Yvonne Aburrow's Blog, page 66
February 22, 2018
Never again
I don’t know how to write this in a way that will convince you if you’re an opponent of gun control. But I have to write something.
There have been eighteen mass shootings in the USA this year already, and it’s only February.
Whenever there’s a particularly awful mass shooting, I post about gun control on Facebook, and someone is sure to comment that it’s too soon to talk about gun control, or that I am politicising a tragedy, or I don’t understand because I’m British.
Yes, I do not understan...
February 20, 2018
Ritual roles and archetypes
Ritual roles are often allocated according to gender, but this doesn’t need to be the case. Allocating roles by gender seems a lazy shorthand for the archetypes you want the ritual role to express. There are so many different archetypes, and not all of them are gender-specific. How about if we allocated ritual roles according to the archetype they are intended to embody, or the skills that are needed for the task at hand?
In inclusive Wicca, we try to avoid allocating ritual roles by gender,...
February 16, 2018
Self care for activists
This is an excerpt from my new book, The Night Journey: witchcraft as transformation. I am sharing it because I have noticed an awful lot of activists on my Twitter feed expressing pain, rage, and exhaustion. Accordingly, I have revived a hashtag, #activistSelfCare. I didn’t do this to promote the book; I did it because I saw people in pain.
It turns out that the term ‘self care’ originated with Audre Lorde , who wrote,
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and...
New book part 2: The Night Journey
Preview Price: £15.99 This book is aimed at witches who want to deepen their engagement with their Craft. It explores modes and types of ritual; how rituals work; the uses of sound and silence in ritual; the witch’s journey through life; the stages and pitfalls of the inner work. It shows how Queer Witchcraft is an inherent aspect of the archetype of the witch; how witchcraft relates to the land; w...
February 15, 2018
Top ten movie and TV wizards
Since Hollywood and TV don’t seem to have heard of male witches, I thought it would be fun to make a list of my top ten wizards. There are quite a lot to choose from, what with the Harry Potter universe, the Discworld, and many more. Not all of them are called wizards, but they embody the archetype of wizard, which seems to be derived ultimately from the image of ancient druids and shamans, but has picked up the symbolism associated with magicians, occultists, astrologers, alchemists, and sc...
February 10, 2018
The landscape of gender
My preferred metaphor for gender is a scatterplot (not a spectrum). If one’s assigned gender is at point (a,b) but one’s actual gender is at point (q,r) then one needs to change to match one’s actual gender. If one’s actual gender is at point (c,d) it’s quite near one’s assigned gender, so the person is cisgender.
If we model gender as a spectrum, it suggests that male and female are at opposite ends of the spectrum, and supports the gender binary, hence positioning genderqueer, nonbinary, an...
February 8, 2018
My new book – Dark Mirror
Inner work is a name commonly given to the inner processes that happen in ritual. It can also mean the transformation of the psyche that comes about through engaging in religious ritual. However, the best kind of inner work also has an effect outside the individual and outside the circle. When rituals are focused only on self-development, they tend to be a bit too introspective. Ritual is about creating and m...
February 5, 2018
Towards an inclusive Wiccan theology
Wiccans can be polytheist, animist, pantheist, monist, duotheist, atheist/archetypalist, or “all of the above depending on the day”. Most Pagans believe that the divine is, or deities are, immanent in the world; and that includes most Wiccans.
This theological diversity works in ritual settings as long as everyone can “translate in their head” and have a certain amount of flexibility as to practice and the wording of rituals.
January 30, 2018
Imbolc
Imbolc is the time of year when I like to start new projects and endeavours. Imbolc would be an excellent time to celebrate a transition from one gender to another. It’s the time when the first signs of spring appear (at least in my neck of the woods – your local climate may vary). The goddess most closely associated with Imbolc is Brighid, goddess of smithcraft, poetry, and healing.
Some people wait until the first snowdrops appear before they celebrate Imbolc. Snowdrops are the first flow...
