Resource Center for Pagans in Prison

Gullveig Press logo design by Onje Keon Pierce

Gullveig Press is the only national Resource Center for Pagans in Prison. We network with the few Pagan Prison Ministries in the U.S. and create and find for resources to improve the quality of life for Pagans in prison. We work directly with prison Chaplains, volunteers, and incarcerated Pagans. We now provide Pagan materials for 46 states’ Department of Corrections.

Gullveig Press is a non-profit organization dedicated to locating, creating and distributing high quality materials for spiritual and psychological growth to Pagan residents, Chaplains, volunteers and others involved with the prison system. Created and led by Heather Awen, author, editor and publisher of Steel Bars, Sacred Waters: Celtic Paganism for Prisoners, Gullveig Press has a small volunteer staff of Pagans both in and out of prison as well as occasional paid assistants. Awen’s personal money and all profits from Steel Bars, Sacred Waters sold to the general public via Amazon or this website are used to send free copies to books-to-prisoners organizations and prison Chaplains or libraries. Over 100 copies are now in American prisons.

If you would like to purchase a copy for someone in prison or work with incarcerated Pagans, a copy costs $12. For those not involved with Pagan Prison Ministries, the cost is $24 if ordered directly from Gullveig Press. Chaplains, Volunteer Coordinators and Pagan Prison Ministries may receive a free PDF copy by contacting us. Montana DOC put it for free on Pagan residents’ tablets, something Awen offers to all prisons. California has put 103 Pagan materials from Gullveig Press including the book on an internal site that all residents’ can access from their tablets, reaching everyone in the second largest state prison population.

Awen has sent approximately 100 free written materials about Paganism, Wicca, Heathenry, African Diaspora Religions, Thelema, Druidry, Luciferianism, and other Pagan religions directly to the Chaplaincy for Texas TDCJ, the Chief Chaplains of South Carolina DOC, Illinois DOC, New Jersey DOC, North Carolina DOC, Massachusetts DOC, Virgina DOC, Connecticut DOC, Idaho DOC, New Hampshire DOC, Minnesota DOC, Maryland DPC, Arkansas DOC, Heads of Religious Programming for California CDCR, Georgia DOC, Florida DOC, New York DOCCS, Ohio DOC, Oregon DOC, Virgina DOC, Louisiana DOC, Oklahoma DOC, Kentucky DOC, New Mexico DOC, Alabama DOC, Mississippi DOC, Maine DOC, Nebraska DOC, Montana DOC, Pennsylvania DOC, Delaware DOC, West Virginia DOC, Kansas DOC, Washington DOC, Utah DOC, South Dakota DOC, Rhode Island DOC, Missouri DOC, Alaska DOC, Wyoming DOC, Michigan DOC, and Colorado DOC, all facilities in Vermont, Mental Health workers at TDCJ, and individual Chaplains or Coordinators at Iowa, Wisconson and Indiana state prisons.

These Chaplains, Mental Health workers, and Volunteer Coordinators also receive Awen’s Prison Rites, as described below. Awen also makes a free weekly newsletter for Pagans in Pennsylvania’s DOC prisons that other prison Chaplains and Volunteer Coordinators are welcome to print and distribute. To aid Chaplains in understanding the variety of Pagan religions, Awen made the free PAGAN Q&A for Chaplains. 

Most Pagans in state prisons cannot meet unless they have a volunteer present, which is sadly rare. Pagans generally do not volunteer and so a Buddhist volunteer may double as volunteer for the Pagan groups. For this reason, Awen was asked to write solitary rites for important Pagan holy days. These may be performed with only tap water, pencil, paper and the body. Eight times a year Awen emails three 2-page rituals: one for Wiccans about the Sabbat, one for those involved with Orisha Religions, and one for Heathens. They provide historical background information on the holy day and easy to do rites to celebrate them. She writes many essays and practices for incarcerated Pagans and sends materials from a wide variety of writers. To be included on the Gullveig Press Prison Rites mailing list, please contact us.

UPDATE: Heather Awen has created a series of materials for teaching pan-Pagan and specific Pagan religions. Wicca, Thelema, Luciferianism, Heathenry, African Diaspora Religions, animism, Druidry and different reconstructed polytheist religions are included in these essays. And of course, they are free! Focusing on theology, cosmology, ethics, self reflection, and critical thinking skills, they are made to help incarcerated Pagans take their practice to a deeper level. Other materials teach important skills from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to pathworking, including Magick based on the items easily found in prison. The only prison materials for people who are devoted to the Orisha and lwas have also been created. There’s even a handout on Santa Muerta.

Awen has made materials from the donated writing of authors such as former ADF Druidry Arch Druid Rev. Skip Ellison, Bob Trubshaw, Nimue Brown, and others. Trained in writing for people with low literacy skills, she makes these works more accessible. Reclaiming Tradition Witchcraft donated all of their songs, chants and guided meditations to prisons via Awen. Sheet music for original Pagan hymns was donated by the Church of Asphodel. 

The creator of the ALL Religions Prison Chaplain Resource List, Awen maintains the most comprehensive collection of free resources available to prison Chaplains and residents. The Resource List includes Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Native American Traditional, Jewish, Christian, Islam, and General Spirituality. If you are a prison Chaplain, volunteer, librarian, or otherwise work with prisoners and would like a list of the ALL Religions Prison Chaplain Resource List, please contact Gullveig Press.

Awen also connects busy Chaplains and Religious Coordinators with Pagan Prison Ministries. During the pandemic several states have been using closed circuit television or DVD viewing for all religious services and classes due to having no volunteers. Lady Crowmoon, Wiccan volunteer at 8 South Carolina prisons, has created a highly praised free series on Wicca, which she sends on a flash drive or by email, and offers a free DVD for each Sabbat. The Appalachian Pagan Ministry, active in 22 prisons, has a great Asatru series and a few Wiccan lessons available on their YouTube channel. They also send 2 free DVDs on Asatru to facilities, while offering the only free Pagan correspondence classes. These have allowed Pagan inmates who have never had a volunteer to learn from highly skilled Pagan clergy proper information tailored to the regulations of prison. Knowing how overworked prison staff are, Awen often coordinates the sending of the video content to different DOCs and individual facilities. She also provides Chaplains and Volunteer Coordinators with the contact information of Pagan Prison Ministries in their area if there is one. IF YOU ARE A PAGAN PRISON MINISTRY, PLEASE CONTACT GULLVEIG PRESS. IF YOU HAVE MADE EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS ON A PAGAN RELIGION THAT PRISONS MAY USE FOR FREE, PLEASE CONTACT GULLVEIG PRESS.

Gullveig Press also produces the Pagans in Prison Resource List. Copies are made for residents in prison and mailed to Pagans looking for pen pals. Via word of mouth, Gullveig Press receives many requests for the Pagans in Prison Resource List. If you would like a copy, please contact us or give our mailing address to any incarcerated Pagan: P.O. Box 126, St Johnsbury, VT 05819 (A self addressed stamped envelope is appreciated.) A letter for their Chaplain on the success of Gullveig Press in meeting the needs of prison Chaplains is included. In this way, the Pagans may advocate for other free, useful resources.

Awen emails Pagan materials to loved ones of Pagans in prison who will print and mail them. She also provides resources on other topics about incarceration. If you have a Pagan loved one in prison, please contact us for emailed materials.

Awen also organises the Vermont Prisons Diverse Religion Book Drive. Vodou manbo Sallie Ann Glassman is the first author other than Awen to donate copies of her book. If you have used, clean (no mold, writing, yellowing or dust) paperback books about Paganism, Buddhism, Hinduism, the occult, mythology, New Age topics, sci-fi/fantasy, yoga, tai chi, art, graphic novels, LGBTQ issues, starting and running a business, addiction or trauma recovery, history, and/or dictionaries, please contact us.

In these ways, Gullveig Press offers a wide variety of different ways for prison residents to learn accurate Pagan information and assists dedicated staff in providing their Pagan population with high quality religious educations.

Awen coordinates the Pagans in Prison Marketplace. 

Gullveig Press gratefully accepts donations of postage stamps, Amazon gift cards, credit at our locally owned copy shop, good condition used books and money. To help, please contact us.

“Three candles illuminate the darkness: knowledge, truth and nature.” – Irish Triads

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Steel Bars, Sacred Waters: Celtic Paganism for Prisoners

Cover Art by Carl Fairweather, Design by Armi Dee

Greetings! This is the Home page because we obviously want you to buy the book so we can afford to keep sending copies to prisoners! (We would be very happy to receive financial donations for that reason as well!)

However, below is our blog with all sorts of posts like how the book helped a transwoman who survived rape in prison start her PTSD recovery process, little known Germanic deities, further information on Celtic deities and Norse deities and religious practices, African Diaspora Religions, Indo-European religious practices, information about Pagans in prison, information from Pagans in prison, projects and resources for pen pals, quotes from academic peer-reviewed journals and the possible Celtic Festivals of several deities including Sulis, Telesphorus, Brigantia, Aine, Neto, Ataegina & Erecura, Mercury/Lug, Andraste, Taranus, the Alci, Abnoba, Erudinus, Albiorix, Ilurbeda, and many more! 

The Menu has information about supporting incarcerated Pagans– especially donating books on (almost) any topic, Resources for Pagans in Prison, information about Gullveig Press, Guide to Writing Pagan Prisoners, and Contact. Please explore!

The first release from Gullveig Press is now available! We’re proud to announce that the Celtic Paganism “all-in-one” book Steel Bars, Sacred Waters: Celtic Paganism for Prisoners has already become a well-loved treasure trove for Pagans on the outside and in prison alike. At 556 pages and 8.5″ x 11″ (21.59 x 27.94 cm) in size, you’ll be reading and rereading these essays, performing these rituals, and admiring the art for quite a long time. (Want to read some of the book just to make sure? Visit here for excerpts and check out our awesome contributors!)

Price for people in prison, Pagan Prison Ministries*, and prisoner rights organizations*: US $7.52 plus shipping and taxes. US $12 in continental USA. Australia US $17.50. BULK RATE: 5 copies for only $46.50 in continental USA! All Pagan prison ministries may have a FREE pdf version! The important thing is that these resources get to prisoners. We lose money but gain satisfaction by providing free and inexpensive resources to Pagans in prison. You volunteers know what I’m talking about!

Buy a copy for an incarcerated Pagan and receive a free pdf of the book! $12!

Price for people neither in prison nor involved in Pagan Prison Ministries or Activism: $24.00 (and whatever shipping fees and taxes apply; $4 in the continental United States). To order, contact us. ALL PROFITS GO TOWARDS PROVIDING COPIES TO PAGANS IN PRISON. Note: This is a lower price than on Amazon because Amazon takes a large cut. Australia: U.S.$ 30.00 including shipping and taxes. (The shipping and taxes are really high, so we give a discount.) The book is available at Amazon Canada and Amazon in Europe if shipping from the States is too expensive. (Live somewhere else? Contact us and we’ll find the cheapest shipping and make it more affordable like we’ve done for Australia!)

If you are buying a copy for someone in prison, a Prison Ministry, or to donate to a “free books to prisoners” organization, please contact us. Let us know the address of where you want the book shipped so we can calculate shipping costs and taxes. We will respond by email with the price including shipping and our PayPal account information. Copies for incarcerated persons or established “free books to prisoners” organization will be mailed directly to them once we receive payment. (Either choose a program here or we can choose for you.)

If you would like to share information about ordering Steel Bars, Sacred Waters with people in prison, thank you! Please let them know that they can send a MoneyGram to Gullveig Press, PO Box 126, St. Johnsbury, VT 05819. Continental USA price plus shipping and taxes: $12. Remind them to include their full name, prison ID number, and address.

Gullveig Press makes a 2 page Pagans in Prison Resources List, which we’re happy to email folks, or send to prisoners if they send a SASE. We also have other materials for incarcerated Pagan: check them out!

*For Prison Ministries (and other organizations helping prison in prison), we also need your mailing address for calculating shipping, along with the following information: who you are; what your organization is; what you do involving prisons; what prisons you serve; and a link to your website, so we can verify that you actually are working with Pagans in prison. We’ve actually had defunct Pagan organizations try to scam us!

Authored by Heather Awen, Rev Donna Donovan, Viducus Brigantici filius, Erynn Rowan Laurie, Hester Butler-Ehle, Eddie Marsson, Emma Restall Orr, Armi Dee

An “all-in-one” pan-Celtic polytheist resource of cosmology, deities, virtues, history, rituals, meditations, magic and the future of Celtic Paganism, rooted in scholarly research.

One of only three full-size books for incarcerated Pagans, Steel Bars, Sacred Waters also fulfills the need for a historically accurate guide to ancient Celtic religions that many have sought.

Highlights include:

• rituals for 11 traditional holy times and seasonal changes based on Gaelic, Gaulish, Welsh and Manx practices;
• information about (and invocations for and prayers to) 160 Celtic deities;
• the Other Life/Otherworld;
• daily practices for the Celtic Pagan;
• Celtic virtues and how they can be lived today;
• exploration of different Celtic cultures through time and space;
• Iberian Celtic deities never before included in a Pagan book;
• neglected Gaulish deities;
• how Celtic tribes adapted Roman religion to existing cults and created new ones;
• the cultural intermixing between Celts and Greeks, Celts and Germans, Celts and Norse Heathens;
• the “horse, head and hero” cult;
• modern and traditional meditations;
• documented Celtic magic;
• known teachings of the Druids;
• ogham divination guide;
• Celtic mythology in context, with explanations of how political factors from the times they were written affected the versions we have today;
• proto-Celto-Germanic-Finnish words used by some Indo-Europeans 4,000 years ago and the Gaelic, Germanic and Norse deities, rituals and magic that continued from them;
• common practices among Celtic peoples worldwide;
• sacrifice and hospitality;
• maps of the Celtic world, with cities, tribes, temples, rivers and other places of interest mentioned in the essays on history and deities;
• The Oran Mor (Song of the World);
• moon rituals;
• working with ancestors;
• animism and land spirits, especially in lands new to Celtic Paganism;
• the connection between Lugus and Woden;
• Celts in a multicultural society of many polytheist cults;
• land, sea and sky cosmology;
• 5 directions of Ireland cosmology;
• Gaelic and Welsh mantras;
• the file (poet-prophet);
• Celtic heroes and heroines;
• the Fianna (hunter-warrior band);
• saining (Scottish purification);
• devotional polytheism, the community and the environment;
• root meaning of Norse seidR and its ancient link to Celtic magical religious practices;
• the king-making ritual;
• the British Old North, a unique mixture of Britons, Angles, Gaels and Picts, home to “Merlin”, ancient poetry, and Hiberno-Saxon art;
• pathworking (guided meditations) to different deities;
• cloud scrying and other forms of divination;
• the Neolithic roots of the swine cult;
• instructions for making a St Brigid’s Cross;
• why Anglo-Saxon and Brythonic magic is so similar;
• making and working with prayer beads;
• the role of ritual music and improvising ancient Celtic instruments;
• Celtic funeral practices;
• the importance of ecological issues in modern Celtic Paganism;
• journaling questions about essays;
• pronunciation of deities’ names and important terms;
• shrines;
• the political, legal structure of kingdoms;
• Fairies;
• Celtic openness about homosexuality;
• Celtic astronomy;
• explanations for why Celtic Paganism cannot be Folkish, racist, homophobic or limited to Ireland and the British Isles;
• visions of Celtic Paganism’s future;
• Celtic Paganism and the 12 step program and CBT, DBT and ACT therapies;
• forming and maintaining a diverse Pagan group;
• drawing and creative writing exercises;
• recipes for “make do” crafts including papier mache, print making, and the 6th century paint glair used in medieval manuscripts;
• around 100 drawings or photographs of archeological finds, depictions of Celtic deities both ancient and modern and Celtic culture;
• crossword puzzles;
• resources for incarcerated Pagans;
• and much more.

Although written for Pagans in prison who are possibly alone with only paper, pencil and tap water, “outside” Pagans are provided with the background information to expand their own practices. A valuable tool for Pagan Prison Ministries, volunteers and penpals, Steel Bars, Sacred Waters was partially shaped by communication with Pagans in prison. Their needs were generally no different than those of frustrated Pagans on the outside seeking an accurate education about the Celts. The main difference was lack of access to books, services and especially the Internet, where so much research is scattered. Both communities needed that research organized, including the recent Iberian, Balkan, Gallo-Roman and Celto-Germanic discoveries. The result is a book that explores the ancient Celtic peoples and their religions from Ireland to Turkey, Portugal to Ukraine, and their role in over 1,000 years of European history. The Celts influenced the cultures with whom they interacted and were changed by those near them – including other Celts.

All profits go to supplying Pagans in prison with copies of the book. The U.S. incarcerates 1% of its population, more than any other nation. Most convictions are connected to addiction. The American prison population is 8-12% Pagan. This means that 1 in 1000 Americans are incarcerated Pagans! Providing low cost, high quality information to Pagans in prison is the goal of Gullveig Press.

Please note: The content by Laurie, Restall Orr and Butler-Ehle have been published elsewhere or are available online.

Book with 4 quarters to show large size

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Us versus Them

“Being a victim of oppression in the United States is not enough to make you revolutionary, just as dropping out of your mother’s womb is not enough to make you human. People who are full of hate and anger against their oppressors or who only see Us versus Them can make a rebellion but not a revolution. The oppressed internalize the values of the oppressor. Therefore, any group that achieve power, no matter how oppressed, is not going to act differently from their oppressors as long as they have not confronted the values that they have internalized and consciously adopted different values.”

Grace Lee Boggs

Stance on Odinism

This is what the Pagans in Prison Resource Center tells the Department of Corrections and Chaplains and Volunteer Coordinators it works with:

If I may, I’d like to share a heart warming story with you. Someone in a TDCJ (Texas) prison saw a man walking around with my book, Steel Bars Sacred Waters: Celtic Paganism for Prisoners. I have bought and donated many copies for books-to-prisoners organizations, which is how he got the copy over 2 years ago. After studying it, the man entered TDCJ’s program for getting out of gangs. He learned the truth: There’s no place for racism, homophobia or transphobia in Paganism. I personally do not support racist Odinist groups who unfortunately have been using prisons to convert frightened white men into fascist boot boys. I believe in the freedom of speech and religion, so my materials are of course available for these types of Odinists. However, they are to Heathenry what the KKK is to Christianity. They definitely not the norm for Heathens and Norse Pagans. I come from a very long line of Society of Friends. My ancestors were refused entrance to the Salem colony because of being “free thinkers”. They founded one of the first European people towns at that time where religion was not criteria, slavery was abolished, all children had free education and women had equal power. Although Pagan, I chose to do my Bachelor’s degree at a Quaker college. Freedom of religion is obviously very important to me.

I have written with Odinist godis in prison who honestly believe they are not racist but “of course” won’t allow people who are not of European descent to join the religion. This breaks down simply into who in a race riot will identify as white. I understand their fear experiencing their first time as a racial minority. However, their claim that they follow the Native American blood quotum rule for tribal standing is also rooted in racism. That law was created by a white American government and is not traditional for Native American nations. It has caused a lot of pain for children of people from two different Native American nations and European and African people who don’t qualify for either parent’s American government’s legal tribal standing.

Also, unless you want to pay for DNA testing for everyone in prison, it is generally accepted that most Black Americans have European ancestors due to rape and the European tradition of having a mistress whose household expenses and children are financially supported by the man. The first ever Pagan Prison Ministry was by Marie LaVaeu the elder, herself a “free person of color”: the child of a woman from the Kongo kingdoms and a white, married French man who in his will emancipated both his long term lover and their children. If having European ancestry is the criteria for Odinism, you would be hard pressed to find a Black, Native or Latinx American who does not have European ancestry and thus qualify.

I suggest that you offer “Heathen” as an alternative to “Odinist”. Heathens include a much greater diversity without the racist, homophobic, transphobic, and sometimes sexist aspects often found in Odinism. It is solely based on what deities you worship and how. For ancient Germanic speaking tribes (including Norse) belonging to a tribe was not solely based your ancestry. You spoke the language (unless deaf or mute), practiced similar traditions and were a good member of the community. Celtic, Slavic, Roman, Finnish, Saami and people of other cultures married Germanic speaking people and they followed the traditions of the people of which spouse’s land they lived on, sometimes with private other practices. If language is the criteria, then anyone who says Thursday would get Thor’s attention because Thursday means Thor’s day. English is a Germanic language.

In fact, the Germanic speaking tribes are the only Indo-European linguistic group for which there is no genetic marker! They were so actively involved with the not Indo-Eurpean Neolithic European and early Finnish-Saami speaking people as well as Bronze and Iron Age Celtic cultures, the Pagans that Odinism are very loosely based on are known as the only genetic “mutts” of the Indo-European speaking cultures.

If you have any questions about Heathenry and these issues, please contact me. Many Pagans in prison have written me, saying that they don’t want to be gangs. Or they are gay or Black and cannot worship their Norse deities with others. Religion should not be based on race riots. We are Americans in the 21st century who live nothing like an 8th century Icelandic farmstead (which would have been 25% Christian Irish and Scottish women). Pagans worldwide have always brought in other cultures’ deities – the more the merrier for a polytheist. No people own the deities and they simply never have.

The End

So we’re at the end.

No, Gullveig Press isn’t going anywhere. We’re still going in debt sending Pagan prisoners the Pagans in Prison Resources List. We’re searching prison pen pal ads and connecting with people who care about the people living in barbaric conditions – actually, violating human rights if you care about what the laws say – to make sure that at least those who are Pagan can get affordable information on over a dozen Pagan religions. We contact prison Chaplains and create, collect and email Pagan materials around the nation. We are starting an annual anthology for Pagans in prison. It’s not the least we can do; the next stage is a guide to evidence-based psychological skills.

Yep. PTSD breathing, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, mindfulness, radical acceptance, value based living, and some tools from DBT – The tools for managing the painful mental illnesses many prisoners learn they have, as they are given dangerous drugs erratically and receive absolutely no therapy in prison. No one else is doing it and that’s the spirit of Gullveig Press. What needs to be done and how can we have a direct impact? Most of the time we don’t need an authority figure to solve our problems, because as a species we are designed to work together. Just do something, one step, and then another. It’s how we change the world.

But we’re stopping the blog. Oh, the information on resources will stay updated. How to easily donate books of any type is still provided. We hope that you will write an incarcerated Pagan. You probably interact online with people who have committed felonies in your online community. I personally know that many of our Pagan elders are felons – they just weren’t caught growing that weed.

The blog was merely to bring attention to the needs of Pagan prisoners. To give pen pals and loved ones of Pagan prisoners some ideas about how to help. To get you to buy a great book so others with no resources could read it. To lure you to the Solutions that are working to improve the functional literacy rate of prisoners and expand their minds with your donated used books. To teach you about the 1 in 100 Americans in prison – that’s the parents of 1 in 27 children. No other nation in the world imprisons more of its population – and 1 in 1000 Americans are now incarcerated Pagans, usually because they learned about the religions in prison. From really crappy overstock books.

(OK, the blog also met my passionate desire to share information about deities that most people would have never heard of, or heard of, but had misinformation. It’s been an honor and I especially hope that the recently recovered Celtic deities of the Iberian peninsula get some loving!)

But in 2 years, not one visitor to the blog ever even clicked the link to find out where to donate used books. A couple did go to Kroger website to choose Athens Books to Prisoners. Maybe some of you made Providence Books Behind Bars your Amazon Smile charity; there’s no way to know. And one miraculous Aussie sent $36, which turned into surprise copies of Steel Bars, Sacred Waters: Celtic Paganism for Prisoners to prisoners writing Gullveig Press for Pagan resources.

Not one post about prisoners was been viewed. Not one.

Which means that the blog failed.

Instead of wasting precious spoons on trying to get the Pagan “community” to be inclusive and involved in service to the less fortunate, we’re going straight to the people who care about Gullveig Press: prisoners. You have the Internet, so you can research papers on academia.edu. You appreciate that privilege, right? Others don’t have it.

We’re staying committed to transformative justice that focuses on the actual needs of victims, demands accountability from those who harm, and heals a shattered society that breeds suffering, so one day it will be a society where everyone recovers. A society of support and accountability, that matches our values of truth, knowledge and nature.

It’s never too late to donate some books.

 

Suggested Reading:

Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement, edited by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ejeris Dixon, AK Press, 2020

We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities by Zach Harris, Beacon Press, 2020

 

activist- artist- Witch Jessica Caponigro

Thank you for Making this Best Earth Day Ever

“People” have lied to us, saying that we can’t cut carbon emissions. Human beings can’t possibly live without cars and airplanes. And yet, as we’ve all grieved for loved ones dead from the pandemic, especially in our African American communities, those exiled to the streets, and those in institutional living facilities: our elders, prisoners and people with chronic illness and disability like me in nursing homes*, we have also proved that we can cut carbon emissions and live without cars and airplanes. We have chosen to save human lives by social distancing (which is nothing like solitary confinement) and without knowing it, caused a miracle:

The cleanest air quality worldwide in 75 years.

“They” said it couldn’t be done. “They” are usually wrong and want to manipulate you into apathy, depression and self-destruction. “They” underestimate the Power you have, your shining beauty of self resilience. “They” want you to forget that everything is ashe and we are children of ashe, shapers of ashe and have at least as much ashe as “they” do.

If you ever doubted yourself, your power, your visions for the world, your dreams, your ability to see and affect real change, remember this moment. “They” were wrong. We can make the planet a better place. And you still talked on the phone, visited on Skype, ordered pizza, re-read your favorite books, put on a mask and sat out on the stoop hearing bird song, wore your most comfy PJs, listened to your favorite playlists, smoked your weed, had yoga class on Zoom, used your CBT skills, cast spells, and knew that whatever fears about your finances and loved ones you have, you were not alone because your problems are finally the focus of mainstream media.

Until there is a proven safe in the long run vaccine, which my doctors say is not going to happen soon and they certainly wouldn’t be the beta testers (the first six years of a medication or vaccine is on the market is the beta test – I’ve unknowingly been a beta tester of medication no longer on the market), you and the rest of us will rely on what has allowed the human species to thrive on 6 continents: creativity; communication; community; curiosity.

You are not in solitary confinement. You are choosing to keep people safe and inadvertently make the planet a place that can support your and other people’s lives. If you will continue to make choices and create “new normals” to keep human beings safe and make the planet a place that can support your and other people’s lives, especially the most marginalised folks, I don’t know. 

I just know that you did and you can.

Many blessings on you. I am not a misanthropic self-hating “environmentalist” – I am a part of Nature environmentalist.

My professional ecologist friend had emailed me saying that the scientific community was following a virus in China. It was the long overdue “it event” they’d been bracing for: something that would kill humans – and of course the most disenfranchised people would be hit the hardest (social isolation doesn’t exist in the shanty towns surrounding Rio and the slums of Calcutta) – and improve the quality of life for every other species. I said “I was in Toronto during SARS, and my “it event” (chemical poisoning by the Episcopal Bishop living in a Manhattan penthouse and the Vestry of Trinity Church in Saugerities, NY) happened.”

Last week his mother was barely conscious and is dying from COVID-19.

Three candles illuminate the darkness: truth, knowledge, nature. Light those air cleaning beeswax candles, protect those candles already burning, and banish ignorance, apathy and depression.

The canals in Venice have jellyfish. A miracle “they” said we couldn’t control our greed enough to allow to happen. Take the miracles when you can.

*  I am considered in need of nursing home level care. Right now, it’s good luck that Mast Cell Activation Syndrome means a nursing home just like a hospital, dentist or Red Cross emergency shelter under normal circumstances would possibly kill me. The book Steel Bats, Sacred Waters was not written only for people in prisons, the “proven to not help the victims or community” punitive “justice” system.

It was also written for those who are trapped in medical institutional living facilities – where your SSI check is taken and in exchange someone else controls your meals, doesn’t allow sex, doesn’t allow you a glass of wine or cannabis tincture, doesn’t allow an overnight guest, has confined you to a room with a stranger, usually in conditions that don’t exactly meet the requirements to stay open, but stay open because they tell us that there’s no other way to keep enough of these “healing” places open if the health rules were strictly followed.

You, too, get SBSW for $12. If you are ink intolerant like myself, of course you should email me. I am banned from books I want to read, too.

For the prisoners of all “living facilities” – I wrote the book for you as well. It says so in the dedication. If we organize and fight back, we shall overcome. You are not forgotten. Please join the Disability Justice movement and know that there are other hidden people who are ignored by the media making differences for our oppressed communities. Don’t believe “their” hype. You are powerful and you matter.

Ancient Pagan Festivals in May

Please copy this for your Pagan pen pal in prison. Make sure that you already sent the weekly and monthly guide.

The Anglo-Saxon name for May is Thrimilci which translates into “three milkings a day.” Cows enjoyed fresh grass.

May is named for Roman Goddess Maia, who was similar to Terra Mater (Mother Earth). On May 1 Maia was worshipped with the sacrifice of a pregnant sow.

Beltain is the Gaelic festival beginning the light half of the year. Cattle were moved to the summer fields, protected by the tribe’s young men. Herbs that kill ticks and parasites were tossed in bonfires for both cattle and human purification. (In the cold winter farm animals often slept in the home.) A lot happens in Welsh mythology now: Rhiannon is sighted on horseback by Her future first husband. Scottish fairy queens are especially active, perhaps as fertility spirits, so it is bad luck to marry (especially wearing green, their favorite color). Ancient British Celtic tribes made large animal sacrifices around Beltain and Samhain. A transitional time, communication with the dead and divination are easier.

In Haitian Vodou, May 1 honors Azaka Medeh. Although kind, He is suspicious of city people and fears they will steal from him. He is a rural farmer associated with agriculture and loves to eat.

On May 1 the Romans honored Bona Dea (“Good Goddess”), She who cares for women. Bona Dea particularly cares for pregnant women, whether they choose to have a baby or an abortion. Her temple garden grew medicinal herbs that healed the sick who visited. Sitting on a throne, depicted as holding a cornucopia, Bona Dea is associated with the healing snake, with consecrated snakes even living in Her temple. Her father Faunus beat Her with a myrtle stick after getting Her drunk, so never say “wine” or “myrtle” in Her presence!

The Lares Praestites (“Standby Lares”) also had a ritual May 1. The Lares are the protective household spirits; the two Lares Praestites protected the Roman state as Their home.

Lemuria was a time in early May when the terrifying, hungry ghosts (lemures) of those who died too young could return home and harm the living. The head of the family spit out black beans for the ghosts to take instead of living kin. Crashing bronze items together loudly, he’d yell, “Ghosts of my ancestors be gone!” Lemuria was very old.

May 11 is sacred to the mother of the Lares, Mania (“Good One”), who is a death Goddess. Cakes shaped like ugly humans were offered to Mania. Dolls of Mania were hung on the front door to ward off threats.

On May 14 Romans purified their city of the past year’s evil by making 30 puppets from rushes called the Argei. Citizens gathered with Priests and Vestal Virgins on a bridge over the Tiber River and threw the Argei into the water. One Priestess, her hair uncombed, grieved the puppets’ deaths.

The 15th is sacred to the hunter Orisha Ochosi who helps with court cases, justice and balance.

The Mercuralia, in honor of Mercury, Roman God of commerce and travel, was honored by merchants on May 15 (or the full moon). Mercury was incredibly popular with the Celtic Gauls in modern France, Germany and the Alps.

In Rome the last week of May focused on an ancient Italian Goddess, Fortuna Primigenia (“Bringer of Increase”), a luck Goddess. At Her temple worshipers prayed for answers then randomly chose messages inscribed on oak from a chest. Without Priestly guidance, they deciphered what the meaning of the message was.

The end of May was also the time of the ancient rural festival Ambarvalia (“Beating of the Bounds”). Any evil in a Roman farmer’s fields was purified by a procession marking the farm’s boundaries to be protected by Mars. Ceres, grain Goddess, and Bacchus, vineyard God, also received sacrifices for the continued growth of crops. Everyone including animals did not work that day. Humans abstained from sex. Ritual hand washing began the ceremony and the oxen’s horns were decorated with garlands. A bull, sow and sheep were part of the procession that circled the farm’s boundaries three times as Ceres was invited to move into the fields. Then the three animals were sacrificed.

May 29 is the festival of ancient agricultural Goddess Dea Dia, whose worship was organized by the 12 Arval Brethren (“Field Brothers”), of whom the Roman Emperor was one. Her grove had Her temple, a dining hall and a bathing complex.

Lost Yoruban Women’s Ogun Snake Rites, Marie LaVeau & Religion in Dahomey

T Shirt my mother brought me from Haiti which I later framed – Heather Awen VIVE LA LIBERTE

April 20th is the birthday of activist and Priestess of Oshun Luisha Teish. Her book Jambalaya was the first title I ever bought hard cover because I was too excited for the cheaper paper back to be released. I had studied what little was available on Haitian Vodou because my mother was there in the 1986 revolution. Teish made me aware of other African Diaspora Religions including the Orisha and Marie LaVeau. She’s also the only person I have ever paid to attend a spiritual workshop.

(I didn’t know that Teish is part of the “Trans women are men who will rape us” nonsense and hate speech! So horrible when people only want what they believe in to be true. I doubt she’d be so keen on racism and sexism. What has happened to those who were once progressive? Now they are the oppressor.)

There’s a lot of African traditional religious practices that didn’t carry over into the modern neo-Yoruban religions like Lucumi. However, here’s one that is found in Marie LaVeau’s Congo Square dances. First a little African religious history for context.

“According to myth, there were no voduns in Dahomey until Agaja demanded that they be brought into the kingdom. Until that time, women of Dahomey gave birth to goats, and goats gave birth to humans. In order to alleviate this imbalance in nature, eleven voduns were carried en masse from the Fon heartland in Adja to Abomey. Among these were Hevioso, Gu, Dã, Fa, and Legba. Only upon summoning the voduns and showing them devotion were natural reproductive capacities restored, humans giving birth to humans, goats to goats. Thus, regional history was rewritten, attributing the birth and regeneration of a new people to Agaja’s embrace of a pan-Dahomean cast of divinities. Contrary to the myth, the term “vodun” was in wide circulation in the region from as early as 1658, when Capuchin missionaries in Allada equated “vodun” with “god.” Hevioso, the vodun of thunder, originated in the small village of Hevie, halfway between Abomey and Ouidah. Other voduns had originated in Yorubaland before spreading across the region, some even to Abomey.

“Until the rise of the empire of Dahomey, there was no formal, centralized acknowledgment of the deities diffused throughout the region. Only when Dahomeans began co-opting the local deities of the peoples they conquered did the official pantheon of vodun actually emerge. Reproduction and regeneration were at stake as the nascent empire teetered. In response, Agaja instituted a policy of appropriating the deities of conquered peoples, importing their shrines and priests to Abomey, where they were integrated into the official royal pantheon.”

– Domingos Álvares, African healing, and the intellectual history of the Atlantic world James H. Sweet. 2011 The University of North Carolina Press

However, in the roots of Voodoo and Hoodoo, enslaved Africans shared what they could of their various religions.

“The primary African components from which Hoodoo would be constituted were drawn from a range of different African ethnic cultures that stretched from the area now known as Senegal down the West African coast to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Because it concerned the transformation of a variety of traditional African religions into one spiritual tradition, Hoodoo must have involved a major confrontation of spiritual forces. The early disintegration process included a great reduction in ability not only to ritualize across the life cycle, but also to engage openly in significant events, which would help to stabilize and enrich the psychocultural continuity in the slave community. The most sacred of Christian symbols, the cross, resonated both with African notions of the crossroads as a supernatural site and with the sacred cross of the Kongo Yowa cosmogram. The symbol represents the Bakongo people’s view of the universe and the place of humankind in that universe. Among other qualities, it symbolizes the movement from the otherworld of the ancestors as they travel in a dynamic cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

“Southwest Hoodoo region, was centered in the Gulf Coast/New Orleans/Mobile area; this area would include the western Florida panhandle, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi and extend westward into eastern Texas and northward to Missouri and Tennessee. In this region, the Senegambian, Mande speakers, particularly the Bambara in Louisiana, would leave a fortified cultural legacy that recognizably contributed directly to Hoodoo development. The Bambara in particular were concentrated in such numbers there, that a Bambara interpreter was installed in the New Orleans court system. Their best-known and documented contribution to Hoodoo may be in the fabrication of protective amulets known by a variety of Mande labels, including gerregery (gris-gris), wanga, and zinzin. Other groups in area one include those from the Yoruba, Fon, and Ewe cultural complex as well as from Central West Africa or the Kongo-Angola-Zaire area.”

– Mojo Workin’: the old African American Hoodoo System by Katrina Hazzard-Donald, University of Illinois 2013

I share these to provide historical context of how a 19th century Yoruban Ogun tradition may have had a similar practice in 19th century New Orleans. Here’s the Yoruban history:

“For an instance of female devotion to Ogun, there was the female butcher noted by E. M. Lijadu far away at Ondo in 1892. As she went into her stall in the market, she gathered up her iron implements, split kola and threw the pieces several times over them, and offered some incantations. To Lijadu’s question, she said she was “consulting Aje the goddess of money through Ogun the god of iron [and that] Aje promises to send me many customers with much money to carry home after the market.” This Ogun–Aje linkage is attested from elsewhere; and as a woman’s ritual directed at personal wealth, it may perhaps be seen as practically analogous to the cult of Ori, which was popular among wealthy women in central and southwestern Yorubaland but apparently absent from the East. As described here by Lijadu, such elements of the ritual as breaking kola over iron tools seem identical to those practiced by male workers with iron.

“But the main way in which Ogun appears in the CMS journals as an object of women’s worship is quite different: not as iron but as a snake. It was not exclusively a women’s cult, though women were most active in it (as indeed in most forms of orisha worship). The most dramatic account of the cult of Ogun as snake comes from Ijaye in 1855: “It was the annual Ifa festival of the Ar Kurunmi, despotic ruler of the town, and large crowds had gathered before the gate of his compound. Most of them were said to be “worshippers of the orisa called Ogun or snake,” for Kurunmi’s late mother had been one of its principal devotees, and this was in remembrance of her. Lots of snakes of different sizes from different parts of the town were brought to “play” with Kurunmi, but he wouldn’t allow them inside his house since (says the African catechist Charles Phillips) he was afraid of them.” The cult was most publicly manifest when its members went about the town with their Ogun snakes, offering blessings in the god’s name and receiving gifts (in essence, sacrices) of cowries in return. A traveling Methodist missionary was visited by a female “snake charmer” at Oyo in the early 1890s. Our last glimpse of the cult is again in lbadan, when a European woman missionary encounters “sitting by the roadside an old woman, an Ogun worshipper with a huge snake coiled round the body, and she asking alms of the people. ”

From Christianity, Islam, and Orisa Religion: Three Traditions in Comparison and Interaction by J. D. Y. Peel, available for FREE here at University of California, Luminosoa.

On to Marie LaVeau!

“The drummer started a slow beat; a trumpet made from an animal’s horn sounded four long notes. The gathering had begun. As Marie Laveau crossed Rampart Street and neared Congo Square, the multi-leveled roofs of the French Quarter and the spires of St. Louis Cathedral rose behind her. At the entrance to the dance plaza, she passed market women selling their wares—pecan pies, spruce beer, Louisiana rum, and pralines filled with peanuts, coconut, or popcorn. Marie had left the corsets, petticoats, and heavy undergarments she wore to church that Sunday morning at home. In their stead, she chose a loose, low-necked cotton dress that permitted easy movement in the subtropical humidity and allowed the Great Serpent Spirit to enter and use her body. Her gold earrings and bracelets flashed in the sun, and her tignon—a vividly colored madras handkerchief wound as a turban—stood high in seven points. The policemen stationed at each of the four gates to Congo Square watched the crowd part as Marie Laveau passed. They were waiting for her.

“When Marie Laveau’s magical spells, commanding presence, or strategic bribery had taken hold, the police relented and joined the crowds to watch her perform. Marie slipped off her shoes and walked to the center where magical lines from the four corners and the four gates intersected. As was her custom, she knelt on the ground and rapped three times. The crowd loved the one-two-three rhythm and shouted it with her—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Faith, Hope, and Charity. Then from a box near her feet, she lifted a fat snake. The earth-toned creature—probably a Louisiana Coluber—was not poisonous, but it stretched twelve to twenty feet and entwined itself in undulating coils about the body of the priestess.

“Marie signaled the band and began to move with slow, sinuous grace. Bare soles flat on the packed earth of Congo Square, she shifted her weight from one ankle to another, then to her knees, thighs, hips, torso, and up to her shoulders. Her feet never lifted from the ground; she swayed in waves like the movement of snakes. Other women joined her and danced within their own tight circles or rings, some no larger than ten feet in diameter. Many waved white handkerchiefs “extended by the corners in their hands.” Men with bracelets of bells on their calves danced in circles around the women. Sometimes they balanced bottles of rum or other spirits on their heads. They mimicked fighting and leaped into the air in displays of gymnastic ferocity.

“On the Sunday afternoons when Marie Laveau herself danced, Congo Square was spirit theater. Marie devoured drumbeat, song, and motion. They drove her from her body, out of her social identity, and into the climax of spirit possession. As the snake curled about her, she called to its soul in song—“Come Great Serpent Spirit. Join us, Le Grand Zombi.” The serpent spirit entered her, became who she was; they whirled as one in ecstasy and awe. “He comes, the Great Serpent. Comes to make things happen. Comes to face down death.”

“Marguerite Darcantel, mother to the first queen and grandmother to the second, was—the gumbo ya-ya says—a fever nurse, hoodoo doctor, and Voodoo practitioner. People said she was a descendant of a Christian slave from the Kingdom of Kongo, a long line of Native American herbalists and healers, and several French and Spanish aristocrats. The gumbo ya-ya says that Marie’s mother’s mother came directly to Louisiana from the Central African kingdom and passed on spiritual customs to her daughter and granddaughter that resemble those of the ngangas or mediums, priestesses, or shamans of widespread religious movements in Kongo.”

– Voodoo Queen: the spirited lives of Marie Laveau Martha Ward. University Press of Mississippi (2004)

Who is Le Grand Zombi?

“Marie Laveau drew upon the teachings and practices of Saint-Domingue and Africa for her work. In naming her famous snake “Li Grand Zombi,” Laveau paid homage not to shambling animated corpses but to a powerful spirit—the Kongo creator Nzambi. According to Kongo legend, Nzambi created the heavens, the earth, and the animals. Then, after creating man and woman, he taught them how to survive in his world and how to harness the magical power of his creation. By using those teachings they could break the blazing droughts and bring down the summer rain; they could heal sickness and ensure fertile crops. They could also communicate with the mpungas, deceased ancestors and nature spirits who assisted Nzambi in maintaining his creation.

“In Haiti, Vodouisants honor the Simbi family of lwa. Like the basimbi, snake spirits living in the rivers and streams of southern Africa, the Simbis are known to be shy but powerful magicians. Those who approach them with due patience and respect and gain their trust find they are powerful allies who can act as intermediaries between the worlds of flesh and spirit and life and death. Within New Orleans, believers and practitioners considered Li Grand Zombi a benevolent protector and wise teacher. In New Orleans the snake served simultaneously to advertise to one’s clientele and to set them apart as outsiders. This is similar to Simbi’s liminal position in Haiti. As a traveler between worlds, Simbi is tough to pin down. One of the most popular Simbis, Simbi Andezo, literally resides “in two waters” (an de zo), occupying the space where freshwater meets the salty ocean. Li Grand Zombi is similarly placed between public Voodoo rituals for tourists and private devotions, between religion and entertainment, between African roots and American money-making spectacles. In this, he is a fitting patron for the city of New Orleans and its religion.”

– The New Orleans Voodoo Handbook by Kenaz Filan. Destiny Books (2011)

I know that Hoodoo and conjure are popular topics for Witches. If you are really committed to understanding the various African Diaspora Religions, read more than spells and dig into the fascinating history of West and Central Africa, horrors of European style slavery of Africans, and the spiritual legacy the two created. Things will make sense on many levels of interconnectedness. Try these books!

BRITISH PAGAN ALERT! Moon Books & other UK Pagan Publishers!

Haven Books to Prisoners

On top of buying British prisoners dictionaries to prisoners learning English, helping prisoners with dyslexia, and aiding prisoners in buying text books,

“Haven also provides prisoners a free catalogue of donated books from publishers, and books that are bought cheaply from remainder bookshops. These books range from Social Sciences such as Philosophy and Criminology, to Black Interest and political science, plus some fiction and graphic novels.”

So if you are a British publishing company, please contact Haven if you have copies to donate!

 SHOP ON AMAZON.UK?

 “(You can help by b)uying anything from Amazon through this affiliate link to www.amazon.co.uk. Haven receives a donation of 5% of everything you buy after following this link (excluding shipping and VAT).

“Haven provides essential tools for the creation of a resettled life after prison, without crime, providing a cost-effective service and an investment in the future of the growing number of applicants who seek our support.

“Thank you to those who donated for our Radio 4 Appeal; we managed to raise over £16,000. Listen to our appeal for support:

“My support for Haven books stems from my own prison experience. When I went to prison for life in 1984 I had no hope or any sense at all that I would or could ever again live any kind of a contributing life. If anything I was relieved that my destructive life was effectively over. Life outside had been painful for me, but more importantly painful for other people because of me. I entered prison an inarticulate, ill-educated brute – but luckily I was literate. Books provided a gateway into education and through education I learned a better way to live.

“Despite the best efforts of various prison libraries however, getting hold of the right books was always a struggle. Sometimes it took months to locate a particular textbook. It was three years before I owned my own dictionary. Significantly I think, the most popular requests to Haven even today are for dictionaries.

“Over the years I counted books among my best friends in prison. They gave me hope, for sure – but more than anything they were the practical means to achieving a life worth living. When the chance came for me to write for the Guardian newspaper from my prison cell fifteen years into my sentence I realised that unwittingly I had been preparing for the opportunity with books. Books inspired me to become a writer and for the first time in my life enabled me to become a contributor to my society.

“I have never considered myself to be a spokesman for prisoners, but I met hardly anyone during my twenty years inside who did not have the desire to change and a yearning to live a crime free life. Without books few of us would ever make it. For that reason I applaud the ideals of Haven books. Every book this tiny organisation sends into a prison represents a potential key to a better life for the individual recipient – and to a safer community for everyone.”

Erwin James is a Guardian columnist and author of two books: A Life Inside and The Home Stretch. He is a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust and a patron of the charity CREATE, which promotes the arts and creative activities among marginalized groups. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (FRSA) and an Honorary Master of the Open University (MUniv.)

Celtic Goddesses & Women of Prophecy: Velonsae, Fedelm, Veleda & the Gaulish Sorceresses, the Uidlua

Yarn magic, sorcery and prophecy are all words rooted in an ancient Celto-Germanic Indo-European linguistic change. This change is believed to have happened in the early Bronze Age before there even was a proto-Celtic language. (For more information especially about the archeological evidence connecting the proto-Celtic people in Spain and the proto-Germanic people in Scandinavia, please click here.) In this change, the proto-Indo-European word for “yarn, string” became the Celtic root for sorcery, while for the Germanic peoples it eventually became the word seidR.

We know that the Germanic tribes believed some women had psychic prophetic powers. Thiota of the Alemannic-Frankish people, the Semnones’ seeress Ganna, and Waluburg who went with German soldiers to Egypt are documented by the Romans in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. In the 5th century the Christian Goths blamed the Huns on the Haliarunnos, their Pagan wise women who consulted the dead. This is similar to the work of a volva in the Icelandic sagas when she performed seidR, holding her staff. Ganna and Waluburg come from Germanic words for “wand” and may have been titles like volva.

The Romans recorded that Veleda was a Bructerian priestess who prophesied during a Germanic and Gaulish rebellion against Roman rule. Veleda was assumed by many to speak a Germanic language, but further investigation points to a Celtic name. Until the Romans decided that everyone living northwest of the Rhine was Germanic speaking and everyone to the southwest of the Rhine was Gaulish and then attempted to reinforce that, in reality tribes could have spoken either, both or even possibly a unique combination of the languages. The Belgae region (roughly in the area of and around modern Belgium) was most likely Celto-Germanic Iron Age mix, with the Celtic name Belgae meaning “swelling with battle rage.” In dress, lifestyle and housing there was little difference between the two. A German tribe is known to have helped a Gaulish ally in their battles against another Gaulish tribe, and it probably wasn’t that unusual for temporary alliances to have been made. We find this in the rebellion against the Roman Empire, guided by Veleda. Although the rebellion failed, Veleda is supposed to have impressed the Romans so much that she was brought to Rome. (Veleda is pronounced more like Weleda.)

The Romans assumed Veleda was a personal name, but it is linguistically connected with the Old Irish title velet or fili, “bard, poet,” the Welsh gweled, “seer,” and the Gaulish uidlua, “sorceress.” Modern Gaulish Reconstuctionist Segomâros Widugeni uses the term welitâ, a “female mystic associated with seership and the sovereignty complex” who “Carried the Weaver’s Beam as a badge of office.” Gifts from the bride to the groom of expertly woven fabrics were an important part of the Hallstatt and later Gaulish marriage ceremonies. The Celtic king-making ceremony is believed to have involved a symbolic marriage to a high ranking woman who offered him ale or mead. The woman represented the sovereignty of the land and was most likely a file or welitâ, depending on where in the vast Celtic-speaking world the ceremony took place.

This nicely brings us to the seeress in the great Irish saga Tain Bo Cuailnge, Fedelm Noíchrothach (“nine times beautiful”). Because her name appears between other Goddesses’ names such as Macha, some believe that Fedelm was originally considered a Goddess. Fedelm makes Her appearance when Queen Medb (a Gaelic sovereignty Goddess of intoxication) is about to leave with Her army. She arrives wearing red in a chariot drawn by two black horses, described as a beautiful young woman with three braids, two coiled on her head and another hanging to her calves. Each eye has three pupils. She holds a gold weaver’s beam, an object commonly associated with fate in Indo-European mythology. Some scholars believe her name is linguisticly linked to Veleda.

Another Goddess linked to Veleda is the Celtiberian Velonsae whose name refers to a strong will, command, and prophecy. Three Germanic Suebic military leaders are known to have had Celtic names associated with the same Celtic word for “command” found in Velonsae. Again we are reminded of the interconnected history of the Celtic and Germanic speaking peoples. Velonsae also has linguistic connections to the Old Irish word file (poet-seer), which connect Her to Fedelm. Velonsae is one of the few Celtic Goddesses known to be directly involved with fate and prophecy, and I am surprised that She is not worshiped more widely, especially by those involved with divination and the psychic arts.

The Uidlua are less well known. They were a a group of Gaulish women who had the help of a sorceress named Severa Tertionicna in a legal dispute. We know this from a curse tablet where the plaintiff asks a Goddess to reverse Severa’s magic so he can finally in court win against the Uidlua. Severa Tertionicna used yarn in her spell, another connection to the weaving. The names of the Uidlua are listed, but as the daughters of mothers, not fathers, which is very unusual for Gauls. Their “mothers” may have really been their sorceress teachers, because three Uidlua had the same “mother.”

While we find triads of Celtic Goddesses like the Matres, the Morrigan and Brig, there’s no explicitly stated three Celtic destiny Goddesses like the Norse Norns and Roman Fates in what we know of Celtic deities. (The Morrigan, Macha and Badb are involved in battle prophecy and magic to influence the outcome, which seems to be a version of the triple destiny Goddesses, especially with Badb‘s similarity to Lugh, the oath God who possibly declared the futures of people.) Still, we find likely fate Goddesses in Fedelm, Velonsae, Rosmerta and a Gaelic Christian mention of the 7* sisters of fate. History records other Celtic female seers and yarn sorceresses, like the Scottish and Manx “witches” who sold sailors strings with knots which, when untied, would release the wind. The highest level of the file, the ollamh, was trained in magical arts, a highly prestigious rank achieved by Ullach, daughter of Muinechan, who died in 934. She was called Banfile Eireann, “The Woman Poet of Ireland”. Add the Gaulish island of Sena where female oracles who, when possessed by the deity, foretold a person’s future, and we find a long history of prophetesses and yarn sorceresses in Celtic lands.

*(While 3 was the most significant number in Indo-European culture, 7 was the sacred number for the Near East due to the seven “planets” who correspond with the Sumerian deities. The importance of 7 became part of the Old Testament and Christianity.)

 

Bibliography

Gregory, Lady, Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha De Danann and of the Fianna of Ireland. Public Domain (1905)

Hugh, Cristof and Mokina Kondziella, Textile symbolism in Early Iron Age burials, Connecting Elites and Regions: Perspectives on contacts, relations, and differentiation during the Early Iron Age Hallstatt C period in Northeast and Central Europe, Robert Schumann and Sasja van du Vaar- Verschoof (eds), University Hamberg (2017)

Hyllested, Adam, The Precursors of Celtic and Germanic, Proceedings of the 21st Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference (2010)

Jones, Prudence and Pennick, Nigel, The History of Pagan Europe.

Khilhaug, Maria, The Maiden with the Mead, Masters thesis, University of Oslo (spring 2004)

Price MacLeod, Sharon, Celtic Myth and Religion: A Study of Traditional Beliefs with Newly Translated Prayers, Poems and Songs. McFarland Press (2012)

Prosper, Blanca Maria, Celtic and non-Celtic Divinities from Hispania, The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 43, #1&2 (2015)

Widugeni, Segomâros, Ancient Fire: An Introduction to Gaulish Celtic Polytheism. ADF Publishing (2018) Where was this book 20 years ago? Hey, for the total beginner, it’s here now!

Real Life Runes: Kenaz/Cen

The “real life runes” posts are about how the written runelore often is about totally mundane life and death issues that people face/d. It’s based on rune lore and the social history of the people who used the runes. I include my experience just to help people understand how divination has a personal component. 

Kenaz is the rune that I think somehow got… “New Aged” the most. By that I mean, everything is supposed to have a positive effect. (Laguz is the other top contender for most “New Aged”.)

When I read my runes each day I ask what the Wyrd is, all those built up patterns in my life, my community, my nation, whatever. It’s also the focus of the deities in my vicinity. It’s basically the forecast for the bigger energies at work.

Then I ask what is the best way for me to respond in this Wyrd. “Best” means for the combination of my personal well being and growth as well as the needs of the deities I serve. The two are the same. Freya knows what I need and She wants me to be at my best because I serve Her. She’ll destroy anything unhealthy or holding me back if necessary, which can really suck but later is a relief. So this is basically Freya telling me what I need to do in the Wyrd going down.

For me, Kenaz means inflammation. It always means only that. This is in my daily reading for myself. I have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome which means a hyper-reactive immune system that for me manifests in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/M.E., multiple chemical sensitivity, Celiac disease, reactive hypoglycemia, rashes and intense pain if I wear anything but one specific type of organic cotton, ink intolerance (books, pens and printers make me pass out), vasomotor rhinusitis, a diet of 5-6 foods for the last several years, partial seizures, GERD, general anxiety disorder, specific manufacturers for medication or a compounding pharmacy, tons of huge air purifiers, water purification, special masks, and I don’t leave my room unless it’s to see my doctor 2 hours away 4 times a year. Other people have migraines, auto-immune disorders RA and MS, fibromyalgia, asthma, and their own diagnoses that come from MCAS.

MCAS is, in some ways, basically inflammation. The mast cells freak out about a trigger and send tons of “mediators” like histamine and stuff science doesn’t understand yet, which cross the brain-blood barrier, causing the most common MCAS symptom: brain fog. But that’s just 49% of us with MCAS. Crossing into the brain, it does horrid things to the nervous system. As mast cells line the skin, mouth, sinuses, lungs, throat, stomach, intestines, there’s trouble with all those systems too. Like my tongue swells up a lot. Movement causes snot. My “battery life power” is at 30% if I’m lucky. And I have a very rare pain disorder Dercum’s disease that has no research on it, but oddly is found with some MCAS patients who were misdiagnosed with fibromyalgia. While science is still trying to figure out what actually mast cells do, I at least am finally treated like what I am at the hospital when I get blood work or a mammogram – someone who could literally die due inhaling, ingesting or touching the wrong thing – which could honestly be anything. Medical folks finally take me seriously because just say “mast cell disorder” and fears of malpractice suits dance in their heads. (There’s no way for me to see a dentist obviously and my doctor worries that I could die from a teeth-related brain infection.)

When I was on the verge of death from 10 years with the terrifying malaria-on-steroids Babesia and Lyme disease, Kenaz meant really really sick. Again, it’s inflammation. Hot, irritated, red, burning illness. I have dermography where just sleeping on a wrinkle in my sheet causes 8 hours of a raised pink line that burns like a mo’fo’.

What do the Ye Olde sources say about this rune? Looking at Diana Paxson’s excellent “Taking Up the Runes” and Alaric Albertson’s fine “Wyrdworking” for the translations, we learn that for the Norwegians and the Icelanders (often people who left Norway with a stop in Scotland) both agree it means a septic infection on the skin. “Home of rotten flesh” and “fatal for children” and “makes a corpse pale” really can’t be spun into “enlightenment” like the modern books say. It’s clearly talking about the plagues that were faced on a regular basis, the infected cuts leading to gangrene, and all the children who died young. It’s not a metaphor.

Remember, we have no evidence that the runes (like the ogham) were used for divination. We’re told that Odin gave them to us for magic – some to help midwives, for example. As cursing was completely acceptable in the culture – I mean, putting a horse head on a pole to destroy your political enemies appeared to be just fine with the Icelandic settlers – the runes won’t all be happy. And some don’t make much sense as magic unless you want to harm someone. (Laguz, again, for example.)

The Anglo-Saxon poem is where people seem to get the “enlightenment” meaning. “It looks like a torch,” some say. Well, it’s based on the Etruscan alphabet letter “K” and looks like it. No big mystery about the shape. I think it looks like a “C” or unfinished “K”.

The poem is translated in different ways, but generally everyone agrees it means “burning pine wood”. “Tree known by all for its flame” is an obvious clue. But as anyone who grew up relying only on a wood stove for heat in a place with lots of evergreens can tell you, one thing drilled into your head is “Don’t put pine on the fire! You’ll make smoke!” It’s true. It stings the eyes, gives you a runny nose and makes you cough.

Kinda like… inflammation.

It specifically says that this fire is “inside” so although if you are outside and need a fast easy fire, a dead dried pine tree will provide that, it’s not about being inside. (Also dead trees are home to an amazing number of animals, fungi and microbes necessary for the ecosystem, so it is usually important to leave them alone.) Carrying smoky burning pine as a torch inside would be a last resort. People had the hearth and maybe oil lamps, perhaps a string or rag in lard or seal blubber. (Candles until they became a cheap toxic petroleum by-product have always been beeswax and only found in churches or the homes of the very wealthy.) Pine’s sometimes ok inside if you need fast kindling, but you don’t “gather” and “relax” around its flame. You are stacking dry wood logs so you can relax around it later.

I think it’s a good example of the sense of humor, hidden meanings and possible lost mythology found in ancient cultures that is difficult for us to translate. When oral mythology has a version committed to writing, it becomes a literary invention, and the living stories die. Communities have group memories of events that affected them and “inside jokes” that a good story teller (bard) knows. It connects the myths and religious beliefs to the daily experience of those people. Of course, they adapt to new places. The active volcano Helka dramatically changed Norse mythology because people in Iceland actually experienced what was described in Ragnarok. Mythology has to be relevant to the people.

When the Old Norse information about Berkano states “Loki was lucky in his deception,” we know that we are missing a myth that Norwegians at that time knew. We don’t try to pretend that we know how he’s connected to the birch tree. In the same way, I don’t think that we can say that we understand what the Anglo-Saxon poem means about burning pine inside.

Pine smoke irritates and causes the immune system to respond. That’s a fact. The older Northern meanings are clear that it’s about a deadly infected sore (inflammation). It was pretty easy to die from a cut before antibiotics. I’m fully aware of the antibacterial properties of many herbs. However, herbs often are impotent when dried and stored for too long or incorrectly, and you had to gather the herb at a specific time of the year. It’s not like you could go to a health food store and pick up salves and tinctures. Also, it’s unlikely that everyone had equal access to those herbs, considering 1/4 to 1/3 of Norwegians in the Viking age were slaves. These wer not like the Saxon slaves who could have side businesses, grow their food, and the keep the family together. No, Norwegian slaves had very little protection. You don’t see that at the “historically accurate reenactments” of people dressed as the medieval 1%.

When you think about the high child mortality rates of medieval Scandinavia, it’s clear that Kenaz means infected cut, plague sores, high fevers, illness associated with heat. Inflammation has “flame” right in the middle of the word. This rune speaks to the frightened parents of an infant with a fever, anyone experiencing a health problem that ends in -itis, a medical condition that “flares up” like CFS/ME, etc. It could mean have your chimney cleaned, change the batteries in smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, or that the deities don’t want toxic candles, so get beeswax. (Soy is normally GMO.) For a community, it may mean that a contagious virus or flu has infected them or they need to prepare for this. Maybe a Kindred is excluding people who have asthma by burning juniper or mugwort. The questions asked determine the answers.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on the runes. I just know as someone who lives in chronic illness that the rune lore actually matches my health issues. There’s nothing esoteric about it. It’s experience, common sense and historical context. However, what it means for YOU, I don’t know. I didn’t understand the runes until I only worked with the original rune lore. I understand thorns from growing up picking wild blackberries and raspberries as a child and later as a migrant farm worker, just like I know that the word “troll” was used for everything from spiritually powerful Heathen woman to Jotun. Raspberry branches were hung over the doors and windows of Anglo-Saxon homes to keep the dead from returning, a very big fear for the Germanic peoples, which helps me understand the magic of Thurz. I understand the North Star’s importance in navigation and going in the “right direction” and Tyr taking “right action”. I can easily imagine that merchants probably cursed their competitors’ ships with Laguz and I know that legal agreements such as marriage or business partnerships were until recently signed with Gebo “X”.

I don’t doubt that the runes have esoteric (hidden) knowledge. I just never have experienced it. Their “mundane” meanings are incredibly helpful for me. Working with the runes this way has given me a better understanding about how my concerns are similar to those of people across an ocean and 1100 years ago. Living in rural Vermont (ie anywhere but Chittendon County- Vermont only has 600,000 residents. There’s not one Target in the state.), growing up in rural Vermont, the bioregion is rather similar to Scotland and Scandinavia. Pagans have told me that they began working with the runes when they moved to this glacier carved land with its rocky soil; dark, cold, lonely winters; and many lakes and rivers nestled in green valleys. They were not Heathens. The ecosystem just calls them to the runes.

Bibliography

Albertsson, Alaric, Wyrdworking: The Path of the Saxon Sorcerer. Llewellyn (2011)

Jakobsson, Armann, The Trollish Acts of Thorgrimr the Witch: The Meaning of Troll and ergi in Medieval Iceland, Saga-Books

Paxson, Diana L., Taking Up the Runes: A Complete Guide to Using Runes in Spells, Rituals, Divination, and Magic. Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC (2005)

Sävborg, Daniel, The Icelander and the Trolls – The Importance of Place

Short, William R., Icelanders of The Viking Age: The People of the Sagas. MacFarland & Company (2010)