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Circle of Eight by Jane Meredith

8/4/2019

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BOOK REVIEW BY PEGI EYERS

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Circle of Eight: Creating Magic for Your Place on Earth
By Jane Meredith
Llewellyn Publications, 2015


For holistic place-based cultures all over the world, human spiritual practice arises from, and is informed by, wild nature and the land.  In contemporary Pagan Community this approach varies, and it can be ambiguous how important wild nature is to our diverse traditions and religion(s).  Yet for at least a decade in Australia a small and dedicated group have created a spiritual tradition from the ground up, and Circle of Eight: Creating Magic for Your Place on Earth is the result of that collaboration between land and people. While musing on the local reverence for standing stones and other sacred sites on a trip through England, Priestess of the Goddess Jane Meredith had an epiphany. It was clear to her that Europeans had a special way of belonging to the landscape, and she wondered how she might apply that same deep knowing of place to her own Australian homelands.
 
So the Circle of Eight was born, a brilliant system based on ancient Celtic principles that can be embraced anywhere in the world, by any group of people. The Circle of Eight is a magical system that incorporates the unique features of each location – the weather, seasons, flora, fauna, elements, and other special conditions.  Beginning as a structure for magic and ritual, and with participants holding the positions, the Circle of Eight engages magically, energetically, and literally with the cardinal and intermediate compass directions. True to the specific landforms that surround each community, layers of meaning and activity continue throughout the neo-pagan Wheel of the Year, with explorations, ritual workings, earth magic, animism, local magic, storytelling, nature walks, ceremony and festivals. The Circle of Eight becomes a real, living and immediate experience. 
 
Intermixed with wonderful memoirs, and passages akin to the best in the genre of “nature writing,” the delightful chapters in Circle of Eight are also eight in number – Grounding, Casting a Circle, Elements, Invocation, Ritual, Myth, Inner Work and Release.  Meredith takes us on a journey through the structure of the Circle of Eight in both the southern and northern hemispheres, how to form and facilitate a circle, how to map a geographic circle, casting the circle, how to incorporate special elements from locality into the circle, invoking the living land, correspondences in the circle, festivals during the Wheel of the Year, working with myth, exploring inner work, endings, and letting go.  The author is deeply aware of previous claims to the land in Australia and the Indigenous Knowledge of those who came before, and at many points in the book expresses her deep gratitude for diverse First Nations and their teachings.  Circle of Eight takes the most honorable and correct approach, which is for European Australians to form their own deep bonds to the land, to “allow its presence to well up within us and begin to inform us more and more,” without appropriating any elements of traditional culture.

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Of course there are unique challenges to acquiring land-based knowledge in Australia, such as volcanos, brush fires, tornados, mudslides and other extreme weather events.  Meredith points out that Air, Water, Earth and Fire in Australia are nothing like the benign forces as portrayed in popular Pagan books!  Each part of the landscape and each element has a unique quality and personality, and we feel them “like energetic anchors in the landscape, present to inform, support and guide us as we work.”  As our practice widens and deepens, we discover features in the land that correspond to our own heritage and mythic traditions, and the Circle of Eight system can revive our own ancestral memories based on the sacredness of the land.   Especially thrilling is realizing how the ancient European practices of marking the land with great stone circles and the ley line tradition can live on today, by incorporating the “lore of the land” into our ceremonies, rituals, magical practices and everyday lives.  Wherever we are located, forming intimate relationships with the land feels familiar, and Pagans, Wiccans, Animists, Green Seers, Druids, Polytheists, Goddess Devotees and Reconstructionists alike will resonate with the superb teachings, guidelines, advice and wisdom found in the Circle of Eight: Creating Magic for Your Place on Earth. 
 
“Both European fairy tales and local, indigenous stories seem equally alive and potent, and equally imminent in the magic of this place by night.  The mountain breathes and its dreaming unfolds.  Frogs, lizards, and small marsupials own this place of red earth, old volcano, and tall trees.  Owls and maybe bats are here too.  And we are here.  Taking a few hesitant steps onto the edges of this realm in this place that formed all the earth far around it, erupting as fire many years ago but now resting, given over to the enormity of life unfolding and the deepening of magic.”  (Jane Meredith)

www.janemeredith.com


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The Circle of Eight ~ Offerings to the Land
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Jane Meredith

This review originally appeared in SageWoman magazine.

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Pegi Eyers is the author of  Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for uncolonization, social justice, ethnocultural identity, building land-emergent community & resilience in times of massive change.
Available from Stone Circle Press or Amazon. ​ 

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"A Child of the System" Volume 1 & 2 ~ Lynn D. McLaughlin

10/3/2018

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A Child of the System: Little Lynn's Story
A Child of the System: Life as Adult Lynn

REVIEW BY PEGI EYERS

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For many of us, putting our life story out in the public domain for all the world to see, is a good way to empower our healing journey.  Against all odds, this is exactly what Lynn D. McLaughlin has done, with her dedication to charting the stages of her life and drawing the reader in, as a witness to her story.  "A Child of the System" Part One, Little Lynn's Story and Part Two, Life as Adult Lynn describe in great detail her chronology of events, and Lynn is braver than most as she delves into the displacement, sexual assault, abuse, addiction and other trauma she has experienced.

Lynn's keen memories begin when she was a toddler, and even as the abandonments and assaults begin to stack up, her sense of injustice never wavers. What emerges from these tragic narratives is the sense of a spunky little girl who demands to be seen and heard, and who tries to keep her balance in the midst of trauma and betrayal. Among parents and other family members struggling with poverty, alcoholism and issues of their own, Little Lynn suffers neglect, illness, violence, rape from her step-father and uncles; and witnesses the death of an infant sibling from meningitis. She experiences racism and a lack of freedom, and when her parents are unable to care for the family, at age 6 Little Lynn becomes a Children's Aid Society "case" - entering the precarity of foster care until reaching adulthood at age 18. With the "mismanagement of the authorities" in charge of her life, she is shunted between various foster homes and the homes of relatives, alternating between school, home life, the occasional time of "normalcy" and outright horror.

Lynn traverses the disappointments and loneliness of her various adoptions, and is subject to archaic punishments, cruelty, confinement and medical errors. She does not feel safe either with family or in various foster homes, and is terrified to speak out about the predators and pedophiles that surround her. In recent times we have seen growing awareness on toxic masculinity,  rape culture and domestic assault, and positive developments in transformative justice and community accountability with the #MeToo, #BelieveSurvivors, #WeBelieveYou, #BreaktheSilence, #NoConsent movements, and other strategies to end sexual violence.  But when Lynn was a child growing into a young adult, complicity and "keeping silent" about  sexual abuse was the norm, with taboos in place against reporting to family members, the police, other authorities, or (heaven forbid) seeking support. Falsely labelled a "problem child" for understandable patterns of rebellion, numbing out, running away, alcohol abuse or encounters with the police, Lynn develops the PTSD that affects her life for many years. What is PTSD?  It is being pushed beyond one’s physical, emotional, mental and spiritual limits not once, not twice, but repeatedly: over and over and over.


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Despite injustice, risky encounters, extreme poverty, incarceration in a "girl's school," early pregnancies, alcohol and drug use, Lynn freely examines her own mistakes and role in the abuse she has suffered - all aspects of the person she is today. Overall, Lynn SPEAKS TRUTH TO POWER, and ultimately, what Little Lynn's Story outlines is the absolute failure of the Children's Aid Society in Canada to respect the children in their care, to offer them safe space, or to provide them with protection from predators and other forms of domestic violence.  Instead of being agents of human rights, the CAS are complicit with the neglect, abuse and confinement of children, and deny any evidence of sexual assault (or don't care). Lynn experienced gaslighting (blaming the victim) from the CAS, which is the opposite of compassionate service ~!  Both as a testimonial and a call-to-action, Little Lynn's Story and Life as Adult Lynn compel us to interrogate the services and function of the CAS today, and the shameful legacy of such "social services" in Canada.

Lynn's healing journey begins in earnest when she connects with her beloved Indigenous Elders Vera Martin, Linda Post and others, and finally receives the encouragement, support and ceremony she needs, embedded all along in Anishnaabe and Odawa traditions. In the Kawarthas area, she discovers the Indigenous counselling centre Niijkiwendidaa Anishnaabekwag Services Circle (NASC),  Nogojiwanong Friendship Centre, social workers and strong Anishnaabe Kwe (Indigenous women and sisters) as incredible sources of love and support.  The transformational importance of restoring Indigenous Roots and cultural recovery for healing trauma cannot be understated, and Lynn also finds a beautiful source of unconditional love and support when she is blessed with the presence of a wonderful man in her life.  No one is immune to the difficulties of life, and yet those of us with white and/or class privilege cannot possibly imagine the extra burdens of oppression and poverty forced on Indigenous people. And at the same time that we celebrate Lynn's healing journey, we must make reparations, take responsibility for the harm caused by colonial agencies such as the CAS, and make sure that these tragedies do NOT happen again.

Ultimately, what we take away from Lynn's introspection and willingness to share, is that many of our perceived shortcomings are not ours at all. We are NOT inherently flawed ("nurture"), as conditions of the wider society ("nature") dictate the trajectory of our lives.   Daily impacts include systemic conditions of racism, discrimination, oppression, poverty, marginalization, dis-empowerment, disenfranchisement, and lateral violence - in addition to the stereotypes placed on members of the human family by a "higher power." And that "higher power" has a name - it is the white supremacy of European Settler-Colonialism in Canada, that has had terrible and toxic affects on Indigenous people. 

For all those impacted by the intersectional oppressions, connecting the experiences of life with a critique and analysis of colonialism is incredibly empowering.  "I have had the honor of witnessing our people link the circumstances of their lives - how they experience the personal trauma of colonialism through the child welfare system, the state education system, gender violence, addictions, poverty, the prison system, or mental health issues - to the larger structures and process of settler colonialism. These are powerful moments to witness, and in my own person these moments have been the most generative."  Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, "As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance," University of Minnesota Press, 2017.

I honor Lynn D. McLaughlin's impulse to get it down on paper, to chart her life story - the suffering and the healing as an act of courage - and to say, I AM HERE! I survived, every act of violence, betrayal, abandonment and trauma made me who I am - I am proud of my survival, and of thriving to be a better person. Every event in Lynn's life is a mark on a psyche of the utmost resilience, proud to have persevered.  Thank you and Chi Meegwetch for sharing your truth, Lynn, and for shining your light into the dark corners.


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Lynn D. McLaughlin at her home in the Kawarthas

Lawsuits and Class Actions Against the Children's Aid Society
>Click Here<


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Pegi Eyers is the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, uncolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Available from Stone Circle Press or Amazon. ​


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Radical Wholeness: The Embodied Present and the Ordinary Grace of Being by Philip Shepherd

7/25/2018

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REVIEW BY PEGI EYERS
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Radical Wholeness is a timely guide to stepping outside the official "story" of western civilization, and a rich resource for reconnecting to the original "wholeness" of our bodily knowing. Philip Shepherd has done a wonderful job of naming the many aspects of western ideology that separate us from our senses, intuition, wild nature, and the Cosmos. Since the time of the Greek philosophers, an emphasis on the “mind” and all that is linear, left brain and cerebral has been reflected in the macrocosm of our civilization, with its unsustainable disregard for natural law and the Dreaming Earth. 

The top-down authority of "analytical over embodied," "brain over body," and "intellect over instinct" is the bias at the root of our humancentric society, and has led to the cascading economic and environmental crises we face today. For millennia our social conditioning has worked overtime, keeping rigid boundaries in place between intellectual knowledge and the co-creation of our body's own intelligence. Human beings possess both head and heart knowledge equally and for good reason, and we need a balance, or weaving between the two, to flourish and thrive.  And yet, here we are, immersed in a world based on compartmentalization and the machine model - false beliefs that disrupt a healthy sense of self-identity and the functioning of community. Radical Wholeness is a monumental survey on how this “dysfunction of division” came to be, and the beliefs and practices we can recover in today’s world to reclaim our bodies, our sensory knowing, and our “ordinary grace of being.”
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The truth is, we continue to be enveloped in the "wholeness" of creation, and even after centuries of thinking and acting apart from nature, this remains our intrinsic reality. Our civilization is based on a mistake, which over time has disabled our senses. We have been immersed in "wholeblindness" as we fixate on the past, agonize over the future, and dwell on the ownership of material things. The western world has denied the fact that humans ARE part of the living, breathing, ever-changing world - not “above”  or “apart” from it - and this bypass has led to countless acts of denial, separation and destruction. 

Radical Wholeness is focused on what authentic "wholeness" can look like, how we have been desensitized to it, and what we can do to reclaim this sensitivity in ourselves and others. Drawing on the timelessness of tribal worldviews, mystery religions and other animist traditions, Shepherd delves into the pronounced difference between Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and Western Mind. Remembering our "bodyworld," resting with our stillpoint, recovering our "holosapience" or ecocentric abilities, and partnering with the sentient world attunes us to the whole, which is the ancient way of knowing common to all Ancestral Traditions.  Also, accessing  the holistic nature of intelligence found throughout Earth Community and the Cosmos, links us to deeper levels of intraconnection that allow for synchronicity and "magical" events to occur.

Shepherd charts how the binary themes in western thinking have expanded and become normalized over the centuries, and acknowledges the patriarchal theory of "head = masculinity" and "body = femininity." He describes this dynamic as a "heinous, ludicrous cultural imbalance."  As an extension to this, and what could have been included in Radical Wholeness I think, is that from the beginning western thinking has been a male-dominated process, translating not only into oppressive gender bias toward women and the LGBQT2 community, but more deadly notions of  dominance and hierarchy.  During the Enlightenment-Humanist epoch and the spread of Euro-Empire worldwide, western science entrenched the  ascendancy of empirical knowledge and white male heteronormativity by developing "race theory" as justification for the slavery and genocide of millions of BIPOC. Including this important fact in the conversation makes the link clearer over time to our responsibility as social justice activists today, and the importance of dismantling the patriarchy and the intersectional oppressions. 

"The white male European Colonizer considered himself lucid, rational and forward-thinking, in stark contrast to Indigenous peoples, the African Diaspora and Turtle Island First Nations (the Colonized), who were considered 'less than,' in a 'primitive state'  (i.e. having heart or body knowledge) and 'impulsive, superstitious, childlike and savage.' These toxic stereotypes and false perspectives have been in place for centuries, and still are, in racist and unprogressive circles.  It cannot be stressed enough that the entire panoply of emphases on the cerebral and 'living in the head' arise primarily from the white, male European elite, and these fantasies have been the deadly driving force behind racism and white supremacy.  And as BIPOC have been attacked and oppressed, so has the natural world!  In every sphere today (including academics), the social justice conversation needs to happen, as white folks everywhere wake up to the unearned privilege we hold, interrogate Empire, decolonize, and question the very structures of our civilization."  
(Ancient Spirit Rising)

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As we re-learn how to become fully present, embodied human beings who feel and live in grounded inter-relatedness, Radical Wholeness contains guidelines of ultimate value, such as the collection "Wholeness in Sixteen Parts" and the comparison chart "Brain in the Belly/Brain in the Head" to keep us inspired. As Shepherd reminds us, "to feel the present as a whole is to feel your being as a whole living within the Wholeness." He suggests moving through the four stages of our embodied remembrance, which means coming home to ourselves, coming home to the present, returning to the core, bottom-up breathing from the pelvic zone,  and finally, integrating the energies. As we widen our sensory awareness and partner with the mindful world, we acknowledge what nature loves, and begin to actualize the principles of wholeness in our society, by changing the structure of business, consumerism, politics and education. 

Our central conundrum and challenge today (!) is how to reject the brutal linear patriarchal logic of the western world, as we continue to find new ways to decentralize our thinking and decolonize from Empire.  Instead of blindly accepting the fragmented life we have known, that places the abstract and embodied in opposition, the time has come to embrace the genius of the body, natural magic and Ancient Mind, and integrate these aspects into a harmonious whole. Highly recommended for ongoing study and practice, Radical Wholeness is a truly revolutionary book ~!!

There is no need to achieve wholeness; it's all that exists.  You are held by wholeness in every moment of your life.
Philip Shepherd
 

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Access Philip Shepherd's website Philip Shepherd: Bringing Clarity to a Chaotic World for exciting news, dialogue, videos, endorsements and blogs! 

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Pegi Eyers is the author of  Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for uncolonization, social justice, ethnocultural identity, building land-emergent community & resilience in times of massive change.
Available from Stone Circle Press or Amazon. ​

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Ecological Awakening

4/5/2018

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REVIEW BY PEGI EYERS
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We cannot dispute humanity’s incredible achievements and expertise, but the current wave of social and environmental disasters are the result of errors in our thinking.  As we face an uncertain future, clearly it is time to transition forward (or back) to knowing ourselves as embedded in Earth Community once again, and Morgan Caraway’s new book Ecological Awakening is an excellent companion for the journey.  He identifies the root cause of our separationist thinking as part of the ancient shift to agrarian from hunter-gatherer societies, and how the arrival of patriarchal imperialism divided us from the natural world.  He points out that the conceptual thought behind religion and other systems has alienated us even more, and as capitalism continues to commodify nature, our toxic worldview of disconnection is at an all-time high.  With keen insight and wry humor, Caraway points out the idiocy of destroying the very elements in nature that give rise to life itself  – the air, forests, lands and waters.
 
It is fascinating how Caraway recognizes the narrow scope of popular self-help movements, and how modern spirituality has left out the earth connection! He says that “finding personal happiness is important, but keeping the Earth livable is at least equally crucial,” and goes on to say “that a spirituality or philosophy that doesn’t include nature isn’t complete.”  With a concise and enjoyable style, Ecological Awakening makes clear links between current statistics on climate change (2017), primal survival conditioning, the integrated outlook of indigenous societies, “wild mind,” non-duality, sustainable off-grid building practices, renewable energy, reducing our carbon footprint, neurodecolonization (changing how we think), thoughts on countering despair, and the universal need for belonging and community. 

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Author Morgan Caraway
In a set of wonderful chapters Ecological Awakening reminds us of what really matters, or more succinctly, what is essential to all life, and explores our human relationship with the elements of air, water and earth – and our material culture as sourced from the land such as food, clothing and shelter. 
Ecological Awakening charts a pathway to shifting from the Me to We by “highlighting the intrinsic, unbreakable connection between all things, ourselves included,” and how true understanding of this dynamic can bring about an almost mystical awakening.   Knowing ourselves as ecological beings once more “has the potential of simultaneously solving both our social and ecological problems.”   Caraway offers valid solutions to the cascading crises by engaging with social change, inner transformation and readiness for collapse. Resisting business as usual and the insanity of putting economy ahead of ecology, he urges us that the time to act is now, and that it is imperative for humanity to come together across ideological, racial, national and political lines.  Ecological Awakening is a clarion call that leads directly to personal action! 

The fact that Caraway continues to have faith in humanity is ultimately inspiring, and Ecological Awakening is an amazing accomplishment from a true eco-warrior who not only models how to live sustainably on the land, but care deeply about the Earth.  He invites us to continue the conversation, as “ecoawakening is a grassroots movement - it’s really about each of us.  Our modern economy and worldview hangs on this false conceptual model of reality. Realizing that this view is absurd and that we are connected to each other (and the Earth) has the potential to revolutionize our lives, our way of relating to each other, and everything else in between.”


Ecological  Awakening is available on Amazon Kindle >here<  and print edition >here< 
Website for Morgan Caraway ~ Sustainable Life School  >here<


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Pegi Eyers is the author of  Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for uncolonization, social justice, ethnocultural identity, building land-emergent community & resilience in times of massive change.
Available from Stone Circle Press or Amazon. ​


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Witches and Pagans by Max Dashu

12/13/2017

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REVIEW BY PEGI EYERS
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Believe it or not, there was a time in recent memory when powerful women were not
part of the cultural landscape.  For those of us coming of
age in the 60’s  and 70’s, discovering historical figures and role models for the first time was like bestowing a
set of phantom wings to our bodies, as we floated free
and rose from the abyss
after centuries of collective 
feminine soul loss.
 

I remember walking through Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1982 and thinking, why did I not know about my own motherline, or the other incredible accomplish-ments of women throughout time?  And I was not the only one! After an initial period of grieving, and facing down the terror of charting new terrain, modern women got to work. Artists, feminists and scholars in  Matriarchal Studies, Women's History and Goddess Spirituality began to produce a monumental body of work, and our worldview changed forever.

One of these towering and influential figures is Max Dashu, who has spent over 48 years excavating the western canon for evidence of women of power in Old Europe, early medieval history and indigenous societies. She founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970, and her ongoing research engages Herstory worldwide, placing women at the forefront where we belong.  Women who were repressed, banned, hidden and obscured - the priestesses,  clan mothers, healers, shamans, water-witches, oracles, myth-makers, philosophers, warriors and rebels from our ancestral motherlines - have come to life through Max’s relentless dedication to "restoring women to cultural memory." As author, activist and artist, she  continues to offer a rich collection of  visual presentations, exhibits, courses, workshops, webcasts, and keynote talks that highlight women's resistance to patriarchal oppression, challenge stereotypes of race and class, and interrogate the structures of Empire.


Over the years, Max has slowly worked toward publishing this monumental body of work, and Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion 700-1100 is the first installment in the highly-anticipated series entitled Secret History of the Witches from Veleda Press. As an independent scholar, Max explores history, myth, archaeology, art, linguistics, pagan traditions and diverse spiritual philosophies, and makes this knowledge accessible by bridging the gap between academia and grassroots education.
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Max Dashu
From my own perspective as a writer and educator on ancestral empowerment, the most beautiful aspect of Witches and Pagans is how it gives modern women permission to recover, restore, and rejuvenate pre-colonial traditions in our lives today. We are witnessing the failure of the patriarchy in the late-stage capitalism, massive change and climate disaster that surrounds us, and alternatives for creating a new sustainable society can be sourced from our own  roots - in women’s work, women’s power, women's knowledge, and women's ceremony. The renaissance is underway, and Max's work affirms the innate capacity of the feminine to embody the ideals of reciprocity and care, and to mentor others in justice and earth remediation.

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"The Cailleach Bhéara" art by Max Dashu
From roots in paleolithic times, Max illuminates the unique abilities and skills of women connected to the wild, and the magic of the cosmos. From a wellspring of deep mysteries, the healers, witches and seers of Old Europe held a vast repertoire of magic, and earth-based healing practices in service to their own communities.
With powerful connections to the Goddesses, elements and spirits of place, the wisewomen in our female heritage worked with chants, poetry, songs, charms, divination, rituals, herbcraft, plant medicine and other tools. The Suppressed Histories Archives has a special focus on female iconography from all over the world, and the origins, or etymologies, of key words such as "wicce," "pagan" and wyrd." Much to my delight, Witches and Pagans has become  the definitive sourcebook for creation myths on the megalithic "Old Shes" and powerful Celtic women in my own Scots Gaelic and Anglo-Saxon traditions!

Within a vast complex of traditions, for millennia the ancestral "Old Goddess" in northern Europe was considered a primordial being, a Creatrix more ancient than the Earth. Having super-human strength, vitality and endurance, these mythic "Old Women" or colossal giantesses could harness the elemental powers of stone, wind, water and fire. In Ireland and Scotland, the many versions of the archaic Cailleach myth speak of matrilineal origin stories, Elders who "carry all the knowledge," Crones who help travelers in distress, protectors of wildlife, and guardians with extraordinary powers. The Irish Cailleach Bhéara and Scottish Cailleach shaped the landforms and waters of the region, and built megalithic tombs, passage graves, womb-like crucibles, earth formations, sacred sites, monuments, standing stones, cairns and mounds. Alternatively, the "cailleachan" were nomadic herdswomen, spinners and weavers, supernatural women connected to animist sanctuaries, or associated with the Scottish deer goddess (Glaisteag).


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"Pictish stone with Snake, Mirror and Comb" ~ Art by Max Dashu
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Pictish Serpent Stone ~ Aberlemno, Scotland
Reading through the amazing compilation of Celtic Goddesses, primordial myth-makers and wisewomen in Witches and Pagans, my own soul memories were awakened, and I could feel the potential of my motherline once again.  Many of the tales felt familiar somehow - some as close as my own skin - and astounding revelations rose up from the female sphere of power. I knew these women, and I knew those places, and I have experienced that deep time!  The spirit guardians of sacred springs, shines, holy wells and groves of trees; shapeshifters and animal ally-companions; storytellers, peace-keepers, rune-readers, midwives, and shamanic women that travelled in the spiritual worlds -  all these are marvels that sing to the soul.
In an epic collection of narratives from the ancient beginnings of European indigeneity to practices kept alive through the centuries, Witches and Pagans provides the threads for reclaiming our mystic talents and abilities as the witches, wisewomen and Elders of today. 
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"The Weird Sisters" art by Max Dashu
Stories of the Earth Mothers, Goddesses such as Arianrhod, the Wyrd, Morrigan and other raven shapeshifters, the Faerie Faith, sorceresses, soothsayers, enchanters, diviners, dream-readers, witch-herbalists, encounters with healers in nature sanctuaries and Mother's Night Traditions are all incredibly inspiring. "All that is old is new again" and we can continue to commune with the ancestral dead and the spirit world; visit sacred trees or holy wells; practice divination and healing rituals by invoking the pagan deities and powers; create weaving and spinning magic with spells, omens, amulets and prophecy; and enliven our practice with wands, staffs and oracle bones.

And yet uncovering these treasures has not been easy. History and myth is incomplete, with many gaps and missing pieces. For centuries, women's wisdom and mysteries were systematically demonized by the leaders of the Christian hierarchy in Europe.  Most of the written records that survive had one sole purpose - to  obstruct folk religion, and reinterpret European paganism according to a patriarchal worldview. Scholars who worked with this material historically (and in our time) have also been patriarchal, which has continued to marginalize women, earth-based spirituality and the sacred.


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(C) WITCHES AND PAGANS: WOMEN IN EUROPEAN FOLK RELIGION
In the face of this erasure we are indebted to Max Dashu's particular talent, which peels back the layers of rhetoric and propaganda, and uncovers the empowered female realities hidden deep within.  It takes an astute scholar to decolonize the western canon, someone who knows exactly how the patriarchy operates, and yet can delve beneath the damaging layers of religious pressure and patriarchal oppression to find authentic narrative and meaning. As evidenced in Witches and Pagans and the upcoming volumes in the Secret History of the Witches series, separating out the  hidden strands of folkways, matricultures and animist customs from the "diabolist ideology" of white capitalist-abled cisheteronormative patriarchy is at the heart of Max's work. 
 
Her ethnohistorical approach to integrating myth, folk religion, philosophy and the archaeological record provides a truly unique portal into our spiritual past.  Throughout the long grim years of Christian domination, Empire-building and witch hunts, the wide-ranging narratives in Witches and Pagans recover and reinstate the ancient memories, symbols, mythic folkways and essential lore that continued on in Europe, and that can still nourish us today. For all those practicing cultural recovery work and nature-centered spiritualities, this brilliant series will heal our separation from each other, our European ancestry, and Earth Community.  In my own work, my heart soars knowing that the divine otherworld female has been retained and expressed in our Celtic consciousness and tradition. 

Thank you Max Dashu, for this incredible gift to the world!

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Highly recommended, with extensive notes and exhaustive references, Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion 700-1100 is available from Veleda Press.


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Pegi Eyers is the author of  Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, uncolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Available from Stone Circle Press or Amazon. ​

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"Farming the Woods: An Integrated Permaculture Approach to Growing Food and Medicinals in Temperate Forests" by Ken Mudge and Steve Gabriel

2/20/2017

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REVIEW BY PEGI EYERS
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Localization means developing strong cooperative relationships with the farmers in our area, as well as developing new practices of sustainable permaculture, agroforestry and forest gardening. Farming and forestry are seen as mutually exclusive in the modern world, but Farming the Woods demonstrates how forest farms can be extremely productive beyond our delineated garden spaces and plowed fields.  

The local bioregion offers an abundance of native fruits, berries, nuts, seeds, vegetables, mushrooms, leaves, flowers, shoots, roots, herbs, barks, sap and wild rice, plus other wild foods and medicinal plants that contribute to our healing and well-being. Learning First Nations knowledge as related to nature’s gifts, and foraging the local foodshed or cultivating and caring for a diversity of plant communities can enhance both human and ecosystem health.  In co-creation with forest ecology and sustainably-managed woodlots, forest agriculture can also be a form of much-needed rewilding.

Restoring the heirloom or foundational varieties and well-adapted native plants that are part of a region’s biodiversity (plus integrating new crops) will stabilize the soil, provide food and shelter for native wild animals, and offer incredible beauty.  Farming the Woods is an essential guide for farmers and gardeners who have access to woodland spaces and are interested in “filling the forests with food” by cultivating specialty crops, and harvesting and marketing these wonderful, healthy (and delicious!) wild foods.


Available from >Amazon<

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Pegi Eyers is the author of  Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, uncolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Available from Stone Circle Press or Amazon. ​

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"Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization in the Age of Nature" by Kenny Ausubel

2/17/2017

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REVIEW BY PEGI EYERS
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Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization in the Age of Nature is an excellent collection of inspiring essays by social entrepreneur Kenny Ausubel, cocreator (with Nina Simons) of the partnership non-profit Bioneers, provider of  environmental and social justice leadership and host of the world-renowned conference of the same name.  In the face of massive change, he outlines the radical personal, political and cultural changes we need to make to build a better future, and that many of the solutions are already waiting for us in the natural world.
 
Divided into three parts, Part One “It’s All Alive” introduces us to the clash of civilizations,  old/new concepts of earth connectivity, cocreation stories, the reenchantment of the Earth, “nature’s operating instructions” and resilience thinking.  In Part Two “Hungry Ghost Stories” Ausubel describes solutions to the reprehensible and criminal practices of Empire including ecocide, the toxicity of consumerism, public relations wars and corporate greed.  With Part Three “Value Change for Survival” he rounds out his discourse with essays on clear thinking, shifting worldviews, the “law of love,” restorative justice, penal reform, peacemaking, clean energy, earth rights, the healing of nature and culture, and the Great Mystery as seen through the eyes of poets and seers. 
 
In Dreaming the Future, Kenny Ausubel introduces us to diverse ideas, proposals, change-makers, visionaries and ecopreneurs from what he calls “a revolution from the heart of nature and the human heart.”  Highly recommended.  www.bioneers.org 

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Pegi Eyers is the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, uncolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Available from Stone Circle Press or Amazon. 

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The Village of Hiawatha: A History

8/23/2016

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Heather Y. Shpuniarsky and the Village of Hiawatha Book Committee


REVIEW BY PEGI EYERS


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With vibrant snapshots of people and places rich in familial and collective meaning, the facts, figures, statistics and stories in The Village of Hiawatha form a portrait of Mississauga Anishinaabeg life both past and present. Truly a group effort, the Village of Hiawatha Book Committee was formed to capture this amazing history, and to express a shared love of community and bonds to place. From ancient times to the pre-contact world of the Anishinaabeg, to the early settlement of what was initially called “Rice Lake Village” plus the growth of the community over the years, The Village of Hiawatha is a monumental work.
 
Aa a racist agenda of Settler-Colonialism in the quest to secure lands and power, First Nations reservations were established to hold native populations apart from the great Empire-building project.  Sending a contradictory message to “assimilate” while imposing segregation at the same time, generally speaking the Canadian “apartheid” system has been an abject failure.  Yet against all odds, the reserve system did give First Nations a precious landbase in their traditional territories, and like the Mississaugas of Rice Lake, have been places of thriving and flourishing community. 
 
One of the goals for writing this First Nations history was to correct the many Eurocentric terms and concepts on record, and to replace colonial history with the true Anishinaabeg realities and place names. The Village of Hiawatha successfully meets other objectives to chronicle the remarkable achievements of the people of Hiawatha, to challenge stereotypes, to enhance respectful nation-to-nation relationships, and to instill pride in contemporary and future generations of Anishinaabeg youth.
 

Rich in archival lore, Heather Shpuniarsky has done a marvelous job of researching, and a cross-section of first-person narratives, oral history, maps, early census and band member lists, photographs, letters, mementos, ephemera, family trees, biographical profiles and wisdom from the Elders are included. The fascinating history of the area is informed by archaeology, an overview of the ancient culture that built the Serpent Mounds as a burial and ceremonial site, and how the landscape has changed over 4000 years. The chapters in The Village of Hiawatha cover the history of individual families including the very first residents; the early Methodist missionaries and schools; later residential school trauma; treaty relationships and other colonial apparatus; Hiawatha’s contribution to wars since 1759; the governance system; historic buildings; social and cultural events; athletics; sources of economy and other ventures such as eco-tourism; and the perennialism of Anishinaabeg traditional ecological knowledge (TEK).
 
An interesting discovery from reading The Village of Hiawatha was the importance of the Methodist Church and school system in the early days - a colonizing force yet the source of many benefits and positive outcomes. The Methodist religion was willingly adopted (or combined with existing ancestral traditions) by many Mississauga Anishinaabeg, and the church building itself (later a United Church) was the beloved hub of community life.
 
Overall, The Village of Hiawatha is a beautiful and important contribution to the much-needed resurgence and rejuvenation of the Mississauga Anishinaabeg.  Like the restoration of the wild rice beds that is vital work today, this historic survey charts the return of cultural pride, and should be required reading for all those seeking to become informed on regional First Nations history and traditions.  


The award-winning book The Village of Hiawatha  is available from The Old Railroad Stop Gift Shop at Hiawatha First Nation,  or from Ningwakwe Learning Press  >www.ningwakwe.ca< 


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Pegi Eyers is the author of  Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, uncolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Available from Stone Circle Press or Amazon. ​

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Magical Gardens by Patricia Monaghan

8/23/2016

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REVIEW BY PEGI EYERS


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In November of 2012, the Feminist, Goddess Spirituality and Pagan community mourned the passing of foremother, author and activist Patricia Monaghan.  She was a powerful and prolific writer, poet, academic and educator, and her work was highly influential to Goddess scholars, Goddess worshippers and Pagans everywhere.  The delight and wisdom in her many books was a huge inspiration to my own progression on the Celtic Spirituality and Goddessian paths, and I am deeply honored to review Magical Gardens. Originally published in 1997, Patricia revised and expanded the original text, and it stands as a beautiful tribute to our timeless connection with the green world in joyful cultivation.  Bracketed by earth-connected ancient tales, and myths that have blossomed from gardens and paradisaic Edens all over the world, this gorgeous book describes our reciprocity with nature, our endless innovation in creating gardens, and the transformative power of planting, tending and harvesting.  
 
According to Patricia, there are three components to magical gardening: “becoming aware of traditions and narratives that hold insights into the connection between self and earth; becoming conscious of the earth’s special needs, the better to craft a connection to her; and becoming knowledgeable about specific plants and techniques that lead to gardening success - myth, mulch and marigolds, respectively.” Magical Gardens covers the basics of sun exposure, soil type, climate, and best plants for your site; plus composting, controlling pests and weeds and caring for plants at all growth stages. We discover powerful magic and meaning at the heart of our cooperation with the green world, and find that we share these sacred spaces with Goddesses, Gods, elves, fairies and devas.  Unlike other mainstream gardening manuals, we are guided to explore both ancient knowledge and modern resources to deepen our magical bond in co-creation with nature, and honor the seasonal cycles of the land with mindful meditation and blessings.  Winter is a time to dream and plan the garden’s shapes, colours and plants that are personally meaningful; Spring to consecrate the soil and seedlings with petition-prayers to encourage and sustain new growth; Summer to perform the endless and enjoyable garden tasks; and Fall for harvesting, clearing, taking stock and taking care.  Patricia reminds us that giving back to the soil with composting, mulch and other methods is the highest form of love and nurture, and that gardening itself is “prayer offered to the earth”.
 
Gardens enhance our spiritual connection to the land, and we are offered rituals for honoring nature’s cycles, earth spirits and our plant allies.  Gardens are sacred green spaces for celebration and marking the transitions in our lives, and Patricia’s advice has inspired me to think about my own work with outdoor labyrinths in a new way, with the potential for public rituals, community happenings and even garden parties(!).   She takes us on a marvelous tour of public botanical gardens devoted to magical themes, such as the Chicago Botanic Garden with its extensive Japanese gardens; re-creations of famous historical gardens such as the medieval herb garden at the Cloisters in New York City; and unique gardens by eclectic individuals such as Niki de Saint-Phalle’s Tarot Garden in Italy!  So inspiring.  My absolute favorite section (in line with my current “Earthing” practice!) is “Care of the Soil” which reverses negative perceptions about the soil, highlighting the many health and spiritual benefits from close contact to the ground of our being.

 
With beautiful themed designs for gardens that you can create in your own land,  backyard or patio-space, Magical Gardens  has easy-to-follow plans for an “Angel Garden”, “Fairy Garden”, “Sorcerer’s Secret Garden”, “Unicorn Meadow”, “Camelot Garden”, “Artemisia Glade”, “Kuan-Yin’s Garden of Mercy” and many more. With this amazing book, visionary Patricia Monaghan has left us with a treasury of sacred expressions that connect soil and spirit - messages from Gaia that integrate us harmoniously with nature’s cycles, and we hear her timeless words,  “As you garden, let Gaia sing through you, testify with your actions to Her grand power. For there is nothing more important that you can do.” 

Thank you Beloved Ancestor and Green Goddess Patricia!

This review originally appeared
in SageWoman magazine, 2014


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Pegi Eyers is the author of  Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community, an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, uncolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Amazon.com 
Stone Circle Press
 

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Wild Things for the Soul by Maia Heissler

8/23/2016

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REVIEW BY PEGI EYERS

From her own experience and deep bond to the cycles and elements of the natural world, artist Maia Heissler has written a beautiful handbook to connecting with nature’s beauty and magic.  Blending spiritual memoir, nature writing and DIY modalities, Maia’s goal is to re-sensitize people to the wisdom of nature and inspire us to love the earth.  She includes cultivated gardens in her discourse, as they ground us in the wonder of the “green fuse” - the regenerative and nurturing power of all green growing things. Our teachers and outdoor classrooms, gardens can be a peaceful sanctuary as well as a joyful and ever-changing means of personal expression. Maia’s narratives show how spending time in nature directly observing can lead to magical and oracular experiences. Her beautiful rune stones (Lifestones) came about by allowing space for the deep meaning inherent in the movements of animals, birds, insects, wind and water; and the shapes of leaves, seed pods, roots and branches to come to her as insights which she translated into beautiful symbols.  Maia also shares stories of the “wild places and wild things” she visits regularly and communes with as co-creator, setting up sacred sites such as a labyrinth walk and a “remembering tree” for obituaries.  She offers great ideas for bringing nature indoors by creating personal altars, and for the crafting of items such as candleholders, planters, walking sticks, mobiles and spirit houses by emulating the interconnectivity of wild nature. Wild Things for the Soul is a significant contribution to the genre of eco-literature.

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Pegi Eyers is the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, decolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Amazon.com 
Stone Circle Press
 

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