News Commentary
Census results for Paganism in Canada
The breakdown of the Canadian census results is frustrating because it does not show Heathens, Druids, or polytheists; and the Pagan category includes Wicca. So it’s hard to compare with the UK data.
Continue readingCensus results for Paganism in England and Wales
I always have a look at the census results whenever they’re published, and the articles never report the Pagan numbers properly as they only look at people who write “Pagan” or “Wicca” (they never think to include Druidry and Heathenry in the total). So I always go to the detailed spreadsheets and make my own list.
Continue readingTrans Day of Remembrance 2022
So many brief candles,
So many deaths to mourn,
So many names upon our lips,
Each year a litany of names.
Their unique and perfect beauty
Crafted once by time and circumstance
Snuffed out too soon
Calling out for justice.
Write their names among the stars
Write their names on the wind
Etch the loss into the stones
Until the world changes.
People who menstruate
“People who menstruate” includes cis women, trans men and nonbinary people who menstruate.
It also correctly excludes post-menopausal people, and trans women, neither of whom menstruate.
Continue readingThe Satanic Panic
It’s over thirty years since the Satanic Panic in the UK. So perhaps it is fading from memory. But at the time, things were really scary — and with the current rolling back of various human rights legislation that we have taken for granted for a generation or more, in both the USA and the UK, those times could return.
Continue readingHappy International Nonbinary People’s Day
Thursday 14 July is International Nonbinary People’s Day—a day for raising awareness and organizing around issues that nonbinary people face around the world since it was first observed in 2012.
Nonbinary people are nothing new. We aren’t confused about our gender identity or trying to be trendy—nonbinary identities have been recognized for millennia by cultures and societies across the globe.
It’s important for nonbinary people to be able to live, dress, and have our gender respected at work, at school, and in public spaces.
Continue readingThe winters of my childhood
In the 1970s, I remember proper snow in Hampshire, England. We would go out for walks and the snow would be ankle-deep (on me, a child) and collected in drifts against the fences. The snow only lasted a few days, but when it came, it blanketed the countryside in white and transformed it. I remember building a snowman in the back garden for quite a few years.
Continue readingAbortion is health care
The Duty of the Witch
A great post from The Less Hidden Path about what it means to be a witch and why it means we should help people get access to reproductive health care.
“Witch”. A loaded term that people have died just through having been suggested to have been associated with. A word with immense cultural baggage …
The Duty Of The Witch
And another great post from the same blog about why witches and Pagans should definitely get involved in politics.
The time to dispense with the modern conceit that “politics and magic don’t mix” is many years overdue. It has never been true, but it gets more harmful the longer we leave it.
Politics and witchcraft
And a great post from a polytheist perspective exploring the Ancient Greek view on when the soul enters the body.
What about *my* religious beliefs? — and a passage from Iamblichus
Personally, I do not believe that the soul can enter the body until birth — which, in my belief system, requires the fetus to be viable without the use of the modern contraptions that keep the extreme premature alive until they are physically self-viable. It has life, yes, but not personhood. A woman who wants an abortion should be able to have one.
— Kalliste
Dowsing for Divinity 