January 7th, 2014

Hazelnut gave me a copy of this book as a Yule gift, and I thought I might review it here for anyone interested in learning more about the fairy peoples. You may recognize the format if you've seen other books by the same publisher, such as The Crystal Bible.

Title: The Fairy Bible
Author: Teresa Moorey
Date of Publication: July 1, 2008

I was impressed in general by the text's content; many similar books that I've read in the past just invent names of fairy species that aren't backed by any sort of history or lore. Granted, many of the texts I've read are intended for younger audiences, but even so. All entries in this book introduce the original mythology for the spirits, and some also give examples of how they have been reimagined in pop culture.

The book's categories are as follows: Water, Air, Fire, Earth, House, Flower, Tree, and Weather. Each category then has the related spirits, as well as information at the end of each section on meditations that can be done to contact these fairies. Most of them also have suggestions for the
 kinds of altars that could be established to attract the type of spirit in question, as well as to make your living space a more welcoming environment for them.

Most of The Fairy Bible's entries come from the folklore of Western Europe,

particularly the British Isles, and I was left feeling like the inhabitants of other cultures were rather under-represented. That being said, the book does incorporate entries for djinn, domovoiye, a few Native American entities, and a Japanese water spirit, so it did make some level of effort.

Still, some of what the author considered suitable content was questionable to me. For example, the book contained sections on several deities, including Pan, Brighid, Hermes, and others. While I certainly don't object to learning more about these Powers in general, it seems to me that it might offend said god/desses to be included in a book regarding Fey. This is not to say that Fey are lesser Powers - many of them certainly possess astounding capabilities - but it seems odd to me that deities which are never portrayed as fairies in their myths are then included in the book.

Not only that, but famous fairy entities that one would expect to see in a book like this - for instance, the illustrious Queen Mab - were hardly mentioned at all.

All in all, I thought it was a reasonably informative book, and most of its meditations and other exercises were well-composed, but buyers should be aware that some of the content is a little watered down, and parts of it come across as more of a "how-to-Pagan" than a strictly-informative guide to the fairy realms. Ultimately, know what you're buying. There definitely is quality information in it, but in places it takes a bit of digging.

I would call it, "fairies for beginners", and not, "the definitive guide" as the cover suggests.

July 21st, 2014

The last couple of days have been pure insanity, so allow me to catch you up on some of the Pagan things I've been doing.
On Thursday, my family went to a local Botanic Gardens for the afternoon. Besides lots of pretty flowers, I saw some things relevant to this particular blog:

This, if you can't read the sign, is Artemis Silver Sage. Sage is a wonderful herb of purification, and if you were doing a working with the Goddess Artemis or any of her sacred animals, it might be worth the research to find some at a garden center. Besides its purifying qualities, this particular Sage has the added benefit of having leaves that are positively downy with fuzziness.

There was this depiction of Pan on a dry fountain in the English garden.

Outside the English garden, someone had crafted a statue titled "The Guardian" with these massive Quartz crystals set in the center; the whole matrix was longer than my forearm. Whether or not the artist actually has the crystals empowered to act as a Guardian of the garden, I couldn't say. Nevertheless, one could absolutely use crystals around the home for protection as desired.

The three trunks in the center of this picture belong to an Alder tree. I immediately thought of my blog when I saw it, because for some unfathomable reason, my "Celtic Tree Month: Alder" post is still my most popular, with over 5,200 views at this time. Here's a photo of one such tree I can actually claim to have taken!

There was also a big grove of birch trees which I felt had to be included. Birch is sacred to many deities, and is particularly noted in Wicca as being a tree of the Goddess.

On Friday, I went downtown with a friend to see a showing of A Midsummer Night's Dream (it was brilliantly done), and Saturday was spent at the zoo. Yesterday was occupied primarily by church and work, and now, finally, I have a moment to sit an catch up.

As many of my followers are probably aware, I am off to college next month and have been scrambling to get things ready. On Saturday, I found a marvelous little couch at a garage sale for $20 that will be perfect for my dorm - I'm considering it a Goddess-given miracle. Additionally, I was able to get a bunch of books from the library yesterday, so expect posts in the near future regarding the metaphysical subjects I'm now perusing.

October 28th, 2012

Welcome to the month of the Reed! Although some modern Pagans refer to this as the Elm month, the Celts used this time to celebrate their native water reeds. "Reed" is the general term for tall, grass-like plants that inhabit wet places. All species belong in the order Poales. Reed beds are found in waterlogged places such as floodplains and estuaries. Beds with more than 20 cm of surface water during the summer are called Reed swamps, whereas those with water at or below surface level are known as Reed fens. Because the plants grow poorly in acidic soil, succession often takes over in places like bogs, replacing the reeds with a hardier plant.
In mythology, a number of stories relate to the Reed. One Greek legend tells us that the forest god Pan was pursuing a beautiful young nymph. He chased her to a river, where she transformed into the first Reeds. The wind blew, and Pan was so struck by the beautiful noise the wind in the Reeds made that he took some, bound them together, and formed the first Reed, or Pan, pipes. The infamous Pied Piper is also said to have played on Reed pipes; he first led a plague of rats out of town, and then the town's children to punish the townsfolk for not properly thanking him.
Reeds can be used to make besoms, which are then employed in ritual to brush away negative energy.  The same besom can be hung in the house to continue repelling negativity. One can take a cue from the above myths and construct or purchase a set of Reed pipes, to be used in ritual (Samhain, anyone?). This time period is also one for divination, especially scrying, and seances. Spirit and energy work is appropriate at this time. In ancient times, Reeds may have been soaked in fat as a cheap alternative to candles.
From what I have seen online and elsewhere, although Reeds are not usually poisonous, they don't make very good eats, either.

April 29th, 2012

Hard to believe that it's almost May! There's been a whole lot of nothing going on here the past couple days, but that's alright. It's given me a chance to catch up with my friends, and spend some time with my family. I've been staring at my screen for a good 10 minutes and have no idea what else of value I can add, so have a picture of Pan instead: