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For the ones who did not come home
Thread a bead for me,
Not a rosary:
A bright bubble of blood
From that river in flood
Between the worlds.
Carve a flute for me,
To breathe a memory,
Thread a song from the air,
Where the land is bare
On that distant shore.
Hold a hand for me,
Dream a dream for me,
Of summer days I cannot see,
Woven beneath the oldest tree,
Beyond the door.
Light a fire for me,
Down by that inland sea
Where the stars drink the night
And a bright scarf of light
Dances in the sky.
By Yvonne Aburrow
©️Yvonne Aburrow, 2021. Repost only with clear written credit to me. Please include this copyleft notice and all the information below as well.
The imagery in this poem is Pagan imagery (the World Tree, the river between the worlds in The Ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, the land of the dead being over the ocean). The poem is dedicated to the children who did not come home from residential schools. I woke up this morning with the fragment of a dream in my head with beads being threaded on a string as some sort of remembrance ritual. The poem is an attempt to capture the dream.
319 Indigenous children
If you have been paying attention to the news in Canada, you will be aware that the remains of 215 Indigenous children were found in unmarked graves in the grounds of Kamloops residential school. And this week, 104 more were found in another residential school.
Continue readingHappy Pride
Happy Pride everyone.
❤️ Here are three of my favourite LGBTQ+ movies: Pride, about Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. Torch Song Trilogy, which I saw in my first few weeks at university because the Gay Society did a screening (yes folks, in the 1980s the Lesbian and Gay societies at uni were two separate things). And The Birdcage (which I prefer over the French film it was based on) in which gayness eventually wins over the stiff straights.
More reflections on queerness and intersectionality after the cut. 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Continue readingBooks I read in May
In Satnav We Trust, by Jack Barrow
An enjoyable romp through the historic counties of England, with mad speedboat drivers, curmudgeonly campsite owners, wibbly wifi connections, a serendipitous Satnav with a mind of its own, and ruminations upon rationalism as a possible enemy of the search for meaning.
Having followed the saga of this journey via Facebook updates at the time, it was fun to read the whole thing. If it were my journey, I think I’d have done a bit more research into places of interest before I started, but there’s something to be said for serendipity. And stopping off to see friends along the way.
Open-minded rationalists, skeptical mystics, and ramblers on a shoestring budget will enjoy this book. And doubtless many others too.
Gods of Jade and Shadow, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Absolutely gripping account of what happens when Casiopeia Tun, the poor relation of the Leyva family, opens a mysterious box in her grandfather’s room. It brings to life the world of the Popol Vuh and the gods of jade and shadow, the mysterious landscape of the Yucatan peninsula, and 1920s Mexico. If you like Neil Gaiman, Ekaterina Sedia, Seanan McGuire, or Katherine Arden, you’ll love this book.
The Book of Dreams
I have started created a new website for the esoteric writings of Mark Goddard: The Book of Dreams.
The Book of Dreams was an unfinished typewritten manuscript by Mark Goddard. He had wanted it to be published, and gave it to his friend, Art Quester, who gave a copy to me after Mark was tragically killed in a car accident in 1988.
The book was intended as a linked series of visualizations and (if I recall correctly) was partly inspired by Mark’s spirit guide.
I only met Mark a few times but he was a friend of two of my dearest friends, and I know that he loved Jack Scout Cove in Lancashire, which is where I did my first ever Pagan ritual.
I sent it to a publisher in the mid 1990s but they said it was not commercially viable. I have kept it ever since, wondering what to do with it.
Finally it occurred to me that if he was around now, he would have put it all up on the internet.
I hope that he would approve of his writings finally being available in this form.
Celtic festival names
Some time back I posted a video about cultural appropriation and Lora O’Brien pointed out that the modern Wiccan and Pagan usage of Sabbat names is appropriated from Irish culture and language.
Gerald Gardner and other early Wiccans did not use the Irish names for these festivals — that happened later. Wicca is not a Celtic religion.
It does seem wrong to lift these festivals out of context. There are other old names for these festivals in England and Wales (the Scots Gaelic has similar names to the Irish Gaelic, but pronounced differently).
Continue readingMemories of Art Quester
My dear friend Art Quester is gone. I can’t believe that he’s gone. He was so full of life. Brilliant artist, utterly magical being, and so much fun to be with.
Continue readingBooks I read in April
I’m still reading Gerald Gardner’s The Meaning of Witchcraft and it’s taking ages (it’s my bedtime reading and I am only getting a few pages read at a time. I very much enjoyed Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern-loved Gully by Amy Hale.
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