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BIPOC Pagan Reading List

/ Yvonne Aburrow / 1 Comment

A reading list of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) authors covering Paganism, the occult, astrology, Tarot, and Indigenous spirituality.

Note that the deities of African diaspora religions can only be contacted through those religions and not via other religions. And that Indigenous life ways and spiritual practices are specific to their cultures and should not be culturally appropriated.

I’ve put out a call on Twitter and Instagram for more books to add to this list, and I will post updates (as I do with the Queer Pagan Reading List).

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Frederic Lamond, 1931 – 2020

/ Yvonne Aburrow / Leave a comment

Frederic Lamond, 1931 — 24 May 2020.

Very sad news. I first met Fred in the 1990s and I have many happy memories of him. I also have all of his books. We had great conversations about Wicca and other things and he told me stories about the early days of Wicca. Usually this was around the campfire. I have lit a candle for him. I was also on several mailing lists with him (in the era before Facebook). We wrote a piece together on secrecy in the Craft, which is included in my book (with credit to him).

He will be warmly greeted in the Summerlands by those who are already there. Condolences to Hildegard and the coven. Blessed be.

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Theatres are sacred

/ Yvonne Aburrow / 2 Comments

Theatres are sacred. They were first formalized in Ancient Greece, but doubtless sacred drama is as old as ritual. It’s from the ancient polytheistic Greeks that we have written dramas, comedy, tragedy, and theatrical concepts like the chorus, catharsis and the deus ex machina.

So the loss of places to perform live theatre should be of concern to Pagans. It’s just come to my attention that the theatre in the city where I grew up is closing because of the pandemic. And there’s a petition to save it.

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Folklore Against Fascism

/ Yvonne Aburrow / 7 Comments

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.

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The Tower and the Virus

/ Yvonne Aburrow / 7 Comments

My first guest column at The Wild Hunt.

I have been anxious for months, years even. I have watched with growing horror the rise of right-wing populism, the melting of the icecaps, the burning of Australia, the beginnings of wars over water and resources, the seemingly inexorable destruction wrought by climate change. The protests of Fridays for Future and Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion gave me some cause for optimism, but it is also obvious that governments have not been doing enough to turn the economy around to stop the production of carbon emissions. So when everyone suddenly swung into action to deal with the coronavirus crisis, it gave me some hope that perhaps now the needful actions to deal with climate change (many of which, it turns out, are quite similar to the actions needed to flatten the curve of coronavirus transmission) would seem doable. It also feels like now everyone else is as anxious as me.

Continue reading at The Wild Hunt.