Category: Review

Review – Neurodiversity Tips for Mindfulness Teachers by Leizl Laidlaw and Christoph Spiessens

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I’ve recently read an excellent booklet called Neurodiversity Tips for Mindfulness Teachers by Leizl Laidlaw and Christoph Spiessens. In this booklet, they present ‘7 Spokes of the Teaching Wheel’ with the aim of making mindfulness teaching more neuro-affirming. Whilst the target audience is mindfulness teachers, I found many of the tips relevant for my practice as an autistic shamanic practitioner who works with neurodivergent individuals.

The booklet is well laid out, well explained and accessible, in line with their values. It begins with a definition of neurodiversity and why awareness of the needs of neurodivergent (ND) communities is important. I particularly liked what they had to say about the benefits of authentic expression of one’s own neurotype for ND teachers. This is followed by a glossary listing neurotypes and neurological differences such as ADHD and alexisomia. 

The 7 spoke wheel is then introduced with its practical guidelines. The first spoke is ‘Compass’. Its focus is ‘safety’ and it offers direction and alignment. It emphasises the importance of communicating an ND-inclusive approach from the beginning in terms of creating ‘clear, welcoming, and informative course information’ and providing different options for pre-course meetings, then goes into disclosure and access needs and pre-course conversations.

The second spoke is ‘Considering’ and its focus is ‘autonomy’. Here it is emphasised that ‘neurodivergent people are experts on their own experience’ and ‘differences are not pathologies’. The section on ‘programming and pacing’ outlines some considerations that are incredibly important for me as an autistic person. The absence of these, in the past, has led to me becoming extremely agitated in group settings and not returning. ‘Keep things predictable’. ‘Give clear time boundaries’. I cannot list the times I’ve been in a meeting or a workshop and there has been no timetable, or it has not been adhered to, and the conversation has steered away from the main focus onto an entirely irrelevant tangent. This is incredibly draining for autistic brains, which thrive on routine and predictability. 

The third spoke is ‘Connecting’ and its focus is ‘respect’. Here we find guidelines for disclosing one’s own neurotype and being respectful of others by ensuring to name sarcasm and to avoid involuntary microagressions. This prevents neurodivergent individuals from feeling stupid because they don’t get a joke (this often happens to me as an autistic person – I’m always the last to get it!).

The fourth spoke is ‘Congruence’ and is about ‘explaining’. It involves being open about one’s own needs and ‘what’s happening in real time’ as well as being aware of what is happening for others. The fifth spoke is ‘Conducting’ and focuses on ‘adjustments’ such as being careful with metaphors, providing alternative anchors and alternatives to visualisation. The sixth spoke, ‘Conveying’, covers accessibility. For the seventh spoke, ‘Community’, ‘the unifying theme is difference’. This provides tips on helping everybody to feel safe and affirming each person’s unique contribution. 

This book was helpful for me as an autistic shamanic practitioner who works with neurodivergent clients. Through it, I have discovered some neurological differences that I identify with or have seen in others that I was beforehand unable to name. One of these was: ‘Alexisomia: difficulty recognising or describing bodily sensations, such as hunger, tension, or comfort/discomfort’. Another was: ‘Misophonia: Strong emotional or physical reactions to specific everyday sounds. Examples include chewing, throat sounds, tapping, rustling, or repetitive environmental noises.’

I have learnt a lot about providing and maintaining a supportive space for neurodivergent clients and checking in about and accommodating for their needs. I have already noticed that not all people can visualise or understand metaphorical language and this booklet has expanded my awareness of this. It has also made me more aware of the need to provide alternative anchors during the grounding meditation that I provide to ensure that the client is present and in their body before undertaking a shamanic journey to the spirit realm.

In terms of congruence, I’ve learnt that it’s better to be authentic and to let a client know that I am autistic and that I struggle with processing large amounts of information (for example if someone is talking abut their ancestral lines I easily get confused) and ask them to slow down and repeat themselves rather than pretending I have understood and managed to take everything in. Also, if I’m having an off day, explaining that I’m struggling with autistic overwhelm or burnout and I may need to ask them to repeat their words.

I’d recommend this booklet to all shamanic practitioners and to others who practice and teach in the spiritual communities on the basis of its value for raising awareness of neurodiversity and for providing practical tips that can help us, together, to shape more neuro-affirming spaces.

You can purchase a copy of the PDF on the website of Christoph Spiessens HERE.

Review – ‘Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery’ by Mallary Tenore Tarpley

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Slip: Life in the Middle of the Eating Disorder Recovery by Mallary Tenore Tarpley is an important book. As far as I know it’s the first book that highlights the complex and ambiguous nature of the term ‘full recovery’ within eating disorder treatment and proposes the possibility of a middle ground. 

Each chapter combines memoir with journalistic work. Tarpley tells the story of her struggles of anorexia from when it was triggered by grief at losing her mother when she was eleven years old through sickness, hospitalisation and perceived recovery to a further relapse at college and a lapse following pregnancy. 

Each section of memories is followed by reflections on an aspect of the eating disorder from her present-day perspective combined with interviews and research. Subjects covered include: the relationship between eating disorders and grief, the problems of lack of eating disorder awareness in the medical professions and misdiagnosis particularly for BIPOC and those in larger bodies, and how the egosyntonic nature of restrictive eating disorders is supported by thin ideals and fat phobia in contemporary society.

At its core lies Tarpley’s concept of ‘the middle place’. She defines this in the introduction to the book as ‘the liminal space that many of us inhabit as we work our way toward wellness.’ She notes that the term ‘full recovery’ is complicated and inadequately defined. ‘The middle place provides a framework that is more inclusive of people who don’t see themselves as fully recovered… (who)… meet all the BMI and body-weight criteria’ but ‘still have distorted thoughts that dictate their choices regarding food and exercise.’

In ‘Chapter Six: The Possibility of Recovery’ she dives deeper. She speaks of how she felt eating disorder recovery was unavailable to her because some of her ‘treatment providers described it as the absence of the eating disorder and all the distorted thoughts that came with it… if I didn’t have anorexia would I still be me?’

In contrast to this approach she says, ‘It’s less about the eradication of the disorder but the elucidation of it’. Getting to know the ‘eating disorder self’, what triggers it, what messages it brings, so it can then be accepted and integrated with the ‘healthy self’ and the latter can be strengthened. She also speaks of onboarding the strengths associated with the eating disorder.

This was incredibly illuminating and reassuring for me. I’ve had an eating disorder since I was six years old. This began with binge eating then developed predominantly into restricting and over-exercising combined with binge drinking. Only recently, aged 44, whilst at a lowish normal weight but still struggling psychologically, have I had a clinical diagnosis. Having read Jenni Schaefer’s books, Life Without Ed and Goodbye Ed, Hello Me, and come across other anecdotes of full recovery that involve ditching weighing and calculating in favour of intuitive eating and leaving behind all weight-related and distorted thoughts, it felt impossible.

I’m autistic and my eating disorder is so bound up with my restrictive and repetitive behaviours that I don’t know where it ends and I begin. The best I’ve been able to do is harness my need for routine and fascination with science and need for calculation to create a healthier diet and exercise regime. Being able to weigh and measure is the only thing that stops me restricting or over-exercising out of panic that I might be in a surplus and gain weight. Thus, the eating disorder and I are currently at a point of uneasy allegiance.

When Tarpley was in the full hold of her eating disorder, she described it as: ’an invisible sea monster that had slowly wrapped itself around my body without my even realizing it’ tightening its grip to the point she ‘couldn’t break free.’ I’ve also seen my eating disorder as a serpent wrapped around me and a Siamese twin and felt that if we completely separated it would kill me.

This has helped me to accept where I’m at now better, whilst maintaining hope of improvement. Importantly, Tarpley states: ‘Living in the middle place isn’t about giving up on full recovery, it’s about viewing recovery as an ongoing process rather than a final destination.’

This book has been helpful for me both as a person with lived experience of an eating disorder and as a shamanic practitioner. I’m hoping that the insights within will help me to be more compassionate towards myself at the place I’m at in eating disorder recovery and to have a better understanding of clients who present with food and body image related issues. 

Review – And If I Go With Child? by Charlotte Hussey

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And If I Go With Child? is a poetry collection by Charlotte Hussey reimagining the medieval Scottish Border Ballad of Tam Lin as an initiation into Faery. Here she interweaves Janet’s ‘coming of age story’, ‘her sensual, sexual and imaginative awakening’ with her own in a sequence of poetic collages set across place and time structured around lines from the ballad.

In her biography Charlotte speaks of ‘growing up on a sand bar fronted by the Atlantic and backed by a tidal marsh’ and some of the narrative is set in these landscapes. The descriptions are rich showing Charlotte’s knowledge of the ecology of the land, particularly its plants, sweet grass, marsh rose, many more.

The first section tells of Janet going to Cautherhaugh wood where it is rumoured girls might lose their maidenhead. Here Charlotte describes a surprise encounter with a man which would spook any woman anywhere at any time.

‘A bush shakes a man out of it.
He’s stubby as a rough root.
His face is overgrown with hair
and shadows. His back bends
under bundle tied with a vine.’ 

Is he a lurker? A rapist? A mythic woodwose bringing his own dangers? In this instance he leaves nothing but a bundle and we’re left with guilt at our assumptions.

One of the prominent features of this book is Charlotte’s unique and original descriptions of the characters as they are summoned into our times. Janet begins stiff-laced with ‘plucked eyebrows’, ‘forbidden lipstick’ and ‘a starched white / secretarial blouse’ but this apparel is swiftly undone by the wind.

We first find Tam perching on a van on a cliff top looking over a beach (a deliberately liminal position). At first he appears ordinary and in now way fae.

‘His barely zit-free chin bristles
with a don’t-tread-on-me beard.
My mannish boy! A green sweatshirt
rumples under his armpits.
Thrift store jeans…’

Yet it isn’t long until he becomes more sinister. ‘Eyes / stare, sucked like eggs from their shells / by a snake side-winding through his drug-laced / mind.’

The Faery Queen is deftly described crowned in honeysuckle, ‘almost beautiful’, ‘small lips a bit tight, / tiny nostrils like dark / pinholes against the white’. In accordance with the ballad she’s cruel and punishing, plucking out eyes and putting them in trees and stuffing mouths with moss. An Ice Queen who can strike one dumb and kill with her ‘blighting breath’.

‘Annunciation Dream’ clevery brings together Janet’s impregnation by Tam with Mary’s by depicting her in the ‘crown of 12 stars’ from the Book of Revelations. Janet’s realising she goes with child is subtly written and her attempt to abort, with Pennywort, is wrapped up in nature imagery.

Apocalyptic imagery features again strongly later on in the collection where it is brought together with the appearance of the Faery Riders in the Wild Hunt on Halloween. In a stroke of genius Charlotte sets this at Miles Gas Station, interweaving the ordinary and extraordinary in this liminal setting. 

‘Red Pegasus has faded
and fled this Mobil gas
station, leaving his winged
trace on a worn sign.
Twin pumps go on
guarding their lonely island,
where slack rubber hoses
hang useless as a bridle
not buckled up in time.’

A guitarist ‘clad in a long black / coat, preacher or gunslinger’ summons the hunt.

‘Their hurling
mass sucks fire from the stars
they pass, whooping, riding
hard across the fenceless,
Great Plains of the Sky.

Gutted pumpkins sputter
and glare. Dogs howl.’

The black, brown and white horses from the ballad take on an apocalyptic apparel with Tam, on his white horse ‘vast inside and out’, ‘a rider condensing as if / in an alembic, / unkempt, sun-struck, dazed.’

Janet’s rescue of Tam from captivity on the hunt of the Faery Queen is followed by the famous scene ‘hold me close and fear me not’ where she must keep tight hold of him as he shifts through a series of forms. Charlotte reimagines this cleverly with a ‘pet store girl’ wrestling a snake amongst the tanks and ‘a naughty circus girl’ embracing him as a lion. 

When he becomes a gleed she thrusts him into a well and he is returned as a knight in a poem that uses the alchemical symbolism of the wedding of Sol and Luna. Alchemical imagery occurs earlier in the verses about the horses – ‘A horse head’s a rebis / alchemists say you can fashion / into anything you want.’ This fits with the collection’s mercurial antagonists and the overall feel. 

Safe and wrapped in Janet’s green mantle Tam becomes the vulnerable one. ‘On the first of a cool November, / he shivers, clutching his crotch.’ At once a child and an old man. ‘Is he 21 or 990 years old / like the withered Children of Lir?’

Charlotte speaks of this ballad as ‘a story of captivity and liberation by way of redemptive love.’ It’s deliberately left ambiguous whether Tam’s impregnation of Janet constitutes rape. The reader is left to make their own mind up on the matter and, whatever the case, whether they could love Tam, hold him tight, bring him back. Working with, reimagining, imaginally experiencing these mysteries is all part of the initiatory process.

At the outset Charlotte leaves the question of whether she has been initated into Faery to her readers. On the basis of the magic and visionary impact of her words and their retention of the tale’s mystery I would give a resounding ‘yes’.

And If I Go With Child? is available from Ritona Press HERE.

Decision to Remove my Review of Galina Krasskova’s Devotional Polytheism

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‘Let us realize, my daughters, that true perfection consists in the love of God and of our neighbour.’
~ Saint Teresa of Avila

In this post I’m explaining my reasons for removing my review of Galina Krasskova’s book Devotional Polytheism. As noted in the review it has been incredibly valuable to me and somewhat of a lifeline on my own devotional journey. 

However, Galina is considered to be controversial in the polytheist communities and I was unaware of the precise roots of that controversy. At first I thought it was simply based around unfounded suspicions of her being a fascist and white supremacist and due to differences in political standpoint with Galina being right-wing and her opponents being left-wing. 

Over the past few weeks I have spoken to a number of people in the polytheist community who have raised concerns about my endorsement of Galina’s book. This has helped me realise what it comes down to is not so much Galina’s politics but her insensitive and provocative behaviour. 

An example which keeps coming up is Galina and her husband wearing Heathen imagery which was appropriated by the Nazis such as the black sun during the Black Lives Matter protests. Galina has also attacked Rhyd Wildermuth and other Marxist polytheists with a vehemency beyond the pale that amounts to more than theological disagreement.

I was blinded to these issues for a number of reasons. Firstly I live in the UK and don’t use social media so my knowledge of the US polytheist communities is limited. Secondly I’m autistic and don’t always read between the lines and pick up on other people’s feelings or understand interpersonal arguments. 

Thirdly I greatly admire Galina’s writings as a devotional polytheist and mystic. Her work has helped me through turbulent periods in my devotional journey and I have felt the need for some sort of elder to turn to on matters of mysticism and devotion. (I have a brilliant spiritual mentor who is open-minded and supportive but isn’t a polytheist or godspouse).

It’s been really painful trying to weigh my own needs against the needs of my community but, for once in my life as someone very selfish and ego-driven, the needs of my community have won out. I’ve decided to remove the review out of respect for those who have been hurt by her remarks and need to feel safe. 

For most of my life I’ve been incredibly self-centred. Since meeting Gwyn I’ve become increasingly God-centred with my transition from being a bard with a big gob to an awenydd to a nun being steps in the dismantling of my ego. I’ve learnt to love Gwyn and my challenge now is to learn to love other people. Before I founded a monastery it was all about me and now it’s not. 

So removing my review of Galina’s book is a step in that direction. I will be leaving the review up for another week HERE so anybody reading this can see what was said and what happened and then will be removing it for perpetuity. 

With some regret, as I really dislike the way the internet makes it so easy, I’m also going to cut my contact with Galina. This is something I would choose to do if I knew her face-to-face as an elder in my local Pagan community too based on my considerations of her behaviour towards others.

Review – Radical Embodiment with Jayne Johnson and Alex Walker

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Over the past four months I have been attending a monthly course on radical embodiment with Jayne Johnson and Alex Walker. The focus has been on aliveness and increasing our awareness and understanding of our nervous system as we move in and out of contact with others using voice, play, dance and touch. The workshops took place at West Gilling Village Hall in North Yorkshire.

On the first week we focused on the nervous system. We were introduced to polyvagal theory through the work of Laura Geiger and Deb Dana. At this point I was aware of the differences between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system but not of the central role of the vagus nerve (our gut-brain axis). 

We learnt there are two pathways on the vagus nerve called ventral and dorsal. These regulate how we engage with our surroundings and other people. Two of the systems associated with these pathways are ventral vagal flight / fight and dorsal vagal freeze / shutdown and they are our oldest ways of being dating back to the our reptilian ancestors. The most recent system to evolve is the mammalian ventral vagal social engagement system. When we are in this state we feel safe and are open to social contact, learning, playing and bonding. We explored these systems through contact and dance with music choreographed to lead us into each.

This knowledge and work has been incredibly helpful for me as it illuminated how most of the time when I am around other people I am in fight / flight because I was bullied when I was younger and as an autistic person struggle to read facial expressions, body language and tone of voice. Learning of freeze / shutdown helped me understand my autistic shutdowns. Because Jayne and Alex established such a safe space and the other participants were so open and authentic I was able to relax into social engagement and explore connecting with others.

On the second week we covered the satisfaction cycle, which was established when we infants, and governs how we ‘yield, push, reach, take hold, and pull’. One of the exercises was bringing six objects through which we explored this in pairs. We were invited to consider how these processes continue to govern our adult lives.

I had quite a big revelation. It is one of my habits to reach for something I want and, if I can’t have it, put it aside and take something I don’t want instead for a while, then go back to the thing I really want. This has happened over and over again with my calling to bring the myths and worship of the ancient British Gods into the world. Now I can see the habit for what it is I can avoid repeating it.

Thresholds and edge figures, covered on the third week, was my favourite topic. Herein we looked at the internal authority figures who act as gatekeepers between the safety and comfort of our known world and the risks of the unknown. We met and engaged with our edges and edge figures through various exercises such as using a scarf as an edge and negotiating with a partner in the role of an edge figure. 

One of my biggest insights came later from journeying to my edge figures and a one-to-one session on my insights with Alex. Rather than treating edge figures as adversaries we need to understand their perspectives, acknowledge how they have helped us, treat them with kindness and get them on board. This has helped me deal with my trio of Victorian school teachers, Mrs Planner, Mrs Figure It Out and Mrs Certainty, who have helped me to be incredibly organised and good at planning but sometimes get in the way of me doing deeper spiritual work.

The fourth week was integration wherein we brought everything together. One of our challenges was supporting each other in connection in a gigantic blue band. During the last dance I found myself feeling massively grateful to Jayne and Alex and the other participants for everything we have experienced together but also wanting more. Longing to dance with others monastic devotees in a monastery in devotion to Gwyn. I put this out into the word as a prayer and the following morning received guidance on the first step which will be leading ‘Journeys to the Deep’.

This has been the first course I have attended since covid and my withdrawal from the Pagan community in favour of my polytheistic monastic path. It has given me the inspiration and faith in other people to take further steps out into the world by training as a shamanic healer and hopefully to recommence leading workshops locally.

Jayne and Alex hope to offer this course again in 2025 in the Hebden Bridge area and to run an Advanced Radical Embodiment retreat in mid June 2025.

Review – Hidden: A Life All For God

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This documentary records the daily lives of the Trappistine Sisters at Mount Saint Mary’s Abbey in Wrentham, MA. Although I am a Brythonic polytheist not a Christian witnessing their monastic lives and devotion touched me deeply.

The story begins with one of the sisters lighting the candles in the chapel at 3am prior to vigils at 3.20am which is followed by the Great Silence – a time for silent prayer. This resonated with me very much as an early riser who gets up at 4am to pray to my Gods and spends time meditating in the sacred hours before the rest of the world wakes up and the bustle of everyday life begins. Sadly I can only imagine sharing it with other polytheistic monastics.

The sisters are Benedictines and keep the seven canonical hours of prayer (1) with compline at 7.20pm. This is coupled with private prayer and study including lectio divina ‘Divine Reading’. In accordance with the motto of Saint Benedict ora et labora ‘pray and work’ this is balanced with physical labour. The nuns work in a ‘state of the art high tech candy factory’ and also on a farm where they look after animals including keeping sheep for wool. I related strongly to the sister who found spiritual fulfilment in her compost duties. The sisters see no difference between the two – “Life here is a continual prayer.”

Although the nuns come from differing places and backgrounds and admit getting on isn’t always easy they are united by one thing – their love of God. “Everything is centred on fostering a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”

Several of the nuns share their moving vocation stories, speaking of how they were called by God and came to recognise Him as “the one before all others”.

“Why did you come?”

“It’s Him.” 

“What do you seek?”

“It’s Him.”

“Why do you stay?”

“I can’t live without Him.”

Their words echoed exactly how I feel about my patron God Gwyn ap Nudd.

The functioning of this monastic community is made possible by the silence. One of the sisters says their lives are “100 per cent community and 100 per cent silence not 50 / 50”. Their “silence”, in which they commune with God in everything they do throughout the day, “is part of the conversation.”

As somebody who struggles with idle chatter but enjoys quiet company I can imagine the only way I could live with others would be if life was mostly silent.

The documentary records one of the younger sisters making her solemn profession, her life long vows. This was very moving to watch and left me with a yearning to be able to make my lifelong vows with my monastic community.

I came away from this video feeling I identified with the sisters in all ways except for being a polytheist rather than a Christian and feeling I’m closer to monotheists than most other Pagans in centring my life on my patron God and in believing that God/the Gods are real and are worthy of worship. (2)

I’ve watched it a few times now and always return to it when I feel alone in my devotion (although this is less now since founding the Monastery of Annwn).

(1) Matins / vigils (nighttime), lauds (early morning), prime (first hour of daylight),  terce (third hour), sext (noon), nones (ninth hour), vespers (sunset), compline (end of the day).
(2) In Paganism the views on Deity range widely and include: 
*The Gods don’t exist (atheism).
*We imagined up the Gods or they are parts of our psyches (psychological).
*The Gods are archetypes (archetypal).
*The Gods are real but we shouldn’t bother them – “I’’m not a God-botherer.” 
*The Gods are real and we can work with Them and celebrate Their festivals but They don’t demand our worship (non-Polytheistic Witchcraft, Wicca and Druidry).
*The Gods are real and are worthy of worship (Polytheism). 
*The Gods are real and we should centre our lives around Them (Devotional Polytheism).
*The Gods are real and we should withdraw from the secular world as far as possible to centre our lives on Them (Polytheistic Monasticism).

Review – Dwelling on the Threshold: Reflections of a Spirit-Worker and Devotional Polytheist by Sara Kate Istra Winter

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This book was published in 2012. When I first read it in 2015 I was delighted to find a kindred spirit who shared my deep devotion to the Gods and practices as a spiritworker, albeit in the Hellenic rather than the Brythonic tradition.

It is a collection of essays covering diverse topics from relationships with Deities, land spirits and personal spirits to practices such as oracular trance and possession and the use of entheogens. As the author states, it ‘isn’t geared towards beginners’ but is a record of ‘thoughts and experiences’ that serve to ‘inspire and stimulate’ ‘anyone on a devotional and / or spirit-work path’.

In the introduction Winter notes the term ‘spirit-worker’ is recent and is ‘not well defined. But it generally indicates a polytheist and / or animist who serves the gods and spirits directly in some capacity, and with a level of intensity and devotion above the average worshipper… They might serve a community, but unlike a a shaman they don’t necessarily have to. A spirit-worker traverses the road between humans and gods, between this world and the otherworlds, and they do this because they must, because they are called to, and because it is quite literally their work in life.’

She says, ‘devotional polytheist’ ‘was coined partly as a counterpoint to strict reconstructionism’. The differences lies in placing ‘a high level of importance on personal and direct experience of the holy powers’ and the devotional practices of ‘prayer, ritual, offerings etc’ whilst remaining respectful of the historical sources rather than attempting to reconstruct past traditions.

The rest of the essays form an exploration of these ‘twin paths’. A piece that particularly still resonates is ‘Mysticism as Vocation in Modern Paganism’. Here Winter rails against the view not only of secular society but ‘the majority of pagans’ that ‘spiritual vocation’ ‘is a luxury to be fitted around daily life’. Why cannot ‘home, family and career’ ‘be fitted around spiritual vocation?’ With no state support for Pagan religious vocations here in the UK those of us who share such a calling are left with a constant struggle to balance the need for financial security with fulfilling our calling from the Gods and spirits.

Those who follow Winter / Dver’s blog ‘A Forest Door’ will know she writes beautifully about her relationship with lands spirits. Here, too, she describes her practice, traversing her ritual landscape, carrying a ‘beeswax taper’ ‘like a ritual torch’, following crow feathers, making offerings of ‘mandrake root’, ‘an old and crackled coyote’s tooth’, ‘fly agaric’, for a local land spirit.

In ‘Evolving Patron Relationships’ and ‘Two Decades with Dionysos’ Winter talks about how He crept into her life ‘in bits and pieces’ with poetry, red wine, the Doors and how she became a Hellenic Polytheist and served her God ‘in the community at large’ before seeming to withdraw in order to lead her elsewhere – into ‘entanglement’ with the spirits. She prompts the reader to ‘recognise the possibility that a patron relationship might end’ or one might find it ‘evolves in a new unexpected directions’ ‘to where you needed to be all along’. I cannot imagine my relationship with Gwyn ap Nudd ending but do appreciate the warning of that potential and for unexpected change.

‘The Gods Are Real and Trance Isn’t Just Visualisation’ is important in stating that argument in relation to the writings of Diana Paxon and others who fail to point out the difference between ‘visualising a pre-set series of events’ and ‘actually meeting the gods and spirits in a foreign land’.

Of immense value are the pieces documenting Winter’s reconstruction of her oracular practice for Apollon based on the traditions at Delphi. Winter visited Delphi in 2003 and performed ritual and ceremony and a night long vigil. She was later inspired to take up the practices of the Pythiai after seeing similarities between her landscape of Cascadia and that of Delphi. This inspired a pilgrimage to the source of her local headwaters and to setting up her own adyton andtaking to the tripod on the seventh day of the month. In ‘On the Tripod’ she describes emptying herself to receive Appollon’s words.

‘Lord Apollon,
enter into this place
made only for Your entry
and no other’s.

I have emptied out my skull,
and await your voice to fill it.’

Eight years on I have found this book to be packed with wise words and inspiration and to be incredibly relatable as someone still walking the ‘twin paths’ of devotional polytheism and spirit-work as a polytheistic monastic. I would recommend it as a core resource for anyone wanting to learn more about these paths or delve more deeply into the issues that confront modern practitioners and the struggles and joys of building sacred relationships.

Review – Mycogenous: Dionysos in the Fungal Realm by Dver

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Dionysos is a dangerous God and this is a dangerous book. 

Herein Dver reveals a ‘new’ face of Dionysos which she explains isn’t entirely new but is significant in its appearance at this time. Many polytheists will be familiar with Dionysos as a God of pandemonium, wild revelry and wine, but less as the yeast that transmutes the wine and the silence and stillness ‘at the heart of the Dionysian storm’, as mushrooms, as mycocelium, as mold. Here He is revealed as ‘mycogenous: arising from or inhabiting fungi.’

Dver’s revelations began when she ‘noticed a blue-green mold’ on half-evaporated wine she left too long in a silver kylix on Dionysos’ shrine. In an epiphany she realised He was not only in the wine but the mold and fermentation. This book is the result of five years of cultivating mychorrhizal insights.

‘The Way of Mycogenous Dionysos’ is described as ‘a path of mysticism – or mycomysticism’, ‘at times contemplative, at times shamanic… ultimately transformative.’ 

‘The heart of the tradition’ is presented in ‘The Book of Hyphae’ which contains gnosis and practice and is supplemented with exegesis at the end. 

These words, ancient Greek names for Dionysos, lines from the Dionysian tradition and new epiphanies, are not just to be read, but to be meditated on, ingested, for the Dionysian devotee performed and practiced to work the processes that will transform them into mystes and mycomystic. 

Although I am a Brythonic polytheist with little experiential knowledge of the Greek tradition I am familiar with Dionysos in mythology and as a presence. As I read this book for the first time I found certain words and practices jumping out at me and recognising a number of mychorrhizal connections. 

I found it to be of deep interest that, like myself, Dver has been inspired to draw upon practices from yoga with it being notable that the Greek, Brythonic and Hindu religions all share Indo-European roots. 

One that stood out was a breathwork based on the words βίος ‘bios’ ‘life’, θᾰ́νᾰτος ‘thanatos’ ‘death’, βίος ‘bios’ ‘life’ combining them with the three colours black – exhalation, white – ‘the liminal space between breaths’, and red – ‘the inhalation’. Later Dver explains these colours are central to the Orphic strain of the Dionysian religion and combined create a colour called orphinnos. I have been guided towards similar breathwork and black, white and red are the colours of Annwn, ‘Very Deep’, the Brythonic Otherworld.

Another practice is singing seven epithets of Dionysos activating the seven chakras / energy centres. In ascending order from root to crown, Khtonios (of the earth), Auxites (growth), Purigenes (born of fire), Omadios (eater of raw flesh), Iakkhos (the ritual cry), Kruphios (ineffable), Lusios (loosener). 

The words that leapt from the page most were ‘Bakkhios Himself has freed me.’ A shiver ran up my spine when I learnt ‘This line is adapted from one of the Orphic gold tablets which contained instructions for the soul of a dead person navigating the underworld’ and is ‘a totenpass’ ‘passport for the dead.’ 

Dver says, ’It is a prayer for liberation, a hope, a plea. It is an affirmation of devotion and dedication. And if you sing it long long enough it becomes an ordeal, a sacrifice’ and ‘could comprise one’s entire devotional practice to Dionysos.’

Another practice is practicing death, lying in shavasana ‘corpse pose’, surrendering oneself to the fungal processes of decay.

Dver has found a likeness between Shiva and Dionysos and I have found likenesses between Shiva and my patron God, Gwyn ap Nudd. All are Gods of ecstasy with associations with death and dissolution and renewal.

Not long after I read this book, having received it as a birthday present, over the November full moon I was plummetted into a process of dissolution myself. Then release from old things holding me down. As I read it again that phrase leaps out, echoes in my mind, ‘Dionysos has liberated me.’ I believe these words, the fungal touch of this God, had a role.

On a final note I would like to mention the three wonderful colour plates. ‘Mycogenous’ and ‘Lichenized’ are devotional art and ‘Remediation’ is a mask worn when lying in corpse pose and all are made from organic materials.

The book arrived beautifully wrapped and it is clear every stage in its creation has been carried out with devotion. 

I would recommend it to Dionysian devotees and to polytheists with an interest in building a devotional practice based on mystical revelations. But be warned, like fungal spores, these words, this God is dangerous. Do not expect to open it, turn its pages, without releasing a little Dionysos into your world.

Review – The Way of the Gods by Edward Butler

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In The Way of the Gods philosopher and polytheist Edward P. Butler provides an introduction to polytheisms around the world. This book originated as a course he delivered for the Center for Global Polytheist and Indigenous Traditions at INDICA*.

It contains fifteen chapters covering India, the Mideast, Hellenic and Roman Polytheism, Northern Europe, Ancient Egypt, African Traditional Religions, South America, Mesoamerica, the African Diaspora, North America, Oceania and New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea and China. 

It is unique within academia as, from the start, Butler states his standpoint as a polytheist who believes the Gods of all the world’s traditions are real**. Thus for him these religions are not ‘solely a matter for historical study’ but embody ‘eternal relationships to the Gods whom they address.’ 

Throughout the book Butler makes clear that the terms ‘polytheism’ and ‘Gods’ are not used to ‘determine the self-understanding’ of non-Western cultures. Consistently he provides the indigenous terms for the religions and deities of each culture. He notes his use of ‘Gods’ is to ensure their divinities are not seen as lesser than the Christian God or reduced to pantheistic concepts. He also notes the Western mistake in the labelling of cultures as animistic in a way that sets up a false opposition between animism and polytheism, leading to the supposition that cultures that have spirits have no Gods.

In each chapter Butler provides a history of the polytheistic traditions of the cultures of his chosen geographical areas. It is noted that whilst some have continuity (such as ‘India, ‘home of the largest polytheistic tradition in the world… Hinduism’ and Australia ‘the longest continuous tradition on Earth) many others (such as Greek and Roman and Egyptian) are sundered. Butler does not flinch from speaking of the oppression most polytheistic traditions have suffered, and some still suffer, under the hegemony of Christianity. 

The chapters begin with core readings and many are on creation myths such as Enuma Elish, Theogony, Gylfaginning, Kumalipo and the Popol Vuh. Butler provides studies of these cosmogonies showing how several originate with ‘water’ as ‘a much broader cosmic phenomenon’ and ‘result in the emergence of a hierarchical or layered reality’. ‘Every cosmogonic myth is a doctrine concerning Being’. He notes the similarities and differences between the African cosmogonies where the Creator withdraws into the sky opening up a space for further action and the threat of the falling sky in South America due to the decline of spiritwork which maintains the supports. 

Throughout Butler emphasises that myth does not relate to some distant past but is ‘always now’. Western scholarship has tended to favour diachronic interpretations and linear narratives to those that are synchronic. Rituals, such as the recitation of Enuma Elish ‘on the fourth day of the Babylonian New Year’, allow for participation in this eternal now with the Gods.

Different approaches to ritual and spiritwork are presented. One of these is the Yoruba tradition of Vodou from the African Diaspora. Herein there is a single pantheon of Orishas (from ori ‘head’ and sa ‘selection or choice’). Divination reveals the patron deity as ‘the owner of the head’. One of the practices is the mounting or possession of the devotee by one’s God.

This book provides a fascinating introduction to polytheisms around the world. It is meticulately researched and respectful to each of the cultures and their Gods. As a philosophy post-graduate I particularly enjoyed Butler’s analyses of the cosmogonies in the creation myths and discussions about the rich philosophical traditions these polytheisms have given birth to.

I would recommend The Way of the Gods to all polytheists who want to learn more about our world-wide polytheisms and to anyone interested in the subject. I found having prior knowledge of basic philosophical concepts helpful but it is accessible to all with a dictionary to hand.

It also a beautiful act of devotion in itself from a practicing polytheist who states his ‘life work is the study of polytheism and polytheistic traditions’.

*https://indica.in/
** This contrasts with the majority of academics who keep their personal spiritual and religious beliefs separate from their academic work.

Review – Taliesin Origins by Dr. Gwilym Morris-Baird

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Dr. Gwilym Morus-Baird is a native Welsh speaker and scholar. He runs the excellent Celtic Source website where he shares scholarly research and personal insights into the Celtic myths through videos and free and paid online courses. Taliesin Origins originated from an online course. 

As would be expected this book provides a superb introduction to the myth of Taliesin well grounded in the social and political history of Wales. It not only introduces material that might already be known to students of the bardic tradition such as Ystoria Taliesin (‘The Tale of Taliesin’) and the poetry from Llyfr Taliesin (The Book of Taliesin) but sets it in a context with and expounds on its themes through other bardic works that are less familiar. The author’s translations of these, as well as the Taliesin content, are valuable resources in themselves. 

Morus-Baird, who is not only a scholar, but a musician, presents the material in a way that is not only academically accurate but lively and vivid and enthused with experiential insights based on his practices as a living bard.

One of my favourite parts was where he traces the travels of the historical Taliesin north from Cynan’s court at Pengwern (Shrewsbury) to Urien’s court in Rheged*. Here we find an evocation of the revelry in the hall and the lord with ‘long, flowing white hair and beard’ ‘his body’ ‘covered with many battle scars’.

There is a good deal of speculation founded on research and personal insights. Morus-Baird presents a strong argument for the story of Gwion stealing awen from Ceridwen’s cauldron then being eaten by her and reborn as Taliesin originating from interactions between the visionary tradition of the witches and the Welsh bards. This tale is shown to play out in the prehistoric ritual landscapes around the Dyfi and Conwy estuaries where it is set. It is argued that the alternative telling of the creation of Taliesin by Gwydion from vegetation as ‘a weapon of bardic destruction’ along with the trees in Kat Godeu (‘The Battle of the Trees’) originates from a different bardic lineage.

This book also contains much philosophical depth. The concept of awen is explored from its Proto-Celtic origin in *awek ‘inspiration or insight’ through its complex of meanings in Irish and in Welsh which include awel ‘breath.

The imagination is beautifully likened to the Mare Goddess Rhiannon as ‘an insubstantial beast, a grey mare of little but breath. We may ride her to ends of the Earth, but she vanishes the minute we look at her too closely.’ Awen as is seen to ‘live’ in Annwfn and is drawn upon by the bards.

Morus-Baird states that the popular understanding of Annwfn as the otherworld isn’t the ‘most accurate’ and translates it as ‘inner world’ or ‘inner depth’, describing it as ‘a world-within-the-world, a depth that is everywhere’. Drawing on the First Branch of The Mabinogion along with the poetry of Cynddelw and Taliesin (who speaks of his seat in Caer Siddi ‘the fairy-mound Fortress’) he categorieses Annwfn as a timeless, pristine place of high ideals and dismisses the Christianised hellish view in Culhwch ac Olwen.

At the end of the section on Annfwn he summarises his argument: 

‘The main difference between Annwfn and our realm appears to be a temporal one. Whereas our plane of existence is characterised by ageing and death, ‘sickness and old age’ do not affect those in Caer Siddi. It appears to be the place of eternal renewal, where pristine life continues without the effects of time and its changes. By contrast, to partake of the mortal realm is to be swept up in the turbulent currents of transformation, to be spun in the cycles of birth and death and to know the suffering of experience.’**

Annwfn is described not as a land of dead, in the sense of a final destination for souls, but it is one where spirits such as those of Taliesin and Myrddin can reside. These ‘bardic masters’ can be channelled in live performances.

Taliesin Origins is an engaging read on an intellectual and spiritual level. I have been studying the bardic tradition for over ten years and it gave me additional food for thought and led me to question a number of assumptions. I would recommend it as the go-to source for anyone interested in the Taliesin myth whether from an academic or religious perspective or both. 

*There’s a mention of Taliesin crossing the Ribble at Preston near to my home. It hadn’t crossed my mind he would have passed so close on his travels.
**This isn’t an argument I wholly agree with. Although there are lots of examples of Annwfn being a timeless, pristine place we also have descriptions of terrible battles there which include violence and death. The prime example being in Preiddeu Annwfn from which only seven men return. Gwyn ap Nudd speaks of this conflict – ‘At Caer Fanddwy I saw a host / Shields shattered, spears broken, / Violence inflicted by the honoured and fair’. If this is to be conflated with the raid set in Ireland the Head of Annwfn himself is killed. One might claim these are so terrible because they are interruptions to the pristine state and I believe this is partly the case. Yet the presence of Annwfian monsters in Kad Godeu along with the gormes ‘oppression’caused by a dragon in Lludd a Llefelys that blights Britain and its people are suggestive of a darker side to Annwfn. It’s my personal belief that like the ‘otherworlds’ of most Indo-European cultures it has both pristine and beautiful and monstrous and terrifiying aspects (for example the Hindu and Buddhist ‘heavens’ and ‘hells’, the Norse Valhalla and Hel, the Greek Elysian Fields and Tartarus). In my personal experience of travelling Annwfn in spirit the transformative processes, including life and death, mirror our own.