale’s article on The Pagan and Occult Fascist Connection and How to Fix It a very useful resource, particularly the questions at the end. I would encourage you to read the article, and use these questions as journaling prompts.
So here are my answers to those questions for initiatory Wicca (in some cases, I have previously written blogposts on these topics, so I will link to those).
Continue readingI am currently rereading The Meaning of Witchcraft by Gerald Gardner. I know I read his book Witchcraft Today about 30 years ago, and I am pretty sure that I read The Meaning of Witchcraft around that time too. His theory of the survival of witchcraft must have seemed pretty convincing to his earliest readers; and provided we do not assume that what survived was a full-blown Pagan religion, or an organized cult, then a lot of his ideas still hold water: namely, the impulses behind the earliest forms of religion and and magic, and how and why people might resort to magical practices even when they were officially frowned upon and then persecuted.
Whilst reading it, I came upon a passage that I found intriguing; it was a reference to a discussion of witchcraft and black magic in Parliament, together with the date and who said what. Here it is (page 13):
As you might imagine, I was curious to find out what was the context of the discussion which gave rise to this attempt to define “black magic”. So I looked it up in Hansard, the official record of the British Parliament, to find out. The interesting thing is that Hansard records other MPs’ interruptions, but it does not record the laughter and ironical cheers; so I would imagine that it was recounted in a newspaper of the day and Gardner must have kept a press cutting. The relevant section is about halfway down the linked-to page, under the heading “House, Brixton (Police Visit)”.
Continue readingA video in which I talk about how to make visualization accessible to more people, and how to leave space for people to create their own imagery and explore their own inner landscape. I also demonstrate one of my visualizations, which you can find in my book, All Acts of Love and Pleasure: inclusive Wicca.
Dowsing for Divinity 