Are you Scottish? I get this question a lot. I have been wearing kilts daily for around two weeks. In this blog post, I will take a break away from the paranormal and talk about some of my personal experiences and how I express pride in my cultural roots as a mix-raced pagan by wearing Highland clothing.
I would love to tell you that my admiration of the traditional Scottish kilt started with the amazing kilt featured in Coming to America 2 worn by Wesley Snipes and made by Ruth E. Carter. (pictured below) That kilt was not exactly Scottish. The cloth is a traditional African cloth called kente cloth and it is normally used by the Ashanti people in and around the African country of Ghana to identify themselves and show pride in their roots as well as strong symbolism.
Kente cloth was originally constructed out of cotton and evolved into silks. Traditional Scottish kilts are constructed out of wool cloth woven in various patterns to show pride and symbolism in their families' culture called tartan. Both kente and Tartan take a lot of skill and time to craft properly and they both have specific patterns that are not released for the public's use such as Clan Tartans.
As a shaman, I am a big fan of journey work. During deep meditation that resulted in an inner journey, I called out to my shadow self. A thickly wooded area appeared and someone was walking toward me from the edge of the woods. They were dressed in a great kilt which is a much larger kilt that can be wrapped into a robe-like garment if need be. I felt no fear or anger from this person. As they closed the distance I was shocked, it was me. It was like I was speaking with a twin or a copy of me.
I finished the ritual but never forgot that experience. I revealed the experience to my good friend who quickly questioned if I had any cultural links to Scotland. Turns out that with a little help from ancestry.com I was able to trace my roots all the way back to both Ireland and several parts of the UK. While I am mostly Nigerian the DNA that I share with people who wear kilts is Undeniable at just over a quarter of British ancestry. Coming to America 2 was the final push that I needed to explore my mixed-race connections.
The Scots have a powerful connection to their pagan past. Many of the Christian churches constructed in Scotland were placed in and around sites of pagan worship. The Scots had witches, sin-eaters, and see-ers who served their communities until the church put an end to it with violence and death. As a spirit keeper, and conjurer I have the pleasure of opening my home to many spirits who are connected to very old traditions. Many of our Angels wear battle kilts among many other beings. I believe bonding with so many kilt-wearing spirits also gave me the push I needed to just put one on already.
So for me wearing a kilt daily is more than just expressing my heritage and religion. I feel that it is more of a uniform that helps prepare me for interacting with spiritual energies in nearly any environment. Let me explain, ladies men have no idea how much that breeze helps with grounding and centering. I find that just walking into a building I am able to feel the overall tone of the room's energy far more than when wearing pants. Those kilted yoga guys are definitely on to something with energy.
Traditional highland dress clothing has several pieces of jewelry that are attached to the belt, the kilt, and the sock. These pieces of metal can be spelled for all sorts of purposes. Personally, I have chosen one to be a master vessel for several of my most protective beings. The sock can contain a blade that is mostly ceremonial but can be sharpened. I see this blade as a witch's Athame that is literally at the ready. (a common kit pin pictured above)
In the future, I will have a kilt constructed from Kente cloth to celebrate the mix of both my African and European heritage. I also have plans to make or have a kilt pin made out of an Ankh or Veve from the pantheon that I work with. After lots of research on Scottish culture and history in regards to the kilt and fabric, I found that British, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish all wore kilts as part of their military backgrounds. Why should a modern-day demonologist wear anything other than their ancestral garb when it comes to interacting with the paranormal?
In the days of wearing a kilt for the first time, I was contacted by a brotherhood type of energy. This energy asked me if I wanted to be accepted into this fold. I could feel several worriers standing behind me fully kilted out in the spirit world. I accepted and that afternoon I decided to take the next big step, wearing a kilt to a grocery store. I entered the store and the looks began. A big tall black guy in a skirt.
I wandered past them and my wife and I shopped normally until I got the strong energy of someone wanting to ask me to leave the building. We stopped at the deli to find that people behind the counter of the deli were judging me harshly, especially my fellow black folks not to mention a woman who was trying to pick out meats next to us.
Moments later an older gentleman I would consider an elder appeared almost out of nowhere in a fully Scottish Kilt. My wife was shocked because he walked right up in flesh and blood right next to her and placed an order at the deli. As spirit keepers, conjurers and demonologists we are sort of used to unbounds attempting to contact us at random times.
Right then and there I knew that this was a sign from that spiritual brotherhood of kilted men that was welcoming me into the fold! The man showed up once more at checkout just as mysteriously as he did at the deli but this time he was with his wife. I got a closer look at his clothing and could see that the 70-something-year-old man had every part of the Traditional Scottish highland dress perfectly displayed.
Depending on how this post is received I may shoot a video covering this topic. My wife was kind enough to film many of our interactions with people when I go out into public kilted including the very one that is detailed above. Many people tend to find it funny who are from non-European backgrounds including my fellow African Americans.
I find this very ironic because Africans put meaning into the different colors that are woven into Kente cloth well before the scots, Irish, Welsh, and British did. The Greeks, Japanese, Romans, Egyptians, and many other cultures wore togas or something very similar in the past. If you could wind back time and evoke a random heckler's ancestors for them they would be surprised at what they used to wear and why.
Today's America is more fractured than ever before. People who have never seen a kilt are confused that I am taking some sort of stand when it comes to gender roles. The anti-woke folks and their crazy politics can cause some heart-racing conversations every now and then. I will do my best to document this as I go forward as a big black kilted multiracial man in today's America.
Thanks for reading this rambling post on something that is very near and dear to me. Who knows where this will take me. I may just start designing kilts in the future so stay tuned for the next update in my journey. I would be honored to have you tag along with my wife and I as we experience the good, bad and wonderful when it comes to wearing Traditional Scottish highland dress daily.