The Hard Questions About Cultural Appropriation in Celtic Paganism

Celtic, Modern Pagan Life

Cultural appropriation is one of those topics where the loudest voices tend to occupy the two least useful positions: either everything is appropriation and anyone outside a culture should stay completely out, or nothing is appropriation and all culture is a...

What Reconstructionist Celtic Paganism Gets Right That Wicca-Influenced Traditions Don’t

Celtic

This post is going to ruffle some feathers. That’s okay! If you found your way to Celtic paganism through Wicca, or through books that blend Wiccan ritual structure with Celtic imagery and names, you are not alone. The majority of people who end up in...

The Otherworld Is Not the Afterlife: Understanding Celtic Cosmology

Celtic

One of the most common mistakes in modern Celtic paganism is treating the otherworld as an afterlife destination. It’s easy to see why the confusion happens. The otherworld in Celtic mythology is where the dead go, sometimes. Heroes are invited there after...

The Shapeshifter in Celtic Mythology: Transformation as Spiritual Truth

Celtic

Transformation in Celtic mythology is not a parlor trick. It happens constantly, across every branch of the tradition, involving gods, heroes, druids, sorcerers, and ordinary people caught in the wrong situation at the wrong time. Characters become animals, plants,...

How to Read the Mabinogion (And What to Actually Look For)

Books, Celtic, Welsh

The Mabinogion will confuse you the first time through. That’s not a knock on you. It’s a feature of the text. These are medieval Welsh tales that preserve mythological material considerably older than the manuscripts that contain them, written for an...