Ceallaigh's Blog

As I write this entry, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia is in full, autumn glory and the Celtic Colours International Festival is well underway. For those of you who don't know, Cape Breton is a Gàidhealtachd, a place where the Scottish Gaelic language is still spoken and taught, a place where Gaelic culture still lives. Every year in mid-October, people come from all over the world to celebrate the rich heritage of this place with concerts, classes, discussions and demonstrations rooted in the Gaìdhlig language that traveled here when so many of its native speakers emigrated from Scotland.

Cape Breton is also my home. An American by birth, I immigrated to Canada three and a half years ago after twenty years of Celtic Paganism and a Celtic Studies degree because I wanted to become a fluent Gaìdhlig speaker and advocate. My local Gaìdhlig learning began in Halifax, where ...

I'm delighted to report that I've been asked to contribute to a forthcoming anthology of fantasy and science fiction entitled A is for Apocalypse and edited by Rhonda Parrish. This themed anthology will feature twenty-six stories, one for each letter of the alphabet, all apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic.

I have been randomly assigned the letter 'N', as in 'nanomachines', 'never', 'night' and 'noodle'. (♫ One of these things is not like the other... ♫) =P

I dearly love apocalyptic fiction, and I have decided to write an epistolary tale, which is a form I also love and used to write The Longest Road...

People. I wrote my first puirt à beul tonight. I was in a song class, and we had this awesome ethnomusicologist, and she was teaching us how to write songs in Gaelic, and I was like, wow. And I wrote this:

Duilleagan dearg 's duilleagan gorm -
Na bidh thusa dubhach an-diugh!
Duilleagan dearg 's duilleagan gorm -
Tha duil agam as t-fhoghar.

Fosgail an doras, fosgail an doras -
Na bidh thusa dubhach an-diugh!
Fosgail an doras, fosgail an doras -
Tha duil agam as t-fhoghar.

It's a jig, by the way. I wrote a haiku too, but it wasn't as good.

Here's what it means:

Red leaves, green leaves -
Don't be gloomy today!
Red leaves, green leaves -
I'm expecting in the autumn.

Open the door, open the door -
Don't be gloomy today!
Open the door, open the door -
I'm expecting in the autumn.

It'...

As we were leaving the farmer's market today, we stopped to say hello to a woman we've had pleasant conversations with before and to ask whether or not her fruit tarts were vegan. She had said in the past that she might try to make them vegan a time or two, but our attendance has been spotty at the market this summer, and we've missed the few times she's veganized them for us. One of her customers asked if we were allergic to gluten, and I quipped that no, we were allergic to death and suffering. I meant for it to be funny, and I underplayed the comment right away. But it was clearly the wrong thing to say, and in the woman's defense, I can understand why it might have seemed confrontational.

The woman in question told us that she believes all life is sacred but has spoken to the vegetarian society about the reasons why she isn't vegan. I countered that I agreed with her about the sanctity of life but had concerns about the antibiotic load inherent to factory farming and the...

From August 30th to September 1st Sean and I participated in a group retreat at the Tatamagouche Centre called "Crossing Stony Ground: Earth Spirit and Justice for Challenging Times" led by Starhawk. For those of you who don't recognize that name, Starhawk is a longtime Goddess worshiper, political and social activist and permaculture expert who has been and continues to be a seminal influence in Pagan, activist and farming circles. In fact, her book The Spiral Dance brought me to Goddess spirituality when I was sixteen, and I've had a great deal of respect for her work since then.

The focus of the retreat was activism grounded in spirituality, specifically Pagan...

The Ruin of Beltany Ring has received another good review, this time from Rebecca Buchanan of BookMusings: (Re)Discovering Pagan Literature. Thank you kindly, ma'am!

In other news, our new home has weathered its first crowd of Gaels, who came to stay from Friday to Sunday for a weekend retreat and training session. Everybody had a bed, everybody was fed and we even managed to have a wee outdoor fire Saturday night.

Greetings Everyone,

Welcome to Issue #8 of my quarterly newsletter, posted to csmaccath.com and e-mailed to subscribers on Lughnasadh 2013.

Appearances
I'm off to Harbour Con-Fusion in St. John tomorrow, where I'll be a guest writer and panelist. I'll have copies of The Ruin of Beltany Ring: A Collection of Pagan Poems and Tales on hand along with a few recent anthologies and magazines my work has appeared in, and I'll also be running special, two-hour panels on physical and cultural worldbuilding. Hope to see you there!

The Ruin of Beltany Ring
My first collection continues to do well and is now available for...

I'm always hesitant to say 'this is the way it is' when I speak or write of Gàidhlig and the community; I don't believe I have that authority yet and might never have it. So this blog entry is only about a recent experience of mine, one that means a great deal to me.

My friend and Gàidhlig mentor Séidheag once told me that sometimes Gàidhlig songs just come to you. At the time, we were discussing Oran na Cloiche, a great but difficult song I'm still learning beag air bheag. I understood what she meant intellectually, but I didn't understand it fully until I had a song from Griogair Labhruidh last week. It's a song of the Cailleach of Beinne Brice, a protector of deer who 'moves in and through the herd' near the high, sacred spring of the mountain. Griogair's arrangement...

Two new reviews for Scheherazade’s Façade are up, and both have positively mentioned my short story, 'The Daemons of Tairdean Town'.

Lokifan writes:
"The Daemons of Tairdean Town by C. S. MacCath is charming and heartbreaking and full of the unexpected."

and Andrea Blythe writes:
"As the title suggests, this anthology features fantasy stories with characters that exist outside the gender binary. Various characters in these stories shift genders at whim, have secret selves of the opposite gender, cross dress to hide their identity, are transgender, or perform other acts of gender bending. Through the book, the stories are consistently good with strong writing, interesting multi-dimensional characters, and fascinating worlds. Here are a few of my favorites:

"The Daemons of...

Note: I'm posting this complaint to every review site I can find, but since my own site runs on Drupal and does good SEO, I thought I'd post it here as well. If you're a prospective tenant or property owner who has had a negative experience with VDL Property Management (www.letsrent.ca), I encourage you to comment about it here.

We had the considerable misfortune to rent a home through VDL Property Management (www.letsrent.ca) upon first coming to Canada on working visas.

When Stella Van der Lugt showed the home to me, she withheld information about a serious mouse infestation and outright lied about the basement, porch and attic full of personal items the owner was storing in the home long-term. When my husband and I arrived from the States to take possession of the home a month later, she insinuated that we might be inclined to steal the owner's items and told my husband (while I was...

Barbara J. King, Chancellor Professor of Anthropology at the College of William & Mary, presents an elegant survey of a difficult topic in How Animals Grieve. In a tone both measured and sympathetic, King asserts that animal grief is a strong indicator of animal love, that 'animals grieve when they have loved'. Evidence for this assertion ranges from accounts of dolphin mothers mourning their deceased infants to captive bear murder/suicides, and in each case she demonstrates that while their expressions of grief might vary, animals do respond emotionally to loss.

As an anthropologist with extensive field experience, King is able to effectively articulate the reticence of scientists to discuss animal emotion and the reserve in their approaches to...

Sean and I took in a double feature last night and came away with mixed reviews of the films we saw. Man of Steel was wonderfully science-fictional and human, full of imaginative Kryptonian technologies and glimpses at the emotional struggle of the man-who-would-be-Superman as he came into his own over many years. However, I have to point out that this is the third Superman movie of the last decade and the sixth of my lifetime, and since the 1978 Superman with Christopher Reeve there have been few blockbuster treatments of superheroines. I was pleased with Amy Adams' Lois Lane, who was more determined than plucky, but my opinion of superhero love interests is colored by my frustration at the lack of comic book films that feature female leads. In short, I'd...

...give up.

The latest Clarksworld Magazine editorial is an encouraging one for self-published writers. In it, Neil Clarke details some of the frustration the magazine faced at its inception; authors who wouldn't submit to online magazines, reviewers who refused to consider the magazine's stories, etc. He likens this early reception to the frustration independent authors presently face as they strive for respect in the marketplace and writes:

"If I had to guess, within two-to-three years, we won't be hearing much about respect based on the medium or method an author employs to publish their work...Traditional and indie publishing models both have value and the smart money is on...

I've been thinking a great deal about what Paganism means to me and more directly about the relevance of the term 'Pagan' as a descriptor of my spiritual life. Paganism is a broad umbrella that shades a variety of budding faith paths, from Wicca to Aztec Reconstructionism (a blossom I find deeply troubling, given my recent research into Aztec religious practices). It boasts a host of non-Christian Gods and a burgeoning repository of historical, pseudo-historical, reconstructed and reinvented religious practices, including many that non-Pagans would call magical (ritual, spell-craft, tarot and the like). It is certainly diverse, and I've often heard that our unity is drawn from our diversity, though...

Congratulations to Patricia Crosby, Renee' Booker and Kurt Bembridge, winners of The Ruin of Beltany Ring Goodreads giveaway! Your books will go out in tomorrow morning's mail from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

Many thanks to everyone who entered!

Greetings Everyone,

Welcome to Issue #7 of my quarterly newsletter, posted to csmaccath.com and e-mailed to subscribers on Beltane 2013.

New Collection
My new poetry and short story collection The Ruin of Beltany Ring: A Collection of Pagan Poems and Tales is now available in paperback and Kindle editions! To celebrate, I'm offering two promotions:

• Kindle users can download the collection for free today, May 1, 2013 at Amazon.com by clicking here.
• Goodreads members can enter to win an autographed copy of the collection between May 1-31, 2013 by clicking here.
...

So, I was in Cape Breton yesterday doing pre-close house things and had two experiences I wanted to share.

The Post Office in Baddeck

I was in line behind this guy with a huge, oddly-shaped package he was insuring for thousands of dollars. He offered me the opportunity to cut in front of him if my business was brief, and when I politely declined, I asked him what was in the package.

He answered, "A wolverine and a grizzly bear."

I thought he was joking, but then he told the postmaster about the polar bear pelt that was stolen from his airplane luggage once. He really was mailing a wolverine pelt and a grizzly bear pelt, probably to himself, in Nunavut. I was gobsmacked, but I took it for the warning it was. Sean and I are going to have to be like wind and water, not earth and fire, as we integrate in this new place.

The Herring Choker

Right outside Baddeck on the 105, there's a seasonal sandwich shop and bakery called The...

Some of you might remember that I was a sound extra for a Gaelic short film in 2011. That film is The Fiddler’s Reel - Ruidhle an Fhidhleir, and it's finally coming to DVD! You can pre-order it now from Sìol Cultural Enterprises, and it's listed on the front page of Sìol's web site.

Back in 2000, I was in Ireland at the same time as Isaac Bonewitz, and we traveled together for a couple of weeks. Before we parted company, he shared Brigid's flame with me from a candle he had lit at the shrine in Kildare. Subsequently, I passed the flame to friends, among them a priestess in Maryland.

Over the years, I lost the candle that held the flame, but my priestess friend in Maryland is putting a birthday candle in the mail to me that carries it, which she consecrated at Imbolc. So in a few weeks, I'll restore the Brigid's flame that Isaac gave to me, and I thought the occasion deserved mentioning.

'Feill na Bride, feis na finne.'
'Bride binn nam bas ban.'
'A Bhride chaoin cheanail,
Is caoimh liom anail do bheoil,
’D uair...

I'm delighted to report that from August 2-4, 2013 I'll be appearing as a guest at the awesome Harbour Con-Fusion in beautiful Saint John, New Brunswick!

This time, I'll be running two worldbuilding panels, one on physical worldbuilding and one on cultural worldbuilding, both with the speculative fiction writer in mind. I'll also have my forthcoming Pagan fiction and poetry collection on hand, The Ruin of Beltany Ring: A Collection of Pagan Poems and Tales.

I'm really looking forward to this event. Saint John is a beautiful place, and the convention organizers have been incredibly kind. More later on this, when there's more to tell!

Our house bid has been accepted by the seller and signed, so now I am comfortable writing about our soon-to-be new home. As I mentioned before, the house is in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, chosen by National Geographic as a Traveler's Best Trip for 2013 and a regular Lonely Planet top destination. I know I sound like a tourist brochure, but Cape Breton really is that special; so beautiful even in foul, autumn weather that it makes you want to weep and so sacred that softens even the most cynical of hearts. Around here, my Gaelic and 'Caper' friends all say they feel suddenly better when they cross the Canso Causeway onto the island, and it's absolutely true of us as well.

We toured the house we're buying last fall while we were at...

In case you were wondering... =)

I've been somewhat ill with a couple of health problems that while not critical, are vexing and taking up a chunk of my mental and physical energy. They're both under a doctor's care, so not to worry! But I thought I'd mention them, since I haven't posted much on social networking lately. I expect I'll be on the mend fairly soon.

On the writing front, I'm putting together a short inclusion piece for a non-fiction book a friend is writing (not sure if I can mention the details on it, since it isn't my project). The dense, arty sci-fi story with alliterative poetry is nearly done, and I like what I've done with it a whole lot. I'm still gearing up to outline the rest of the PTTB series too, which I'll start doing in the next week or so. I've also got a story, a novel and a poem out on submission, and as they say in this business, no news is good news!

So I'm still here, putting one word in front of the other, just like the rest of...

I have a confession to make. I like to sew, to garden, to can and preserve food. I like to make my home a comfortable place to live in and to receive guests. Not fancy mind you; I'm not that kind of girl. But comfortable. Liveable.

Here's another confession. I like to write for the sake of the beauty of the words. Yes, I want to be commercially successful, and yes, I want for people to read what I write. But I love challenging my skill too, even when it means I spend 'too much' time on a story or poem once in awhile.

I've been thinking a lot about these things as Sean and I plan our move to Cape Breton, where we will be buying a rural home and settling down. In making this decision, I am making larger decisions about the direction of my life. I have a Master's degree, but I'm consciously deciding to be a Gaelic speaker for the sake of it, a homesteader, a writer who might or might not ever 'make it'.

And I'm okay with that (except the 'making it' part - gonna...

I am delighted to report that two poems will appear in a forthcoming issue of Astropoetica.

"Sol Prayer: By the Oracle Duality Chang Shen / Song of the Star Cradle" first appeared in Mythic Delirium in 2006 and is set in the Petals of the Twenty Thousand Blossom universe.

"The Cradle" is a brand-new piece about quantum physics, indecisiveness and ennui.

Hooray for poems about space and physics!