Ceallaigh's Blog
Many of you will have already read that long-time Pagan leader Kenny Klein was recently arrested for possession of child pornography. If you have not yet read this news, you can do so here. I was already aware of certain allegations against him stemming from a problematic incident in the 1990s, but the information came to me third-hand, and so I was reluctant to credit it. However, the way the information came to me - via someone who said she was breaking a coven oath to impart it - left me thinking about secrecy in the Pagan community for a long time afterward. More recently, Kenny himself posted a blog entry to the PaganSquare community about the issue of secrecy in magical communities that I thought was a good exploration of the topic, and I commented with a link back to my own discussion of secrecy among Pagans when speaking with non-Pagans.
Today, yet another of the professional men I've hired to provide services for Triskele Media made the mistake of calling it Sean's corporation, and that's twice for this person. In all, the tally so far is two bankers, an insurance agent and an accountant in the last year alone. These are people I've contacted, vetted and engaged, people I've had lengthy discussions with as an executive and signing officer of the company and who have rarely, if ever spoken to Sean.
Greetings Everyone,
Welcome to Issue #11 of my quarterly newsletter, posted to csmaccath.com and e-mailed to subscribers on Beltane 2014.
I'm super stoked to announce that I'll be participating in writer and editor Rhonda Parrish's next letter-themed anthology entitled, B Is for Broken.
I've been assigned the letter 'C'.
Hmm...C Is for Clock...Cerebrum...Cànan...Ceangal...*grin* Did I slip into Gàidhlig there?
Aaand as soon as she releases the (admittedly awesome) cover for A Is for Apocalypse, you can bet I'll be showing it to you!
Today Sean and I went to capture a wounded seagull who was hobbling around the hospital parking lot in Sydney. It was a back lot and not salted, so we slid after the bird while she ran from us, dragging a wing. At the veterinary hospital, I assisted in her examination and x-ray, as I recently did with the eagle, and we discovered that her wing joint was shattered. There was nothing anyone could do to help her to heal and live a normal life. So I assisted again while Dr. Nicholson euthanized her. It was perhaps the saddest experience I've had thus far as a wildlife rescuer; chasing a strong, but injured bird and later feeling her heart slow and stop under my hands.
My poem 'Coming of Age' is the featured piece at Polu Texni this week. You can read it here.
Creideamh a' Bhata Bhuidhe: The religion of the yellow stick. A Coll priest of former times was accustomed to drive recalcitrant natives to church by a smart application of his walking stick, those who yielded were thus said to come under “creideamh a' bhata bhuidhe.” Another version says Hector, son of Donald Maclean of Coll, was the one who applied the yellow stick. Hector was laird in 1715 and as the religion of the yellow stick was introduced into Rum in 1726, it is beyond dispute that Hector was the author, or propagator of it. He was dignified in appearance and stern in manners and could no doubt wield the yellow stick gracefully and with efficiency. - Dwelly's Illustrated Gaelic to English Dictionary
The lovely Jolene Dawe has interviewed me for her Celebrating Pagan Fiction series. You can read the interview here.
Monday and Tuesday, I outlined the endings of Books 1 & 2 in what I'm presently calling the Motherland Duology, though that name might change as time passes. Today, I plotted the protagonist's thread through Book 1 in Freemind using the end to beginning technique I wrote about here in the comments:
I'm delighted to report that my poem "Coming of Age" will appear in the very fine poetry magazine Polu Texni. I'll post a link to it here when it's published.