Who am I?
Where do stories come from?
Why do I write?
What makes my wisdom relevant?
I hope you’ll find clues, hints and allegations to the answers to these questions as you poke around this site. Read my blog, check out my books, especially Magdalene A.D. and tell me what you think. Pose your own questions. Oh, and about the mud – the “wet, soft earth or earthy matter, as on the ground after rain, at the bottom of a pond, or along the banks of a river; mire”. I’m talking about prima materia the basic stuff of our lives, the raw material we get to pummel, knead and mold into shape, adorn, bake to a hard finish, pulverize into dust, rehydrate and shape again; the beginning point of any alchemical transformation. The rain forest at the top of the page is your first clue- all that life, grounded in the mud of creation.
“After all,” as Gertrude Stein once said, “anybody is as their land and air is. Anybody is as the sky is low or high, the air heavy or clear and and anybody is as there is wind or no wind there. It is that which makes them and the arts they make and the work they do and the way they eat and the way they drink and the way they learn and everything.”
To NM From the Priestess
Though you eschew mud
(hoping for cleansing?
leaping always
toward the light)
matter stubbornly remains
the matrix of my soul,
demanding propitiation
staining cheeks
galloping my heart
spewing sweat and pheromones
Therefore, I honor mud
as any priestess must
asking questions
of liver, spleen, lungs, viscera.
Salty? Sweet? Sour?
Hot? Cool? Wet? Dry?
Lethargic?
Quickened?
How else could I locate
the meridians of your soul?
Divine their meaning?
Predict our future?
©2010 Christine Irving
I love your website. Clean, beautiful and fascinating. Mud, in red and white. It is the rich goo of potential, a plastic format imprinted, dribbled upon, and collaged with succulant slices of life. A real savory party for the mind, images to delight and touch the heart. I say, a gift you are my dear, your words, ideas, and blessed be, I thank you for sharing.
Way WOW! I repeat: Goddess, how I love you!!
You are like a deep spring of fresh, life giving water…a subterrainean force, silently flowing, then erupting to the surface, honoring mud, quenching our thirst..
Christine, I finished Magdalene A.D. last night and found it to be a delightful book! I tend not to read much fiction because I simply can’t find enough that is well-written and can hold my attention. This was certainly not the case with your tale–I couldn’t put it down! Plus, it contains many powerful messages for women (and our wonderfully enlightened men!).
Christine
I have thought about you so many times and wondered where you “landed”
Your work is wonderful and I would love to catch up sometime
lela
Christine
How did I miss your wonderful blog, Why didn’t you mention it to us in Denton. Its is refreshing, creative, thought provoking and above all intelligent.
Love it, love it, love it
Masood (Author “Second Shadow on The Wall”)
Thank you for your words in we moon 2016
Honoring your work which i came across today, and soft strong deep spirit/soul
~ from just another beloved Goddess/Magdalena love
davida
Some creatures live inside the mud.
it is their den and their restroom
Some call mud home.
Other creatures think about mud.
how light got stuck inside of it and slowed way down
Mud that light calls home.
Be at home in the mud.
be slow light
Be mud.
Christine’s latest book, Sitting On The Hag Seat, is blowing my mind, as nothing I have read in a long time has. She has honed her craft with great insight, devotion and courage, taking it ALL in and spilling out new songlines as useful tools of metaphor and rhythm to guide us to deeper understanding of the ineffable. She has taken care to develop an intimate relationship with the collective unconscious we all share but largely ignore (and I speak for myself here). Her affinity with ritual is unparalleled, it flows from her with seeming effortlessness, and weaves a spell that supports those gathered, for whatever purpose, with palpable love and healing energy. She has carved herself over many years into an oracle, speaking words of truth and connection to those that make the journey to sit at her feet. Blessed be.
Having “..slid into the envelope of sheets ..” following a long and Blessed Winter Solstice ritual (to later slide out and outside “.. to stand in sacred waiting for the birth of something precious ..”), your ‘Hail, Hecate’ stirred me deeply and inspires me .. Hail you, Christine Irving!
In the years I lived in a pagan community I had the honor of calling in the dark at our annual winter solstice bonfire. One night, I brought bread and honey to place in the fire during an invocation to Hecate. I placed it on the ground at my feet so I could raise my arms as I called. In the midst of the invocation a large black dog (black dogs are Hecate’s familiars) wandered into the circle and ate the offering. I do believe she was present that night. Blessed be Maggie Dawkins
Dear Christine ~ Thank you for your Hecate poem excerpts on pages 30 and 31 of We’Moon 2022. I’m going to keep my eye out for a sequinned scarf; my garden diva is one of my best companions; my short impassioned life (at age 80) is drawing to a close, and it has, indeed, flared like a candle ~ still does! From another Chosen One…
Thank you so much- what a joy to share sacred space with you! And we share a name as well. Iam 75 and so too, feel the poignancy of the shortness of a live lived passionately Blessed be dear kindred soul.
Hi Christine,
I love your Almond Bread recipe, I was wondering if it were at all possible to publish the recipe in a metaphysical newspaper I am writing an Ostara article for? If not it is totally ok, I just wanted to let you know I love the whole book about the Wheel of the Year.
Thank you Emily! Of course you can use the recipe. It resides on a stained and battered index card in a green metal file box where I keep my favorites. I have no idea where it originated. Feel free to uses any of my Ostara material with attribution. Bright blessing, Christine