News and Site Updates

And a Bit of Background

13 Jan, 2015

We are periodically updating our CAORANN resources page. Particularly, be aware that we have no control over who posts our banner. Never assume that someone taking an image from our site and posting it means we work with them, approve of them, or even know who they are. This is the Internet, and we usually only find out about these misrepresentations well after the fact.

If someone represents themselves as part of CAORANN, or even allied with us in any way, feel free to contact us here or via our CAORANN Facebook page to check. While we have a rather large network, the core group is tight and all knows one another very well. For instance, someone who was recently kicked out of Gaol Naofa for racist, misogynist and homophobic attacks on community members, and who was never a part of CAORANN, has been lying about us, attacking us, while simultaneously claiming to be part of our work. Don't believe it.

As anti-racist activists, we get our share of attacks from these sorts of creeps. But for them to go after children, elders, and other vulnerable members of our community is shocking and unforgivable.

12 August, 2014

We now have several brochures available in pdf form, some of the new ones are produced by CAORANN and some are in collaboration with the Gaol Naofa Council. We are also helping host some of the Gaol Naofa pdfs on our server.
18 July, 2013
  • Justice for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander - We at CAORANN are outraged at the atrocity that is the Zimmerman verdict. The system has once again failed People of Colour (POC) in America. We stand with our loved ones for whom this sort of injustice is nothing new, who have borne the brunt of this kind of deadly discrimination their entire lives, who carry the burden of generational trauma, and who have now been shown that they don't even have the right to defend their lives.
9 January, 2013
We have some new site content and a new Facebook page.
  • CAORANN Stands in Solidarity with Idle No More - The struggle for sovereignty in the First Nations has many parallels to the struggle for sovereignty in the Six Celtic Nations. Those of us living in the diaspora face different challenges than do our relatives in the Celtic Nations. Many of us live on NDN land that is unceded territory, or where the treaties to co-exist in harmony were violated by our non-Native relatives. It is important to us to respect the traditional laws, treaties, and Elders of the lands where we now live, to find a way to live in harmony and mutual respect. We stand in solidarity with Idle No More.
  • On Indigenous Knowledge and Indigenous Identity - Recently there is a movement on the part of some non-Natives - Americans, Canadians and Europeans - to identify as "Indigenous European." The first people to use this phrase were white supremacist groups, who are appropriating the term "Indigenous" to make it seem like white people are somehow an oppressed minority. Others are appropriating it because they have racist stereotypes of Native people as all "mystical" and therefore white folks who call themselves "Indigenous" are somehow more mystical too. We have seen non-Natives using this cloak of "Indigenous European" in an attempt to colonize councils of actual Indigenous people, and to even lead and pretend to speak for real Indigenous People. We feel this is an act of racism and attempted cultural genocide.
  • CAORANN on Facebook - Updates and networking. Since most everyone has migrated to Facebook...
  • CAORANN on Twitter - New account, but it seems to be the thing to do.

A Bit of Background


"The Celtic Reconstructionist Tradition (CR) is firmly anti-racist. This has been unanimously agreed upon by representatives of the established CR sub-traditions, CR elders and other long-term members of the community, including the founders of the tradition. CR was founded in no small part because some of us were sick of the rampant cultural appropriation in the Neopagan community, and wished to devote ourselves to something that was our own, that honored the ways of our ancestors without needing to rip off anyone else’s ancestors or cultures in the process.”1

“The problem of cultural theft is a serious one, and is rampant in the Neopagan communities. It is largely due to issues of cultural theft that most of us no longer identify as part of the Neopagan community. CR as a whole is committed to respecting the cultures of First Nations peoples, as well as respecting the desires of the traditional peoples of those communities to set their own definitions, boundaries and standards. Many of us actively support the Lakota Declaration of War, as well as doing what we can to help out First Nations groups who work to expose “Plastic Shamans” and other frauds and exploiters of Native American spirituality. We also work in our own communities to educate people about issues of cultural sovereignty, and cultural integrity vs cultural theft.”2

“CR was begun as an alternative to the cultural theft that is rampant in the Neopagan communities. Before CR, and still in the Neopagan and Newage communities, all kinds of non-Celtic practices and beliefs were being misrepresented as Celtic. But we were looking for something authentically Celtic, that honoured our ancestors without dishonoring anyone else’s, and that respected and honored the living traditions.”3

"Celtic Reconstructionism does not embrace Wiccan or eclectic Neopagan models for ritual or ethics, but looks instead to older, Celtic models. Our cosmology is different, our ethics come from a very different worldview, and our approach to the Divine is different as well. CR, in many ways, bears more resemblance to animistic tribal religions than to modern eclectic Neopaganism."4

We believe that female and male are both equal in that they are both able to create, define, and prove their worth, status and value amongst their peers, and by the fact that there exists in nature nothing which would support the notion that one gender or sexual orientation is superior or inferior to the other.5

"The Celtic ancestors worshipped both Goddesses and Gods. As polytheists, we believe the Divine takes a variety of appearances, and can manifest as any gender."6

“CR firmly and absolutely rejects racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of discrimination that divide people into warring camps.”.7

Sources
1. From The CR FAQ, "Why are you racist?"
2. From The CR FAQ, "Aren’t you CRs in North America stealing cultural elements from Native Americans/the First Nations?"
3. From The CR FAQ, "So isn’t CR just cultural theft from the Celtic cultures?"
4. From The CR FAQ, "What is the difference between CR and Celtic Neopaganism?"
5. The CAORANN Council
6. From The CR FAQ, "So you think God is a woman then? Isn’t that what all that mumbo jumbo feminist witchcraft crap is about?"
7. From The CR FAQ, "What is the ethical basis of CR?"
&. Note: About The CR FAQ