wilderness woman …
and Crazy Cat Lady
I live and write in the Celtic Noir lands.
Old roads … Cats … Wild land … Taleweaving … Magic … Bright sun … Dark moon … Significances …
The silvery silent moments when worlds brush against each other.
It teeters along the threshold countries of the in-between lands where I still live, lands that are neither really here nor there.
I’m an author, teacher, taleweaver, gardener, Crazy Cat Lady and wilderness woman. My work roams through the enchanted forest where dangerous women with magic at their fingertips thrive. I wander about in Moon Alchemy, Owl Women, the Old Ways of magic, real wild gardening, and the deep relationship between people, land and Life itself.
But it all grows from out the same bones.
The lands that shaped me are the wild edges of south-west Britain, the Highlands of Scotland, Brittany and Occitan France. Lands that creep deep into your bones. As do their old stories.
Their magic is my magic too:
the magic I was born into and raised among.
The folk who sculpted me include …
A grandmother who was a witch from the Isle of Mann.
A stepmother half Roma.
A father who knew Blavatsky and was a born Cyfarwydd.
One uncle who talked with bees.
Another to whom raptors and adders came as naturally as best friends.
Though reality, in my experience, is mostly considerably stranger, wilder and more companionable than modern culture likes to admit.
The land is my kith.
The rocks of the Earth-Bones know me, and I know them too.
This way of living in-forms everything I do:
the tales I weave,
the books I write,
the teaching I offer,
and the life I live.
Reality is non-negotiable.
Bragging rights:
– danced for Arlene Phillips,
– hitched a ride in a jet fighter trainer,
– kissed by Mick Jagger.
Motto … If the cat and the boyfriend disagree, get rid of the boyfriend.
I believe … behind every gifted woman there’s usually a rather talented cat.
And yes 😹 … I’ve had Quantum with the Cornflakes for most of my life.
I now live in Elen Country, deep in the back of beyond on the Welsh borders, though it isn’t marked so on ordinary maps. It’s a country made of land, weather, wildlife, old stories and the living spirit of place.
I share my space with trees, rivers, weather, wildlife, spirits of place, the occasional human being, my mad scientist partner and my black witchy cat Kellan, who in her own estimation is a Scottish wildcat but disguises herself as a domestic cat so as not to alarm the postman.
Kellan Cat
My Familiar Spirit
Familiars choose us, we don’t choose them, and we belong to them not t’other way round. And where would I be without mine – up shit creek and not a paddle in sight! I am so, so pleased she chose me.
Kellan always has my back, I’d never think of working without her.
