Deconstructing fairy stories

I encountered Judith through her book God Speaking, which I was hugely taken with. Judith is a Canadian Pagan, writing from personal experience, and with a courage and honesty that I found captivating. God Speaking tackles head on the tensions between insanity and religion.


As Judith isn’t an internet person, and it’s really hard to sell books without an online presence, I offered her some guest blog space. These blogs have nothing at all to do with the book, but I think give a good sense of what an interesting mind she has…


Over to Judith…


As part of my self-training process I spent some years doing professional divination with a set of Ogham cards that I had developed. The design on the cards, that is, not the tree significator nor the traditional kennings although I did a little substitution for North American plants instead of a few British Isles ones that don’t grow here at all. So there I was at a show, doing readings with ‘Ancient Irish Tree Cards’ (in all the hundreds of readings I did only one person actually knew what ‘Ogham’ was) and the activities director of a local retirement home came by and asked me if I would come and do a little talk about Irishness at the home on Saint Patrick’s Day. I’m open to talking, but on the day of the presentation I drove up to the home and thought, ‘Whew!! This is a pretty upscale nursing home– I’m not sure I feel comfortable with this….’ Soldiering on (in solidarity) I was escorted into the library and given an easel (I start with a recitation of an adaption of ‘Saint Patrick’s Breastplate’:


Here in this fateful hour,

I place all Heaven with its power,

And the sun with its brightness,

And the snow with its whiteness,

And the fire with all the strength it hath,

And the lightning with its rapid wrath,

And the wind with its swiftness along its path,

And the sea with its deepness,

And the rocks with their steepness,

And the Earth with its starkness

All these I place

By the Gods’ almighty help and grace

Between myself and the powers of darkness.


(with large-sized copies of appropriate cards for each invocation.)


After that I was talking about the imagery in the various pictures and told the story of why the wren is the king of birds.


One old geezer who had clearly spent a long long lifetime of never being opposed in anything nor ever spending a moment of his time in doubt of his essential self-worth decided that now was the ideal instant for him to step up to his favourite pastime of pestering:

“This is just MAKE-BELIEVE!” he said querulously.

“These are legends, yes,” I responded, “But they explicate essential truths in a fantastical format.”

“Faugh!” he said, “Fairy tales!”

Then I lost my Socialist temper (as the sparks fly upward) and countered, “Look at the back-story of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’, for example: Goldilocks thinks of herself as a cut above the disadvantaged people living in a little cottage in the forest. ‘They are not like me’ she says, ‘They do not feel things the same way— they are just bears.’ So she feels quite comfortable eating their porridge, breaking their chairs, and using their beds. When the ‘bears’ come home and find her asleep, what is the essential truth, the moral of the story that is the teaching lesson here?”


The Querulous Geezer was thrown off balance by the indirection and not having me straightforwardly complain that he is causing trouble or being impolite and has no answer nor does any other of the audience…


“If you take all that they have from the poor they will rise up against you and eat you.”


And then one of the Nize Little Old Ladies changed the subject.


When I told the story at dinner that night, my son laughed and said, “So you’re not invited back for next year?”


God Speaking is out now, and you can get it here http://www.amazon.com/Pagan-Portals-God-Speaking-Judith-OGrady/dp/1780992815/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368782561&sr=8-1&keywords=God+Speaking+Judith+O%27Grady and other such places.



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Published on May 17, 2013 02:50
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