Book Nook
I am still cleaning up from Halloween. My goal today is to finish all of that - the biggest challenge is the sewing area and finding all the stuff I tucked away for the party last weekend.
Shawna, Michael and I went to Indian Oven over in Kits last night, so I didn't get home until eight thirty. Consequently I only got my bedroom cleaned, leaving everything else for today. Right now I'm ignoring it and sitting in bed with the laptop and a cup of tea. Literally everyone around me at home and work are sick as hell, and my body is valiantly fighting off I don't even KNOW how many illnesses.
My mom came in for Halloween proper, which was awesome. Also awesome was that we went with her to the book distributor. I bought three new books - one is a gift for a gentleman friend - and Shawna actually found one for herself.
I'm currently reading 'The Witch's Bag of Tricks' which is essentially a beyond-beginner book about magic and ecclectic pagan spirituality. Good points include the fact that it is geared towards ecclectics - the author directly states this - and plenty of exercises to try. There are some exercises that make me sort of snort and roll my eyes a bit, but that could be more me and my fear of looking intensely stupid than anything else. The author does seem to place a lot of weight on 'ESP' but I'm about halfway through the book now and I wonder if perhaps it's just the term that grates on me. I don't consider myself psychic, which I guess might be odd for a fucking foretune teller, so certain phrases really sort of bring out my inner Penn Jillette. (I love my inner Penn. He gives me words like 'cuntpickle.')
I also purchased 'The Woman Magician: Revisioning Western Metaphysics from a Woman's Perspective and Experience.' ...I think I can hear Pete laughing from across the ocean right now.But it looks fascinating! There have been women in occult societies despite the very best efforts to keep us out, and especially in Western Ceremonial there has GOT to be some interesting ideas about all the dick waving that goes on.
Shawna bought a book (the title escapes me) that gives rituals based on fairy tales. She says so far it's really good, and the author wrote a book on being male in female-centric spirituality that she thinks I'd like. (God I'm predictable.)
Now, my mom pointed me to another book. 'Celtic Lore & Spellcraft of the Dark Goddess - Invoking the Morrigan.' Now. If you just tuned in to this channel, or if somehow you never pieced it together... The Morrigan is my spiritual mother. I know, how goth. Hey, you have to remember I came of age in the 90s - if you were a chick, you basically watched 'The Craft' and went from there. And 'from there' meant lists of gods and goddesses and bad revisionist history and loads of Celtic knotwork. And if you were spooky, you gravitated straight to the death gods.
That's putting it very flippantly, but whatever, it's Saturday morning and I'm not gonna get all serious on your ass.
Anyway. The Morrigan is one of those deities who pops up in passing in several books that deal with Celtic Myth/Arthurian legend, but who generally gets a bit shafted in terms of actual information. You do a web search and you'll get a lot of pages with a black background and pictures of crows and ravens. If you're a nerd like me, you of course run out and get the Mabinogion and read up on Cú Chulainn and so on and that's about all that's available.
So an entire book on the Morrigan is an exciting prospect! ...but also scary because as I said, the 90s, and I remember how utter shit some of those books were. ('DJ Conway, anyone?)
At any rate, they were out of it at the distrubutors, but once it is in stock I am sooo buying it.
Llewellyn is publishing an awful lot of pagan fiction these days. Shawna said I should get in on that. But fuck NaNoWriMo - you crazy bastards can go nuts but I am so not prepared for that.
Shawna, Michael and I went to Indian Oven over in Kits last night, so I didn't get home until eight thirty. Consequently I only got my bedroom cleaned, leaving everything else for today. Right now I'm ignoring it and sitting in bed with the laptop and a cup of tea. Literally everyone around me at home and work are sick as hell, and my body is valiantly fighting off I don't even KNOW how many illnesses.
My mom came in for Halloween proper, which was awesome. Also awesome was that we went with her to the book distributor. I bought three new books - one is a gift for a gentleman friend - and Shawna actually found one for herself.
I'm currently reading 'The Witch's Bag of Tricks' which is essentially a beyond-beginner book about magic and ecclectic pagan spirituality. Good points include the fact that it is geared towards ecclectics - the author directly states this - and plenty of exercises to try. There are some exercises that make me sort of snort and roll my eyes a bit, but that could be more me and my fear of looking intensely stupid than anything else. The author does seem to place a lot of weight on 'ESP' but I'm about halfway through the book now and I wonder if perhaps it's just the term that grates on me. I don't consider myself psychic, which I guess might be odd for a fucking foretune teller, so certain phrases really sort of bring out my inner Penn Jillette. (I love my inner Penn. He gives me words like 'cuntpickle.')
I also purchased 'The Woman Magician: Revisioning Western Metaphysics from a Woman's Perspective and Experience.' ...I think I can hear Pete laughing from across the ocean right now.But it looks fascinating! There have been women in occult societies despite the very best efforts to keep us out, and especially in Western Ceremonial there has GOT to be some interesting ideas about all the dick waving that goes on.
Shawna bought a book (the title escapes me) that gives rituals based on fairy tales. She says so far it's really good, and the author wrote a book on being male in female-centric spirituality that she thinks I'd like. (God I'm predictable.)
Now, my mom pointed me to another book. 'Celtic Lore & Spellcraft of the Dark Goddess - Invoking the Morrigan.' Now. If you just tuned in to this channel, or if somehow you never pieced it together... The Morrigan is my spiritual mother. I know, how goth. Hey, you have to remember I came of age in the 90s - if you were a chick, you basically watched 'The Craft' and went from there. And 'from there' meant lists of gods and goddesses and bad revisionist history and loads of Celtic knotwork. And if you were spooky, you gravitated straight to the death gods.
That's putting it very flippantly, but whatever, it's Saturday morning and I'm not gonna get all serious on your ass.
Anyway. The Morrigan is one of those deities who pops up in passing in several books that deal with Celtic Myth/Arthurian legend, but who generally gets a bit shafted in terms of actual information. You do a web search and you'll get a lot of pages with a black background and pictures of crows and ravens. If you're a nerd like me, you of course run out and get the Mabinogion and read up on Cú Chulainn and so on and that's about all that's available.
So an entire book on the Morrigan is an exciting prospect! ...but also scary because as I said, the 90s, and I remember how utter shit some of those books were. ('DJ Conway, anyone?)
At any rate, they were out of it at the distrubutors, but once it is in stock I am sooo buying it.
Llewellyn is publishing an awful lot of pagan fiction these days. Shawna said I should get in on that. But fuck NaNoWriMo - you crazy bastards can go nuts but I am so not prepared for that.