(no subject)

I've been very offline in another period of 'more thinking than speaking', and one thing I've got done is the first iteration of the Commonplace Book

The Commonplace Book is a Fen-specific practice - it refers to a book where you compile knowledge from other sources:

Such books are similar to scrapbooks filled with items of many kinds: sententiae (often with the compiler's responses), notes, proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, prayers, legal formulas, and recipes. Entries are most often organized under subject headings and differ functionally from journals or diaries, which are chronological and introspective

and, in truth, this has been a feature of Book-of-Shadows and Grimoires and the like, implicitly, for a long time. I make it a very explicit part of what I do, and keep my Commonplace separate from other magical notebooks. The Landweird is, among other things, imagined as a kind of palimpsest memory hidden in old lore, as in the memory of the sleepers under the hill, as in the clutter of a junkshop, as in a lost manuscript reused for new words, untranslateable runes or words never written. And so, far more than in other Paganisms - where making notes from other sources is useful - in Fencraft, the Commonplace Book takes on a kind of sacred status in its own right. It is a kind of living Landweird, and its made from your seeking.

And on a practical level, it solves some problems. The first is the struggle of being your own priest and Entire Religious Structure; the second, the (comparative!) lack of Pagan art and writing; and the third, disability. Compiling or reading the Commonplace Book is a low-energy ritual routine, for days when sitting by the window and reading the same paragraph over and over is your limit; I pilfer through mine for ritual in a conscious way (say, a prayer or a summoning chant), but I spend enough time with mine that its words will reoccur unbidden when I am walking or in need of guidance.

It's a DIY Bible, but that is no bad thing: I accept the criticism of a local witch that far too many pagans do worship instead of magic nowadays, and yet copying Christianity has been a feature of my magical life for many years because I am tired. To clear my room for ritual and make time is the work of a week or two, and that's before I contemplate the effort of a bath. I like to sit with a book and call it practice - and for it not to be an afterthought, but to be deeply understood, and for it not to be a lesser shadow but the whole thing. It's bardic - i have living words inside me. It's Landweird, held between my hands. And there's a magic to compiling: these are ordinary pop songs and books you can find in any second hand store, they are only made-holy because they have been brought into combination with one another - the act of ritual which is a bringing together, a sacred union, an act of revealing. I have often tinkered with a circle-opening Fenrite which uses the metaphor of an archeologist's brush and water, gently washing away the dirt. A re-recogntion, or a pulling out of latent threads - eerie and unintended, but there in new nets.

The search for the Landweird is different for everybody, and so, everybody's Commonplace Book will wind up different. Although I consider these things sacred secrets, I have a personal committment to doing everything in public as much as possible, in tribute to the elders I learned my art from (i.e. people with geocities sites in the 1990s before the word 'blog' was spaketh). I don't feel these things are more sacred for being hidden - in this case, their magic is in the act of rediscovery.

For some maddening reason, the homepage won't update my link to the new section. But you, dear reader, can have a peep. My CSS has improved and so, it should be mobile-friendly, though I've yet to test it to make sure. I may be an indifferent sorcerer, but by the time this is done my coding will be without parallel. I am, as ever, exhausted by the effort of undone work. But this, at least, is complete for the year.

(no subject)

*musing*

I suppose there's a conceptual link, perhaps, between the common of the commonplace book, and the commons of socialist folklore and English tradition.

The Commons are a part of the landscape which nobody owns, exactly, but local people have 'Commoners Rights' to do certain activities there - gather firewood, feed their pigs, and that's where the term 'Commoner' as in 'ordinary, rather poor fellow' comes from. The Enclosure of the Commons is a key moment for capitalism being arse for everybody, as these commonly-owned and managed resources were claimed as the property of individual aristocrats who then charged money for ordinary, rather poor fellows to do what they'd been doing before for nothing.

“The whole earth shall be a common treasury for all, for the earth is the Lords”

Is the rabble-rousing words of semi-legendary firebrand Winstanley, whose community took back a piece of once-common land and tried to live there and grow crops in defiance of property laws (they were removed). Winstanlely wrote eloquent, heroic, beautiful religious tracts - expressing a kind of 17th century proto-socialism in the words of the Bible.

The connection I may be thinking of:

The common, land owned by none, held by all, is home to commonwealth of folklore, the commonwealth of imagination. I regard it as sacred. Mankind’s dream are a wilderness where monsters are free to roam, time itself may be dissolved and all our collected folklore is the surest guide to its ever shifting landscape - C.L. Nolan - Hookland

Ah but alas, let's see what the true derivation of the word is:

Commonplace" is a translation of the Latin term locus communis (from Greek tópos koinós, see literary topos) which means "a general or common topic", such as a statement of proverbial wisdom.

Well, it is our word now; we will make it mean whatever we like.

(no subject)

Aside from that, I'm sorry for having been out of touch. I've been in the hills, and sleeping.