Fifth Sacred Thing Film Update and other Pagan News of Note

June 24, 2011 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 17 Comments

Top Story: The planned movie adaptation of Starhawk’s novel “The Fifth Sacred Thing,” has officially launched its Kickstarter fundraising campaign (complete with fundraising pitch video featuring Starhawk). They are looking to raise $60,000 dollars in 60 days. There has been just over $10,000 dollars pledged in the first two days. The money will be used to make a professional pitch video to the major film studios.

“Now we’re asking for your support.  What will we do with the money?  You’ve seen in the video some of the brilliant artists who inspire us, and who want to work with us.  With your help, we’ll be able to create the next phase; designs for sets and costumes, visuals of key scenes, and storyboards for the action.  We can secure the rights to the music and art we need, and do those dull but oh-so-necessary things like finalizing contracts, budgets and financial plans.  To ensure that we are able to continue to develop the strongest possible project, we estimate that we’ll need about double our Kickstarter campaign goal of $60,000, and we’re certain that with your help, along with the tremendous support we’ve been receiving from our entire community, we can do it.”

The official website for the film is here.  They are also encouraging folks to connect with them on Facebook and Twitter. If this succeeds it will be the largest sum of money collectively raised on the Internet for a campaign originating with modern Pagans. Doubling what was raised earlier this year for Japan relief. I’ll have more on this project soon, hopefully including an interview with Starhawk about the proposed film.

Interview with Iceland’s Allsherjargoði: Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfried at The Norse Mythology Blog interviews Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, chief priest of Iceland’s Ásatrúarfélagið. In the interview they discuss art, mythology, working with Sigur Rós, and the question of pre-Christian survivals (among other things).

KS – Do you see contemporary Ásatrú in Iceland as a continuation of a living tradition that goes back to ancient times, as a recreation and revival of a practice that had ended, as a descendent of 19th century nationalist romantic mysticism, as a post-war rejection of modernity, or as a post-1960s counterculture movement?

HÖH – I think, probably, I would say “yes” to all those things. The influence of this seems to resonate with Icelanders. The poems never really went away, and they’ve been treasured ever since they were handed down orally and written down. I’m pretty certain that the people in the learned places of Oddi and Reykholt and [elsewhere] were reading Ovid and Roman mythology, and they realized, “My god, we have this thinghere which is a living and vibrant thing, and this is what my great-grandfather believed in,” and stuff like that. I think it never really went away.

It was said – after the conversion in 1000 or 999 – that you could not worship the old gods except in secrecy. That was part of the truce. People carried on secret worship for at least two centuries. I don’t think it ever really went away. To illustrate that, I met this old man in the shop yesterday. He came up to me and shook my hand, and he told me that – when he was confirmed in the early 1920s – his grandmother came to him and gave him a book with the Eddic poems and said, “You should read that, because this is what we also believe.” She thought, “Christianity is okay, but you should not forget your roots.” Ha! I think that’s really a telling story.

The whole thing is worth a read, and that’s only part one! Check out the entire blog, which is chock-full of interesting interviews, including one with Jóhanna G. Harðardóttir of the Ásatrúarfélagið.

A Wiccaning at PSG: Cara Schulz from PNC-Minnesota has posted a brief report and pictures of a Wiccaning that took place earlier this week at the 2011 Pagan Spirit Gathering in Illinois.


“Rev. Fox blessed the child with element of earth, air, water, fire, and spirit and gifted Arden with a feather found on site.  Arden enjoyed the first half of the ceremony, especially when Fox played peek-a-boo with him.  But as the sun came out, so did some tears.  Rev. Fox noted that was just what Arden should expect from  life, times of laughter and times of tears.  The parents, Kidril and Twitch, then gave their baby his first drum and gave him their blessings.  The community was then invited to grant Arden blessings such as friendship, comfort, peace, and love.”

I realize that a Wiccaning (or ‘saining’) at a festival isn’t the biggest news, but I don’t feel enough attention is paid to our faiths outside of big events or inadvertent scandals. Depictions of modern Pagans living their faith, going through life’s many transitions, can be an important tool for outreach and understanding. I’d like to thank Selena Fox, Kidril, Twitch, and Arden for agreeing to share this moment with the world.

My Take on Religious Exemptions: My latest panelist response for the Washington Post’s On Faith section is now up. This time I tackled the issue of religious exemptions in New York’s proposed gay marriage bill.

“Often overlooked in this wrangling over exemptions are religious groups that fully support equal rights and protections for all American citizens, even the gay ones. Gay marriage is almost wholly uncontroversial among modern Pagan faiths. Druid group Ar nDraiocht Fein (ADF)has “never believed that the institution of marriage could possibly be threatened by the existence of married people of any gender,” while Pagan scholar Michael York, author of “Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion,”underlines that sentiment by proclaiming that “freedom has to be the highest Pagan goal and virtue.” Gay marriage has been endorsed by notable Pagan leaders like my fellow co-panelist Starhawk, along with leading Pagan organizations like Covenant of the Goddess (COG) and Cherry Hill Seminary. Yet, despite this, few seem unconcerned that one religious moral view concerning marriage is allowed to override another. The simple fact is that certain Christian and Catholic groups are used to getting their way, and it matters little to them if a moral world-view they endorse overrules the world-views of other religious groups. So the more exemptions granted, the more we’re tacitly saying a socially conservative Judeo-Christian approach to these issues is the de facto “religious” perspective.”

You can read my entire response, here. You can responses from the entire panel, here.

In Other News:

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

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Quick Notes: Michele Bachmann, Eilish De’Avalon, and a Catholic Fertility Ritual

May 18, 2011 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 126 Comments

Just a few quick news notes for you on this Wednesday.

Bachmann’s Gay-Bashing Friends: Mother Jones reports on the cozy, friendly, relationship between Rep. Michele Bachmann (R–Minn.) and Christian musician/activist Bradlee Dean. Both Dean and Bachmann are scheduled to appear at the upcoming Tea Party Founding Fathers-sponsored Freedom Jamboree in Kansas, billed as the national Tea Party straw poll convention. Journalist Tim Murphy notes that Bachmann has been an ongoing supporter of Dean, despite the incendiary and hateful anti-gay rhetoric spouted by the Minnesota-based talk-show host and Christian youth leader.

“But over the last five years, Bachmann, the politician, and Dean, the metal-head, have formed an unlikely but powerful alliance. Bachmann has helped raise money for Dean’s traveling youth ministry, You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International; guest-starred in his television series; and prayed for his ministry to multiply 10-fold. Dean, for his part, has embraced Bachmann, whose district includes his suburban community of Annandale, as an ally against the gay agenda. But his inflammatory rhetoric and past links to an anti-government organization make Bachmann’s own controversial views seem downright pedestrian—and raise serious questions about the congresswoman’s choice of associates.”

Dean is perhaps best known for his admiring comments concerning Muslim countries that call for the execution of homosexuals (though he says his words were “twisted”, but it’s all on tape for anyone to judge for themselves) and seems to be all for locking gays and lesbians up. Dean’s ministry is directly linked to the scandal of Target donating to anti-gay hate groups. As for Bachmann, we already know she’s no friend to modern Pagans. With Bachmann seriously considering jumping into the presidential race, we’ll have to keep our eyes open to see if conservatives anoint a woman who would seem to have no qualms radically changing our country.

The Unfortunate Return of Eilish De’Avalon: Australian Pagan priestess and Witch Eilish De’Avalon, who garnered international attention last year for dragging a cop by the arm during a routine traffic stop, is now appealing her conviction, despite the fact that she’s quite plainly guilty of dragging the police officer.

“A self-proclaimed witch who says she is not subject to earthly laws is appealing against convictions for dangerous driving and recklessly causing injury. She was sentenced to jail after pleading guilty to dragging a traffic policeman by the arm for 190m. Highton marriage celebrant Eilish De’Avalon told Sen-Constable Andrew Logan in February last year she was not subject to earthly laws because she was from another world.”

Australian Pagans have been concerned about the negative publicity this incident has garnered, especially now that there’s documented widespread distrust of modern Pagans in that country. Ms. De’Avalon’s appeal simply gives the anti-Pagan pundits and culture warriors more fuel for their rhetorical fires. Here’s hoping the unfortunate return of De’Avalon to mainstream press attention is short-lived.

Catholicism and Fertility Rituals: Reuters reports on a centuries-old May fertility ritual at Obando in the Philippines.

“The rite has taken place in Obando for centuries and apparently originated from a pagan fertility ritual where couples once rubbed their body parts against an idol. But the act was later changed by the Catholic Church when they introduced Saint Claire, the patron saint of fertility, to the locals. [...] The Philippines, with 80 percent of its 100 million population devoted Catholics, holds many festivals honouring patron saints that are believed to grant miracles.”

One wonders how many of its Catholic festivals originated as pre-Christian celebrations, and simply substituted a saint for a local deity. There are still a smattering of “animists” preserving the old ways, do they celebrate these festivals in their original forms still? It would have been interesting to know, too bad the report couldn’t have dug deeper.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

 

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Quick Notes: Bumper Sticker Problems, Haiti, and Australian Haters

August 18, 2010 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 22 Comments

A few quick notes for you on this Wednesday.

Bumper Sticker Politics: If I was pressed to name the most innocuous bumper decoration ever, the “Coexist” sticker would be right up there with the “My Kid is On the Honor Roll at…” (which has been endlessly parodied) tags, or maybe the Christian fish and its endless permutations. But it seems I’m wrong, and the sticker is in fact a sign of everything that is going wrong in America according to Republican Allen West a candidate for the House in Florida’s 22nd district.

“[A]s I was driving up here today, I saw that bumper sticker that absolutely incenses me. It’s not the Obama bumper sticker. But it’s the bumper sticker that says, ‘Co-exist.’ And it has all the little religious symbols on it. And the reason why I get upset, and every time I see one of those bumper stickers, I look at the person inside that is driving. Because that person represents something that would give away our country. Would give away who we are, our rights and freedoms and liberties because they are afraid to stand up and confront that which is the antithesis, anathema of who we are. The liberties that we want to enjoy.”

Now West, a local Tea Party favorite, seems to be focused mostly on the Muslim “C” in “coexist” when pondering his revulsion of the sticker, but I can’t imagine why a sentiment of peaceful coexistence among all the world’s religions has become the focus for his “Islam is the 5th column” tirade. It’s troubling enough when moderate and mystical elements within Islam are ignored by politicians, but these remarks make one wonder if there are any other faiths coexisting that he has a problem with. I mean, has he had any chats with Pagan tea partiers? Maybe palled around with Dan Halloran? Are there any other letters in “coexist” that have him seeing red?

Who Will Run? Tensions are already mounting in Haiti’s upcoming presidential race. Over 30 potential candidates, including musician Wyclef Jean, are vying to be the nation’s top executive; and Haiti’s electoral commission is supposed to issue a ruling Friday as to who will be allowed to run. Jean, who’s been getting death threats after announcing his intentions, is battling challenges to his eligibility, and it may come down to testimony from a Vodou priest.

“Two people contested Jean’s candidacy on the grounds that he does not meet the residency requirement. A justice of the peace, the records mention, went to the suburban neighborhood of Lassarre — where Jean stays when he visits Haiti — to interview a Vodou priest in an effort to establish Jean’s residency requirement.”

Meanwhile, Jean’s friend and former Fugees bandmate Pras, who’s backing one of Jean’s potential opponents, Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly (also a musician), claims his man has the backing of the “Vodou guys” in Haiti.

“He’s a transformative figure. Michel is one of the only guys that can unite not only the whole country — the elite, the masses, the youth, the Christians, the voodoo guys — but also the diaspora, the Haitians out here in America, Africa. He’s the ambassador for environmental protection, for disaster relief, and he has a foundation that’s been helping out the community for seventeen years. Michel served in the army. He’s not doing it for photo ops … People have this affinity for him that is natural. When you have that as a leader, it goes farther than someone coming in who’s popular.”

Once we have an official slate of candidates, and know who the front-runners are, we will be able to better gauge which candidates will be the best for Haiti’s future in terms of religious freedom and coexistence with that country’s “voodoo guys”. It will be interesting to see who various notable figures in Haitian Vodou, like Max Beauvoir, will back.

The “Dark Wave” of Australian Paganism: Conservative commentator Andrew Bolt takes aim at Australian Pagans by holding up some local Pagan-oriented magazines, and recent cop-dragging news-getter Eilish De Avalon, as symbols of a “dark wave” of declining reason.

“Oh, you’re right, it’s just a few women flirting with their irrational and harmlessly naughty side. But noticed how many of them there suddenly are? Sen-Constable Andrew Logan has. In February he pulled over a woman driving through Geelong while talking on her mobile, and asked her why she didn’t have a licence, either. “Your laws and penalties don’t apply to me,” replied Eilish De Avalon, a 40-year-old witch. “I’m a being from another world and don’t require one.” And off she drove, with Logan’s arm unluckily wedged in her window. Penalty last week: two months’ jail. If Logan was surprised to find a witch even in no-mucking-around Geelong, he hasn’t paid attention. In the 1996 Census, just 1849 Australians claimed to be followers of Wicca or witchcraft. A decade later, there were 8214 of them, with another 15,516 Pagans. Most were women, of course, and a Monash University study says a high proportion are bisexual. But what else do you expect, with reason in decline and Greens on the rise?”

Just more pile-on for the Pagans in Australia, who have been dealing with waves of bad press lately due to figures like Eilish De Avalon, and Lizzy Rose making the headlines (and snarky blog posts).  As Australian Pagan Gavin Andrew said recently at my blog, “at two strokes the gains that the Australian pagan community made in terms of local interfaith dialogue and public acceptance last year at the Parliament of the World’s Religions (with the help of so many of the U.S. delegates) have now well and truly been undone.” It will no doubt take years of work to put these events behind them, while dealing with people like Bolt, who seem to have nothing better to do than wring his hands over Pagan magazine articles.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

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“Bona Fide” Holidays in North Carolina and other Pagan News of Note

August 17, 2010 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 11 Comments

Top Story: Are you a Pagan family in North Carolina that would like to take a day or two off for holiday observances? A new North Carolina law would let you keep your kids home from school with an excused absence.

“It requires all school systems, community colleges and public universities to allow students at least two excused absences each academic year for religious observances. The law standardizes an informal practice. But some administrators hope it won’t create exam-week havoc.”

Sounds like a net positive, right? Practitioners of minority faiths that don’t have observances that overlap with existing Christian holidays can include the kids without hassle, and college students can attend a scheduled event without worry of hurting their GPA. But a comment from Rep. Rick Glazier, who co-sponsored the bill, have some worried about how it will be applied.

“It has to be a bona fide holiday; you don’t get to just take the day off because you want to pray at home.”

So who decides what’s a “bona fide” holiday? Will the school take the parent’s word for it? The law is vague on this point, only saying that schools can request a letter of explanation if they want. Faith & Reason’s Cathy Lynn Grossman notes the law could make minority faiths have to “prove their religiosity”, but it’s more the “praying at home” bit that I’m concerned about. If your “church” is the living room, or an open field, or a forest, does it still count as bona fide? It should be interesting to see how this law is enacted by different schools, and see how it handles Pagan requests for days off.

Guilty Sentence For Cop-Dragging Pagan Priestess: A Magistrate has found Eilish De Avalon, who gained international noteriety last month for dragging a cop by the arm during a routine traffic stop, guilty of recklessly causing injury. De Avalon, who is currently out on bail pending an appeal, made tabloid headlines by announcing she was a “pagan priestess”, and that man-made laws didn’t apply to her, much to the chagrin of other local Pagans who said that incident has set back local interfaith efforts. In a press release, the Australian Pagan Awareness Network (PAN) blasted those who were using this incident to put her beliefs, and by extension the beliefs of all Australian Pagans, on trial.

“The media has done its best to put Ms De Avalon on trial in the court of public opinion for her beliefs as well as her actions. I doubt they would bother if she were a Catholic or a Hindu or practically any other religion. What is the big deal about practicing an indigenous European belief like witchcraft? When it comes to the law, people’s actions are what matter.”

It remains to be seen what will happen next. I can’t imagine she’ll win on appeal with the involuntary “autonomous state” defense she used in the first trial. As for the reputation of Pagans in Australia, perhaps the soon-to-be-airing episode of Rituals: Around the World in 80 Faiths (which I covered here previously) that features Australian Pagans will help things a bit.

A Cuban Santera on Faith, Possession, and Divination: Journalism student Kelly Knaub interviews Cuban Santera Iyalocha Lourdes about her faith for the Havana Times, and undergoes a purification ritual as well. During the interview Iyalocha Lourdes goes into some detail on the matter of possession by spirits, which I found quite interesting.

“In the beginning you lose consciousness. It’s a process of spiritual development. Right now you’re an embryon – a person that doesn’t have the potential or capability to be a medium. Right now, that’s you – you don’t have any knowledge. You come to my temple to develop yourself spiritually, which means to process and open yourself and become a spiritualist. So, in the beginning, I pull the spirits so that they possess you. You lose consciousness, you don’t remember anything.

As the years go by, and you continue perfecting and working more with your spirituality, a moment will come when you’re seated, like I am, and a spirit comes to you and you speak, sometimes also in a conscious state and you can remember it. But this comes with practice.”

They also talk about gender within Santeria, “false spiritualists” who only do it for the money, and animal sacrifice. It’s definitely worth a read, especially since most mainstream journalism about Santeria doesn’t tend to allow this much detail or insight into their practices.

The Welsh Witch Problem: It seems that rural Wales is a hotbed of occult and strange happenings being reported to the police. A recent Freedom of Information Act request reveals that residents in places like Powys, Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire are having all sorts of supernatural problems, including “witches” behaving badly.

The force, which covers Mid and West Wales, has received 86 reports of witches in the last five years. The force’s police incident log reveals details of the calls. One caller reported “that one individual is a witch and had attended at the house to put salt around the bed”. A caller in January last year claimed he had been fed a “fur ball” during a witchcraft ritual. Following a call from Llanelli, police recorded: “Caller, who was drunk, who rang regarding a gang of witches who want to sacrifice him.” Another call was a report of a “malicious communication: rumours that an individual’s mother is a witch”.

OK, which tradition’s been feeding people fur balls? There were also reports of ghosts, vampires, demons, and wizards, but witches topped the list. The Dyfed Powys Police downplayed these reports, saying they are far more ordinary taken in context, though local paranormal experts insist this is just further proof that “Wales is a frighteningly haunted country”. That still doesn’t explain the fur ball. Was it from a cat? Is it a euphemism? What?

I Can Only Imagine the Internet Spam I’ll Get Now: Plenty of places on the net are getting a decent chuckle over an Ebay auction that is selling a spell by a “powerful Wiccan Witch” to increase the size of your, ahem, “booty”.

“Are you desperate to achieve the perfect butt and perhaps a fan of the occult? For just $8.95, you can achieve your dreams by buying one “Booty Enhancement Spell” from a “Powerful Wiccan Witch” on eBay. Hurry, supplies are limited!”

There’s also a spell for breast enhancement. The powerful “Amelia” (it that’s her real name) claims that she’s “used this [spell] many times with stunning results!” But just in case, buying multiple castings ensures greater chances for success (naturally). There’s always been spell-peddlers in our community, but this level of brazenness and scammy-spammy-vibes may take this to a new high/low. One wonders what old Gerald would have to say about booty-boosting spells.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

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