I have just moved from Oxford, England, to Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. As you can imagine, this will cause some emotional upheaval. I feel very rooted in England, and am concerned about the issue of land stolen from Indigenous people in Canada, and the effects of colonialism on their wellbeing and way of life.
The Night Journey – ebook version
The ebook of The Night Journey: witchcraft as transformation is now available from Lulu.
Many, many thanks to the friend who helped by fixing the formatting of the Word document so it could be converted to an ePub. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent trying to fix the darn thing. You are an absolute star!
Talking about the body
I wish there were more spaces where we could talk about the body and its changes and processes in an inclusive way. That is to say, in a way that includes trans, genderqueer, and non-binary people, and people of all ages, and doesn’t create an essentialist account of what bodily functions mean.
Lost bears
I’ve just seen this thread on Twitter, with many lovely kind people replying and offering new bears.
My beautiful boy has lost his favourite thing in the world known simply as Bear. Jack is autistic and this scruffy bear has been his best friend and companion. He is completely devastated and would be so grateful to find him again. Twickenham, Teddington and local area. Pls RT pic.twitter.com/Rv45Cft0s9
— Matt Barnfield (@mattbarnfield1) April 13, 2018
Beltane fires and maypoles
Beltane is coming, and with it, the celebration of love. Spare a thought for those who are left out of all the joyous coupling, and those who are marginalised by less inclusive ways of celebrating love.
Fertility can be re-purposed into a theme of caring for the environment, or of general creativity. And as Doreen Valiente wrote in The Charge of the Goddess, “All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals”.
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Saganism
A new Pagan tradition was launched today, based on the ideas of Carl Sagan. Many Pagans value and respect the ideas of Carl Sagan and his evocative descriptions of the universe and our place in it. Sagan also wrote, “We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
The God-shaped Hole
Some psychologists have suggested the existence of a “god-shaped hole” in the mind — a set of psychological functions that evolved for some other purpose (like detecting predators sneaking up behind us), but which predispose us to believe in gods, or in God, or the supernatural, or the preternatural, or something out there other than ourselves.
![fractal by insspirito on Pixabay. [Public Domain]](https://dowsingfordivinity.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/fractal-1280081_1280.jpg?w=300&h=221)
Fractal by insspirito on Pixabay. [Public Domain]
Spring Equinox
After several years of excellent research by Adrian Bott, we now know the following things. Spring Equinox was not actually celebrated by ancient pagans in the British Isles; nor was it a fertility festival. There was probably a festival at the fourth full moon of the year, at which cattle were sacrificed. Eostre was most probably a goddess local to Kent, although her name is cognate with various other goddesses of dawn and light, such as Austriahenea and Ausrine.
Various animals are associated with the festival of Easter in folklore (none of them are associated with the goddess Eostre): the Easter Hare, the Easter Fox, the Easter Stork, and the Easter Cuckoo, all of which bring eggs. None of them are particularly cute and fluffy, so didn’t work too well on Easter greetings cards, unlike chicks and bunnies. And none of them are fertility symbols.
Fictional and constructed religions
What can fictional religions tell us about real religions? Are constructed religions just as valid as ancient ones? What about real-world religions based on fictional ones? One impetus for creating constructed religions is for use in jurisdictions where religious activity is imposed by the authorities – but people often find that their joke religion then takes on a life of its own.
First thoughts, second thoughts, and third thoughts
I’ve often said that Terry Pratchett was one of the greatest Pagan theologians, although he wasn’t a Pagan. In his books Small Gods, Pyramids, and the series about the witches, he often explored ideas about how gods might might come into being, and how they interact with the world. He was also, in a quiet and humorous way, a passionate advocate of thinking about things more deeply, looking beyond the surface of things, and being compassionate. (If you missed that about his writing, read it again.)
In the Tiffany Aching series, there’s a great passage about first thoughts, second thoughts, and third thoughts:
“First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
