Sharita Russell

Everyone knows the old adage about kissing under the mistletoe, but how did that originate?   Well, we can thank the Romans for that (yes, yes, another vestige of the Roman Empire!). The Romans considered mistletoe to be powerful enough to ward off evil spirits and hung it  over doorways to protect their homes. They …

Mistletoe – weed or wonder? Read More »

Living in the tropics, I’ve forgotten what it is like to experience really cold weather.   The internet became my trusty go-to for information about living in cold desolate places, for my next novel,   I discovered a place where people choose to live for five months at a time, in the freezing cold, without …

The Loneliest Post Office in the World Read More »

Chocolate eggs and rabbits on supermarket shelves announce Easter to us in a modern world. But how are rabbits and eggs related to a religious holy day mourning the death of Jesus?   It’s all in the name..  The festival of Easter is named after the goddess, Eostre, the Saxon Goddess of fertility. Eostre’s sacred …

Rabbits, Eggs, and a Goddess. Read More »

Beware the Ides of March? The Ides of March correlates to the 15th. But why is it so notable? Shakespeare coined this particular phrase, for his play, as it was the date of  Julius Caesar’s assassination, but it was also the day by which ancient Romans cleared their debts. And why was that? Romans didn’t …

Celebrating the Ides of March Read More »

I came across a marvellous piece of research recently, for a short story I was writing, about the shamans of Siberia. I learned that like most shamans, they are not adverse to using psychotropic substances, in their case magic mushrooms, namely the Amanita Muscaria variety. Amanita Muscaria are the beautiful red shiny variety with white …

The true origin of Christmas??? Read More »