Woden's Wandering Witch

started a new blog….

urban-pooka:

At Christmas time, I regularly take photos of my family and home. I have sometimes published many of the photos on Instagram and Facebook. I have even published some of them on Tumblr. I have done so for a variety of reasons, but most often to share a funny or touching picture.

But that is all I have shared: a picture. Nothing more and nothing less. I have not given you the entire history that led to that moment or explained the family structure one iota. I have not even given you the names of the people in the picture—at least not their real names. I have not given you the access codes to our security system, the keys to the locks on our door, or given you permission to enter my house.

When I share a dream or journey on my tumblr, I have shared a picture, nothing more and nothing less. All the same rules apply. While a determined person may try and use that picture to invade my personal space, they are violating my private territory. They are breaking in, and I view it no differently than I would breaking into my home. I will respond in kind, with claws out and fangs bared.

Publishing a picture of yourself, your family, or your home on the internet does not grant anyone permission to touch you, them, or enter that home. Speaking of your otherworldly self, family, or home on the internet does not grant anyone the right to touch you, them, or enter that home. Talking about an otherworldly land is not an invitation to visit it. If you want to, you should check with those who speak about it to see if its borders are closed, just as you should check with those who practice a religion to see if the religion is closed before you start practicing it. Otherwise you are not only violating their space but being appropriative. Reblogging someone’s writings does not suddenly make them yours, or make the land they speak of your land, just as reblogging one of my family photos would not make you my blood.

Some otherworldly spaces are not for you. Some are invite-only. Some allow visitors, but only with the right paperwork. Some are not quite otherworldly, but more head-spaces. You have to do the research to know the difference, and research is not the same as data-mining. Reading my journeys is not the same as getting the whole truth. You can only get that by asking me, and I have the right to say no. The culture of which I have written is closed, as is my private life, and I need never share any more than I wish to share. All you can do is ask and hope, which is the exact same situation that arises when approaching anyone else who possesses knowledge that does not belong to you. Assuming makes an ass out of you, and can cause great harm to all those involved, especially when assumptions are passed on as truth.

Please consider this when reading any journey-worker, dream-worker, or spirit-worker’s blog.

  There is a common expression in neopaganism, where a person will say that they “work with” certain deities; generally what they actually mean is either that they worship those deities, or that they call on them for a specific purpose. In my experience among reconstructionists its considered disrespectful to say you work with a deity, because however you view the Gods they are not usually seen as our partners in projects. Patrons, perhaps, or guides, but not partners as another person would be to work with us. It’s an interesting bit of semantics between the two approaches to paganism. In neopaganism the phrase is used commonly and doesn’t seem to even register with most people, while in recon faiths you don’t tend to see it used and when it is it can become the focus of the discussion as people debate the accuracy or blasphemy of it. (read more)

  I’m excited to announce the official release of my new book, “Where the Hawthorn Grows”. It is based on this blog and includes an array of essays on my views and experiences as an Irish reconstructionist Druid. Right now it is available in paperback and will soon be out as an ebook as well.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to me to be a Druid, a title that for me represents a bridge between the ancient and the new. How does it shape my life? How does it affect me?
Keep reading…

In modern neopaganism and the new age movement using crystals and stones for healing is an almost ubiquitous practice. This can lead people who focus more on reconstruction to wonder what place this practice held, if any, with the ancients, in my case specifically the Irish and closely related Celtic cultures. When we look at the oldest sources, the accounts of the Greek and Roman writers all that is found is a reference to the fabled “Druid’s Egg”*, an object that may or may not actually be a stone, said to be formed by the spit of snakes. On the otherhand when we look at slightly more recent folk practices from Ireland and Scotland we can find evidence of the use of stones and crystals for several purposes

  Keep reading…

 I have always seen tattooing as a sacred process, a way to permanently embed images and symbols into the flesh that have a transcendent meaning. All of my tattoos contain this level of meaning and are first and foremost for me spiritual and secondarily art work. Even the proces of being tttooed has spiritual implications for me, and I have often approached the experience as an offering to the gods and spirits. There is, so far, no concrete evidence of the Celtic peoples using tattooing but there is evidence of tattooing in similar cultures, including the Picts which made me want to explore the concept of tattooing in the ancient world, specifically in Europe.
 Read more…

 
 
   This month we are looking at the seventh rune of the first aett, called Gebo or Gifu. To someone familiar with the English alphabet it looks nearly identical to a capital letter X, but makes a hard “G” sound. Gebo is found in both the elder and younger Futhark.
    The only surviving rune poem we have for Gebo comes from the Anglo-Saxon and it speaks to us of the dual nature of giving: “Generosity brings credit and honour, which support one’s dignity;
 (read more…)l