Yvonne Aburrow's Blog, page 7
July 23, 2024
Suggested coven guidelines
These are suggested guidelines for a coven or working group. Please feel free to adapt them for your group as you see fit.
We do not charge money for training or initiation. We may ask members to contribute to costs for incense, candles, and photocopying/printing. We do ask members to bring food to share. We never require sexual intercourse as part of any ritual or initiation.Senior members of the coven (i.e. high priestess, high priest, high priestix) should not enter in...
July 9, 2024
Nonbinary Awareness Week
nonbinary people over 30 exist
femme nonbinary people exist
fat nonbinary people exist
people are who they say they are
queer as in free Palestine
I’m over 50, I’m nonbinary, & my pronouns are they/them.
I don’t identify as femme but a lot of people don’t notice that I am a bit butch.
I’m fat. Nonbinary people don’t owe you thin androgynous bodies.
People are who they say they are. If someone tells you they’re trans and/or nonbinary, they trusted you not to be a dick abo...
July 1, 2024
Review: Of Chalk and Flint
Val Thomas (2019), Of Chalk and Flint: A Way of Norfolk Magic, Troy Books.
I’ve been wanting to read this book for ages, ever since I heard Val Thomas talking about Chalk and Flint as the Lady and Lord of Norfolk, and the book is excellent. I’m originally from Hampshire, which also has chalk and flint in its geology, and so the magic of these two is embedded deep in my bones.
I finally managed to get a copy thanks to The Spiral House Bookshop in Portland, Oregon.
It’s rare to find a...
Other Changing Paths posts
Two other people participated in the Changing Paths blogging challenge 2024: Jarred the Wyrd-worker and The River Crow. Kudos to Jarred for keeping it up for the whole month and continuing to write blogposts in response to the prompts at the end of the chapters in Changing Paths. And The River Crow wrote some beautiful poetry in response to the prompts.
Here are Jarred’s posts:
The FutureInspirationsPeople I AdmireMovies and TVColoursBooksMusicFestivals...June 30, 2024
Thoughts for the future
Changing Paths challenge day 30: the future
The future that I want to live in is one in which everyone is equal and we are in partnership with Nature and the land, like the utopian visions in these books: Always Coming Home by Ursula K Le Guin, The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk, and News from Nowhere by William Morris. In this future, Indigenous Peoples would be respected and valued and have their land back. LGBTQ2SIA people would be respected and valued too.
Cha...
Castlerigg disrespected
What happened to “take only photos, leave only memories”?
This year, some idiot(s) decided that they could light a fire in Castlerigg stone circle in Cumbria. Uh, no.
English Heritage said: “It is extremely concerning to see that a fire has been lit within the stone circle, a thoughtless act that damages the scheduled monument and could have resulted in further serious consequences.”
The director of nearby climbing centre Newlands Adventure Centre, Gayle Brook...
June 29, 2024
Colours everywhere
Changing Paths challenge day 28. People I admire.
(This is by no means a complete list of people I admire. Some of the people I admire are not famous but have spent a lifetime doing a thing in an admirable way.)
Changing Paths challenge day 27: movies and TV.
Movies and TV that changed my mind / blew my mind.
Changing Paths Challenge day 26: colours
For today’s challenge, I’ve pulled up my article about the colours of Paganism fr...
June 28, 2024
The children
If the faces of Palestinian children don’t move you
Then I have news for you:
Your heart has been surgically removed
and replaced with a brick.
Every child matters. Every single child.
June 26, 2024
Religious education
I’m constantly amazed by the opposition to educating children about religions in North America (both the USA and Canada).
Learning about multiple religions and philosophies doesn’t mean being indoctrinated into them. It means learning about what other people think about ethics, life, etc. This is a great way for kids to realize that there’s more to life than evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity. And the systems presented would include atheism and humanism.
If you don’t educate young...
June 25, 2024
Books, music, festivals
Changing Paths challenge day 25: books 
I love reading books. I love writing books. I love talking about books. I love having a to-be-read pile. I love rereading books that I have enjoyed.
A book is a little world and its characters are mirrors you can hold up, and try identifying with them to make sense of who you are.
Changing Paths challenge day 24: Music
I love music, especially any piece where the artist really put their soul into it. This is often the...
