I’m having a rough time this week with migraines as the weather is changing, so instead of not blogging at all, I decided to offer a published (but under my copyright) piece that might still be of some interest.A Baby Blessing Ritual
The child should be dressed in something beautiful and meaningful for the family. If indoors a small altar can be created with a candle (triple wicked if possible) and a …
And now for something completely different…. 21 Spells for Assured Success by Boudica
This book is written by a Facebook friend of mine and while it isn’t my usual genre I found it to be both interesting and useful so I decided to put a review of it up here on my blog.
I really enjoyed this book, being fond of spellwork that is pragmatic and intended …
So in a previous blog I looked at evidence supporting the roles of the Druids as ritual leaders, judges, and seers, but this is only a small piece of who the Druids were. We also have evidence that within their societies they were sacred poets, teachers of wisdom, and the ones who understood the deeper mysteries of the natural world, and magic users, however discussing the bardic role of Druids alone is complicated enough to take a whole blog on it’s own, so we will have to get to the other …
So I know I haven’t been blogging regularly lately and there are several reasons for that; one of them I’m proud to announce today. I have been working with several friends on a new forum based community and study program called Integrated Celtic Reconstructionists; it is based on the idea of bringing different Celtic recons together with a larger sense of community and on providing a guided self study program that people seeking training can use. My own part in all this has been very small …
For this Monday’s book review I am going to look at the book Freya, Lady, Vanadis: an introduction to the goddess by Patricia Lafayllve.
This book is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to learn more about the Goddess Freya. This is an indepth, academic look at her which goes beyond the surface examinations found elsewhere. Each chapter deals with different aspects of the mythology and how they shape our understanding of this goddess in relation to sex, love, war, …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 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 …