This year has been an incredibly intense one for me and I haven’t managed to write any new Wildwood tales. So, instead, I’ll do some “recycling” and share last year’s advent stories again, starting today with the first of Wren’s adventures on Stir Up Sunday: wherekizzialives.com/2024/11/24/w...

So this is the first year in what feels like forever* that I am not dashing up and down to Kent. Which means I can do Christmas and Yule with a capital C and Y respectively. I’m not finished but I think I’ve made a good start. #Christmas #Yule #XmasDecorations *it’s 7 yrs but let’s not split hairs

I’m gonna come right out on here on main and say that my father-in-law, who most of these people hero worship, fully believed in the role of medical intervention where necessary, and in the importance of birth attendants who can recognise that ‘when necessary’ part

I had to find out how cute this was. Turns out: incredibly cute and I needed to know this. I put some time into these alt-tags

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If you see this, post your getaway vehicle:

This week (very belatedly) #TheSmallThings #SpreadingJoy are many, so come in two posts. Firstly, some flowers in the wrong season and the after effects of Storm Claudia on the local woods 1/2

There are lonely churches to be found where old saints live in strange stone boxes. When we say saints, that word has to encompass those spirits of place which were there long before the cross came along. Relics of both Christian and folk faith may be the same bone. – Dr. M. Benn

Goodness knows I don’t usually post food on social media but I’ve just had a transcendent experience thanks to this home made lamb hotpot. Which I can never recreate because I used the end of the roast and threw in what I had to hand and was not paying attention. So you get to see the one off glory!

I am often to be found caring for the unknown dead, who emerge, shattered, from their ancient and forgotten graves. Collecting them, burying them, praying them back to their rest. It makes me think, sometimes, of the transphobic refrain that in a thousand years our bones will somehow betray us.

The stones are not only in constant conversation with each other, but with the land itself. We approach and catch them in the act of chatting. Just for a moment we feel we are intruding, feel we have broken an intimate spell. – Dr. K. Brophy #StandingStoneSunday

When you feel depleted of enchantment, walk the wood. It is where magic lives loudly. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982

You can walk and after two miles of tangled lane that's untroubled with being on the Ordinance Survey, find a feral church. These are the chapels beyond bishops, untethered from parishes. Existing in green communion, their gathered ghosts sing wild hymns. – #DAKilroy, 1982

The witch works with the season. When the year begins its slow striptease, she reads the language of the trees' wooden bones. Reads tomorrow in a fall of phyllomancy. When birds come to harvest high berries, auspicy is her share. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

How Hookland Works – you all own it, fill you boots. Now updated to reflect how AI means Arseholes Involved. #Hookland

Something I do wish non-historians would internalise is that (modern) historians are not (generally) just making shit up. We do in fact have sources and evidence and proof of things which have happened in the past

Rooks shout the dying day. Spirits wake. Twilight as threshold engine for my magics. Twilight as a time of summoning. My tongue spills secret names. My tongue seduces the world to see things my way. I am a witch. Change is the wake of my walking. – #EmilyCBanting #WitchSky

I have no idea how we teach reading in the UK but this article explains so much about how there are so many basic misunderstandings on social media; some people are literally guessing what the words in front of them mean on a daily basis:

The witch walks and plucks wild omens, picks plants for the curing of tomorrow. Jack by the hedge, wood sorrel, the fertile hope of navelwort. The witch walks and harvests auguries, the gossip of trees. Her movement across the land is a magical act. – #EmilyCbanting, 1982 #WitchSky

Tomorrow I start a 12 week online writing course with proper assignments & concrit & I’m wildly nervous about it. So obviously I’ve been re-reading the amazing books by the author who’s running it, just to turn my imposter syndrome up to 11. Anyway, if I’m even quieter than normal that’ll be why!

Autumn colours today for #TheSmallThings #SpreadingJoy all taken at Attingham Park. #Autumn #Birds 🪶

Tomorrow I start a 12 week online writing course with proper assignments & concrit & I’m wildly nervous about it. So obviously I’ve been re-reading the amazing books by the author who’s running it, just to turn my imposter syndrome up to 11. Anyway, if I’m even quieter than normal that’ll be why!

Was really struck by what a lovely inspiring exercise this is, like a primary school version of Mary Oliver’s Instructions for living a life Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it

If you’d like to learn more about Mary Bishop & her extraordinary work, I wrote this for The Wellcome Collection in 2023. But more than that, I would recommend looking for yourself at some of her work which is available to view online through their catalogue wellcomecollection.org/stories/mary...

November’s early darkness enfolds us. The smell of applewood fires and rot is a constant companion at twilight. We hurry between home and evensong, home and pub. Ghosts crowd the lanes, our folklore becomes filled with tales of cold teeth. Winter begins to growl. - #CLNolan

All of this!

All those people who think they can dodge the effects of the climate crisis because they live in a nice developed country are about to get punched in the face. It’s coming in hard everywhere.

In November hares come to wood edge. Most say this is for cover, for food. Yet more than one old countryman has told me they come to pay tribute to the wood itself, to have one last dance with the Moss Maidens before their cold sleeping. At twilight they feed and mutter omens. - #CLNolan

I spent last weekend in Hereford for the celebration of Phil Rickman’s life and the posthumous release of his final book, The Echo of Crows, which is out today. Thus #TheSmallThings #SpreadingJoy are all photos taken whilst I was there:

This book was full of language which is so incredibly painful, especially if you've been a bullied kid, a kid who felt themselves judged by teachers as well as peers. But as I said at the time, everyone involved in the publication and prizing of it is part of the problem. This is a structural issue.

For the witch, there are times when the river becomes a fluid scrying, a constant flow of omens. It's tutelary spirit whispers wisdom in her ears, its magics ripple across her psychic skin. She becomes one with its shaping song. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

Happy Birthday @murielcouzens.bsky.social! Hope you’re having a wonderful day.

Blessed Samhain, my loves. May we leave the bad to rot, keep the seeds good to grow, and send soft greetings to our beloved dead.

Sending All Hallow’s Eve blessings to all who celebrate. May your evening be filled with joy, warmth, and comforting memories. #AllHallowsEve #Samhain #Halloween

Hey Brits! International Day of Disabled People is on 3 December. 🗓️ Scope are running an event for MPs to learn more about disability. Please invite your MP to attend in just three clicks:

I’ve doubtless posted this before, many times maybe, but it really is an incredible piece of documentary filmmaking, which captures those near-far, fingertip folk histories that feel of our own time & just out of reach yet somehow simultaneously deeply arcane & otherworldly youtu.be/ic4qWguBYEM?...

Ignoring the fact that I’ve missed two Mondays in a row I bring you #TheSmallThings #SpreadingJoy now because I do believe in better late than never. So we have my garden’s last rose of the year, many mushrooms, autumnal colours … 1/2

I am VERY excited for this!

The witch's arts include an ability to listen. To find spaces where the voice of the land is loud enough to hear. Whether wood clearing, hollow in hill or turn in the stream, she should hearken to the genii locorum. In their words, a living wisdom. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

I just want to clear something up about a comment I've seen in a few reviews of THE WOLF AND HIS KING. A couple of people have referred to the werewolf "as a representation for queer identity", but it's not. The central metaphor here is about chronic pain and disability.

Have you ever seen a wren have a bath? No? Nor had I till just now. Filmed through a rain-spotted window & on my phone, so not perfect, but hope it brings you a spot of delight nonetheless 🪶

My current view is deeply pleasing. As is having a Friday all to myself. #TheSmallThings #SpreadingJoy

Abundance is never a justification for greed. The witch looks around the corner of the now and harvests the hedge for tomorrow's ailments. She has no temptation to take the birds' share, nor the Faery's tithe. The witch's way refuses rapacity. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

"If a book told you something when you were 15, it will tell it to you again when you’re 50, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you’re reading a whole new book." Happy birthday to Ursula K. Le Guin, born 21st October 1929

Why folklore is having a resurgence in our interiors #Folklore www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/folk...

Of course women don't like the Cybertruck. Women only want one thing, and it's Mildred Hubble’s broom.

Joining #FirstBirdOfMyDay this morning as it was a tiny goldcrest in the ornamental crab apple tree by my bedroom window. Blurry proof included! #UKBirds #Birds 🪶

Paperback publication day for these owls! Get them now, tell owl your friends! Now approx 1/3 more pocketable and affordable and still just as adorable. #BookSky #NatureWriting #Owls #TheCompanyOfOwls

My living room is currently playing host to a significant number of pumpkins and a lot of other All Hallows/Autumn aesthetic items. So, obviously, my Dad has started his annual “watch ALL the Christmas movies ALL the time” on the TV. I don’t love the movie choices but I love how much he loves them!

Let me tell you a story about how a 17th century painter accidentally made one of the most powerful pieces of intersex representation in art, whilst (probably) trying to make an offensive joke for horny nerds...