Yvonne Aburrow's Blog, page 62

Updated Queer Pagan Reading List

An update on my 2015 post. New items are mostly in the inclusive, nonbinary and queer categories. Please add your recommendations in the comments.

Gay Blossom of Bone – Reclaiming the Connections Between Homoeroticism and the Sacred – Randy P. Conner Coming Out Spiritually: The Next Step – Christian de la Huerta The Fire in Moonlight: Stories from the Radical Faeries –  Mark Thompson Gay Body: A Journey Through Shadow To Self –  Mark Thompson Gay Soul –  Mark Thompson Gay Spirit: Myth and M...

Review: Sigil Witchery

I remember the thrill I got when I first saw Laura Tempest Zakroff’s blogpost where she released the Power Sigil into the wild. I get a similar buzz when she posts a sigil from a workshop on her Instagram page. So I was very excited when I saw that she had written a book about sigil crafting.

There seems to be a very welcome trend towards writing in-depth guides to specific areas of magic. Llewellyn are publishing a series on the witch’s tools, and Moon Books have published guides to specifi...

The Overton Window

I’m finding the concept of the Overton Window increasingly useful right now, as various sociopolitical ideas gain or lose ground, and debates change and morph.

The Overton window, also known as the window of discourse, describes the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse. The term is derived from its originator, Joseph P. Overton, a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, who, in his description of his window, claimed that an idea’s political viability depends ma...

Differences of opinion

When is a difference of opinion merely a difference of opinion, and when is it a matter for exclusion of the person who holds that opinion from polite society?

I came across a couple of things the other day that explained really well why no-platforming of actual Nazis is a good idea.

One is that it actually works: starving them of the oxygen of publicity makes it impossible for them to attract adherents. The example given was that of Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts in the 1930s in the UK. When n...

What shape is your spirituality?

The other day, I had an interesting discussion with Brenton Dickieson about the shape of the spiritual life.

I said, if I was to attribute a shape to my spirituality, it would be a tree, connecting spirit and matter, the heavens and the Earth, the human and the divine. If you think about the shape of a tree, its roots mirror its branches.

The other thing that’s amazing about trees is that they bend with the wind, and fit themselves into their surroundings.

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There are even different types of...

It’s in the Earth

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I was just reminded of this, which was said to me once by John Male, on seeing a post from Mark Green about a new festival called Wolfenoot, made up by a 7-year-old boy.

“If all the Pagans and all the Pagan books disappeared tomorrow, Paganism would still reappear, because it’s part of the Earth.”

My first thought on reading about Wolfenoot was that the boy inventor had almost succeeded in reinventing Lupercalia – which led on to my second thought, which was being reminded of what John Mal...

Review: Guelph Art Gallery

There are currently three amazing exhibitions on at the Art Gallery of Guelph (until 16 December): epistemologies of the moon, 1745, and Critical Mass. It is hard to say which of these exhibitions I was the most excited about, as they all address things I care about.

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Critical Mass

The first exhibition you see as you enter the Gallery is Critical Mass, which examines the experience of being Black in Canada, from 18th century Black Loyalists, enslaved Black people in Canada (prior to slavery...

Review: the Father Christmas Letters

I just re-read Letters from Father Christmas by JRR Tolkien. I read it and enjoyed it as a child. Imagine how thrilling it must have been for Tolkien’s children to receive these letters once a year – and to have to wait a year for the next instalment.

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Reading it again as an adult, I was very struck by the contemporary references. In 1930 (with the Great Depression at its height), there was a shortage of toys.

In the early 1930s, there was a resurgence of goblins (though apparently not so ma...

The inclusive Wicca symbol

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How the inclusive Wicca logo happened.

I was making a poster for a LGBT+ ritual in 2014, and trying to think of a symbol that expresses LGBT+ Wicca. So I took the standard Wiccan triple Moon symbol and added a heart.

2019 inclusive Wicca calendar

The 2019 inclusive Wicca calendar
is now available from the Zazzle store. All profits will be donated to the
First Nations Child & Family Caring Society.

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Be sure to use your local version of Zazzle to get the best deal on postage. www.zazzle.ca www.zazzle.com www.zazzle.co.uk www.zazzle.de