Juniper Divination and Witchery

There’s nothing like a mega heatwave on the 250th anniversary of the United States with an imbecile fascist as president to make you feel...well, really, hopelessly doomed. And a quick scroll of any social media app will confirm that yes, a lot of us are feeling doomed.

And that sense of doom is powerful: it keeps us quiet and compliant. It maybe gets us to buy more stuff, fueling the billionaires and megacorporations that have been enabling/causing climate change, fascism, and human suffering around the world. It definitely benefits the world’s worst people and systems if we just give up, because our resistance can be world changing.

Ask yourself: who benefits when we give up? And could they be trying to convince us that leaning into doomerism is a good choice by flooding our feeds with posts from “people” who are giving up?

What happens next is dependent on all of us. 

We can listen to the voices around us that tell us to give up, that doom is uncertain. That everything is too broken to fix.

Or we acknowledge that WE get to determine what happens next. After all, the good people in this world far outnumber the bad people. And that means we have the power and leverage.

I am not giving up. EVER. And I hope you’ll be there alongside me.

As always, Clotheshorse is an anti-AI zone. This post was made by me, using Photoshop and Figma. The images are from the 1980 children's book, Busy Bear, photographed by Gerry Swart. If you know Gerry Swart IRL, please reach out to me because I am obsessed with her work. This post took three hours to put together.

i want pagans to stop overconsuming and be more sustainable for deities

i want paganism to not be expensive

Catherine Gogerty - "Cats Sabbath"

You can usually find books on witchcraft, yes, but there’s also field guides on local foraging and wildlife, cookbooks, books that teach you how to craft and DIY, books about environmental protection and stewardship, books on how to use herbs medicinally, books about other religions, cultures, and spiritual practices. My favorite local library even has a seed swapping program and fantastic resources to research your own family history!

Cervimancy: White-Tailed Deer, The Fool

"Wayfinder, Thrillseeker, Roadkill Queen. May your horizons never darken."

The 11th century Irish chronicle Sex Aetates Mundi (literally ‘the six ages of the world’) describes the existence of the Goborchinn, a race of horse-headed beings.

References to these monsters in Irish manuscripts are scarce and we don’t really know how they treated or were treated by humans, but as they were described in a decidedly negative light, being grouped together with monsters, they were likely malicious.

They are often claimed to be a subspecies of the mythical Fomorians/Fomóraig, the ancient monstrous opponents of the early Irish people, but this is inaccurate. Rather, these two groups share the same origin as they were descended from the same ancestor: after the biblical Flood, Cham (or Ham) mocked his father Noah for being drunk and naked. Under the influence of this curse, Cham became the father of Luchorpáin (think of these as early leprechauns), the Fomóraig and the Goborchinn, a race of human-like beings with the heads of horses. The horse-headed Goborchinn have often been associated with the Fomorians, and while the name can mean either ‘goat-headed’ or ‘horse-headed’, we do know that one of the Fomorian kings in the Lebor Gabála was named Eochaid Echchenn, a name that translates to something like ‘Horsehead’, hence why the Goborchinn are generally accepted to have the heads of horses.

In earlier Celtic mythology, horses and horse-associated spirits were viewed in a more beneficial light, and the Christianisation of these myths might partially account for the change. It is unclear to me whether the Goborchinn were based on earlier, non-Christianized monsters, or to what extent, though it seems there is indeed a connection with earlier Celtic spirits.

Interestingly, there is evidence that these monsters were derived from the Cynocephali, a race of dog-headed humans discussed in older medieval texts. They might also be related to the more well-known Irish water horse monsters.

Sources:

MacCulloch, J. A., 1911, The Religion of the Ancient Celts, Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh, p. 189-190, 399 pp.

Clarke, M., 2012, The Lore of the Monstrous Races in the Developing Text of the Irish Sex Aetates Mundi, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 63, p. 15-49.

Lyle, E., 2021, Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions, Taylor & Francis, 302 pp.