The Internet Is Smarter Than All Of Us Put Together

Jul 27, 2007
(The aforementioned idea might be the subject for dystopic science fiction, but it's also part of the basis for the collective model of the universe -- like the one central to many forms of pagansim, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I love both of these ideas deeply, and the inherent self-contradiction never ceases to amuse me. That said --)

I started this blog, like the subtitle says, to fill the gap of what I wanted to read in the Pagan community. Unfortunately, that's not always enough. The motivating factor was a book I read for my religious studies class -- Crabcakes, by James Alan McPherson. I didn't actually like it all that much, although I liked the concept: a long, rambling memoir about life and what it looks like looking backwards, and how the way your perceptions change and how that changes the meaning of the story of your life. It was only nominally religious, I don't think I would have thought it was if not for the context, but it awakened in me a profound yearning for Pagan-type books like that. (Other books we read that I'd kill for Pagan-type versions of: Meeting Faith, The Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God, The Jew in the Lotus. All highly reccomended on their own merits, of course.)

I own and have read Phyllis Curott's Book of Shadows approximately one billion times, and I think The Red-Haired Girl From the Bog was what I was looking for, too. Does anybody out there know of something else like what I'm talking about? Memoir-ish, thinky, personal -- I don't care if it's a focus on a tradition I don't do, so long as it has something to say. So many Pagan books are how-to manuals, it's hard to find something different.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sybill Leek's Diary of A Witch might be interesting for you. It was written in the 60s. It was actually one of the first books on Paganism that I read.
Possibly Judith Durek's Circle of Stones.
If you find other books that fit your search, let me know. I'd be curious to read them, too.

Willow said...

I haven't read it yet, but from the blurb and my friend who has read it, "The Wind Is My Mother" by "bear heart"is a nice combination of universal truths.