I said that anger is valid because it helps to propel us out of dangerous and abusive situations in Changing Paths (the book).
I love that Jo Luehmann has talked about the neurological aspects of processing your anger in this post, and most importantly talking about it—absolutely brilliant. I think that if you turn anger inwards, it becomes stress and depression.
Continue readingChanging Paths: unexamined baggage
🧳 🎒💼👝👜
This is an excerpt from my book, ‘Changing Paths’:
“Changing your religious or spiritual path can result in unexamined spiritual, emotional, and intellectual baggage from your previous tradition, which can cause all sorts of issues from depression to anger. We all need to unpack and deal with our unexamined baggage. The Tarot card of the fool traditionally depicts a small dog leaping up and biting the Fool’s butt. The dog can be seen as representing material from the unconscious trying to attract the attention of the conscious mind.
It can also be problematic when we bring this unexamined baggage to the Pagan community and expect Pagan traditions to look like the ones that we left. Many people, unless they have engaged in a very thorough deconstruction and reconstruction of their beliefs and attitudes, bring some of their views and expectations from their previous tradition into their new one.”
Changing Paths is published by 1000Volt Press and is available from all the usual online stores. Ask your local bookseller or library to stock it!
The goal of the book is to help you decide your own path by guiding you through the perils and pitfalls of the terrain, and asking questions to help you deepen your understanding of the reasons for your desire to change paths.
Changing Paths challenge day 21 — family
There are two types of family — the one you were born into, and the one you choose. If your birth family is problematic for some reason, you can create your own.
Continue readingChanging Paths blogging challenge day 20: hopes and fears.
When I chose this prompt, I was thinking of the position in the solar cross Tarot spread that corresponds to hopes and fears.
But now, with the news that we will be crossing the 1.5°C global warming threshold in the next few years, I’m reminded of the Seven Fires Prophecy of the Anishinaabe:
Continue readingOnce I dreamed that I was walking across a rocky sandy landscape (the bedrock was reddish sandstone) and saw an old church.
Changing Paths challenge 18 — throwback Thursday.
This was my local library when I was a kid. It’s where I discovered Greek mythology, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Mary Stewart’s Arthurian trilogy, Robin Hood, Roger Lancelyn-Green, Geoffrey Trease, Henry Treece, and many more. I was introduced to Cynthia Harnett by a teacher at school but I am sure I borrowed some of her books from this library. I first learned about heraldry from Cynthia Harnett too.
Continue readingGreat new post from John Beckett on interfaith relationships.
Our wider society tends to assume that couples will follow the same religion, and generally they do. But interfaith marriages have been a thing for a very long time, whether between Christians and Jews, Protestants and Catholics, or any other combination – including Pagans and people of other religions, or of no religion.
John Beckett, Pagans in interfaith relationships
The deepest magic that I know is love. Not sacrificial love, not romantic love, but the everyday magic of connection, nourishing and soul-satisfying.
Continue readingThe power of stories to change and challenge a person’s worldview is immense. My worldview was definitely informed by reading A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin, Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, The Writing on the Hearth by Cynthia Harnett (now sadly forgotten by most people), Mary Stewart’s Arthurian trilogy, and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. And of course the Narnia series by CS Lewis, and many other books depicting a magical mythopoeic worldview. Ursula Le Guin’s science fiction was and remains extremely important to me.
Continue readingChanging paths is a wibbly-wobbly thing. During the process, I was all over the place. It was like having the bends (you know, the thing where a diver rises too quickly to the surface and gets cramps) or being on a giant scary roller coaster ride. That’s why I wrote the book, in the hope of helping other people to have a gentler ride through the process — regardless of their starting point or destination. Although the second half is about joining Paganism, it’s fairly applicable to joining any group.
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Changing Paths 