Thomas Muthee, Mary Glazier, and the other prayer warriors of the New Apostolic Reformation who support Sarah Palin, state that they
intend to infiltrate and transform our society and government, and
want us and our Goddess eradicated. They want us and all we consider holy to be converted, and if not converted, destroyed.
Talk to Action's series of documentary videos and supporting articles in "Palin's Churches and the Third Wave" Series
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/5/114652/6239
Whether or not Sarah Palin wins this election, this movement that supports her will gain strength if we let it continue on this path.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Pagan Delegates at Democratic Convention
The two known Pagan delegates to the Democratic Convention wil be representing Maine.
From their convention blog, Blue Pagans at the DNC:
Rita Moran is Chairperson of the Kennebec County Democratic Committee, and is attending the Democratic National Convention as an official delegate for the state of Maine. Rita, who runs a bookstore in Maine, was outed and stalked last year by a local conservative Christian organization. Since then she has dedicated herself to being an open and positive Pagan presence within the Democratic Party.
Ed Lachowicz is Vice Chair of the Kennebec County Democratic Committee, and a Maine Democratic State Committeeman. In addition, he is a regular blogger with Turn Maine Blue, a progressive state-focused blog that has been granted press credentials at the Democratic National Convention.
While I've not met Ed, I've known Rita for many years. She's smart and savvy and passionate, and I have enormous respect for her. Blessings on Rita and Ed for their commitment to democracy.
Blue Pagans at the DNC
From their convention blog, Blue Pagans at the DNC:
Rita Moran is Chairperson of the Kennebec County Democratic Committee, and is attending the Democratic National Convention as an official delegate for the state of Maine. Rita, who runs a bookstore in Maine, was outed and stalked last year by a local conservative Christian organization. Since then she has dedicated herself to being an open and positive Pagan presence within the Democratic Party.
Ed Lachowicz is Vice Chair of the Kennebec County Democratic Committee, and a Maine Democratic State Committeeman. In addition, he is a regular blogger with Turn Maine Blue, a progressive state-focused blog that has been granted press credentials at the Democratic National Convention.
While I've not met Ed, I've known Rita for many years. She's smart and savvy and passionate, and I have enormous respect for her. Blessings on Rita and Ed for their commitment to democracy.
Blue Pagans at the DNC
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Witches in Opera
Operacadabra!
From Purcell to Wagner to Sondheim, opera-makers have never been able to resist a witch. Philip Hensher looks at the eternal appeal of the black-hatted hag
July 11, 2008 The Guardian
Article
From Purcell to Wagner to Sondheim, opera-makers have never been able to resist a witch. Philip Hensher looks at the eternal appeal of the black-hatted hag
July 11, 2008 The Guardian
Article
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Stonehenge vandalized
Suspected souvenir hunters broke into Stonehenge and vandalised the ancient monument, English Heritage has said.
A hammer and screwdriver were used to take a small chip the size of a 10p piece from the side of the Heel Stone.
English Heritage said further damage was prevented by security guards who spotted the two men at the 5,000-year-old site in Wiltshire.
Police believe the vandals could be the same two people caught on CCTV acting suspiciously a few days earlier.
BBC article
At one time, chisels would be handed to people visiting Stonehenge, so they could chip away at the ancient monument to get their own souvenirs.
But the practice has been outlawed since 1900, when landowner Sir Edmund Antrobus decided the site needed protecting and introduced charges
Further BBC commentary
A hammer and screwdriver were used to take a small chip the size of a 10p piece from the side of the Heel Stone.
English Heritage said further damage was prevented by security guards who spotted the two men at the 5,000-year-old site in Wiltshire.
Police believe the vandals could be the same two people caught on CCTV acting suspiciously a few days earlier.
BBC article
At one time, chisels would be handed to people visiting Stonehenge, so they could chip away at the ancient monument to get their own souvenirs.
But the practice has been outlawed since 1900, when landowner Sir Edmund Antrobus decided the site needed protecting and introduced charges
Further BBC commentary
Monday, April 21, 2008
Kosher Imaginary Animals
Evil Monkey’s Guide to Kosher Imaginary Animals
Baku (dream-devouring tapir) - A: “That’s considered a swine. It doesn’t chew its cud.” EM: “What if it was a dream-devouring cow? Would the dream-devouring disqualify it?” A: “No. As long as you don’t consider that scavenging.”
Cornish Owl-Man, Headless Mule (fire-spewing, headless, spectral mule), Mongolian Death Worm, Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, etc.
Full article
Thanks to Making Light.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Juhyo: Japanese Monster Trees
David Weber on the Japundit blog:
They’re out there lurking in the dark, in the desolate wilderness of winter — the beautiful and eerie offspring of Yuki Onna, the Japanese snow woman spirit. They are the Juhyo, or monster trees. Every winter the trees of Mount Zao in the Yamagata Prefecture undergo a shocking transformation. From mild-mannered conifers, these trees become hulking monstrosities of snow and ice.
Full article (many pictures)
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Societas Magica
The Societas Magica is an organization dedicated to furthering communication and exchange among scholars interested in the study of magic, both in the positive contexts of its expression as an area of necessary knowledge or religious practice (as in early modern occultism and contemporary paganism), and in its negative contexts as the substance of an accusation or condemnation (as in sorcery trials, and many philosophical and theological accounts, both early and late). The interests of our membership include, but are not limited to, the history and sociology of magic; theological, and intellectual apprehensions of magic; practices and theories of magic; and objects, artifacts and texts either qualified as magical by their creators, or forming the substance of an accusation of magic by others.
The Society will be holding its first full conference on MAGIC: FRONTIERS AND BOUNDARIES June 11-15 at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Keynote Speakers will be Marvin Meyer, Richard Kieckhefer, and T.M. Luhrman.
Online PDFs of the Societas Magica newsletter dating back to 1996 are linked on their website.
Link
The Society will be holding its first full conference on MAGIC: FRONTIERS AND BOUNDARIES June 11-15 at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Keynote Speakers will be Marvin Meyer, Richard Kieckhefer, and T.M. Luhrman.
Online PDFs of the Societas Magica newsletter dating back to 1996 are linked on their website.
Link
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
British intelligence agency releases file on WW II astrologer
The British intelligence agency MI5 has released a file from the National Archives on astrologer Louis de Wohl, who was hired during World War II in an effort to second-guess what astrological information Hitler might have been getting and possibly acting upon.
Articles in The Guardian, The Times and in The Independent. A quick glance shows that the Independent article takes De Wohl's being the son of a Hungarian nobleman as fact, though the Guardian quotes an MI5 officer as saying that De Wohl didn't speak a word of Hungarian. The Times' article is the most acerbic of the three.
Articles in The Guardian, The Times and in The Independent. A quick glance shows that the Independent article takes De Wohl's being the son of a Hungarian nobleman as fact, though the Guardian quotes an MI5 officer as saying that De Wohl didn't speak a word of Hungarian. The Times' article is the most acerbic of the three.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Leave No Child Inside
Leave No Child Inside: The growing movement to reconnect children and nature, and to battle "nature deficit disorder"
By Richard Louv
As a boy, I pulled out dozens —perhaps hundreds— of survey stakes in a vain effort to slow the bulldozers that were taking out my woods to make way for a new subdivision. Had I known then what Ive since learned from a developer, that I should have simply moved the stakes around to be more effective, I would surely have done that too. So you might imagine my dubiousness when, a few weeks after the publication of my 2005 book, Last Child in the Woods, I received an e-mail from Derek Thomas, who introduced himself as vice chairman and chief investment officer of Newland Communities, one of the nation’s largest privately owned residential development companies. “I have been reading your new book,” he wrote, “and am profoundly disturbed by some of the information you present.”
Thomas said he wanted to do something positive. He invited me to an envisioning session in Phoenix to “explore how Newland can improve or redefine our approach to open space preservation and the interaction between our homebuyers and nature.” A few weeks later, in a conference room filled with about eighty developers, builders, and real estate marketers, I offered my sermonette. The folks in the crowd were partially responsible for the problem, I suggested, because they destroy natural habitat, design communities in ways that discourage any real contact with nature, and include covenants that virtually criminalize outdoor play—outlawing tree-climbing, fort-building, even chalk-drawing on sidewalks.
I was ready to make a fast exit when Thomas, a bearded man with an avuncular demeanor, stood up and said, “I want you all to go into small groups and solve the problem: how are we going to build communities in the future that actually connect kids with nature?” The room filled with noise and excitement. By the time the groups reassembled to report the ideas they had generated, I had glimpsed the primal power of connecting children and nature: it can inspire unexpected advocates and lure unlikely allies to enter an entirely new place. Call it the doorway effect. Once through the door, they can revisualize seemingly intractable problems and produce solutions they might otherwise never have imagined.
A half hour after Thomas’s challenge, the groups reported their ideas. Among them: leave some land and native habitat in place (that’s a good start); employ green design principles; incorporate nature trails and natural waterways; throw out the conventional covenants and restrictions that discourage or prohibit natural play and rewrite the rules to encourage it; allow kids to build forts and tree houses or plant gardens; and create small, on-site nature centers.
“Kids could become guides, using cell phones, along nature trails that lead to schools at the edge of the development,” someone suggested. Were the men and women in this room just blowing smoke? Maybe. Developers exploiting our hunger for nature, I thought, just as they market their subdivisions by naming their streets after the trees and streams that they destroy. But the fact that developers, builders, and real estate marketers would approach Derek Thomas’s question with such apparently heartfelt enthusiasm was revealing. The quality of their ideas mattered less than the fact that they had them. While they may not get there themselves, the people in this room were visualizing a very different future. They were undergoing a process of discovery that has proliferated around the country in the past two years, and not only among developers.
Full article
Check out the 18 pages of comments on the Orion magazine article, there are a lot of useful suggestions and links.
By Richard Louv
As a boy, I pulled out dozens —perhaps hundreds— of survey stakes in a vain effort to slow the bulldozers that were taking out my woods to make way for a new subdivision. Had I known then what Ive since learned from a developer, that I should have simply moved the stakes around to be more effective, I would surely have done that too. So you might imagine my dubiousness when, a few weeks after the publication of my 2005 book, Last Child in the Woods, I received an e-mail from Derek Thomas, who introduced himself as vice chairman and chief investment officer of Newland Communities, one of the nation’s largest privately owned residential development companies. “I have been reading your new book,” he wrote, “and am profoundly disturbed by some of the information you present.”
Thomas said he wanted to do something positive. He invited me to an envisioning session in Phoenix to “explore how Newland can improve or redefine our approach to open space preservation and the interaction between our homebuyers and nature.” A few weeks later, in a conference room filled with about eighty developers, builders, and real estate marketers, I offered my sermonette. The folks in the crowd were partially responsible for the problem, I suggested, because they destroy natural habitat, design communities in ways that discourage any real contact with nature, and include covenants that virtually criminalize outdoor play—outlawing tree-climbing, fort-building, even chalk-drawing on sidewalks.
I was ready to make a fast exit when Thomas, a bearded man with an avuncular demeanor, stood up and said, “I want you all to go into small groups and solve the problem: how are we going to build communities in the future that actually connect kids with nature?” The room filled with noise and excitement. By the time the groups reassembled to report the ideas they had generated, I had glimpsed the primal power of connecting children and nature: it can inspire unexpected advocates and lure unlikely allies to enter an entirely new place. Call it the doorway effect. Once through the door, they can revisualize seemingly intractable problems and produce solutions they might otherwise never have imagined.
A half hour after Thomas’s challenge, the groups reported their ideas. Among them: leave some land and native habitat in place (that’s a good start); employ green design principles; incorporate nature trails and natural waterways; throw out the conventional covenants and restrictions that discourage or prohibit natural play and rewrite the rules to encourage it; allow kids to build forts and tree houses or plant gardens; and create small, on-site nature centers.
“Kids could become guides, using cell phones, along nature trails that lead to schools at the edge of the development,” someone suggested. Were the men and women in this room just blowing smoke? Maybe. Developers exploiting our hunger for nature, I thought, just as they market their subdivisions by naming their streets after the trees and streams that they destroy. But the fact that developers, builders, and real estate marketers would approach Derek Thomas’s question with such apparently heartfelt enthusiasm was revealing. The quality of their ideas mattered less than the fact that they had them. While they may not get there themselves, the people in this room were visualizing a very different future. They were undergoing a process of discovery that has proliferated around the country in the past two years, and not only among developers.
Full article
Check out the 18 pages of comments on the Orion magazine article, there are a lot of useful suggestions and links.
Monday, February 11, 2008
White stag spotted in the Highlands
A rare white stag has been observed on the west coast of the Highlands.
The animal has been seen with other red deer by a member of the John Muir Trust, which has kept its location a secret to protect it from poachers.
Full article, with link to short video footage Thanks to The Daily Grail
Where the White Stag Runs: Boundary and Transformation in Deer Myths,Legends, and Songs
by Ari Berk
The White Stag by Mary Jones From Jones' Celtic Encyclopedia
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the four Pevensie children, who have been kings and queens in Narnia for many years, hear from Tumnus the faun that the White Stag has been sighted, the one who will grant your wishes of you catch him. While out hunting for the stag, the Pevensies find themselves returning to their old lives in England.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Brigid Poetry
AVE MATERS
after The Hail Mary
Hail all mothers
graceful or not
God or goddess is with you, believe it or not
Blessed are all women
blessed are the fruits of our wombs
whatever names, ridiculous or not, we choose for them
and even when they're acting rotten.
O mothers
holy human mothers
all our children are divine
Long after they leave us
they will curse us and pray to us
now and in the hour
of our death
now and in the hour of their need.
Elizabeth Cunningham
Grass
Grass is an ancient ancestor.
If you would bless a child, say:
"May this child have the strength
Of grass."
"May this child be as powerful
As grass."
"May this child persist as does
The grass."
Slender greens, golds and browns,
Fox grass, bunch grass, crab grass
Oat grass, wheat grass, rye grass.
Grasses of the great plains.
Grasses of woodland meadows.
Grasses of the mountainside.
Grasses of the marshes.
Grasses crumbling cement in cities.
Grass
Feeding
The world and turning
Every fallen thing
Into waves in the wind.
Penny J. Novack
Maeve
There is silence now by the grey cairn where
the queen is buried:
No one weeps there remembering her beauty.
Only a faint sweet complaining
Of wind and wind-stirred grasses and far-off
murmurous sea-waves
Is making a sleep-heavy sound, a song to deepen
her slumber.
Does quiet weigh on her heart, here on the
desolate mountain?
Or is she content to sleep, the spear-whirr and
sword-clang forgotten?
Nay! She awakes, she comes forth. The gold of
her tresses
Flames through the night -- red flame by a storm-
wind dishevelled:
She has no need to call for her chiefs, or her
bronze-bitted horses,
She rides with the host of the Sidhe, with gods
dream-hearted and secret:
The night is her own, and the wide un-trammelled
ways of the wind.
She is fierce and splendid and pale, Maeve the
battle-awakener,
Maeve of the honey-sweey mouth, Maeve of the
death-bitter kisses.
Ella Young
after The Hail Mary
Hail all mothers
graceful or not
God or goddess is with you, believe it or not
Blessed are all women
blessed are the fruits of our wombs
whatever names, ridiculous or not, we choose for them
and even when they're acting rotten.
O mothers
holy human mothers
all our children are divine
Long after they leave us
they will curse us and pray to us
now and in the hour
of our death
now and in the hour of their need.
Elizabeth Cunningham
Grass
Grass is an ancient ancestor.
If you would bless a child, say:
"May this child have the strength
Of grass."
"May this child be as powerful
As grass."
"May this child persist as does
The grass."
Slender greens, golds and browns,
Fox grass, bunch grass, crab grass
Oat grass, wheat grass, rye grass.
Grasses of the great plains.
Grasses of woodland meadows.
Grasses of the mountainside.
Grasses of the marshes.
Grasses crumbling cement in cities.
Grass
Feeding
The world and turning
Every fallen thing
Into waves in the wind.
Penny J. Novack
Maeve
There is silence now by the grey cairn where
the queen is buried:
No one weeps there remembering her beauty.
Only a faint sweet complaining
Of wind and wind-stirred grasses and far-off
murmurous sea-waves
Is making a sleep-heavy sound, a song to deepen
her slumber.
Does quiet weigh on her heart, here on the
desolate mountain?
Or is she content to sleep, the spear-whirr and
sword-clang forgotten?
Nay! She awakes, she comes forth. The gold of
her tresses
Flames through the night -- red flame by a storm-
wind dishevelled:
She has no need to call for her chiefs, or her
bronze-bitted horses,
She rides with the host of the Sidhe, with gods
dream-hearted and secret:
The night is her own, and the wide un-trammelled
ways of the wind.
She is fierce and splendid and pale, Maeve the
battle-awakener,
Maeve of the honey-sweey mouth, Maeve of the
death-bitter kisses.
Ella Young
Quote of the Day
"Those who refuse to listen to dragons are probably doomed to spend their lives acting out the nightmares of politicians. We like to think we live in daylight, but half the world is always dark; and fantasy, like poetry, speaks the language of the night."
~~ Ursula K. LeGuin
~~ Ursula K. LeGuin
Third annual Brigid in Cyberspace Poetry Reading
You are invited to the third annual Brigid in Cyberspace Poetry Reading
Feel free to copy the following to your blog and spread the word. Let poetry bless the blogosphere once again!
WHAT: A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading
WHEN: Anytime February 2, 2008
WHERE: Your blog
WHY: To celebrate the Feast of Brigid, aka Groundhog Day
HOW: Select a poem you like - by a favorite poet or one of your own - to post February 2nd.
RSVP: If you plan to publish, feel free to leave a comment and link on this post. Last year when the call went out there was more poetry in cyberspace than I could keep track of. So, link to whoever you hear about this from and a mighty web of poetry will be spun.
Feel free to pass this invitation on to any and all bloggers.
Deborah Oak
Link
Feel free to copy the following to your blog and spread the word. Let poetry bless the blogosphere once again!
WHAT: A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading
WHEN: Anytime February 2, 2008
WHERE: Your blog
WHY: To celebrate the Feast of Brigid, aka Groundhog Day
HOW: Select a poem you like - by a favorite poet or one of your own - to post February 2nd.
RSVP: If you plan to publish, feel free to leave a comment and link on this post. Last year when the call went out there was more poetry in cyberspace than I could keep track of. So, link to whoever you hear about this from and a mighty web of poetry will be spun.
Feel free to pass this invitation on to any and all bloggers.
Deborah Oak
Link
Up-Helly-Aa Fire Festival in Shetland Islands
During Up-Helly-Aa, hundreds of residents of the Shetland Islands off northern Scotland dressed up as Norsemen -- complete with helmets, chain mail and axes -- or in other fancy dress for a day and night of raucous partying.
The high point of the festivities was an evening parade through Lerwick featuring 900 people brandishing fiery torches which sent a blanket of smoke and sparks over the port town, Shetland's biggest.
At the centre of the procession was a specially crafted Viking longship, which was set on fire at the end of the procession when all the marchers threw their torches into it, creating a giant, intense pyre.
Celebrations were continuing through the night as teams of "guizers" -- the roughly 1,000 locals taking part in the procession -- toured parties performing songs and sketches.
As well as blazing an unforgettable spectacle across the night sky, observers say Up-Helly-Aa, which is largely funded by locals themselves, also highlights Shetland's strong and enduring sense of cohesion.
Full article
Images from the ShetlandTourism.com pages on the festival
Vikings in Postage Stamps
On the Track of the Vikings: Raiders and Traders of the North Described Through Postage Stamps
Ann Mette Heindorff's excellent collection of Viking-themed postage stamps. I'll be featuring some of her other theme stamp collections that would be interest to Stone Circles throughout the year.
Link
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