I don’t like the power

you hold over me,

the power I let you

hold over me,

clinging to rain stained memories

as insignificant in retrospect

as their simplicity—

holding my hand in the car.

I don’t like revisiting

that moment,

knowing now how little it meant to you

as it stained my life

with impossible desire

as childish as a birthday wish.

I don’t like the compulsion

to write about holes

that shouldn’t exist,

the ridiculousness of caring

for someone that viewed me as a blink.

I can’t stop thinking.

    –Leanne Rebecca

When it comes to the heart, it’s amazing how quickly it can be hurt, that even the most meaningless action to one person can devastate another. The only perspective we ever really have is our own, especially when all of the sudden, perceived truths turn out to be wrong. This is my fancy way of…

Learning about the natural world is an important part of the Pagan path. Otherwise we run the risks of having some very odd ideas about what nature is. We may end up thinking of nature as something exotic, away and largely unavailable to us – which isn’t true. We may end up with nature as some kind of abstract concept that we celebrate by calling to it from our living rooms, and that’s not optimal. Even if life obliges you to be a mostly indoors Pagan, learning more about nature enriches a practice.

For Pagan parents, aunt, uncles, grandparents etc, teaching children about nature can be a great way of sharing your path with your young humans. I know many Pagans are uneasy about indoctrinating children, and some paths aren’t really suitable for younger folk anyway. This is a great place to start, and a child who grows up with…

I tend to think of love as at least an infinite possibility. It’s not something to guard jealously or ration out, the degree to which I love one person does not reduce the amount of love I might be able to feel for a second person. The bigger issue is the simple, practical point that as a living mammal, I have finite time.

Love, for me, is not simply a concept, it is a lived thing. Love without expression is of limited value. It might create some warm and fuzzy feelings for the person experiencing it, but it does nothing, changes nothing. Love in action is much more powerful. Love in action shows up, spends time, listens, does things with, or for the focus of this feeling.

This is not simply about people either. Love for the landscape takes you into the landscape. Love for the ancestors takes you to…

ARTHUR and ARTHUR’S WARBAND for the following CRIMES against the PEOPLE OF ANNWFN –

*The murder of Diwrnarch Gawr, by beheading with his own sword, and the theft of his sword and cauldron.
*The murder of Dillus Farfog, by beheading, and the plucking out of his luxuriant red beard to make the leash that near-strangled Drudwyn, Fierce White, a Hound of Annwfn.
*The murder of Rhitta Gawr, by beheading, and the theft of his cloak of his beards.
*The murder of Ysbaddaden Bencawr, by beheading, and his torture – the shaving of his beloved hawthorn beard, the paring of his skin and flesh to the bone, and the slicing off of both his ears.
*The murder of Orddu, Very Black, Witch of Pennant Gofid, by slicing in half with a lightning-like knife and the draining of her blood into the bottles of Gwyddolwyn Gawr to grease Ysbaddaden’s beard.
*The murder…

On Monday I completed a Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) course (1). It was not strictly Buddhist, but the teachers and all the participants were sufficiently Buddhist influenced to have had existing experience of both of mindfulness and loving-kindness practices. At the same time I believe that the overall approach can offer something for anyone concerned with the issues addressed.

One of these is making and living with vows. In this context, we make the vows to ourselves and there are two key criteria. The first is that the vow anchors an intention, rather than operating as a binding contract. The second is that vows flow out of our core values. Hence, we need to get clear about these values before making any vows.

The process for checking core values is a simple one. Bringing warm-hearted awareness to ourselves and our experience, we imagine being near the end of our lives and…

your tissue paper frailty
folded seven times
a simple origami of valleys
turned into mountains
tucked into your breast pocket
a shield over your heart

– tissue paper frailty