Welcome to the Threshold

There are places we arrive at without quite knowing how we found them.

A path through the trees.

A half-remembered story.

The smell of rain settling into dry earth.

A name spoken once and somehow carried with us for years.

And then there are thresholds.

Places where we are asked to decide whether we remain where we are, or step quietly into something deeper.

This website is one of mine.

Welcome to Fauna Blakewell.

This is a space for paganism, folklore, shadow work, ritual, horror, old beliefs, and the strange stories that seem to cling to the land long after the people who first told them have disappeared.

It is also a place for questioning.

Not everything old is sacred simply because it is old. Not every tradition needs to be revived untouched. Not every shadow needs to be banished.

Sometimes we need to sit beside the uncomfortable things for a while.

To listen.

To dig.

To ask what lies beneath.

Where the Roots Begin

My path has always drawn me towards the places where spirituality, folklore and the inner self become tangled together.

I am fascinated by the stories carried through landscapes, by the beliefs people once held about the world around them, and by the ways those beliefs continue to echo through modern pagan practice.

There is something compelling about folklore because it rarely arrives cleanly.

Stories change as they travel.

Gods become spirits. Spirits become monsters. Warnings become nursery tales. Sacred places become ruins, footpaths and curious names on old maps.

Yet something remains.

A root beneath the soil.

That is often where I want to begin.

Not with the polished version of a story, but with the dirt still clinging to it.

Paganism Without the Polished Edges

My pagan practice is personal, reflective and continually evolving.

I am interested in ritual, connection with the natural world, seasonal change and the unseen landscapes we carry within ourselves.

But I am equally interested in doubt.

In discomfort.

In the parts of spiritual practice that cannot be turned into neat quotations or beautiful photographs.

Paganism, for me, is not about pretending that nature is endlessly gentle.

The natural world creates and destroys. It blooms, feeds, decays and consumes. There are thorns among the flowers and bones beneath the roots.

There is beauty there, certainly.

But there is darkness too.

I think both deserve our attention.

Walking With the Shadow

That relationship with darkness also sits at the heart of my work on shadow practice.

Shadow work asks us to look towards the parts of ourselves we would often prefer to leave undisturbed: old wounds, recurring patterns, uncomfortable emotions, fears, contradictions and truths we have carefully buried.

It is not about becoming endlessly positive.

Nor is it about treating pain as something mystical simply because it hurts.

It is about awareness.

About recognising what has taken root within us and deciding, consciously, what we want to carry forward.

My book, Path of the Shadow Woven, explores this territory through a pagan lens, bringing together reflection, ritual and personal practice.

The shadow is not a monster waiting in the dark.

Sometimes it is simply the part of us that has been waiting to be heard.

What the Loam Remembers

Alongside my pagan writing lives Echoes from the Loam, my exploration of darker folklore, old beliefs and the strange stories embedded within the land.

Folklore has always felt alive to me.

Not alive in the sense that every tale must be literally true, but alive because stories continue to shape the way we see places.

A lonely stretch of woodland changes when somebody tells you what was once believed to walk there.

An old well becomes something more than stone and water when you discover the offerings that were once lowered into it.

A hill, crossroads, river or ruined building can suddenly become crowded with memory.

That is the territory I want to explore.

The places where history becomes folklore.

Where folklore becomes fear.

And where fear occasionally becomes something much stranger.

What You Will Find Here

This site will grow slowly, as all good wild things should.

There will be writing about pagan practice and personal reflection.

There will be journeys into folklore, superstition and old beliefs.

There will be shadow work, ritual and explorations of the inner landscape.

There will be darker things too: folk horror, strange histories, forgotten stories and those uncomfortable little tales that seem determined to follow us home.

Some pieces will be practical.

Others will simply invite you to wander.

I do not intend this to become a place filled with absolute answers.

I would rather offer paths.

Threads.

Questions worth carrying with you.

Perhaps that is what folklore, spirituality and shadow work share most deeply.

Each asks us to look beneath the surface.

To notice what survives.

To listen to what is rarely spoken aloud.

Step Across

So this is the beginning.

A new patch of earth.

A place to gather stories, thoughts, rituals and echoes.

If you have found your way here because you are interested in paganism, shadow work, folklore or the darker corners of the old stories, you are welcome.

If you simply followed something through the trees and ended up here, you are welcome too.

There is plenty still buried.

We will uncover it slowly.

Come carefully.

The loam remembers.