The Changing Paths challenge for May 2023. Feel free to skip a day or post something different from the topic of the day, but if you do the whole thing, I think you’ll arrive at a new perspective on your path.
Continue readinginner work
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My books
My books are about inclusive Wicca and witchcraft; how to include LGBTQIA people, disabled people, and BIPOC people in ritual and witchcraft; embodied spirituality; and the inner work of ritual. My latest book, Changing Paths, is a companion guide for people changing from one religion to another.
Romjul and intercalation
The business of calculating years and dates is complicated, since calendars need to reconcile solar and lunar cycles. Different calendrical systems use different methods of reconciling the two cycles, inserting a day (February 29th in the Gregorian calendar), a week, or even a month in some calendars. This practice is called intercalation. It has also been suggested that the time between Yule and New Year is an intercalation.
Continue readingMy books
DARK MIRROR
“Inviting us to examine many different aspects of Initiatory Wicca, this book is aimed at both initiates and non-initiates. It could certainly be used as the basis of a coven training programme but is also invaluable for the solo practitioner.”
— Morgana Sythove,
Pagan Federation International
https://silvercircle.org
https://wiccanrede.org
Available from the Doreen Valiente Foundation and all other online retailers
THE NIGHT JOURNEY
“The Night Journey utilizes the historical legend of the witch’s flight to the sabbat to expand Aburrow’s notion of a modern witchcraft which is “queer, transgressive, and resistant to authoritarian versions of reality.” In the spiritual world of The Night Journey, witchcraft isn’t seen as some sort of rarefied practice isolated from the messy mundane world, but as a beautiful, viable, and practical way of living in the world as a person of power and integrity … a revolutionary vision of traditional Wicca which looks to the Craft’s future while simultaneously honoring its traditions.”
Misha Magdalene, author of Outside the Charmed Circle: Exploring Gender & Sexuality in Magical Practice
Available from the Doreen Valiente Foundation and all other online retailers
ALL ACTS OF LOVE AND PLEASURE
“an outstanding Wicca 201, intended for already-active, primarily initiatory covens, that examines Wiccan praxis and theology. This is the next step once you have established a solid Wiccan practice. Many aspects of Wicca are examined with an eye towards inclusivity; Aburrow covers LGBTQ, BDSM, polyamory, and asexuality; physical and mental disabilities; cultural appropriation; and trauma recovery in the context of ritual practice, relationship to divinity, and mythology. …The author looks at some of the common Wiccan myths and makes suggestions for ways to incorporate deep ecology, from adapting the Wheel of the Year to appropriately reflect your climate and geography to reducing your carbon footprint.”
— Sable Aradia
Available from Avalonia Books and all other online retailers
The Golden Shadow
Shadow work seems to be the thing all the kids are talking about these days. I assumed that people were talking about the integration of the shadow as is talked about in Jungian psychology. But do you know about the concept of the Golden Shadow? Check out my YouTube video, “Archetypes and shadow work” for more about Jungian shadow concepts, including the Golden Shadow.
Continue readingBook review: Queer Qabala
Queer Qabala by Enfys J Book
Incredibly clear, beautifully written explanation of the Hermetic Qabala and its inherent queerness, expressed in the idea that there are three pillars (force, balance, and form), and that the Divine includes all genders and sexualities.
The book is written with style and wit by an expert in the subject. There are pathworkings to help you fully experience all aspects of the Qabala, and journal exercises to deepen your understanding of the worlds, spheres, and pathways of the Tree of Life.
All the aspects of the Tree are related to queer experiences and life events like coming out to yourself and others, and finding queer community. It explores both the wonderful and the scary aspects of being queer, including queer joy and sorrow.
This exploration of the many aspects of the Tree is grounded in a deep knowledge of the Qabala, and the overlapping Pagan and queer communities. This is a vision of Qabala that understands the importance of cyclicity: growth and decay, death and rebirth, darkness and light, immanence and transcendence, the manifest and the unmanifest.
It offers magical workings based on queer Qabala which relate to each sphere of the Tree of life and everyday experiences like getting a job or finishing a project. It is pragmatic and fun, accessible and inclusive.
This book will be valuable to everyone from beginners, who will find the subject thoroughly explored and explained, to people who are already working with Qabala, who will gain a fresh perspective on it. Sure to be a contemporary classic!
If you enjoyed this post, you might like my books.
My brain hurts
Mindfulness • September Pagan Challenge # 12.
I don’t do mindfulness because it makes me ill. There’s a large body of evidence that people with a predisposition to anxiety and depression shouldn’t engage in mindfulness practices because they exacerbate these issues.
Continue readingThe 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.
Spiritual bypassing
Recently there has been a pattern on social media of BIPOC people expressing their completely valid pain and anger and sadness over the continuing murder of Black people by police, and getting pushback from “spiritual” people claiming that their anger is too much, or somehow misplaced. I have also experienced this phenomenon. I used to call it “spiritualler-than-thou” syndrome, until I discovered that it already had a name, spiritual bypassing.
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Dowsing for Divinity 