Yvonne Aburrow's Blog, page 52

Notable and quotable 21

Posts I enjoyed this week.

The Secrets, by Mark Green

This proposed day of unburdening oneself reminded me of Takanakuy in a way.

What if we could speak the unspeakable, shameful secrets, just for one day? … What would it be like if we could bare ourselves to one another, just for that one day? If that One Thing that inspires a cascade of shame could be spoken to another, without being judged? If we, as a society, had a culture of radical honesty on one particular day? I have to believe it...

Consumption and destruction

I think these quotes from John Kenneth Galbraith go a long way towards explaining the UK election result and the woeful inadequacy of the response to the climate crisis.

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“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

“No solution [to the problem of poverty] is so effective as providing income to the poor. Whether in the form of food, housing, health services, education or...

Notable and quotable 20

Posts I enjoyed this week.

We have always been here

The lovely Wrycrow has an excellent post about an exhibition of LGBTQIA art and artefacts at the Fitzwilliam Museum, which demonstrates that queer people of all sorts have existed in every culture and era.

It both gladdened my heart to learn about the constant presence of queer people around the world and across history, and saddened me to learn how, in most of the situations our guide discussed, these same queer people had to hide...

How to call a quarter

There are many ways to call a quarter, but all of them have a common aim: to make a connection with the element.

What is a quarter?

Before you start, what’s your underlying theology of what you believe a quarter to be?

Are they an alchemical elemental (a gnome, sylph, undine, or salamander)? Are they one of the classical four winds (Boreas, Zephyr, Notus, and Eurus)? Do they have gender? Do they have agency and personality? What is the nature of their consciousness? Where do they reside...

The Wiccan Degree System

Many people are confused or misinformed about the Wiccan degree system (including some Wiccans). The degree system is not a hierarchical structure, nor is it about keeping secrets for the sake of secrecy. It is more like an apprenticeship system.

The degree system is not meant to be excessively hierarchical or involve subservience. There may be covens where that happens, but I sincerely hope they’re few in number and that people would leave them as abusive. The degree system is not about...

Que leur souvenir demeure

I’ve been reflecting a lot about the events of 6 December 1989 in Montreal. Many of the victims of the Ecole Polytechnique shooting were born around the same time as me, but their lives were abruptly cut short by a man with a grudge against feminists (or his distorted idea of what a feminist is) and a history of domestic violence (frequently the case with the perpetrators of mass shootings). The 14 women were engineering students, or worked in the school of engineering. I am a woman and a...

Notable and quotable 19

As the Solstice and the return of the light approaches, it’s good to be reminded that the Solstice is a turning point (which is the probable meaning of the name “Yule”).

Wrycrow: Winter and Christmas

A great post from Ryan Cronin on coping with the twin onslaughts of consumerism and Christmas:

Christmas shouts, and it shouts with two voices, proclaiming the doctrines of Christianity with one and the commandments of consumerism with the other. To Pagans who have neither the religious...

Notable and quotable 18

It’s been ages since I’ve done a “notable and quotable” post, but a couple of posts showed up on my feed this week that I had to share, so here it is.

The Glacier, by Stuart

A poem about the beauty of glaciers and what a huge loss it would be if they all melted. My favourite line was “A sparkling diamond in a special ring“.

Talking to children about Santa, by Nimue Brown

A great post on talking to children about Santa:

This is a story whose roots are indeed magical and generous, but the...

Books I read in November

Lots of witchy books this month: I re-read City of Refuge by Starhawk; read Making Witches by Barbara Rieti, and I’m halfway through The Witch’s Athame by Jason Mankey.

City of Refuge by Starhawk

It was great reading the whole trilogy from start to finish. A lot of the flashbacks to earlier parts of the story made more sense (although they are very well written, so you don’t need to have read the first book in the trilogy to follow the backstory.

In many ways, City of Refuge is a more...

The Yule Tree

When do you put up your Yule tree and take it down again?

I work on the assumption that saints’ days were originally festivals of the deity they replaced (this works in some cases but not necessarily all, so I really should cross-check it with a calendar of Pagan festival days).

For example, Martinmas (29 September) is when you eat goose, and according to countryside lore, it’s the last day you can eat blackberries picked from the bush, as otherwise the Devil spits on them. 29 September was...