Yvonne Aburrow's Blog, page 67

Sex and gender

Sex is assigned according to seven different biological characteristics, which can and do vary considerably. Intersex children are assigned a sex depending on how closely these seven characteristics match male or female. A lot of people have six out of seven matching a particular sex, or five out of seven. A lot of people never find out that they have less than seven matching characteristics. However, this massively calls into question that there is such a thing as two distinct biological sex...

What is the purpose of religion?

It is often assumed that the purpose of religion is to shape its adherents into nicer people. However, a quick look at the number and variety of unpleasant people in every religious tradition gives the lie to this idea. If religion doesn’t make people nicer, what is it actually for?

Every religion and philosophy has a shadow side — the flip-side of the ideals it strives for. And there are plenty of people ready and willing to strive for those ideals without being mindful of the shadow that t...

Culture change and cat-herding

There’s always a difficult process when one group of people feels passionately that something needs to change, and another group of people feel that the status quo is just fine, usually (but not always) because they are not affected by the thing that the first group feels is in need of change.

What tactics should we adopt to try to bring about the change? An open letter? A declaration? A community statement? A petition? Or a pledge to boycott?

People might agree on a goal, but disagree about...

An inclusive wheel of the year

Some versions of the Wheel of the Year (the eight festivals of Wicca and Druidry) can feel excluding, particularly those that focus on the God and the Goddess interacting through the cycle of the seasons. This mythological construct excludes both polytheists and LGBTQIA people. Some versions of the story are uncomfortable for feminists, as they don’t exactly promote consent culture. It is worth noting that the “cycle of the God and the Goddess” doesn’t appear in any early Gardnerian Books of...

Wassailing

One of my favourite folk rituals is the practice of wassailing. This is done in apple-growing districts to wake up the apple trees and encourage them to produce plenty of fruit in the autumn. I love it so much that I planted an apple tree in my garden so I could wassail it.

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Abuse happens in a culture that enables it

An accusation of abuse has surfaced against Isaac Bonewits, made by Moira Greyland, who was abused by her mother, Marion Zimmer Bradley. I never met Isaac, though I had added him as a friend on Facebook. Deborah Lipp and Phaedra Bonewits have issued a joint statement defending him. The context in which  the accusation was made is also problematic, in that the book was published by an alt-right person with an axe to grind.

Whether or not this particular accusation is true, and it would be diff...

Creating inclusive rituals

It is a useful magical and intellectual exercise to examine each segment of your ritual structure, and ask yourself why you do it in the particular way that you do. Why do we sweep the circle, consecrate it with water, salt, and incense, cast it with a sword, and so on? What is the function and symbolism of each of these actions? Can they be improved – either in the sense of making them more magically effective, more reflective of reality, or more inclusive?

Sweeping

The circle is swept to p...

Story: The Painting of the Birds

There’s a lovely story in Richard Adams’ folktale anthology The Iron Wolf,  called “The Painting of the Birds”. I was reminded of it because today is National Bird Day.

Here’s my retelling of the story.

The Painting of the Birds

God realised that the birds as originally created were a bit drab, brown, and boring, So he made a big box of magic paint and some beaks, and asked the Angel Gabriel to summon all the birds to be painted.

All the birds came. The roller was painted bright blue and turq...

Polarity, gender, and fertility

Wiccan ritual often uses the concepts of polarity and fertility to make magic and symbolism. These can be viewed in an exclusively heterocentric way, or in a more inclusive and diverse way. The reality of gender, sexuality, and magic suggests that the inclusive way is more reflective of the true complexity of human nature.

Polarity

Polarity describes the process of creating magical energy from the tension of opposites.

“Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opp...

Why inclusive Wicca?

There is still considerable confusion over what inclusive Wicca actually is. In part, this could be because the people who are confused about it haven’t read my book, All acts of love and pleasure: inclusive Wicca (available on Kindle and in paperback), or the short guide to being an inclusive coven.

Being inclusive is not just about having gay people in your coven. Gardnerian Wicca in the UK has been welcoming LGBT people into covens for the entire time I have been involved in it, and I was...