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.
Swimming area at Stonehouse Park.
- PNC-Minnesota passes on the word that Stonehouse Park in Illinois, the home of this year’s Pagan Spirit Gathering, will be able to continue holding events on its property, despite complaints about noise and illegal activities. Local Pagans affiliated with Circle Sanctuary, and the Northern Illinois University Pagan student group, worked and communicated with the DeKalb County Board to ensure a permit would be in place this year. Thanks to this decision PSG will be able to move forward without having to worry about a last-minute relocation or cancellation, though the “short leash” put on Stonehouse may make the location untenable for future events. PSG’s move to Illinois came after their last location, Camp Zoe in Missouri, was seized due to (completely unrelated to PSG) drug trafficking charges.
- There are a number of great Pagan articles and essays currently up, here at the Patheos Pagan channel, including a column on making Paganism competitive, another on doing religion on the road, and a third on how a Microsoft CD-Rom led the author to Paganism. In addition, Teo Bishop takes a closer look at Pagan leaders and teachers, Peg Aloi covers the “Satanic” mutilation of horses, and Luna Pantera thinks it is time for all of us to start working with our ancestors.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kqkw_XVbRM
- A new film, The Sisterhood of Night, aims to tell the Salem witch-trials story in a modern context. Quote: “We’ve heard this story before: The Salem Witch Trials. All based on suspicion, jealousy, heresy, and accusation. But in our modernized version, gossip surrounding The Sisterhood of Night is circulated by immediate forms of communication, namely the internet and cellular phones. All-too revealing Facebook pages, low-resolution cell phone photos, and anonymous chat room babble add to the hysteria: Are the girls doing the unspeakable in the dead of night?”
- The territory of Gibraltar has arrested a gang of drug smugglers who allegedly consulted with two Santeras (“witches”) to help them make decisions about their operation. Quote: “The gang relied on in-house Santeria “witches” to advise on whether drug runs would succeed or not. Sometimes smuggling operations were aborted at the last minute on the word of the witches, with huge economic loss to the gang.”
- The Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation demanded an apology from the leaders of Franklin, North Carolina after they applied weed-killer on the Nikwasi Indian Mound, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Principal Chief Michell Hicks called the action disrespectful, saying they were never consulted, but the town doesn’t think they have anything to apologize for. Quote Alderman Sissy Pattillo: “I have a problem with the chief or whoever saying we did something disrespectful. That just bothers me.” Yes, acting like other people’s belief systems matter can be a nuisance. Shades of the San Francisco Peaks struggle in Arizona?
- Gary Wills at the New York Review of Books looks at the myth of marriage, noting that Christianity didn’t have anything special to say about the matter until the 13th century, and that the institution was a civil arrangement in Roman times. Quote: “Before the eleventh century there was no such thing as a Christian wedding ceremony in the Latin church, and throughout the Middle Ages there was no single church ritual for solemnizing marriage between Christians.” For more on civil unions and Pagan marriages, check out this essay in the OB Rag.
- Deenps Bazile, a practitioner of Vodou in New York, is upset that a 12-foot totem carved into a fallen tree in Prospect Park suddenly disappeared, noting that “it wasn’t a log anymore, it was a piece of art!” The Parks department is investigating.
- Margaret Anne James, convicted in 2006 of murdering Druid and parish councillor Peter Solheim, has lost an appeal to overturn her conviction. Judges ruled that “there was nothing to suggest James’s conviction was unsafe.”
- Pat Robertson: It’s OK to break your friends demonic Buddha statue.
- Over at Religion DispatchesMary Valle declares Rosemary’s Baby (both novel and film) the true “hot text” (as opposed to The Handmaid’s Tale) that provide’s “even greater insight into a future in which the multi-pronged assault on women’s health care continues.”
That’s it for now! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.
