Experimenting with a little translation of a different sort. There’s an excerpt from one of the Carmina Gadelica prayers making the rounds (without credit to the source of course*) and when I took another look at the original Gaidhlig I realized that Carmichael’s translation was more poetic than literal. I don’t have any Gaidhlig myself but it’s close enough to Sengoidelc that I can actually read…
Category Archives: By Land Sea and Sky
Dirt Beneath Your Fingernails
Recently a friend of mine wrote two very insightful blogs ‘The Line in the Dirt’ and ‘Deepening the Line’. Both deal with looking at the way the pagan community, in general, approaches magical and ritual practice, the laziness that’s rampant among practitioners, and the idea of what happens beyond basics.
I’ve been thinking a lot since I read them, both because she raises some good questions…
Wodan
Many people are familiar with the Norse God Odhinn, but less well known is his German counterpart Wodan who is similar but not identical. Wodan (Old High German Woutan) although almost certainly derived from the same root as Odhinn has several distinct characteristics. In today’s blog I would like to discuss Wodan as we see him in the German material.
Duncan Royale German "Odin" statue…
Ways to Feel More Connected to the Morrigan
One question that I am asked on a fairly regular basis is what should people who are interested in connecting spiritually to the Morrigan or who are just beginning to honor Her do? So I thought it might be helpful for me to post a list of general suggestions here, although keep in mind that these are only my ideas and what I have found works well for me. I tend to be a very sensory person so…
Random Irish Mythology Trivia
* Nuada is left handed – he lost his right arm during the fight with the Fir Bolg warrior Sreng, and we are told it was his shield arm, meaning his sword arm is his left arm
* Speaking of Nuada’s arm, when it is healed it is the original flesh arm that is restored, which Miach acquires and holds against his body for six days, then strikes it with burnt bulrushes for another three. Which makes…
When Fairytales Have Teeth
I was teaching a class last week about the types of Otherworldly spirits more likely to be found during the winter, and I had one of those moments that will sometimes happen where I opened my mouth and spoke off the cuff, as we were discussing the Unseelie Court. I pointed out to the people attending the class that contrary to what most of the young adult novels and paranormal romance…
Fight the Bad Meme – Blog Edition
I’ve started a new thing on my social media page, which I call "fight the bad meme", because it seems like every single pagan holiday that rolls around sees an influx of poorly researched memes purporting to ‘educate’ people about the real history of that holiday and it’s traditions. Usually most to all of the information presented in the meme is utter bollocks. So after I’ve seen the bad info…
The Winter Solstice
Although there is no solid evidence connecting Christmas in Ireland
to older pagan practices, there are some hints of traditions which may pre-date
Christian influence. As Estyn Evans tells us "Although Christmas is the outstanding Christian festival of the year
its traditional ‘Twelve Days’ of holiday are steeped in pagan lore and in folk
practices relating to the winter solstice…" (…
Winter Crow
She flies with the snow
Black against white
…
Continue reading…
The Value of Darkness
So I write a lot about the value of darkness and recently I’ve been making memes about it as well, such as this one:
and this one:
When I posted the first example on facebook yesterday someone asked me, privately, what exactly I meant by ‘darkness’ which got me thinking about the larger issue of what I was trying to say and why.
First a bit of backstory. This all began a bit tongue