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Halo Quin

~ Author, storyteller, witch

Tag Archives: Storytelling

Cryptids and Listifying…

05 Sunday Mar 2023

Posted by Haloquin in Creative Process, Following Delight, Magic, Music, Storytelling

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

ADHD, Adventuring, Art, Bard, Bardic, courage, Druidry, Magic, Music, Storytelling

So this February I joined FAWM – an online challenge to write 14 songs in 28 days. I decided I’d aim for 7 rough songs, to both make it less pressure and to get myself over sharing things that aren’t perfectly finished.

And partly because I approached it as play… I ended up with 16 songs.

All bar one with melodies. And quite a few with some backing beats to go with them. More than meeting that target, however, I got to practice sharing my creations while they were still raw, with others doing the same, and a community of musicians committed to lifting each other up, and it stretched my courage.

Last night at the local storytelling cycle, Fables, I shared one of them live.

Cryptozoologist.



I messed it up several times, but it was still much fun!

It was particularly healing because I’d spent the week before feeling more and more overwhelmed by all the little things that needed my attention. All the things that need sorting and fixing and doing and… Finally I remembered my tools. As an ADHDer I need to externalise the processes my brain struggles with, like prioritisation and short term memory, much more than someone might expect for a Dr. When I start to feel overwhelmed it’s often because I’ve been trying to keep it all in my head so… I sat down with a cuppa, told my FB friends what I was up to for accountability, and emptied my brain onto the page. (credit to Talis Kimberley for the wonderful term “listifying”!)

Then I sorted the things that needed doing into a list… And then filtered that into my diary pages so each thing has a time to be done. Suddenly I only needed to worry about the task for that afternoon: Fables.

Today, according to my new list, is a day of goblin wrangling with my lovely helper, the Folklore Faery, and a plotting session for something exciting I get to go do this summer! Tomorrow I might record a version if this song to share with you lot… We’ll see 😁

This week I also revamped my mailing list, so if you’d like a monthly magical musing with tips to support you in rooting deeper into magic, and updates on my magical offerings, then you can join me, and the Crimson Coven Collective here…

The end of a chapter

19 Saturday Feb 2022

Posted by Haloquin in Creative Process, Following Delight, Magic, Philosophy, Reflections, Storytelling

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

ADHD, Adventures, Author, Bardic, Celebration, Commitment, Completion, courage, Creation, Dancing in Wales, Diary of an Adventuress, disability, elemental magic, Empowerment, Enchantment, Faery philosoper, Festivals, freedom, goblin circus, goblins, gratitude, learn magic, learn witchcraft, Living Life, Love, online course, Pagan, PhD, Philosophy, Plants, Power, Pride, process, Self Empowerment, steampunk, Stories, Storytelling, Strangeness of Life, The Enchanted Academy, Wheel of the Year, Workshop, writing

And that’s it. This month, on Imbolc eve, I finished my PhD corrections and submitted the final FINAL version. This week I got confirmation that it has been accepted!

I’m officially Dr Halo!

The thesis! Yes, I have a theme… “The power of storytelling to re-enchant the world” fits it quite nicely, don’t you think?

I celebrated with a trip to the bookshop, hot chocolate with friends, dinner for one and a movie… Then cuddles from my fella the following night, of course!

I started by letting my brain decompress and dealing with those bits of life that now need dealing with, like clearing out some old books to make space for the new ones! And contemplating where I go from here… With a foxy companion for Imbolc reminding me that spring is emerging from the dark, just like me. 🥰

If you’re on my mailing list you’ll know that I’ve got a whole bunch of monthly discussion based classes that I’m offering through Patreon, or which you can sign up for individually if you’d rather, starting with an online elements of magic workshop next month, on 16th March at 7pm GMT. (And in April I’ll be kicking off a ten week course working with them too…)

Find out more here
Uncover your inner witch - magical workshops in 2023 with Halo Quin - background image of lit candle on a beach at night.

And the Goblin Masquerade is coming together! Last autumn I was chatting with fellow changeling poet Kate Garrett, and somehow got the inspiration to host a goblin market followed by a Masked fairy ball this spring. Everything is coming together and we have music, talks, dancing, and even the steampunk debut of an Ominous Folk of Hopeless Maine show. It’s going to be a lovely day of community and play, and I’m considering it my party for escaping studenthood with a Doctorate at last!

Flier for the Goblin Masquerade in Borth, Ceredigion, Wales, 12th March, from 1pm. Free afternoon market, evening ball £6. Click for more details.

I’ve also been researching ADHD and neurodivergences… There’s so little support for adults with ADHD and we can do amazing things with the right help! So I’m writing occasional thoughts on that over here… On the newsletter “Living with Squirrels” not sure where it’ll go but you’re welcome to sign up if you like.

Living with Squirrels

So I guess I do know where I’m going next… To play with the goblins and re-enchant the world!


PS: If you want to get workshops, extra posts, advance access to material, and more things as and when the goblins inspire me… And support my adventures so I can keep building the academy into something sustainable you can sign up to my Patreon here:

Patreonise me! 😉

NEW PODCAST!

31 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by Haloquin in Blue Hare Podcast, Following Delight, Stories, Storytelling

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Art, BlueHarePodcast, Legend, Magic, myth, Pagan, Podcast, Stories, Storytelling, Welsh Magic

Hello my lovely people!

I’ve been a busy bunny gathering stories and crafting gifts for you all and I’ve just completed episode one of the new Blue Hare Podcast! This will be audio adventures in storytelling, magic, and life with myself and featuring guests such as the musicians and street performers, the Brilliant Resiliant Safely Distant Damsels, archaeologist and bard, Will Rathouse, and storyteller and wise woman Milly Jackdaw.

You can listen to episode one here! Where I, your host Halo Quin, introduce the whole endeavour and share the legendary Welsh tale; The Birth of Taliesin. 

Come, join the adventure! https://anchor.fm/haloquin/

You can also support me via Patreon and get access to material early…

(And you can find the episodes on Spotify, Breaker, Google Podcasts and more… go check out the link to see allllll the options!)

Here’s wishing you all happy thoughts and pixie dust,

~Halo

(Living happily by the sea on the coast of West Wales, and very grateful for the magic and love in my life.)

 

Run, Run! – or The Beltane Fire Festival

18 Tuesday May 2010

Posted by Haloquin in Magic

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Devotion, Faery, Faery Queen, Journey, Living Life, Ritual, Scotland, Storytelling, Strangeness of Life

Go! Go!

The May Queen has passed!

We watched her, saw her, ascend, descend over the steps before us.

We watched, saw, the fire-lighters start the nied fire.

We watched, we saw, the path cut through the crowd, past us, past us, the procession moved past us.

We ran!

Run! Run!

Do not lose her! Never lose her!

We ran, ran, over the grassy hill, down a tunnel of bodies bemused by the sudden space where magic had passed us.

And found ourself stopped. In the cold. Behind the wall of blue-faced men who told us no.

Stopped. Lost. Cold.

No. We smiled. No. We can say no too.

We said no, said yes.

Our band of fey-folk flew apart, found our places. Mine and hers, my beltane-friend, our place was running!

We followed the Queen, she led our hunt!

We flew, cross the hill, round and about, past people bemused, over rocks and dips that lifted us gently over their treachorous forms (one fey-folk twisted her ankle, others sat with the stillness of the rocks holding their bones, we, somehow, flew unscathed, the earth herself letting us pass).

We flew! Flew! From space to space, always, just and perfectly, keeping pace.

For long stretches we flew beside her, so close as to almost touch her, but always striving to respect the boundary which kept her safe. (So grateful, I am, to the blue-faced folk that kept us all at bay. So grateful, while I longed to touch her. So grateful for that line, uncrossable, sacrosanct.)

Sometimes the crowd became too tight, too close, too confused, and we flew away, to the edges, still running.

Time and again we let the stillness touch us. I pointed the direction, she led the way. Together we flew, together, mapping out  a perfect path.

At every space the procession stopped we found a niche, once the fire-space came upon us unexpectedly and we watched, entranced, by the spinning flames and the red-people charging, the white-people keeping the line, the line that must be crossed. The pain of division.

We saw Him die and rise again, his dance frenzied in the strobe-light of camera-flashes.

Their kiss, love shining from them like a star.

The red and white, chaos and order, together, united, in love.

Each element, a gift in themselves.

The whole path winding round and round, the serpent of great Beltane found.

We watched, we flew, we laughed.

We were touched by madness, running in the wake of her winter-hunt, running like the joyous hounds of hell as the sun-fire rose and burned away the last of the winter’s dark.

We ran, flew, followed… and we rejoiced.

The fire festival, a ritual carving its own space through a crowd, deliberately confused.

This was no mere spectacle, but a marvelous sacrifice of life to life for life in life.

Life rises like the sun.

The May Queen blessed us all.

The fires of our hearts ignite as the sun kisses our skin, and they will never die.

The Cheshire Cat’s Smile

10 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by Haloquin in Reflections

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Dreams, Film, Otherworlds, Reality, Reflection, review, Storytelling, Strangeness of Life, Surrealism, Wonderland

~ A Review

I walk home after the sky has moved from blue to purple, and above the rooftops I see the thin sliver of a Cheshire cat smile.

Two nights before my sweetie, a friend and I went to watch the new Alice in Wonderland film by Tim Burton in 3D. Its a rare treat to visit a cinema from the Valleys of Wales, so we were most excited!

It was beautiful, and a strange blend of Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass and The Jabberwocky. When the 3D technology has developed even a little further it will be a fantastic addition to the visual experience and I look forward to seeing how it may perhaps add to the storytelling. For the moment, it was pretty (despite my personal difficulties focussing, and preference for brighter colours, which were washed out by the special glasses). We all giggled at the spectacle of ourselves in the huge frames over our modest daily glasses we wear to see the world.

But I left the theatre feeling that here had been a spectacle, and little else.

It being Burton, there were plenty of treats, and a familiar cast of actors who pulled off their roles wonderfully. There were characters, long loved and often missed, reappearing in new guises. There were amazing details and vast vistas of beauty.

And yet it lacked something…

And under that sliver of moon I began to realise what.

In the story that captured our hearts so long ago, it wasn’t a narrative that we fell in love with, but the surrealness, the moment by moment twisting and turning of a world which whispered with wonder.

Now the fantastical has become so commonplace it cannot invoke the same degree of dreaming on its own, and forcing a loose narrative on pieces of art which have little truck with beginning, middle and end takes a little more away.

The story of Alice is not a narrative, but a dream, and that is why we love it.

Alice shows us how reality flows between the two worlds of dreaming and waking, and watching her adventures lets us walk away with a little piece of her ability to walk between these worlds. It felt to me like the new film tried to make this more obvious, and perhaps missed the point.

But it was still gorgeous, I will still watch it again, and I do still adore the Cheshire Cat and his smile…

I walk home after the sky has moved from blue to purple, and above the rooftops I see

the thin sliver of a Cheshire cat smile.

Two nights before my sweetie, a friend and I went to watch the new Alice in Wonderland

film by Tim Burton in 3D. Its a rare treat to visit a cinema from the Valleys of

Wales, so we were most excited!

It was beautiful, and a strange blend of Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the

Looking Glass and The Jabberwocky. When the 3D technology has developed even a little

further it will be a fantastic addition to the visual experience and I look forward to

seeing how it may perhaps add to the storytelling. For the moment, it was pretty

(despite my personal difficulties focussing, and preference for brighter colours,

which were washed out by the special glasses). We all giggled at the spectacle of

ourselves in the huge frames over our modest daily glasses we wear to see the world.

But I left the theatre feeling that here had been a spectacle, and little else.

It being Burton, there were plenty of treats, and a familiar cast of actors who pulled

off their roles wonderfully. There were characters, long loved and often missed,

reappearing in new guises. There were amazing details and vast vistas of beauty.

And yet it lacked something…

And under that sliver of moon I began to realise what.

In the story that captured our hearts so long ago, it wasn’t a narrative that we fell

in love with, but the surrealness, the moment by moment twisting and turning of a

world which whispered with wonder.

Now the fantastical has become so commonplace it cannot invoke the same degree of

dreaming on its own, and forcing a loose narrative on pieces of art which have little

truck with beginning, middle and end takes a little more away.

The story of Alice is not a narrative, but a dream, and that is why we love it.

Alice shows us how reality flows between the two worlds of dreaming and waking, and

watching her adventures lets us walk away with a little piece of her ability to walk

between these worlds. It felt to me like the new film tried to make this more obvious,

and perhaps missed the point.

But it was still gorgeous, I will still watch it again, and I do still adore the

Cheshire Cat and his smile…

Meet Halo

Halo - pale femme face grinning directly at camera with dark hair and glasses, with peacock tail pattern behind.
Welcome to my world!

Halo Quin is an author, a storyteller, and a practicing witch with a lifelong relationship with the spirit realm who aims to share magic through experience. Halo lives in wild West Wales, right by the roiling sea, and loves to sing, dance, and otherwise enchant through performance. She also runs the Crimson Coven Collective, and ultimately encourages self-knowledge, self-acceptance, self-healing, and self-enchantment through everything she does... leading to:

Beauty ~ Magic ~ Delight

Re-enchanting the world, one story, one song, one spell, at a time.

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Recent Posts

  • Cryptids and Listifying…
  • Two Book Reviews: Reclaiming & Honouring the Wild
  • Imbolc Inspiration
  • OUT NOW! Crimson Craft – sexual magic for the solo witch
  • Happy 2023! (and where I was in 2022)
  • The end of a chapter
  • Book Review: Sekhmet
  • Book Review: Intuitive Magical Practice
  • Book Review: The Bird Atlas
  • An Ode to Books

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NSFW – Twisted

And for the over 18s… My alter-ego, Ms Quin, writes erotica, kinky poetry, on sacred sexuality and the like. You can explore some of Her writings and poetry readings, and find her sexy book of poetry via links at Twisted Ms Quin.

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