Watching twelve hours of a single documentary over the course of six consecutive nights takes commitment, and showing them in that manner can be risky, even the best-made films from the most skilled directors can start to seem repetitious and a bit dull as they continually return to the larger themes unifying the project. “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” is no exception to the almost unavoidable pitfalls inherent in a documentary mega-series, but luckily those drawbacks are mostly minimized thanks to the skill of director Ken Burns, one of the most successful documentary film-makers alive today. That’s a good thing, because “The National Parks” is an important work, one that does more to showcase the history of American nature religion, a faith and philosophy that would come to heavily influence American modern Paganism, than any other work of its kind that I’ve seen.

John Muir: A Self-Portrait, 1887

While the bulk of the twelve hours is spent recounting various grass-roots efforts and political struggles over park creation, almost the entire first episode is devoted to the spiritual dimension of nature (called, appropriately enough, “The Scripture of Nature”). Briefly referencing the influence of works by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Burns makes ground-breaking naturalist and preservationist John Muir the centerpiece. “National Parks” clearly illustrates how his unique brand of Christian-colored pantheism (along with a keen scientific mind) would go on to inspire many, including President Theodore Roosevelt, to preserve vast swathes of American wilderness. The early episodes also take care to mention Native American spiritual and political perspectives, and extensively interviews National Parks superintendent, and Mandan-Hidatsa Indian, Gerard Baker (who says that John Muir would have made a good Medicine Man).

Though “God” and a “creator” are often invoked by various historical and contemporary commentators throughout the documentary, the presence of denominational Christianity is sparse, perhaps illustrating both its historic indifference to preservation/conservation, and the current culture wars over creationism, global warming, and science. The net cumulative effect is to indeed see a distinct American “nature religion” that has existed alongside “traditional” religious expression in America for generations.

“On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death…Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony.” – John Muir

For this, along with hours of breath-taking nature footage, “National Parks” is a treasure, and should be seen by any modern Pagan living in America. However, while “National Parks” is extremely well-made, the documentary series is far from perfect. While Ken Burns is an obvious evangelist for preserving the last wild places in America, he also takes great pains to avoid the ugly battles over preservation and conservation that have happened in the last thirty years.

“The documentary cannily stops at 1980, avoiding the Ronald Reagan — James Watt era as well as today’s drill-here, drill-now controversies. It helps too that one of the parks’ most vigorous progressive advocates was a Republican — President Teddy Roosevelt.”

However, we’ve come a long way from the nature-loving hunter-conservationism of Roosevelt, and his party is more often the party of “drill, baby, drill”. Will “National Parks” ignoring almost the entirety of the modern environmentalism movement really galvanize bipartisan support for a new ethic of conservationism? Was it responsible for this love-letter to not even mention climate change, and the terrible damage it’s doing to the parks? I have to feel, that as much as I loved the scenery, the rapturous commentary, and the spiritual centrality of Muir’s vision to this series, this is a somewhat cowardly oversight. The happy ending of wolves being reintroduced to Yellowstone blatantly artificial considering the current controversies over their reintroduction. Despite these serious oversights, “National Parks” is still a fine work, and its early episodes a useful reminder of how our view of nature has evolved over time. Certainly worth picking up.

As a sort of coda to the case of Jose Merced, a Santeria practitioner who took the city of Euless, Texas to court over the matter of animal sacrifice, and won, we learn that the city has been ordered to pay Merced’s hefty legal bills.

“North Texas taxpayers could be on the hook for a $400,000 legal bill, all because their city lost its fight, against animal sacrifice in religious ceremonies. The bill could go higher.  In July, the court ruled in Merced’s favor and ruled the City of Euless must pay his appellate attorneys’ fees. One of his attorneys, Eric Rassbach, estimates the total legal bill at around $400,000. “Quite frankly, they should be upset with their elected officials who signed off on this lawsuit,” Rassbach said.”

Rassbach is from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and no doubt the lawyers working to achieve a “small victory for religious freedom in this country” didn’t come cheaply. Naturally, Euless’s attourney Mick McKamie is vowing to fight having to pay Mr. Merced’s legal bills, and may still be considering if they can bring this matter to the Supreme Court. It is looking like it would have been much cheaper if Euless had simply revised their animal slaughter laws to safely regulate such matters instead of banning them outright. But that horse is out of the barn, and now local law enforcement are barred from enforcing the current law.

“A federal judge has barred a North Texas suburb from enforcing a rule to prevent a Santeria priest from sacrificing animals in his home. In a final judgment this month, U.S. District Judge John McBryde of Fort Worth also ordered Euless to pay for the costs incurred by Santeria priest Jose Merced. His attorney, Eric Rassbach, said Tuesday the ruling means Merced can resume priest ordination ceremonies involving animal sacrifice.”

As Santeria, and other Afro-carribbean diasporic faiths, continue to grow in North America you can expect to see more conflicts like this in the future. Most animal slaughter laws were designed for a different time and context, and can be discriminatory when used to regulate religiously-motivated animal sacrifices. Eventually, this matter will have to come to the Supreme Court for a definitive ruling, since the previous Santeria-related SCOTUS case, Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, dealt only with laws that specifically targeted the religion. Until that happens, animal sacrifices will often happen under the legal radar, allowing for the sorts of speculation that leads to racial and religious profiling every time a dead animal turns up.

Now that the Dan Halloran issue seems to be settled (at least until election day), lets turn to the other candidate who was recently outed as a Pagan. On September 18th the conservative talk-show SpeakOut interviewed Alice Richmond, Democratic candidate for District 1 Supervisor in Page County, Virginia. During the program a “Jim Logan” called and asked Richmond if she was “Lady Raya”, author of two books on Wicca. Richmond repeatedly denied the allegation on the air, causing her to backtrack later when a local television channel followed up on the story.

“A bio of Lady Raya on that site is almost identical to Richmond’s resume, including education at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. “Lady Raya isn’t anyone. Lady Raya is a fictional character,” says Richmond. “Did I, however, write that book? Yes, I did.” Richmond also writes the Page County Watch blog and has made open government a central issue in her campaign. So, why did she deny questions about her past? “Many people when they are misunderstanding and not knowing what metaphysical books are, can react badly,” says Richmond.”

Now trying to move past the outing and her initial denials, Richmond talks to the local Page News and Courier, explaining why she initially denied being Lady Raya and writing those books on Wicca.

“Richmond explained that at the time of the broadcast, she didn’t want to say “yes” because of what people may think. “I essentially panicked when that guy asked the question,” said Richmond. Richmond later publicly stated she did write the books. Though prepared to express her beliefs as a Wiccan, Richmond said she was not prepared for the books and Lady Raya to be brought up.”

While the initial denials, and subsequent admission, most likely hurt her standing with some in Page County, it has also spurred a big spike in traffic to her web site and gained her new supporters.

“Thanks to the Speakout show for invigorating interest in my campaign and traffic on the blog. The Blog pages were viewed 1,360 times yesterday. And thanks to the anonymous mass emailer, who has been sending the link to PageCountyWatch.org out titled “Page County Watch or Page County Witch”. Traffic is at new highs, and I no longer have to be concerned that my message is not being widely received around the county. In fact, the Blog has been viewed more times in the past week than the Page News and Courier has circulation in the county.”

While her outing as a Wiccan may be damaging to the campaign, it is also very likely that opponents may have over-stepped in their out-the-Witch campaign, bringing her more free publicity and new supporters than she may have otherwise gotten. Meanwhile, a commenter on Richmond’s blog points out that accusations of a set-up by the hosts of SpeakOut were all but confirmed on the program’s next episode.

[bliptv AYGi2HEC]

Interesting that the talk show hosts were too cowardly to bring up the matter themselves and instead set up an ambush. If this is the way politics are done in Page County, Virginia, maybe they really do need a change in government. As for Alice Richmond, she may just yet become living proof that there is no such thing as bad publicity.