Witches Cupboard Blog
new age & spiritual guidance

I wish you peace sister Bronwen

I am sorry to report that pagan author Bronwen Forbes passed away of a heart attack April 10, 2011 at 11pm eastern time. The heart attack was apparently brought on as a side effect of her chemo treatment. Active in the pagan community since 1985, Bronwen has contributed many articles from her experience, and has authored 3 books.
1st Make Merry In Step and Song: A Seasonal Treasury of Music, Mummer’s Plays & Celebrations in the English Folk Tradition (2009)

“See the blazing Yule before us…” This is just one of the many ancient British folk songs we all know and love. Other tunes and symbols that tug on our memories have similar historical roots, hearkening back to a shared Pagan past. These dances, songs, and theatrical plays in the English folk tradition are now little known to most of the modern Pagan community. Reviving these vital traditions can bring new life to Renaissance festivals, neopagan rituals, and community events.

Introducing the lively music and homegrown entertainments of times long past, this descriptive how-to is designed for twenty-first-century joviality. The songs, dances, and plays of old are explained in their mythical, seasonal, and historical significance and outlined for easy reenactment. Simple-to-follow instructions detail six dances including the popular Abbots Bromley Horn dance, six full scripts for dramatic performances of Mummer’s Plays (folk plays of death and rebirth), and over thirty songs with lyrics and music. Kick up your heels, hold high your skirts, and make merry the year through.

2nd Mint Juleps, Mud Pie and MacBeth (2009)

Everyone who has ever acted onstage or worked behind the scenes of a play knows that Shakespeare’s shortest, bloodiest play, MacBeth, is cursed. Actors and audience members have died during performances, storms have destroyed theaters where it was playing, and even quoting famous lines from the play can bring about show-stopping disaster. So when the tackiest, most tasteless dinner theater in the Midwest launches its own musical version of MacBeth, complete with dancing witches, an unruly dog, a Wiccan assistant stage manager and the Curse, things are bound to get interesting.

3rd The Small-Town Pagan’s Survival Guide: How to Thrive in Any Community due to be released June 2011.

Is it possible for Pagans to find fellowship and be themselves in all communities? This book offers a bounty of ways to nourish your Pagan soul in small towns, suburbs, and every place in between. Learn from the author’s own experiences and get valuable advice on adapting to a new community, revealing your beliefs, connecting with other Pagans, and maintaining your spirituality without the advantages of a big city. Also contributing to this vital discussion are Pagans from across the country who offer hard-won wisdom on making friends, dating, raising children, and staying true to yourself and your spirituality.

Bronwen was a co-founder of the Free Spirit Alliance, a spiritual networking organization serving the Pagan and Pantheist religious communities. You can visit her blog - Do or do not, there is no try: Chronicles of an Erudite Domestic Goddess

Here is one of my favorite articles by Bronwen – How Pagan is “Pagan Enough”?

Blessings to her friends, family, and furry friends left behind. May you have peace.

With love & light

~Anyanka Jean