So, the beginning of October has arrived once again. I have a lot of plans for the blog this month including more discussion of who the Druids were, as well as who I feel Druids today would/should/could be (and are of course), a post on Samhain, and one on traditional types of Celtic ination, and also a post on seidhr and the ancestors…but to start off the month I’m feeling generally reflective.
Everything right now seems to be at such a pivotal point. October has long been …
Author Archives: Lairbhan
Who were the Druids – part 1
Recently a friend asked a question on several facebook discussion groups – who were the Druids to the Celtic peoples? It’s an interesting question and it made me think about exactly what role the Druids played within their society. The first hurdle is to decide where to start in looking for clues about who the Druids were. Every possible source of information has its flaws, either through the bias of the authors of secondary sources, or the bias of people interpreting harder evidence …
Book review – Faery Wicca 1 and 2
There are some bad books that just never seem to die, even after being pulled from publication for plagiarism issues. I was at a pagan conference in my state over the weekend at one of the workshops I taught someone asked about the book Faery Wicca (volume 1) by Kisma Stepanich, and I was actually rendered temporarily incoherant. I did recover and explain some of the issues with the book, but as I thought about it later I realized this might be a good time to post a book review of both of the …
Pagan Piety
I’m in the mood for a bit of a rant today, so you’ve been warned….
There is probably no faster way to start a fight on a pagan discussion board than to bring up the subject of piety in any form. For some reason the topic itself seems to immediately put people on the defensive, as if even discussing it is implicitly judging everyone. If I could have one wish relating to how the pagan community interacts among itself (hey a girl can dream) I think I would wish …
Macha
Macha is one of the Tuatha De Danaan who appears in several different places in Irish mythology. She is a daughter of Ernmas, sister to Badbh and Anand/Nemain; some people consider these three sisters to make up the triple Morrighan. Macha appears in different guises in Irish mythology, once as one of the Nemedians, as a Tuatha de Danann, as a “fairy woman” and as a queen. This last one may or may not represent an actual historic queen or a story about the Goddess; the story itself …
Book review – Taking Up the Runes
If you can only afford to buy one rune book I recommend Taking Up the Runes by Diana Paxson. Not only because the author includes a wide variety of valuable information and suggestions, but because she extensively quotes and references many of the other most often recommended rune authors including Aswynn and Gundarsson. Because of this through buying this book you get …
Essense – A poem
This is a poem I wrote back in ’99 or ’00 and was published in the anthology the Pagan’s Muse in 2003 under the pen name Seabhacgeal. I have been thinking about it lately as I contemplate daily practices and devotions and decided I wanted to share it here.
Essense
I strike a match, the headFlares, incandescent, red to black,As …
Celtic Folk Magic: Food part 1
It’s pretty much common knowledge that I have a strong interest in folk magic, particulalry Irish and Celtic, although I also study other types like Pow-wow and Hoodoo (I’m not sure I’d categorize seidhr as folk magic). My interest is not purely academic; while I am interested in it from that perspective as well my main focus is learning how to use it, both the traditional material and creating new charms that are in the same spirit. I have found the Camrina Gadelica to be a treasure trove of Celtic …
Catching up…
So I have been offline now for a while thanks to hurricane Irene. We were very fortunate in that we didn’t lose power or water but our phone and internet were out. Being forcibly unplugged was a distinctly odd experience – I didn’t realize how much time I had been spending online, both with my college classwork and my random socializing. That is something I do want to address and cut down on…
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Hurricane Irene
So I am sitting here preparing to head out to Connecticut’s pagan pride day, a great event that I think it’s important to support. This year I am teaching a couple workshops at PPD as well as helping out by making posters of four of the neopagan wheel of the year holidays and an intro to Druidism poster. And you can’t even imagine how hard it is to try to describe what Druidism is in a single poster, especially in a fair and objective manner, but that can wait for another blog…as I’m sitting …