Don’t Forget Y’all! Faeriedaughter is moving to a new home at www.priestesstraining.com – go there from Mabon 2013 to keep up with all the priestess training, interviews and witchy goodness!
Last year I bought a book by Stephanie Woodfield called the Celtic Lore and Spellcraft of the Dark Goddess: Invoking the Morrigan. I wrote a little review of it here and I loved it. Loved it loved it loved it. You should totally get a copy.
Recently Kelley Sheppard (one of my lovely priestess interviewees – read hers here) alerted me to the fact that Stephanie runs a website community for people who love the Morrigan and would like to learn more of her. I was really excited to join, and I was super excited to learn that Stephanie is running a priestess of the Morrigan class over the next year as a part of this site! Freaking awesome or what!
So I am excitedly taking this class and looking forward to learning about the different faces of the Morrigan throughout the next year. Woohoo!
Anyway I just wanted to let you guys do just in case any of you love the Morrigan too and would love to be a part of an online sisterhood dedicated to her, or are hearing the call to become a priestess of the Morrigan and wish to join Stephanie’s most excellent class. It’s called Morrigu’s Daughters, and you can apply for sisterhoodship here.
I’m loving this online community, and I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences of the Priestess Class with you all!
This is me with my recent purchase:
Last week, I strolled into a bookshop and bought a book. Well, I say bought – I had a freebie voucher from work (my work ROCKS) so I waltzed into a bookshop and received a FREE BOOK. Rapture!
Now, I had a peeksee at this one up as I hadn’t seen it before. It’s called Celtic Lore and Spellcraft of the Dark Goddess: Invoking the Morrigan and it’s by Stephanie Woodfield. It’s a book about the Morrigan (surprise!), so instantly I thought that was not for me. Here are my experiences with the Morrigan previously:
- Silver Ravenwolf’s patron was the Morrigan, and alright as she is, her witchcraft style is way too dry and passionless harmony-driven for me, which in my brain means Morrigan is this things, thus bad image for the Morrigan
- Further to the above, she seems to be liked by a lot of the over-the-top pagan peeps I don’t get on with, so more bad press for her.
- Dude I met on a forum was willfully antagonistic and rude to other forum members and always excused his behavior by saying “My patron is the Morrigan, I can be as aggressive as I want”. What a jerk. So, more bad image for the Morrigan.
- I’ve read lots of places and got the impression that she was a dark dangerous goddess who you should avoid. I’m not really a lightness-and-stars person myself, but when BATTLE GODDESS is screamed at you, I take a hint and take a hike.
So I pick it up, flick through and discover it has information about Faery Queens (!), Irish mythology and Morgan le Fay (!!!) in it, and I get really really excited. Morgan le Fey is my favourite goddess of all time, so the author totally got me sold on that one. It’s got a section on working with patron deities in it too and lots of honouring rituals. I needed this book.
I really, really, love this book. I love learning mythology that isn’t horribly patriarchal and female oppressive (yes, classical Rome and Greece, I am talking about you) where the women are as totally badass as the men. I haven’t experienced Irish mythology before – I tried reading Welsh mythology, and I really wanted to like it but it was still too anti-female and pants (damn you christian monks for your crappy scribing skills). It’s awesome learning about a Goddess who is so many different things and almost a contradiction of herself – she’s a battle and death goddess, and an earth goddess, a crone and a maiden, she helps people, then makes trouble for them. She’s not a easy goddess.
I had no idea how interesting and exciting the Morrigan was, and I really understand now why she is such a firm favourite with so many pagans. She’s a triple goddess of all the stuff I like – ballsiness, action, sovereignty, horses, magic, crows, faeries, rivers – and Morgan le Fay is linked to her as one of her guises. I’m about halfway through it so far, as I stop reading every couple of minutes to tell Superman something awesome from it.
Man I love this book.
Faeriedaughter 