Three adventures of very different sorts this month: Yiddish for Pirates, Walking to Mercury, and The Fifth Sacred Thing.
Don’t tell me to relax
Does anyone else get that thing where someone tells you to relax and it just makes you feel incredibly tense? Because usually they’re telling you to relax when you’re justifiably tense about something. It’s tantamount to sweeping your fear or frustration or anger under the carpet.
Time and tide
It’s sad to see certain parts of the world abolishing regular time in favour of permanent Daylight Savings Time.
Natural time (hereinafter referred simply to as time for brevity’s sake) is the rising and setting of the sun, and the changing of the seasons, which are caused by the Earth’s axial tilt. In a system that reflects natural time, noon is when the sun is overhead.
New Discord group
Delete Facebook is trending on Twitter after Zuckerberg held a secret meeting with right wing politicians to try to prevent the breakup of Facebook as a monopoly.
I left Facebook last year after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It’s been a very good experience for me. Admittedly I haven’t quite quit the Facebook universe as I’m still on Instagram and WhatsApp.
With all that in mind, I thought it might be a good time to try another app for discussion about inclusive Wicca.
So I’ve created a space on the social media app Discord, which was originally for gamers, but I now used by other communities. The interface is very similar to Slack. Follow this link to get an invitation.
Ithilien after the war
On being trans in Middle Earth
After the wedding of Faramir and Éowyn, when they had cleansed Ithilien of its hurts, and the land was fair and green once more, Éowyn and Faramir went to the hidden cave behind the waterfall which Faramir had used in the War of the Ring.
And Éowyn bethought her of the time when she had ridden as Dernhelm, and slain the lord of the Nazgûl.
A Gardnerian Statement on Consent & Abuse
An important statement from some members of the Gardnerian Wicca community:
I affirm and agree to the above statement.
Yvonne Aburrow
Magical fires
I remember watching driftwood burning in my grandparents’ fireplace as a kid — there would be all sorts of colours in the flames from the salt. Green and blue and turquoise flames.
Books I’ve read in September
I’ve now surpassed my rather modest goal of reading 30 books this year. I used to read a lot more books when I was travelling to work on the bus.
This month I’ve re-read Empire of Bones by Liz Williams, and read Pagan Magic of the Northern Tradition by Nigel Pennick, The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth, and started The Book of English Magic by Philip Carr-Gomm and Richard Heygate.
Books I’ve read in August
Books I’ve read in August.
Instinctive Witchcraft
Many years ago, Steve Wilson gave a talk entitled Archaic Witchcraft. One of the things he said was to remember how you imagined witchcraft would be when you were a kid. What thrilled you about the idea? What did you imagine that witches did? And then he suggested creating a Witchcraft to fulfill those childhood dreams. He proposed calling it Archaic Witchcraft. I suppose it could also be called Instinctive Witchcraft.
