Today’s post is meant just for fun (mostly) and is based off something a few of my friends came up with a while ago, the Selkie Resistance, which is in part about loving the ocean and hating modern society’s aesthetic standards.
I’m trying to keep this humorous, hence the format, and what follows is entirely my own opinion. I do not speak for the entire Selkie Resistance ;) And yes I realize this…
Author Archives: Lairbhan
Evolution of My Spirituality
I was asked on social media to talk a bit about my personal practice, so I thought a short blog about it would be a good approach. I’ve been pagan now for nearly 30 years and in that time my approach to everything has changed drastically more than once so its interesting to answer this question now, knowing what I say will be different than what I would have said 10 or 20 years ago and what I…
Celebrating a New Holiday
When I was in Iceland I had an intense personal experience, shared with several friends, which later had me reassessing the way that I approach celebrating holidays and the entire cycle of holy days in the year. This has led me to trying an experimental year where I am celebrating times that are especially in sync with the Pleiades because I believe these times are more important to the…
Cowalkers, Fetches, and Fylgjas
I often see a lot of confusion in modern paganism between three related but distinct concepts: the co-walker, fetch, and fylgja. These three concepts come from different cultures and can be described by some contemporary writers as equivalents however when we look more closely at the concepts within the root cultures it becomes clear that they are not so much equivalents as loosely similar…
Personal Gnosis and Research
I am asked on occasion how I balance out personal gnosis and research.
Honestly for me I see the two things as complementary so they just go together naturally for me. I know that there can be a perception that gnosis and existing mythology or folklore don’t get along or aren’t necessary to each other but for me I can’t imagine having one without the other. The corpus of existing beliefs and…
Good Translations of Irish Myths
Responding to another social media question: what are my favorite translations of [old/middle] Irish material?
I don’t know that I necessarily have favorite translations, per se, so much as favorite translators. So if I have a choice I tend to look for work by Kuno Meyers or Elizabeth Gray when possible because they are two of my favorites. Meyers because he footnoted like nobody’s business and…
Why Is Macha Considered One of the Morrigan and Not Nemain?
For day four of my 30 Day Content Challenge I’m answering another question from social media – why Macha and not Nemain?
I’m interpreting this question to mean why is Macha considered one of the Morrigan and Nemain isn’t, which is both a straightforward question and also a layered one.
The simple answer is that we know Macha is one of the three Morrigan because she is referred to explicitly as…
Calling The Othercrowd Back
Recently the inestimable Seo Helrune wrote a post titled ‘Restoration Not Re-enchantment’ which made the point that much of our out-of-sync-ness now with the Otherworld is a direct result of christian, particularly protestant, efforts to drive off the Good Neighbours who they believed were demons. Reading her blog has had me thinking over the past week about the deep implications of this for…
When What You See Has No Name
I had a dream last night that involved, among other things, seeing a group of small birdlike beings with fangs. They were about the size of ducks, covered in soft fuzzy white-grey downy feathers all over and where their beaks would have been instead they had muzzles full of a multitude of sharp fangs.I have no idea what exactly they were although I feel that they were Otherworldly. They were also…
The Chilling Adventure of Sabrina – One Witch’s Thoughts
Netflix recently released a new series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, based on the comic book series of the same name. I don’t generally get into television much but I decided to give this show a try for three reasons: it’s a sort of spin off of Riverdale which is one of my oldest child’s favorite shows, pre-release buzz said there’d be a non-binary character in the show, and the previews…