#goddess

#goddess

Objectifying and Liberating.

Someone needs to sit down and have a nice long chat with those helpful boys at #Instagram. While they tell us that they are removing images "for our own good", to protect us from pornography they might want to ban some other words before they ban #goddess. #cunt for example, or #vagina, perhaps?
Just a suggestion.
No, we poor, delicate creature need to be protected.
Also shamed because ew period, ew gross.
Oh my GAWD is that a nipple, is it just sat there?
It isn't even on a FAKE breast covered in suntan oil, or a thin white t-shirt. EW.

You see boys, (isn't making sweeping gender assumptions kind of off putting) while you say you are trying to protect us, what you are doing is censoring women voices, women's bodies and their #goddess, regardless of belief.
If an image doesn't fit into the Western ideas or body ideas what a woman "should" be you remove or censor it.
The naked body is not in it's self an erotic image.
The nipple of a woman is not some evil thing that is going to corrupt people, most people have seen them before, mostly their mother's.
Breast are owned by both genders but are a deeply personal part of a woman's life and story. They change a she changes. Grow, and shrink, and rise and fall. Are covered in all kinds of marks.
They are not "fun bags" for consumption. They are not "for" anyone but the woman who owns them.
They are not to sell cars, or burgers, or beer.
A woman's body does not belong to those looking at her. It belongs solely, and soulfully to her.

Seriously women, more often than not, do not choose what they wear, how they have their hair, or make-up (even on dates) to impress men. They wear clothes for a thousand subtle reason (even down the size of their heels) as a code that women tend to read in each other. The same is true of make-up (everyone woman has different persona with different make-up looks if they wear make-up). It is a code that sends signals to other women, not seen by most men at all. Oh she is wearing red lipstick? She MUST want to have sex! Nope. Just as likely she is on her period, has a zit she is trying to draw attention away from or even liked the colour as it matched her scarf.
It isn't about you.
I feel like I need to say it again.
It is not about YOU.
Is that a new dress/skirt/perfume?
Maybe, or maybe it is awfully close to laundry day and she only has her "good" dresses left.

You see women, and this is a shocker; are people! They find their own bodies beautiful, powerful and magickal and some men do too. They don't feel the need to own them, or turn them into objects and things. They don't have to talk to them like children that need "protecting" from themselves.

Oh no, sit down Instagram boys, I am NOT finished.
#goddess is not only used to empower women and girls, sometimes there might be nude images (but they might not be sexual, and there maybe sexual images that are not nudes) and you need to deal with that rationally and sensitively.
You can no more divide the Divinity from a woman's body that you can from the land. They are intimately connected. It is this very power that is the uneasiness you feel.
#goddess is not simply about women's bodies but something much older, much deeper.
Goddess is powerful.

She is ancient. Even if you do not reinstate the hashtag She won't be going somewhere. She is the moon, the earth, the stars. She won't be silenced any more.

Bright Blessings xxx

Do remember to BUY the book The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice and if you want your own Goddess Spirit Doll pop to the shop on Etsy Lucy Drake & Co.

Feminism and Philosophy

Feminism and Philosophy

Only 25% of philosophy posts are occupied by women in UK Universities.

Why could this be?

Well philosophy is not seen as a subject that is "female friendly", but make no bones about this, it has been seen this way since the Ancient Greeks. You know, the ones who believed that only "bitches" barked in public.The very foundation of this discipline is based around a certain way of thinking, speaking and acting that embodied "maleness". Do check out the Mary Beard lecture (funny, smart and informative.)

Myself, I was put off philosophy but the students I knew studying the subject (one of the classic combo of my University was writing and philosophy). Again they were all male. There had all kinds of beliefs and backgrounds but they were all greasy and very smug.When our writing lecturer was found to have no background in writing at all, she bribed them all to turn up to her class with beer and cigarettes. It sickened me to my stomach, because it worked.

Of my own free will because I wanted to know I went and researched philosophy as an adult. Again it wasn't that I didn't understand the concepts, or the metaphors. It didn't bother me the the entirety of Western "thought" was that of men, with some very odd ideas of "normal". Or that the few female philosophers I knew of were edited out of the history completely.
It was it's detachment from the world I suppose. Don't get me wrong some of the French guys were pretty wild! Yet as a pursuit it was detached from the physical, from form, from the land and the body.
It was bloodless.

This detachment is seen as "perfect" or desirable, and yet this, this I believe above all else is why philosophy has the biggest problem with women. The dispassionate, disembodied was the ideal state, because philosophy was about the mind, the consciousness.
"I think therefore I am."
It subjugates the physical. It subjugates and makes one kind of thinking and being preferred over another.
In this way it excludes. In this way it makes women (and men of feeling and form) divorce part of themselves to be included in the arguments. Persisting the kinds of arguments that are likely to happen. Creating an environment of competitive, repetitive ideas, ideals and blinkers.
Of course this divorce of awareness, consciousness and physical form is quite alien to most people.
For me it boils down to this.
"I am, therefore I think." or more clearly to me, "I am and I am aware, echoing that I am."

Philosophy has a problem with women. It is not one that is easily fixed. It is not one that academically will be transformed until philosophy wakes up to the totality of existence, awareness and new possibilities. Of course teaching about more female thinkers, aiming classes at both/all/mixed genders would get some much needed fresh eyes into the mix.

Bright Blessings xxx

Go and buy my book! The Key Opening the Doorway to Magickal Practice NOW!
Or visit the shop Lucy Drake & Co.

Gnostic Magick?

Gnostic Magick?

This is something that is still rattling around my brain so if it this a bit raw, my apologies.

You see I don't really know what to call it and well Gnostic, seemed the best word I could find.

A long time ago, while I was ready The Golden Bough; which is thick with ideas, concepts and a wealth of ideas, rituals and worlds that no longer exist, it said something that made me stop.

It was an interesting idea.

The later premises and context not withstanding.

It said that before there was anything. 

Before there there was civilization, before religion or even stone tools there was a Magic(k) Age.

Now THAT is an interesting idea.

To the writer it was a proof of how backwards and "primitive" Magic(k) and all it's taboo's and rites were. That the superiority of modernity and Western thought was more evolved. Of course Fraud and Jung, and even the first World War were yet to sink this unshakable view. 

Yet think of it.

What if our first tool was this one?

What made me think of this was actually something Alan Moore said in his article for Pagan Dawn this quarter.

"consciousness, preceded by language (and thus art) were all phenomena arising at around the the same momentous juncture of human development and that all of these would have been perceived as magick." 

You see what I mean by Gnostic Magick, is one that one that thinks. One that questions. One that delves deep inside and out into uncomfortable spaces. Within and without.

Is consciousness magickal?

What do we mean by consciousness?

What do we mean by magick?

What real and reality mean when they are both subjective?

How does this inquiry change your practice?

How does it change our belief?

If everything (and nothing) is real, how do we navigate this psychic soup to meaning?

I look forward to read Alan Moore and Steve Moore's book, Moon and Serpents Bumper Book of Magic. 

I am not looking for answers.

I look forward to new questions, and maybe new ideas I have found before but not mined deeply, or not even dreamed of.

The dumbing down of Magick has many consequences we can not yet imagine. Yet I believe there are people who think, maybe not like I do, but those that question, not through lack of faith (I have seen too much to NOT believe), but because they want to know.

They wish to walk deeper into the places we have not looked. Ask questions of the oldest of bones, in the newest of places.

I will meditate on it.

Bright Blessings xxx

Don't forget to buy the book and visit the shop.

Psychics are so cool.

Psychics are so cool.

After the initial burst of gratitude and love from being alive and home, exhaustion kicked in. So too did all the great (please note this is sarcasm) amount of psychic weirdness.
Well not weirdness, normal for me.
I am sure some people thinks this makes me feel "special" and "wow" and ooooh. No. Nope. Not at all.
It makes me tired.
Kinda grumpy truth be told.

Yesterday I got jolted awake by someone slapping the back of my head so hard (all of which I felt) making a needle I was holding in my mouth go right through the roof of my mouth.

Not fun. I felt all fuzzy and not quite headache all day from that one.

Moving on. This morning. At least it was an interesting story, but my back is kinda sore from the bullet.

"I" am in a Nazi prison, but it a movable "camp" not a fixed one. I am dressed as a nun and praying in Latin as the officer takes off my habit and beats me. The soldiers look terrified and uncomfortable. Some of them begin to pray under their breath. I don't know what made me think of it, but I start to sing psalms. We lurch and stop. I hear gunfire. The officer order the soldiers to see what is the hold up. I hear a familiar voice. A woman. I make a grab for the knife at his belt. I stab him just twice, under his arm and in his neck. Betty is at the door. She lets me out and we put on soldiers uniform on, then our nuns habits. I find my gun. We walk through a village. It is busy with people and the is melting snow.
We find our hidden motor bike and get strip off our habits. We laugh. We even smoke a cigarette together as we speed down the hills. I can still feel some of the documents of paper pressed against my skin around my belly. We get off the bike and head on foot up a steep bank. I bury the camera in the green wet ground. We crest the bank..."

I have just had a big ass salt bath so I can maybe get some peace. I will also be simmering herbs and oils all day to try and keep the dead more firmly the other side of The Veil.

Being psychic is a gift. Yet not one that that is cool or even particularly fun for the most part.

I am not quite ready to write about my adventures the other side of the Veil while in hospital, I will probably share some of those in my other blog.

Bright Blessings xxx

Don't forget to check out the shop and buy the book!

Hospital

Hospital.

So I have been in hospital this week which is why I have not been on g+ or written blogs or anything.

Hospitals are weird places full or rules and procedures that make sense only to themselves.

I am doing better.

Glad to be home and sleeping in my own bed. Not being a human in cushion. 

Glad and full of gratitude and love.

So much love.

Bright Blessings xxx

Life is Bitter and life is sweet

Life is Bitter

and life is so sweet.

Gratitude is the fulcrum of positivity. It helps you see that what you have, what is around you is not bleak and barren place.

You have hands to hold on with?

To touch the world?

To make music with?

To create with?

To cradle those you care for?

But the mistakes, the pain? Ah the pain.

The people I hurt and have hurt me...

Pain and pleasure.

Sensation and learning.

Birthing experience.

All so mixed up.

Like pain in your fingertips

From playing guitar until your fingers turned black.

It feels good.

It touches the memory of that expanded state.

Lips bruised from kissing.

Wind burn from being in the snow

Or too near a fire.

I should have seen.

Ah you see NOW!

What a gift!

Eyes to see the world.

Beautiful pools of soulful vision.

To look.

To see.

To been seen.

Bright Blessings xxx

Misty eyed views of the Past.

Misty eyed views of the Past.

I have a book about the Mabinogion by a reasonably reputable pagan author. Yet as I try to read this book (it is a bathroom book) I find myself reading just a little and then finding my eye twitching.
I find there to be a lot of opinion dressed as fact, and worse than that (I really I no expert) there are glaring white washes about this "Welsh" mystical text.
The author seems completely unclear, either through ignorance or cultural embarrassment as to why these stories in these valuable books were "forgotten", until they were re-discovered by a plucky English woman (like the author?) in the 19th century.
The books they speak of such as The Red Book of Herges and the White book of Rhydderch were stories, treasures from a time of Celtic, or Celtoid culture was once wide spread over much of what we now think of as Scotland, England and Wales.
Wales, did not forget or lose these stories (down the back of the sofa?) they were stolen. They were removed deliberately, just as the Welsh language was harangued, harassed, butchered and stolen. Like our lands were pushed back, our Royal lines all but wiped from existence. From Anglo-Saxons, to Norman Kings, "The Welsh" were pushed, occupied, bullied, set to other parts of the Empire for fighting for food an basic rights, if not just hung.
Our words, our myths and stories about our Sovereignty (over our lands) and place within it was a powerful weapon, one best not left in Welsh hands.
While some of the tales do take place in and around Wales and it's glorious mystical and very real landscapes, these stories also speak of a time when we ruled much of the Isle of the Mighty.
Rhiannon did not happen to lose her child, it was stolen, by some monstrous force.
The wells that were occupied to stop people drinking from them in the village I went to school, were English soldiers. The older remembered of the community when I was in school still remembered it. You could out of spite or maybe religious solace) such a sponge of Vinegar. My school was on Vinegar Hill.
Now I get that these texts are mythical full of deep, soulful meaning. Amazing themes, archetypes and so on. Tales that are in their own way nurturing and healing.
I understand there draw. I understand how they might shape someone's path.
Yet viewed out of context you miss not only there importance to the larger world but to a groups of people. Ones that are still subject to a huge amount of racism, ignorance and hatred.

I don't know if I especially have a point.

Bright Blessings xxx