Tonight and tomorrow is when most modern Pagans celebrate Samhain. Samhain is the start of winter and of the new year in the old Celtic calendar. This is a time when the ancestors are honored, divinations for the new year are performed, and festivals are held in honor of the gods. It is a time of final harvest before the long winter ahead. It is perhaps the best-known and most widely celebrated of the modern Pagan holidays. An ancestor altar. This... Read more
[The following is a guest post from Literata. Literata is a Wiccan who studies theaology and enjoys developing poetry and rituals. Her work has appeared in the anthologies “Queen of the Sacred Way”, “Anointed” and “The Scribing Ibis” from Neos Alexandria, in CIRCLE Magazine, and in the ezine Eternal Haunted Summer. She also writes regularly for The Slacktiverse and blogs at Works of Literata. In between leading Rose Coven, reading Tarot, and communing with nature, she is writing her Ph.D.... Read more
Author, activist, and Reclaiming co-founder Starhawk has been attending several Occupy gatherings in California and writing about those experiences at her blog. In addition, she has also written about Occupy Wall Street for the Washington Post’s On Faith section. “At its essence, the message of the Occupations is simply this: “Here in the face of power we will sit and create a new society, in which you do count. Your voice carries weight, your contributions have value, whoever you may be.... Read more
Large interfaith gatherings can often be fraught with long-simmering tensions, just ask the folks who put on the Parliament for the World’s Religions, but it is generally thought that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. That getting leaders and clergy of the major religions in the same room to find common ground and common understanding will bring dividends of lasting peace (or at least bring about greater tolerance). Yesterday, in Assisi, Italy the Catholic Church sponsored a massive interfaith gathering, the third such gathering to directly... Read more
I’m taking a “sick day” today. Here’s some things you might want to read instead. ‘Return to Oakland’ by Starhawk ‘Taking My Own Advice’ by T. Thorn Coyle ‘All Candy, No Jesus: Halloween in America’ by Mary Valle Also, do check out my favorite Christian blogger, Slacktivist. Plus, all great content to be found at the Patheos Pagan Portal and the Pagan Newswire Collective! Read more
I would like to extend my best wishes on this Diwali to Hindus (and Indo-Pagans) worldwide. May the triumph of light over darkness bring more understanding, cooperation, and opportunities to our respective faith communities in the year to come. May the blessings of Lakshmi reach us all in these trying times. Diwali, the festival of lights, is a major Indian holiday representing a spiritual new year, and a triumph of good over evil. Depending on the region and tradition, this... Read more
One of the most pernicious types of religious slander is “blood libel,” the accusation that a religious group ritualistically murders (and often consumes) children. While most famously, and pervasively, used against Jews throughout history, many other groups have had similar accusations made against them. For example, in ancient Rome some accused Christians of partaking in cannibalistic orgies and incest. “Now the story about the initiation of young novices is as much to be detested as it is well known. An infant covered over... Read more
Minnesota newspaper the Star Tribune does a profile of local business Llewellyn Worldwide, the largest publisher of Pagan and metaphysical books. In the article owner Carl Weschcke addresses the recent collapse of Borders, which cost the company half a million dollars, saying they’ve managed to stay profitable. The company has weathered the Great Recession despite losing $500,000 in the Borders bankruptcy, Weschcke said. He credited stringent controls put in place by his wife, and company president, Sandra Weschcke, for keeping the company... Read more
Back in September, newswires and blogs reported on the case of Jamyi J. Witch, a Wiccan chaplain at Oshkosh Correctional Institution who is accused of sexually assaulting an inmate, illegally transporting drugs, and hatching a fake hostage scheme to procure a transfer for her and an inmate. The twist? Jamyi Witch is Wisconsin’s first Pagan prison chaplain. “In December 2001, Scott Walker, then a Republican member of the Wisconsin State Assembly and chair of the Assembly Committee on Corrections and Courts, learned that theWisconsin Department of... Read more
There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up. Beliefnet News runs a story on an upcoming Washington DC Pagan event, “a protest to the New Apostolic Reformation’s 51-day prayer campaign targeting Pagans, Wiccans, Witches, Druids, Heathens, and other Goddess-worshipers nationwide.” The press release from event organizer Caroline Kenner probably got picked up... Read more
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