Three adventures of very different sorts this month: Yiddish for Pirates, Walking to Mercury, and The Fifth Sacred Thing.
resistance
Review: Guelph Art Gallery
There are currently three amazing exhibitions on at the Art Gallery of Guelph (until 16 December): epistemologies of the moon, 1745, and Critical Mass. It is hard to say which of these exhibitions I was the most excited about, as they all address things I care about.
What is a witch?
A video in which I read an excerpt from my book, The Night Journey: Witchcraft as Transformation. I was particularly pleased with this chapter, as I think it’s very poetic and has some powerful imagery in it.
New book part 2: The Night Journey
The night journey: witchcraft as transformation
Paperback, 364 Pages
Price: £15.99
When I was writing Dark Mirror, I didn’t realise until I stitched all the files together that I had written 150,000 words. So I thought the best thing to do would be to split it into two books, and this is the second of the two. Its focus is more on traditional witchcraft, the land, and resistance to oppression. I chose the title partly because a friend commented that she really liked the phrase, partly because the concept was so central to ideas of witchcraft in past centuries, and partly because of its resonance with other esoteric traditions.
Folk heroes of the resistance
What do Anansi, Raven, Coyote, Pérák, Aradia, the Golem of Prague, Robin Hood, Wild Edric, and Ned Ludd have in common? They are all folk heroes of resistance to tyranny, oppression, slavery, and fascism.
Snowflakes (Poem by Linda)
Snowflakes – a bedtime rhyme
(for Yvonne, especially)
by Linda Haggerstone, 2017
Recommended Reading For The Resistance
Many people are expressing shock and dismay that a fascist government has taken over the USA, and at the rising tide of xenophobia in Broken Brexit Britain. However, if you are at all familiar with the rise of the Third Reich and the operation of oppressive systems such as the British Empire, the signs have been writ large for some time. If you need a crash course in recognising the oppressive atmosphere for what it is, then here’s a crash course. Why have I chosen mostly novels? Because novels try to describe how it feel to be in the situation, and to provoke empathy. And empathy for the persecuted is what we need more of right now.
Reclaiming the Snowflake
There’s been a lot of talk about snowflakes recently. When the term was first coined, a “special snowflake” meant someone who claimed that everything was triggering them, even though they did not have post-traumatic stress disorder, were not a rape survivor, nor a survivor of some other significant trauma.
Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore
February is LGBT History Month in the UK, and there are events exploring queer history up and down the country. Oxford Brookes University has an excellent programme of events, and the other day I went to the first event of LGBTHM 2017, the launch of an exhibition of Claude Cahun’s photographs, which included a film about Claude Cahun by Lizzie Thynne.
Canadian Pagan Declaration on Intolerance
I was delighted to see the Canadian Pagan Declaration on Intolerance, especially given the current climate of fascism, bigotry, hate-mongering, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and ablism.
