So you’ve read a book or two about Wicca, and now you’re looking to find out more, maybe join a coven. So you look on the Mandragora Magika group-finder page, and you find a group that you’re interested in.
So now you’re ready to write an inquiry letter to the coven. After you have read their entire website and any blogposts they have linked to from their site, of course.
Continue readingWe just started watching the series Warrior Nun on Netflix. It’s rather enjoyable so far. However I couldn’t help noticing that it is wrong about haloes.
Recently there was an excellent column on The Wild Hunt by Luke Babb, Reckoning with Racism through a Pagan Lens. It was a good analysis of the relationship of Protestant Christianity with racism, and of attempts to use that tradition to justify racism.
In the column’s comments section, some readers said they felt that the evidence offered for the intimate connection of racism and Christianity was insufficient. The disconnect seemed to stem from a conception of racism as only being its more extreme manifestations – that is, as actual expressions of violence toward Black, Indigenous, and other people of color – rather than the everyday reinforcement of white supremacy and privilege by those who choose to ignore the fact that they are living in a colonial state that grew rich from the exploitation, dispossession, and destruction of Black and Indigenous communities.
Three major pieces of evidence – the concept of terra nullius, the activities of Christian missionaries, and Indian residential schools – reinforce the relationship between Christianity, colonialism, and racism, and reaffirm the points Babb made in their original article.
Featured image: native-land.ca
A complete list of Science Fiction and Fantasy by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) would be very long indeed, so I am going to highlight a few of my favourites and add links to more lists.
Inspired by Jacqueline Durban (Radical Honeybee on Twitter and Instagram), I decided to make dandelion syrup. Two cups of dandelions will make about half a jar of syrup.
This week’s absolute belter of a post was Christopher Penczak’s article Holding the door open.
Don’t miss Julian Vayne’s series of interviews, Our Magical Things.
And a lovely post on egg healing in Slavic magic on the Divine Multiplicity blog.
Really great post on being in mythological time from Kiya Nicoll (how was I not following Kiya’s blog before now?)
And a guest post by Ing Venning on Nimue Brown’s blog.
One of the highlights of my week is the Folklore Thursday hashtag on Twitter. I’ve not had time to look at it for a few weeks though, so it seems I missed the occasion when some völkisch fascists tried to hijack it, much to the horror of the regular participants.
One of them accordingly started a second hashtag, Folklore Against Fascism, and several participants tweeted about their opposition to fascism and commitment to inclusive folklore.
Nimue Brown has written a great article on various types of online performance, and how to remain authentic even while curating your online persona.
I try to keep my online persona as close to the real me as possible. But obviously you’re getting an edited version.
When do you put up your Yule tree and take it down again?
