Pagan & Shinto News: SPECIAL – Winter Solstice Coverage

Top stories in Paganism and Shinto this week:

World media looks at Pagan observance of winter solstice
Witches upset over Trump’s use of expression “witch hunt”
4,400 year old tomb of royal priest unearthed in Egypt

SPECIAL: Winter Solstice Coverage

Stonehenge winter solstice: Parking row mars event
BBC News
Senior Druid, King Arthur Pendragon said problems with parking had “totally ruined it” for some people…

People gather at Newgrange to celebrate winter solstice
RTE
In clear conditions, light from the rising sun lights up the inner chamber of the 5,000-year-old tomb…

Druids out in force for winter solstice at Knockroe, Kilkenny
Kilkenny People
The druids were out in force for the winter solstice at Knockroe Passage Tomb in South Kilkenny this morning…

Winter Solstice celebrations see Pagans across the country celebrate shortest day of the year
The Sun
The Winter Solstice been a central ritual in the pagan belief system for thousands of years…

Pagans celebrate Winter Solstice at ancient stones
Mail Online
Hundreds woke early today to watch sunrise at prehistoric monument Newgrange in County Meath, Ireland…

Rhianna the ‘hereditary witch’ celebrates the winter solstice
Jersey Evening Post
Many Islanders will celebrate the winter solstice this evening, according to a local ‘hereditary witch’, who says that today is the most important date in her Christmas calendar…

Occult Boutique WitchLab Celebrates Franklinton Opening on Winter Solstice
Columbus Underground
Tiffany Boggins has been using the name WitchLab for several years to encompass all of the “witchy” products, classes and events she offers…

Winter Solstice: Here are 6 stone circles around Europe to celebrate at
BreakingNews.ie
Christmas tends to gobble up the all season’s greetings at this time of year, but every December small groups of pagans gather at stone circles across Europe to celebrate its seasonal forebear – the Winter Solstice…

Winter Solstice UK 2018: What time is sunset today – What is importance of Stonehenge?
The Express
The winter solstice, the day of the year with the least daylight and longest night, is here…

Celebrate the winter solstice to reclaim the festive spirit
The Guardian
Our Christmas traditions originate in midwinter celebrations tens of thousands of years old. Let’s reach back and remember..

The roots of Yule – and how you can celebrate locally
Johnson City Press
For pagans, Yule is the celebration of the goddess’s birth of the sun — a masculine figure in pagan belief, while the moon represents femininity…

Merry Witchmas: Paganism, witchcraft and the holidays
SyFy Wire
In nearly all religions, there are celebrations for the changing of the seasons…

Winter Solstice 2018: Witches Offer a Look Into Their Yule Rituals
Teen Vogue
See what rituals these witches are practicing to welcome longer days and bid 2018 goodbye…

Make the Yuletide Gay: LGBTQ Yule
About
For the small witch community within our also-small LGBQTIA community, here’s a list of ways to celebrate the Yule holiday, its magic, and your inner-witch while also embracing all the gay you’ve got…

Why Believe in Santa Claus?
Patheos Pagan: Witch On Fire
I believe in Santa Claus. Yes, I’m a middle-aged Witch, whose child-like Christmas twinkle never faded…

Pagan News

Stonehenge closures ‘putting off pilgrims’, says Arthur Pendragon
The Times
Druids have accused the authorities at Stonehenge of using “draconian” road closures to prevent pilgrims praying there…

Witches say they are upset over President Trump’s description of the Mueller investigation
WTNH.com
Self-described witches say they are upset over President Trump’s description of the Russia investigation…

Stonehenge Bypass Update
The Wild Hunt
With a controversial new visitor centre and an even more controversial plan for the surrounding landscape, the henge is rarely out of South Western news at the moment. Let’s take an overview of the project to date…

Witchcraft moves to the mainstream in America as Christianity declines – and has Trump in its sights
The Telegraph
As Christianity declines across the country, paganism has swung to the mainstream, with witchcraft paraphernalia for sale on every high street and practises normalised across popular culture…

Winter solstice: the astronomy of Christmas
The Conversation
This is the longest night of the year – once celebrated as “Yule” by the pagan people of Northern Europe before it became Christmas…

Shinto News

Hong Kong activists plead not guilty to trespassing at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine
South China Morning Post
Lawyers for Alex Kwok and Yim Man-wa argue act of burning tablet condemning war criminal is protected by country’s freedom of speech..

Wine-filled good luck charms from Yamanashi shrine gain following
Kyodo News
Kaikuni Ichinomiya Asama Shrine in Fuefuki city is offering charms filled with local wine and an amulet to bring good health and ward off illness…

New Year card tradition on the wane
The Japan Times
Once a tradition firmly entrenched in the national consciousness, the nengajō (new year card) is facing extinction…

2019 Burning Man temple inspired by Fushimi Inari shrine
EDM
Each edition of Burning Man includes a ceremonial Temple burn that takes place the evening after the man burn itself…

Questions over Daijosai rite arise again
The Japan Times
The lawsuit filed by a group of more than 200 people against Imperial rituals to be held next year following the enthronement of the new Emperor brings back the question of government funding for such rituals in light of the constitutional separation of state and religion…

A power spot, tucked away on the Shima Peninsula
The Japan Times
The Grand Shrines of Ise are just the start of Mie’s mystical attraction…

Shinto shows the debt to animism of organised religions today
Aeon
Shinto is uniquely Japanese, yet embodies a once-universal animistic religion of wind and fire, gods and animal spirits..

Shinto and LGBT+ culture: Connected from the ancient to modern era
Living With Kami
Throughout the years and even now, I have often been asked the view Shinto holds in regard to LGBT+ people and culture…

Other News

Egypt Unearths Tomb of Royal Priest From 4,400 Years Ago
The New York Times
Archaeologists have discovered a well-preserved, 4,400-year-old tomb of a royal priest and his family in Egypt, in a “one of a kind” find, the Egyptian authorities announced on Saturday…

For sale: Restored 1776 home at site where 1692 Salem witch trials survivor settled
The Japan Times
A once-run-down historic home that stands where a woman accused of witchcraft during the 1692 Salem witch trials settled after she was spared the noose is on the market after an extensive renovation project…

Even samurai played ancient soccer-like game called ‘kemari’
The Japan Times
A Kyoto-based Shukiku (kemari) preservation association showed off their skills during the recent annual Kemari Matsuri festival at Tanzanjinja shrine in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture…

Japanese Buddhist out to educate West on swastika of good fortune
Kyodo News
But such episodes in which Nakagaki felt Buddhism was being marginalized piled up. And at a 2009 interfaith workshop, where a hate crimes expert called the swastika “a universal symbol of hate and evil,” he made the decision to preserve the emblem’s original meaning…

Canadian Woman Tiffany Butch Charged With Witchcraft Just Two Days Before Law Is Eliminated
Inquisitr
Butch says that she’s not a witch, in that she practices neither witchcraft nor Wicca. Rather, she says, she’s a psychic…

Uncovering the Past
The Wild Hunt
As some Pagans and Heathens reconstruct or revive ancient religions they often rely on the work of historians, primary texts, anthropologists and archaeologists. For this reason, when something new pops up that challenges long held academic ideas on cultural or religious practice, we pay attention. Here are some recaps of finds making waves in archaeological circles…

Santa Claus Was NOT a Shaman
Patheos Pagan: Raise The Horns
Holidays are full of bad information, and few holidays conjure up more bad information than Yuletide. One of my least favorite falsehoods this time of year is that “Santa was a shaman.” …

The elusive ‘hidden people’ of Iceland
BBC
According to a 2007 study by the University of Iceland, an estimated 62% of the nation believe that the existence of elves is more than a fairy tale…

‘Circe is a self-made woman’
Spiked
Novelist Madeline Miller on the freedom and power of the Ancient Greek witch…

Zambia: A 79-year-old man beaten by a mob on allegations of practicing witchcraft
Lusaka Times
A 79-year-old man of Kaundula area in Luano district has been brutally beaten by a mob on allegations of practicing witchcraft…

India: Man gets life for killing woman over witchcraft
Orissa Post
A local court Thursday sentenced a man to life imprisonment after convicting him of the murder of a woman in 2016…

India: 2 held for killing elderly man over witchcraft
Pragativadi
Police on Friday arrested two persons in connection with the murder of an elderly man on suspicion of practicing black magic in Nuapada district…

South Africa: Seven people arrested for allegedly killing two women accused of witchcraft
Times Live
Eastern Cape police have arrested seven people, including two minors, for allegedly killing two women in Mount Ayliff over allegations of witchcraft…