Taking a Personal Day
I’m currently in Rochester, Minnesota dealing with a family crisis, so I don’t have the time to update the blog properly today. I should hopefully be back tomorrow with my normal Pagan-fueled content. In the meantime, here are some quick links to check out today.
Boing Boing: LA’s Occult Roots. (Related: L.A. Record interview with author Erik Davis).
“Some people who would say that they practice majick would not necessarily like the world “occult” which tends to have a darker connotation. It really just means esoteric, behind the scenes, or secret—not necessarily in the sense of a secret society but in the sense that it’s not the obvious level of reality.”
Universalists plan five-day gathering in Fort Lauderdale with caucuses, issues, rallies. … “next week’s gathering of Unitarian Universalists can seem like a collision of social caucus and New Age festival.”
Druid tree language tells a story. … “The project, called Root 66, is a tree trail of 15 mosiacs designed by students of Calder High, Mytholmroyd, and placed on stumps along a woodland track at the end of Holmes Park, Station Road, Luddenden Foot. The mosaics are based on a 6,000-year-old druid tree language called Ogham and will tell stories for keen-eyed walkers to spot on their way.”
Thanks for your understanding. Back tomorrow!
6 responses so far
*headdesk*
Yeah, right — a 6,000 year old tree alphabet? Not even. I think Damien McManus manages to put all of that sentence to rest in his “A Guide to Ogam”, the standard reference work in the field.
Of course, who expects anybody to actually read or do research?
The dating of the ogam alphabet is actually quite a simple matter: it is no earlier than the 2nd c. CE, when the oldest (contested) extant instance of ogam occurred on a bone die found somewhere in Leinster, if I recall correctly (perhaps Kilkenny?). The ogam alphabet was created by the Irish colonists from Munster (primarily Waterford, West Cork and Kerry) in southern Wales under sub-Roman/Latin influence, most certainly. Damian McManus’ Guide to Ogam is pretty clear on this matter…
A tree language it is not; druidic? Only by conjecture; 6,000 years old–most certainly not! (And don’t believe a word of those wack-job “neolithic druids” either…)
Yeah, a flawed quote. thanks for poining that out – 4 times. How about – Thanks for posting even though you are dealing with a family emergency, Jason. Hope everything turns out okay.
Yes, I was a bit taken aback by the hostility of the comments under the circumstances.
Reid,
I would like to think that their ire is aimed at the inaccurate article and not on your’s truly. I, of course, know full well that Ogam isn’t 6000 years old. I just thought the art project aspect was neat.
Artists = not always the best historians.
Cheers,
- Jason
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