Yvonne Aburrow's Blog, page 37

#DefendOccultBooks

I’ve always disagreed with the view that we don’t need Pagan and occult books.

I like reading and it was books that organized my inchoate feelings about Nature and burial mounds and stone circles and the pleasures of life into the idea that the word that best describes these feelings is Pagan.

Most activities in life — and magic is no exception — have a theoretical underpinning. The dominant underlying theory of how magic works is a heteronormative one — simply because most practitione...

Books I read in June

A mixture of fiction and non-fiction.

How to be an antiracist by Ibram X Kendi

The book talks about the intersection of race and class, race and gender, race and queerness; and emphasizes that whilst race is a social construct, it has very real effects. It also offers a model for effecting real change: focus on creating antiracist policy changes rather than changing hearts and minds, for the simple reason that hearts and minds usually get changed after policy has been changed; and poli...

Indigenous resources

In the wake of the awful discoveries of unmarked graves in residential schools, more and more Canadians want to learn the truth about the destruction of the cultures and languages of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, and the theft of their lands.

I have created a new resources page with links to websites where you can learn more about Indigenous culture and issues, and identified the key resources to get started on your learning journey.

If you only have time to interact with a few things on t...

Bryson Syliboy interview

Interview with Bryson Syliboy, a Mi’kmaw anti-racism activist. We talked about anti-racism, colonialism, Mi’kmaw culture, being two-spirit, residential schools, and more.

Follow Bryson on Twitter: @ArnallLabrador and Instagram: @gaytivefrommikmaki

For the ones who did not come home

Thread a bead for me,
Not a rosary:
A bright bubble of blood
From that river in flood
Between the worlds.

Carve a bone for me,
To breathe a memory,
Thread a song from the air,
Where the land is bare
On that distant shore.

Hold a stone for me,
Dream a dream for me,
Of summer days I cannot see,
Woven beneath the oldest tree,
Beyond the door.

Light a fire for me,
Down by that inland sea
Where the stars drink the night
And a bright scarf of light
Dances in the sky.


By Yvonne Aburrow

©️Yvonne Aburrow,...

319 Indigenous children

If you have been paying attention to the news in Canada, you will be aware that the remains of 215 Indigenous children were found in unmarked graves in the grounds of Kamloops residential school. And this week, 104 more were found in another residential school.

If you were paying attention to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) findings in 2015, you would have been aware that the TRC concluded that somewhere between 4000 and 6000 children died in residential schools, and that th...

Happy Pride

Happy Pride everyone.

Here are three of my favourite LGBTQ+ movies: Pride, about Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. Torch Song Trilogy, which I saw in my first few weeks at university because the Gay Society did a screening (yes folks, in the 1980s the Lesbian and Gay societies at uni were two separate things). And The Birdcage (which I prefer over the French film it was based on) in which gayness eventually wins over the stiff straights.

More reflections on queerness and intersectionalit...

Books I read in May

In Satnav We Trust, by Jack Barrow

An enjoyable romp through the historic counties of England, with mad speedboat drivers, curmudgeonly campsite owners, wibbly wifi connections, a serendipitous Satnav with a mind of its own, and ruminations upon rationalism as a possible enemy of the search for meaning.

Having followed the saga of this journey via Facebook updates at the time, it was fun to read the whole thing. If it were my journey, I think I’d have done a bit more research into places o...

The Book of Dreams

I have started created a new website for the esoteric writings of Mark Goddard: The Book of Dreams.

The Book of Dreams was an unfinished typewritten manuscript by Mark Goddard. He had wanted it to be published, and gave it to his friend, Art Quester, who gave a copy to me after Mark was tragically killed in a car accident in 1988.

The book was intended as a linked series of visualizations and (if I recall correctly) was partly inspired by Mark’s spirit guide.

I only met Mark a few time...

Celtic festival names

Some time back I posted a video about cultural appropriation and Lora O’Brien pointed out that the modern Wiccan and Pagan usage of Sabbat names is appropriated from Irish culture and language.

Gerald Gardner and other early Wiccans did not use the Irish names for these festivals— that happened later. Wicca is not a Celtic religion.

It does seem wrong to lift these festivals out of context. There are other old names for these festivals in England and Wales (the Scots Gaelic has similar nam...