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She Who is All – The Goddess and The Divine Female
Sheela-Na-Gig (Photo: bbc.com) Sheela-Na-Gig. Who is She? What is She? Carvings of her abound in Europe, with the bulk of them being in the British Isles, most commonly Ireland, and dating back to the 12th century. Her image, carved in stone, has a grinning face, knees bent with legs open, holding open her vagina with both hands, for all to see. Every time I see Her, I smile. Archeologists, scholars and theologians all have varying theories of Her origins. Some say She is a warning against lust, in general, and women, specifically. It is theorized that is why she is on many ancient churches, as a warning of the…
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Book Review – Demons and Spirits of the Land: Ancestral Lore and Practices by Claude Lecouteux, Translated by Jon E. Graham
Book Review Demons and Spirits of the Land Ancestral Lore and Practices by Claude Lecouteux Translated by Jon E. Graham 212 Pages In Demons and Spirits of the Land: Ancestral Lore and Practices, Claude Lecouteux has written a fascinating and well-resourced exploration of pre-Christian Europe’s relationship with the spirits of the land. The writing is academic in nature, with many quotations from and cites to original sources deftly weaving centuries of cross-cultural traditions from Northern and Western European. Lecouteux describes the practices by which humans first respected the spirits of natural places, then colonized and “civilized” those places, changing their relationship with the local beings. With numerous references…