TBR Challenge 2015 - Pagan Style

Just when you thought you'd seen the last of me from 2014, here I am again.  Well, it is the other side - Christmas is over, and the spacious plains and meadows of 2015 loom.  Pathways, crossroads, new things, old ghosts. I still like the whole New Years vibe. By this time of year, the old year is starting to run out of steam, and the new year is starting to catch hold of me. 

I borrowed this idea for organising my thoughts on some of the things I'm planning on reading next year from a blog I've loved for years, and which is in my blogroll- Spiral Spun. Please check her out.  She's the calmest blog, the simplest, and one of the most walk the walk blogs I know.  She's doing the challenge, so I thought, I too have MANY unread books (shelves full, a house full, as I have begun to be a person that keeps very few books when they are finished, unless I'm convinced I'll read them or refer to them again). So it's as well to organise a read for a few of them that have been calling to me for some time.  And they have been calling to me in batches, too, which is handy.

The idea of the TBR pile as the hosting site Spiral is using, RoofBeamReader.Com has it, is that you pick 12 books plus 2 alternates. Obviously I went over that, in my usual over the top way.   I'll show them to you in chunks, as Spiral did in her post, and explain a small bit about why each book.

THE HEKATE PILE
After Witchfest this year, I had a most interesting experience with Hekate.  Now she and I are getting acquainted, which being me, involves a fair bit of booky research.
1) Hekate Liminal Rites, by Sorita d'Este and David Rankine - on the list because Sorita d'Este of Avalonia books, is highly into Hekate (small understatement), and publishes some very interesting works about her.  I've read several Avalonia books on Hekate already and this book is one of the ones I haven't got to yet. Comes highly recommended via devotees.
2) Hekate Soteira, by Sarah Iles Johnston - a scholarly work on Hekate as represented in the Chaldean Oracles and other classics.  Obviously I need to actually read the classics too, but the list is long as you'll see, and I did fancy putting some historical analysis books on it.  Gives my head things to occupy it.
3) Bearing Torches: A Devotional Anthology for Hekate, ed. Sannion and the board of Bibliotheca Alexandrina - always interesting to hear reflections and essays on a deity from modern adherents, be they reconstructionists or UPG experentialists. Either way, always interesting. This press do a large series on various deities and their work is thought provoking whether you agree with views expressed or not.  Also historical analysis.
4) Thracian Magic: Past and Present, by Georgi Mishev - In case you have forgotten Thrace, its (mostly now) Bulgaria, an area rich with folklore. This may not seem directly Hekate related, but its author is a Hekate devotee and the work is recommended in various reviews as heavily Hekate related. (Also he did a very interesting essay in Hekate: Her Sacred Fires, another excellent Avalonia Hekate book.)  I am looking forward to the history of an area I know little about as well as the local slanting on this goddess who I am coming to see, gets absolutely everywhere and permeates so many different cultures.

THE DARK GODDESS IN GENERAL PILE
The more I look into Hekate, the more I come across the darkness into light, light from darkness  aspect.  Choices, pathways, illuminating the shadow self, the parts of ourselves we find hard to reconcile.
5) Spirits of the Sacred Grove, by Emma Restall-Orr - you may be thinking: 'but this is a book about being a Druid Priestess', its not a dark goddess, dark moon or particularly dark anything book.  There, you'd be wrong. Emma Restall-Orr is one of the most consistently challenging spiritual authors I read. Every single thing she has written has caused me massive internal argument, and lots of hard thinking.  She does not shy away from the dark anything, and she writes very much from a female perspective.  She is also very earthy, very 'get your hands dirty if you're going to say you love the earth' in tone. She also writes like an angel. I have been reading this book for 3 years now, and its about time I finished it...and possibly started it again. Its rich with ideas and information.  I am never less than fully connected when I read this woman. (She's written a book on the Dark Goddess previously which I could have put here...had I not already read it.)
6) The Moonlit Path: Reflections on the Dark Feminine, ed.by Fred Gustafson - this book has been sitting and waiting patiently for some years now.  Drawing from spiritual writers, psychoanalysts and artists, these are essays on aspects of the dark feminine in daily life, celebrating its usefulness, and calling for its integration as a vital part of the female psyche. Looks interesting, will let you know.
7) Dark Moon Mysteries: Wisdom, Power and Magic of the Shadow World, by Timothy Roderick - this actually got onto the list because I rate highly a book he wrote ages ago, a sort of magical primer to be followed a year and a dayish, and I enjoy his blog.  He has a background as a psychotherapist and makes lots of references to Jungian theory (I have time for Jung), so when I found this book, about integrating and learning from those parts of yourself you fear, and those emotions you fight,  I bought it.  And then it sat quietly, waiting. And now it’s time to read it, it’s called again.  (Once to be bought, once to be read, that’s usually how it goes with my books.)
8) Mysteries of the Dark Moon, by Demetra George – this is not only about the actual time of the dark moon, its traditional associations and why (death, isolation, waiting); but about the embodiment of fears about this time, this part of the female psyche into goddesses. Specifically those goddesses known in general as dark, scary, manipulatively clever, or violent: Hekate, Lilith, Morgana, Kali.  The idea of the unconscious is explored through these goddesses, with reference to psychology, myth and symbolic perspectives. The book explores why the female psyche was split (Madonna and Whore is a good starting point), and how it can be reintegrated with the 'dark' parts as a valuable part of the whole person.  I’ve read several reviews of this book and it seems to split people, it has its lovers and its haters.  I’m eager to see if I feel I’ve learned anything.

 THE GENERAL GODDESS PILE
Hmmmm, are you getting a theme here, this next year?!  Am I being a bit single minded? Bear in mind there'll be thousands of other books between this lot, so it won't feel as singleminded as it looks; and probably just as well. For anyone wondering why I don't have a GODS pile, its because the Gods were always my friends; its the Goddesses I've always had a bit of trouble connecting with, simply because culturally, in a Christian household, I was not brought up to think there were any goddesses. So its still relatively new to me, after all this time.  I feel I am brushing up on another part of myself that was ignored, or left fallow. The Gods have walked with me all this while. So have the Goddesses, really, I just wasn't aware of it. We're all getting to know each other. Having tea.


 9) The Triple Goddess: An Exploration of the Archetypal Feminine, by Adam McLean - I've had this one recommended to me left, right and centre, and it turns out its been quietly on my bookshelf for over 10 years and I have no memory of how I got it.  Its time has come!  Very exciting!  And who is that on the front there? Not Hekate again...
10) Voices of the Goddess: A Chorus of Sibyls, ed. by Caitlin Matthews - this also comes highly recommended - several priestesses, authors and artists from entirely different paths tell of the goddess in their lives: how they found her, what she does, how she has changed them. At least 3 of the contributors are women I admire greatly for their writing already. Looking forward to!  My copy of this book is very old and second-hand, and has a gift inscription inside from one woman to another, including a bit at the end about blessings of Sekhmet and Hathor - two goddesses I have heard good things about.
11) Warrior Goddess Training, by Heatherash Amara - this was an impulse purchase, based on the fact I liked the title.  I think its more in the vein of a sort of earth-based self help book, we will see. If it's about accepting yourself and becoming more of a person, it may have some good nuggets: I will report back.  This is the wildcard book.
12) Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality, by Carol P. Christ - I spent time earlier this year, before my Hekate experience, of trying and failing to find THE goddess book that would get me properly started on my idea of female deity studies.  I would buy one that had a perfectly simple title and it would turn out to be about Qabalah (that keeps happening, so clearly next year or sooner I shall have to read about that in more depth too).  Buy another and it would turn out to not have the historical basis I wanted...each of them was not the angle I was after..  This one might be. We'll see.

THE DRUIDRY PILE
There's a tangent, eh? Not really.  I've been stalled on my Ovate OBOD studies for some while now, and I think my goddess reading, allied with some druidry reading might help kickstart me again. Druidry isn't easy, as this first book will show...
13) Living With Honour: A Pagan Ethics, by Emma Restall-Orr - yes, she again.  If I'm to have a trying year wrestling with a difficult taskmistress of a goddess (if she asks me to do something I find scary or difficult), someone who will hold me to account, I think I can do no better than to make myself read a book I bought some time ago, but have not yet had the gazonkas to read, as I think I am going to feel fearful, compromised and be reminded of how far I fall short in my attempts to be ethical.  I lie.  I often think its a good idea, too. I'm manipulative on many occasions.  I sneak about.  I wish I was a person of my word - and oddly, to some people in my life without question I always am. And to some others, I view ethics as unecessary, they don't deserve it.  Yet I don't see myself as a bad person; I am... pragmatic, opportunist, realist.  Scared.  (I kind of wish I was Quark on many days; yet I respect honourable Odo so much more.)  I have a feeling if I met Emma Restall-Orr she would terrify me if we had a proper conversation.  But dammit.  Maybe its about time I was terrified by someone else and not the shadows of my own head.  Let her talk to me of history and ethics. Let me not run away.  This is a woman whose voice I deeply respect. I'm going blinkin' well sit down and listen.  Can't be brave and/ or less fearful if I don't practice, right??  Its not going to just miraculously grow out of my arse, now is it?? No. Practice.
14) The Druids, by Ronald Hutton - Got to have a bit of Professor Ronald Hutton if I'm going to read pagan history, as related by a highly respected academic (who is dead nice in real life too).  I had a bit of a choice here: read his first book on the Druids in general historically - perceptions of them as a concept (this one), or the subsequent thicker and more in depth study he also did, of the Druids in Britain as a whole, which has a different emphasis. I decided to err on the side of chronology and begin here. I also wanted to read his latest and hugest book, Pagan Britain, and who knows, I may do.  But there are already some challenging books on this list, and I don't want to rush anything Ronald Hutton writes.  He has a divinely easily read style and I like to immerse and swim in his books. In my own time. So I may have to stick with just this one.  I'm bound to enjoy it (I have never found a book of his boring yet), and I am bound to deface it with notes and reactive comments till its barely legible and I have to get another copy (you should see my copy of Triumph of the Moon - even he was quite impressed at the way there was practically nowhere for him to sign it for me as I had taken so many notes!!). Can't wait to get to this one!
15) In the Grove of the Druids, by Philip Carr-Gomm - what is this with Druid writers being double-barrelled? As an aside.  I've read several books by Philip Carr-Gomm and I always find him stimulating.  Some of the books I love, some I found odd, some I found troubling.  I love his blog too.  He's the current leader (thats not the right word) of OBOD, and he is deeply readable. Another one with a background in psychology and humanism.  This book, one of a few of his still waiting to be read, focusses on the teachings of his teacher and OBOD leading predecessor, Ross Nichols.  Since in my Druid studies with OBOD, Nichols is often referred to and quoted, I thought it would be an idea to read Philip Carr-Gomm's assessment of the man's ideas. Could be very interesting.
16) The Mount Haemus Lectures,volume one, 2000-2007 - this is an OBOD publication, featuring several essays on contemporary Druid research and scholarship.  An essay by Professor Ronald Hutton inside!  Caitlin Matthews too.  A contribution by Philip Carr-Gomm on shadows and light that sounds relevant to my year's focus - though its actually about the composer Tippett! I bought this from the OBOD shop, to see what sort of things were engaging the thoughts of the academically minded in the Order.
***

And there we have it...will I ever get through ALL these fat and wordy books??

Isn't it hilarious I did a post this long introducing you to books that I will review later??

And how hard it was to pick - so many OTHER goddess books, other Druidry books, other history books (have a most interesting looking newly published one, for example, called Daughters of Hecate, about the gendering of magic as a female activity in antiquity, and whether this was actually so, or just culturally perceived, and if so, how and why...its enormous,and very heavily footnoted and looks...fascinating.  Sigh.)

So.  I will get back to you at the end of the year with a review of those I definitely did actually manage to read.  I should imagine barring disaster, all the specifically Hekate ones will be read ('cos when you say you'll do something to someone you are making friends with, you best do it, its polite and will otherwise create a bad impression - see, this is how people should teach me ethics: remind me its rude and unEnglish to be..impolite; even though, historically, I immediately fall into many holes there...ah, a whole 'nother post - how the English perceive themselves and their morality; compared with what we have actually been like, historically, when interacting with the world!  BlackberryJuniper combusts in a puff of unbearable satirical paradox.)

And obviously, I have a Doctor Who marathon also consisting of thousands of books to read still this year (and likely still until I am dead)...

Well, I have books to look forward to.  Happy New Year, all!

Update on the Pagan Reading Challenge 2012 so far

Remember the Pagan Reading Challenge I signed up for?  (For info – click on the little pic at the side of the blog of a maiden reading beneath a tree.)  This is how its going so far, since January – what I’ve read this year that’s relevant to it.  (I’m in the middle of many more books, pagan and non-pagan, as usual, but the only ones I list are ones I have actually finished with.)

Forgive me while I get a bit nerdy and categorize them for you:

Fluffage – as in, related to serious topics, but done in a very ‘we must sell this book by the thousands!’ kind of way

1. Goddess Signs, by Angelica Danton
   (A nice idea, to mix the Chinese astrology with Western, and to add goddesses.  But it didn’t work for me.  I didn’t feel exclusively or only like my designation – a Metal Pig, a Protectoress Goddess, like Demeter, a Mother.  Its just one part of me.  The learning resonated, but nothing else.  A seller.)
2. Llewellyn’s 2011 Witches Companion
   (Some trash *and* some very good thoughts – notably the one about wealth by Calanteriel: comfort, freedom, security – an interesting system for thinking about money, how to approach it, identified.  And the section on your own fairy tale story, as a useful tool, that really appealed to me.)

Ghost Stories (always deserving of a category of their own)

3. The Winter Ghosts, by Kate Mosse
   (A very nice idea that would have been a wicked good short story.  But was ruined by being self indulgent, overly long and oh my god so badly written; all portentous in the wrong places etc.  Dreadful. I hate to say that about any book - but I could see how truly wonderful it could have been.  I hope other people liked it.)

Anthologies – collections of (usually reasonably academic) essays on whatever topic

4. Hecate: Keys to the Crossroads, edited by Sorita d-Este
   (Some very interesting stuff in here.  A very friendly book, on the whole, about a rather scary seeming goddess.  Some awful bits too – I think it was the essay by one contributor where she slavishly talked about the ‘high born’ Hekate that really put me off.  I can’t relate to the gods as if they are so much better than me.  That probably sounds odd.  I can’t be dealing with entities in a way that suggests they would be doing me a great favour by simply noticing my existence, let alone interacting with me, or helping me.  I prefer to think of it as making friends with someone from a different culture: carefully done, with sensitivity; but both on the same level, just offering different things to the relationship.  David Rankine’s essay made her sound very scary, too.  The book didn’t manage to explain why so many people find her so much the be all and end all of goddesses.  I found that a bit strange.  But I am sufficiently interested to read more; and have a nice satisfying looking reading list to be getting on with.)

One Book Primers on esoteric subjects

5. Essential Asatru, by Diana L. Paxson
   (Now – here was a book where the gods were treated as “friends and allies”, and toasted, not fawned on.  And I have started working with some of these gods – Thor, Odin, Frigga, etc – they all sounded wonderful, and friendly.  I really enjoyed this book, and seem to be having a real almost obsessive THING for the Norse gods and myths at the moment.  Am talking about it all with an Asatru follower on FB – who also has a most brilliant blog, here it be: http://ryansdesk.blogspot.co.uk/.  He has humour, a certain force and authority to his words – and that thing prized highly in these circles: a grasp of the lore and an ability to quote and do the homework.  I actually fit in quite well with this mentality.  I shall borrow some.  The author of the book, to get back to the point,  worked with Marion Zimmer Bradley for a long while; that was where I first knew her name from; she co-authored some of the later books.  A fine fiction writer as well as an explainer of this strand of paganism.)

Pagan and/or Magically based Fiction

6. Moondance of Stonewylde, by Kit Berry
   (I enjoyed this a lot more than the first book.  Magus is still a terrible character, getting oddly more cartoon villain and yet real at the same time, as is Clip becoming more the ‘worm’ of Yul’s trip-vision.  There was less outright suffering to make me miserable in this book.  Sylvie’s suffering was real, but was offset by Yul’s strength and growth in respect and understanding of his destiny– you felt challenges would be coped with, hard, but met.  Him running around the stones touching them each as he went until he drew a storm, to stop Magus feeding on Sylvie’s moon magic was tearful and memorable.  There were some brilliant characters in this one – Professor Siskin, and Old Violet.  What is Kit Berry’s obsession with old women that are outrageously ugly, have claw fingers and all smell so bad???!  Very odd.  But I loved this one and can’t wait till the next; which luckily I have on the bookshelf…glad Buzz was disposed of.  Can’t wait for Jackdaw to be got rid of too.)
7. Solstice at Stonewylde, by Kit Berry
   (Read all in one day, almost hallucinogenically, while laying in bed with a stinking cold and feeling dead in the body, but the brain was still moving in curious neon circles.  Jackdaw got well and truly disposed of in this one.  As did Magus, in the most un-action action scene.  She managed to make it like a repeating pattern, happening but also happened many times before.  Professor Siskin came home for good; Mother Heggy understood the meaning of the fifth candle…and Sylvie had a windey time in this instalment, but came good in the end.  Miranda saw the light; and Yul became the beginning of what he needs to be.  This was so good I’m scared the next may not be as great.  Because Stonewylde needs to be a place where good wins out.  But I think Kit Berry knows that.)
8. Book of Moons, by Rosemary Edgehill
   (Another good Bast novel, one of the trilogy Rosemary Edgehill wrote, always readable, and always more authentic than lots of others in this wonderful hybrid genre.)
9. Shadowland, by Peter Straub
   (A re-read, for possibly the 8^th time? Not as good as I remember, but so many parts of me are in this, and things I think and feel to be true for me – this was THE book of my 20’s.  I seem to have moved on since then – but I have no idea where to or who I am currently, so there is no book of my 30’s or 40’s to define me as yet.  It’s all a confusing fog.  I remember when I had a vague idea what was going on, and maybe I will again at some point – who knows?  Some days I do.)
10. The Gold Falcon, by Katherine Kerr
    (The series goes on and on…and I wish it would never stop.  Even the less exciting parts, like this one, are full of characters so familiar and cherished.  The bit with Branna calling to Rhodry at the end – it’s rare anything makes me cry in one line, for the lost ideal of deeply returned love, these days.  But the last book did it when Rhodry turned; and this book did it, as I say, with one line at the thought he might, at some point…come home.  Jeez, crying just thinking about it.  That’s powerful writing – when you wish you were there not here.  Even when here is fine.  I’ve read her books ecstatic with my own love and hope, and in the pits of disillusion – no matter where I am, I go to where she is, and dwell there.  THAT is the purpose of writing, to poach people’s consciousnesses, and have them live in yours – true communication, the receiving of a clear vision of some else’s mind.  Never alone, with people all around, all of whom you understand, even if you do not like.  The world only makes sense through stories.  Even if one day, my need to pattern may backfire on me.)
    
    

The next step on whatever path books…

11. Living Wicca, by Scott Cunningham
    (On the whole, a very reassuring read, in that I liked his clear and informal, simple tone.  I liked being told, just because others say this is the only way or contradict one another, doesn’t mean you have to do it this way.  There were several very nice turns of phrase for invocations and small rituals, that I would like to borrow.  Then I was rather put off by his saying the goddess and god ‘are deities and bigger than us’, created everything, and other rather Christian turns of phrase though he was clearly not friendly to Christianity.  (As you know, I couldn’t give a stuff whether the world was ‘created’: it’s what you do here that counts.  And the HOW of evolution is fascinating.)  I liked and disliked the fine line he walked between telling you to follow your gut (and ‘pray’, rather than meditate on, or some less Christian –like buzzword), and you DO have to do this or that thing, or else ‘you’ll be inventing a new religion’.  To which I wanted to say, ‘Yes, and?  If I do, it means ‘traditional’ Wicca wasn’t for me, so..?’  It was thought provoking.  I also did like his insistence that I re-examine in depth all my ideas and correspondences etc, to make sure I have everything straight in my head should I come to writing my own solitary Book of Shadows.  He kept reminding me that I would be forming my own ‘tradition’ as a solitary.  Perhaps I just dislike that word, and want to think of it as simply my own path, my own variant on what other people do.  Either way, it was a read that made me think – disagreeing with him in a way that expanded my thinking rather than limiting it.  So good.  Disagreement is vital for thought production!)
12. Wiccan Warrior, by Kerr Cuhulain
    (Best and most down to earth Wicca/magick book I’ve read in some time.  Why does he not write more often?  I like his calm confident tone, his reasonable way of talking and his sensible suggestions for incorporating Wiccan ideas into life.  I like the organisation of the chapters; and the way the idea of being a warrior is used not in its strictest martial sense, but in a strengthening of purpose and sense of self way – much as the Asatru emphasis is, on similar subjects.)
13. Traditional Witchcraft for Urban Living, By Melusine Draco
    (This was a funny read for me, as she was a very opinionated writer, and full of ‘what a real witch does’, as opposed to a…new agey pretend one.,  I get bored of all the division in the pagan world.  No, that’s inaccurate - let me re-state: I think its very healthy there are tons of different flavours in the pagan world, but I get fed up with some of them always doing down other ones.  Live and let live if no harm is being done!  Anyway, despite the fact I found her a bit contentious, amazing things happened to me while I was reading the book, directly relevant to what I was reading – so it seems the material resonated with me, despite her annoying, at times, tone!  It was during this book’s reading I found my magickal name, after over 10 years of looking for it, for example.  She helped me see that it was right in front of me.  Also, right when I was reading about a Witches Pouch, used for strength and protection, I found a very relevant thing for mine, in the garden.  It was all nicely serendipitous.  So I will read more of this annoying, opinionated woman, and see what happens next.)

If you’re thinking this was an odd and arbitrary selection of books – it’s true.  The year is only half gone, I have loads more.  My magical and pagan and nature bookshelves burst, with their contents all crying out to me, all wanting to be read right now.  My Santeria, Heka, Hellenism, Hoodoo, Voodoo, Feri sections…all that relevant social history stuff…so many stories…

If you wonder where the shamanism or Druidry was in that selection, remember I just finished the Bardic Grade of OBOD – so its been there all along, lived every day – just in something I’m not counting as a book (though I did, ehem, read it all, all the many many moons of it…). 

Also – it takes, and I am only exaggerating a teensy bit here, hundreds of years to read and learn through the Norse and Germanic lores…I have been reading the Prose Edda for 4 months now, around other things!  And I think I will be reading that and Beowulf and various others of the Lores, for many months to come! I am becoming very fond of Thor.

Lastly, what I’m not including here, partly out of embarrassment, I spose – is my obsessive devouring whole of the wonderful English annuals and comics of Misty (in particular) this year.  Anyone who used to read Misty as a girl knows you got an awful lot of supernatural/paranormal/pagan notions in there…And I’ve always been a great believer in returning to the things of childhood to regain a simple understanding of things that have become unnecessarily complicated by people’s personalities and baggage, as adults. 

A friend once read my horoscope and summed me up in a sentence.  She said: ‘You go forward by going backward.’  Yup, that’s me.  I will always go back to fetch things I forgot if I think they are still likely to be useful.  New things, old things: all can be helpful.