The Wild Hunt 
At past Faerieworlds, Friday is usually seen as the least busy of the three-day event. People have to work, it’s a shorter day, and many are still arriving. However, this year seemed far, far, larger, and the energy level was high, making me think that we’ll see record-breaking attendances on Saturday and Sunday. Like all opening Fridays at Faerieworlds, it started with a ceremony/ritual led by Emilio and Kelly from Woodland, with help from S.J. Tucker. They did a Lammas invocation, including offerings of fruits and grains, with Donovan and his wife as special guests of honor. Then, a giant spiral dance was led by a local priestess while the musicians played.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrs_61reep0
That kicked off a day of amazing music, headlined by the transcendent Persian fusion ensemble Niyaz, featuring the amazing vocals of Azam Ali. However, I think that the performance by Soriah with Ashkelon Sain is one that truly surprised a lot of people, and created hundreds of new fans. The shamanic throat-singing ensemble, by the end of their set, had entranced the audience, and I feel confident this won’t be the last time they’ll play at Faerieworlds.
Check out my A Darker Shade of Pagan podcast tomorrow for an exclusive post-show interview with Soriah and Ashkelon Sain. Today at Faerieworlds I’m hoping to conduct an interview with S.J. Tucker for The Wild Hunt, so stay tuned! Meanwhile, here are some Pagan news links to peruse while I’m away with the faeries.
- Apparently there’s this event called “The Olympics” that also started on Friday, The Religion News Service looks at the history of religion in the games, starting with ancient polytheistic Greece, while the London Evening Standard focuses exclusively on the mythological, pre-Christian, games. I know some Christians get annoyed when Pagans brag about how pre-Christian religions did things first, but guys, pagans totally invented the Olympics (there’s even a goddess on every medal). You can keep track of the wins (and losses), here.
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PNC-Minnesota interviews Crystal Blanton, author of “Bridging the Gap: Working Within the Dynamics of Pagan Groups and Society,” on her return to the Sacred Harvest Festival. Quote: “To keep people and a community engaged you need people to help guide you in an ongoing process that has been started. Some Circle Keeper training may help create a landscape and offer some tools where the process can continue onward by an invested community.”
- Indian Country Today reports on two indigenous declarations released during the United Nations Rio+20 Conference, the International Declaration of Indigenous People on Sustainable Development and Self-Determination, and the Rio de Janeiro Letter/Final Declaration of Free Land Camp IX – Living Well/Healthy Full Life. Both letters, according to Indian Country Today, shared an sentiment that “the salvation of the planet is in the ancient wisdom of Indigenous Peoples.”
- Is there really a link between benevolent behavior and religion? The Public Religion Research Institute says we may soon find out thanks to the decreasing rate of active religious adherence and activity by the younger generations. Quote: “If there truly is a link between religiosity and positive social behavior, the Millennial generation may signal a shift in social interactions in the United States—or at least a shift in the source of prosocial behavior. The 2012 Millennial Values Survey found that 25% of college-age Millennials are currently unaffiliated, while only 11% say that they were raised this way.” Of course, many cultures, even religious cultures, thrived without the threat of an explicitly “watching deity” waiting to judge us, maybe we’re simply shaking off generations of Christian conditioning.
- Secularism isn’t atheism, just as any Pagan! Quote: “What secularism does concern itself with are relations between Church and State. It is a flexible doctrine that can embody a lot of policy positions. Strict separationism is one, but not the only, of those positions. At its core, secularism is deeply suspicious of any entanglement between government and religion.”
- Finally, happy anniversary to PNC-Minnesota! I’m very proud to have played a small role in your success!
That’s it for now, back to the Realm for me!
Ah, it’s a shame you didn’t mention the Opening Ceremony, which started with a nod to maypoles and Morris Dancing. It was cute.
One cannot demonstrate a link between religiosity and philanthropy by noting, for example, a decline in both over the same span of time. Both are embedded in a dynamic society and can be driven by common, if subtle, forces.
It seems the way to be never forgotten, for some gods, is for people to be convinced that “nobody” worships you anymore. “Oh, don’t mind me. I’ll just sit here in ancient history all by my lonesome. In the dark. With the bookworms. I don’t need any financial buildings or train stations or yogurt or nothing, because nobody worships little old me anymore… You wouldn’t like me anyway. It’d just be you, me, and your vivid imagination, and that’s no fun, is it? No way to tell if you’re being sacrilegious at all!”
Leave it to Britain to know how to make a spectacular cauldron. It took me a while to find a feed, so I missed most of the opening events, but judging from my online friends’ spaztastic feeds, it also looks like they’re well prepared with an army of magical nannies in case giant evil wizards should attack the Shire. And even if you can’t see a Time Lord, you know he’s out there, somewhere, as much as it frustrates the young ladies who wait for him to come whisk them away, probably to never return. He was supposed to be there, you know!
Nike…ad nauseum…
http://shrineofneith.weebly.com/1/post/2012/07/qpme-nooz-2.html
I adore Tuvan throat singing–can’t remember how many years ago I bought an album called “Deep in the Heart of Tuva”. What I don’t know is if only Tuvan men do this, as the Inuit women do their throat signing, and if there’s any tie between them, save for technique.
I think the folks performing the music for the spiral dance were channelling either Pentagle, Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, or some of each, but it was to yummmmm
All right, I’m in this camp:
11% say that they were raised this way.
One day last week, I heard a paper grocery bag rip and fall behind me. I turned toward the sound, and asked if everything was okay. The shopper responded that it was. I further offered my cart for the transport of the ripped bag, but the shopper didn’t need it.
I was thanked for my concern. I said in puzzlement, but that’s the way I was raised.
He was a youngish black man, I’m a middle aged white woman. My parents DID rear me that way, without any religious connotation about it. I don’t help people based on who they are, but what they need, and whether I can supply that. I am also sowing the seeds of the change I wish to reap, fully-grown, later–or that I wish others can reap.
on the Huffington Post article on secularism: probably some of the most dedicated secularists you can bump into are many of the adherents of the historic Protestant churches in Italy, Spain, France and the Czech Republic who do not make any compromise on the issue of separation of state and religion due to the experiences of their ancestors in the past with Catholic states and Catholic state churches
I saw an article a while ago about a study on this issue. It turned out that both professed atheists and religious test subjects where capable of compassion. Only the atheists did it from their hearts, the faithful out of adherence to their moral code (i.e., arguably, fear). This was tested by studying brain scans, so it looked pretty reliable to me. Unfortunately I don’t recall where I read it (it was in Dutch anyway), but I wasn’t much surprised!