On a random whim I signed up for the yearly Blog Action Day a couple weeks ago, mostly because this year the theme was climate change/global warming and where better to talk about the environment than a blog that services many faiths that describe themselves as “earth-honoring”, “earth-centered”, “nature religion”, or even “Gaian”? However, I realized I had nothing new to say, despite helpful prompts from the Blog Action Day people like “Global Warming Facts and Figures”, “Top 100 Effects of Global Warming”, and “10 Solutions for Climate Change”. So instead of attempting something entirely new, I’ve decided to link and excerpt several past climate change and environmentally-themed posts here at The Wild Hunt. Think of it as our “greatest environmental-themed hits”.

Nature Religion For Real (A Review of “National Parks”)

“However, we’ve come a long way from the nature-loving hunter-conservationism of Roosevelt, and his party is more often the party of “drill, baby, drill”. Will “National Parks” ignoring almost the entirety of the modern environmentalism movement really galvanize bipartisan support for a new ethic of conservationism? Was it responsible for this love-letter to not even mention climate change, and the terrible damage it’s doing to the parks?”

Earth Day

“Modern Pagan and Heathen faiths, whether they identify as “nature religions” or not, have a special sacral relationship with the natural world. Our gods and goddesses can be found in oceans, rivers, forests, and mountains (indeed, in many cultures, Earth is the primal mother of most acknowledged gods and powers), some pre-Christian cultures envision a World Tree that binds reality together. Our rites often mark the changing seasons, and once tracked the progress of crops essential to our survival. Deity is not merely a transcendent force separate from creation, deity is everywhere and within every thing. Each of us holds the potential to be like the gods, and we acknowledge that the gods and powers walk and exist among us still. So it isn’t surprising that many Pagans feel a special urging to advocate for the environment and the protection of the natural world.”

Winning the Battle of Stanton Moor

“Emily Dugan of The Independent profiles the tree-sitters and eco-warriors who have spent nine years living in the trees at Stanton Moor in the Peak District National Park. Their goal? To stop the planned re-opening of two mines that threatened the Nine Ladies stone circle.“

Pagans and the Environment

“Often when people talk about modern Pagan religions terms like “earth-centered”, “earth-honoring”, and “nature religion” get used as a descriptor. These terms mean different things to different people, and some modern Pagan faiths reject such terminology altogether, but few can deny that modern Pagan religions have long been tied to environmental causes and concerns.”

The Limits of Earth Worship

“Now that scientific consensus is a close to unanimous as anything gets nowadays, we need leaders and governments who will take on the problem of global warming as a top priority. Any candidate (from any party) who runs for president in 2008 needs to have a robust plan regarding climate change if they want to be taken seriously as a world leader. As awareness and a desire to stem the tide of global warming start to spread (especially in the face of more Katrina-esque disasters) those of us who claim (in some fashion) to have a spiritual connection with the earth need to step forward and become the moral voice for environmental responsibility we have been claiming to be since 1970, and help guide the secular political actions that are to come.”

That’s all I have for now, be sure to check out some of this years Blog Action Day posts, and have a great day!

Watching twelve hours of a single documentary over the course of six consecutive nights takes commitment, and showing them in that manner can be risky, even the best-made films from the most skilled directors can start to seem repetitious and a bit dull as they continually return to the larger themes unifying the project. “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” is no exception to the almost unavoidable pitfalls inherent in a documentary mega-series, but luckily those drawbacks are mostly minimized thanks to the skill of director Ken Burns, one of the most successful documentary film-makers alive today. That’s a good thing, because “The National Parks” is an important work, one that does more to showcase the history of American nature religion, a faith and philosophy that would come to heavily influence American modern Paganism, than any other work of its kind that I’ve seen.

John Muir: A Self-Portrait, 1887

While the bulk of the twelve hours is spent recounting various grass-roots efforts and political struggles over park creation, almost the entire first episode is devoted to the spiritual dimension of nature (called, appropriately enough, “The Scripture of Nature”). Briefly referencing the influence of works by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Burns makes ground-breaking naturalist and preservationist John Muir the centerpiece. “National Parks” clearly illustrates how his unique brand of Christian-colored pantheism (along with a keen scientific mind) would go on to inspire many, including President Theodore Roosevelt, to preserve vast swathes of American wilderness. The early episodes also take care to mention Native American spiritual and political perspectives, and extensively interviews National Parks superintendent, and Mandan-Hidatsa Indian, Gerard Baker (who says that John Muir would have made a good Medicine Man).

Though “God” and a “creator” are often invoked by various historical and contemporary commentators throughout the documentary, the presence of denominational Christianity is sparse, perhaps illustrating both its historic indifference to preservation/conservation, and the current culture wars over creationism, global warming, and science. The net cumulative effect is to indeed see a distinct American “nature religion” that has existed alongside “traditional” religious expression in America for generations.

“On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death…Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony.” – John Muir

For this, along with hours of breath-taking nature footage, “National Parks” is a treasure, and should be seen by any modern Pagan living in America. However, while “National Parks” is extremely well-made, the documentary series is far from perfect. While Ken Burns is an obvious evangelist for preserving the last wild places in America, he also takes great pains to avoid the ugly battles over preservation and conservation that have happened in the last thirty years.

“The documentary cannily stops at 1980, avoiding the Ronald Reagan — James Watt era as well as today’s drill-here, drill-now controversies. It helps too that one of the parks’ most vigorous progressive advocates was a Republican — President Teddy Roosevelt.”

However, we’ve come a long way from the nature-loving hunter-conservationism of Roosevelt, and his party is more often the party of “drill, baby, drill”. Will “National Parks” ignoring almost the entirety of the modern environmentalism movement really galvanize bipartisan support for a new ethic of conservationism? Was it responsible for this love-letter to not even mention climate change, and the terrible damage it’s doing to the parks? I have to feel, that as much as I loved the scenery, the rapturous commentary, and the spiritual centrality of Muir’s vision to this series, this is a somewhat cowardly oversight. The happy ending of wolves being reintroduced to Yellowstone blatantly artificial considering the current controversies over their reintroduction. Despite these serious oversights, “National Parks” is still a fine work, and its early episodes a useful reminder of how our view of nature has evolved over time. Certainly worth picking up.

My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

The Aquarian Tabernacle Church (a Wiccan tradition/church) has sent out a press release concerning new developments regarding the Woolston-Steen Theological Seminary. The online school is getting a makeover, and gaining a new vice-president and administrator.

“The Woolston-Steen Theological Seminary, given degree granting authority by Washington state in 1999, is having a face lift this spring … In addition, WSTS proudly announces the appointment of Kirk White as interim Vice President and Administrator of the Woolston-Steen Theological Seminary. White, a well known Wiccan author and respected High Priest, is co-founder of the National Association of Pagan Schools and Seminaries, a past co-National First Officer of Covenant of the Goddess, North America’s oldest and largest association of Witches and Wiccans. White also founded and served for 10 years as President of Cherry Hill Seminary. In 2006, Wildhunt.org named him one of the “25 most influential modern living Pagans today”. Since 2007 he has served as a consultant to new and established Pagan seminaries across the United States and we are pleased to have him working with us.”

Bringing Kirk White onboard seems like a move for WSTS to gain some more credibility as a Pagan seminary, though that might be hampered by the fact that the school’s dean is Belladonna “Wife Swap” Thompson. It should also be noted that “degree granting authority” isn’t the same thing as accreditation. So always check to see who exactly your teachers are, and what qualifications they have to be teaching you the subject at hand. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I am on the BOD of Cherry Hill Seminary, but I have no particular animus or rivalry with WSTS.

When is “witchcraft” our “Witchcraft”? By that I mean, what do journalists and authors like Bob Morgan mean when they say a young woman was kidnapped and initiated by a “a coven of witches”? A South Alabama paper reports on the e-publication of a book by one of their reporters concerning a young woman who claims to have been held hostage for years by a Californian “coven” called “The Brotherhood”.

“At the age of 15, Nikki Russo checked into a California hospital for treatment of an eating disorder. It was in this hospital that she was eventually abducted by a nurse, initiated into a coven of witches and thrown into a dark world filled with drugs, alcohol, abuse and intimidation. Nikki Russo hopes The Pomegranate Seed will be a warning to readers not to take anything for granted where cherished institutions are concerned. Today, Russo’s story and struggle to recovery is chronicled in the new book The Pomegranate Seed — Nikki Russo’s Sojourn Through Institutional Failure and the World of the Occult.”

Morgan is apparently sensitive to accusations of “Satanic Panic” since he first reported on Nikki Russo, and claims that the book is filled with legal documents and depositions. However, neither the initial 2007 report by Morgan, or the 2009 piece on his subsequent book, goes into any detail as to what exactly this “Brotherhood” was practicing, and how they are linked with California’s occult community. This lack of detail is all explained as a way to honor the victim, but it also denies us any clear notion as to what this group was. I have no doubt that Russo was abused if she says she was, I’m just skeptical concerning how “witchy” these “witches” were.

World of Wonder shares with us some “homo history” in the form of ancient examples of same-sex marriage.

As Africa was the birthplace of civilization it should come as no surprise to find that the earliest known reference to same-sex marriage in history can also be found there. Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were royal manicurists in the court of Pharaoh Niuserre during Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty. The artwork in their tomb leaves no doubt that they were viewed as a couple. The men are depicted in near constant embrace. They are shown with their noses touching (the most intimate embrace permitted in Egyptian art of the time, a form of kissing). Even their names speak to the intensity of their bond. When the names Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep are put together, it translates into “joined in life and joined in death.”

Just goes to show you that there is nothing new under the sun, and that different cultures and times had different reactions to same-sex relations. To claim a singular constant for legal and social public bonds is myopic at best and revisionist at worst.

I understand that some people don’t like Barack Obama, but the intense white-hot loony anger he invokes in some people is just plain amusing (when it isn’t frightening). A recent letter published in a Virginia newspaper now compares our “Marxist” president with Pagan hero Julian the Apostate!

“God has given America her very own 21st century ‘Julian the Apostate’, better known as the Marxist, Barack Obama. Now before any of Obama’s supporters hastily come to his defense, consider the fact that his ideologies are blatantly Marxist, yet, he is not alone in his Marxist tendencies … If the reports of Obama’s Marxist passion were not enough to wake up the Christian community to the fearful danger of a ‘Julian Administration’, the issues of abortion and homosexuality should have made it crystal clear that professing Christians should not accept such an individual as the leader of America. The community of Christendom should have rejected such a blasphemer out of hand. Yet, for the sake of party, race, historical precedence or simply a hatred for the prior administration, those Christians professing allegiance to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe have grossly erred in their judgment, and along with hypocrites, heathens and traitors are responsible for destroying the roots of traditional American Christianity … At the outset of the Obama administration, a vicious war was declared against both Christ and all those that call themselves by His Name. Even now many of those Christians who supported him initially are finding themselves the target of his wrath. His goal is, and always was, the eradication of Christianity through government policies aimed at solidifying a Marxist, Totalitarian, immoral Statist order. This is nothing short of fascism.”

Ah! I love the smell of paranoid conspiracy theories in the morning, it smells like victory. Somehow I doubt Obama is going to “eradicate” Christianity, but if paranoid pastors keep invoking Flavius Claudius Julianus, they may not like what his spirit (once called) will do. This is the fellow who wrote “Against the Gallileans” after all.

In a final note, since yesterday was Earth Day plenty of reporters were out looking for a religious angle. These ranged from those who interviewed Pagans about their connection to the Earth, to snarky bloggers mocking right-wing hysteria that Earth Day was a conspiracy to get red-blooded Christian Americans to start worshipping Gaia.

“Earth Day, Green Week, Global Warming, Cap and Trade, Radical Environmentalism, Gaiaism. These and similar beliefs are rapidly becoming a state sponsored religion. This is a worldwide religion, not just an American movement. The end goal of this religion is to halt the industrial and economic advance of man, and to make man subserviant to Gaia, the earth as a living super-organism: Earth as God.”

I can’t believe our super-secret conspiracy to slowly re-paganize the Earth has been discovered! Curses! Foiled again! How will we ever spread our plans for a worldwide religion based on a living super-organism now!

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

“There is a love of wild nature in everybody an ancient mother-love ever showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties.” – John Muir, 1924

Today is Earth Day. Originally spearheaded in 1970 by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson as a national “teach-in” on urgent environmental issues, it has since become an internationally recognized holiday in 174 countries. Earth Day is partially credited with jump-starting the modern environmentalist movement, and helping to pass legislation like the Clean Air and Clean Water acts.

The Earth flag.

Today, with immense environmental challenges facing us, from climate change and the destruction of natural ecosystems to the impending fresh water shortages, the ideals and message of Earth Day are more vital than they have ever been.

Modern Pagan and Heathen faiths, whether they identify as “nature religions” or not, have a special sacral relationship with the natural world. Our gods and goddesses can be found in oceans, rivers, forests, and mountains (indeed, in many cultures, Earth is the primal mother of most acknowledged gods and powers), some pre-Christian cultures envision a World Tree that binds reality together. Our rites often mark the changing seasons, and once tracked the progress of crops essential to our survival. Deity is not merely a transcendent force separate from creation, deity is everywhere and within every thing. Each of us holds the potential to be like the gods, and we acknowledge that the gods and powers walk and exist among us still. So it isn’t surprising that many Pagans feel a special urging to advocate for the environment and the protection of the natural world.

The Pagan notion of a sacred and interconnected Earth still persists today, and continues to make some people, both Christian and secular, uncomfortable. But as the true magnitude of potential ecological crisis becomes ever more plain, bridges are being built between different faiths and philosophies, to work for mutual benefit and survival.

On this Earth Day, here are a few Pagan thoughts about the Earth, immanence, environmentalism, and our involvement in the environmentalist movement.

“The spirit of Earth Day 1970 did not just happen; its roots could include the gradual stirring of environmental consciousness that accelerated in the 1960s, but that stirring itself had deeper roots in an American consciousness of a special relationship with the land, even if that relationship was often abusive. Still, if there was a year when Wicca (in the broad sense) became “nature religion,” as opposed to the “mystery religion” or “metaphorical fertility religion” labels that it had brought from England, that year was 1970.” – Chas Clifton, Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America

“Environmentalism is not a religion, but it is the natural position of ANY religion that either sees the divine in the world, as we Pagans and some Christians and others do, or as the loving creation of a Deity whom they profess to honor, as other equally genuine Christians and others do. We Pagans who honor Nature as the expression and manifestation of divinity usually come to a strong environmental conclusion.” - Gus diZerega, A Pagan’s Blog

“When it comes to climate change and other environmental crises, it is increasingly clear that we can’t afford to wait; we can’t let it get too late. That may seem obvious, but too often the slightest glimmer that we might fail is a significant de-motivation to action. We quiver with indecision, only to resolve that it won’t be worth the struggle. For many, the salient information provokes a deep dread, and fear is never a sound motivation for the kind of profoundly creative, imaginative and co-operative action that is now required. To the Pagan then, it isn’t about urgency, about last ditch attempts to save the world: what is needed is that we continue to take each step, ethically awake, with as much honour as we can draw into consciousness.” – Emma Restall Orr, Living With Honour: A Pagan Ethics

“I will sing of well-founded Earth, mother of all, eldest of all beings. She feeds all creatures that are in the world, all that go upon the goodly land, and all that are in the paths of the seas, and all that fly: all these are fed of her store.” – Homer

“A truly vicious act is one which does not allow the dialogue with the Immensity to take place. Against the Earth, the vicious person thinks nothing of urban sprawl, pollution, and destructive forms of waste disposal or resource development. He may even deny the reality of global warming and climate change, as some major corporate interests have done.” – Brendan Myers, The Other Side of Virtue

“For most of our history, we slept on the dirt, perhaps cushioned by a thin layer of leaves or animal skins. We rested on Earth as on the bosom of our mother. Until we polluted the lakes and streams, we sipped the water, our lives utterly dependent on it, as we sucked the milk from our mothers’ breasts. The food we require for life either grows directly from the soil or the waters or else consists of herbivores and omnivores who eat plant life and whom we eat in turn. Earth nurses us and feeds us as do our mothers, who themselves in turn are dependent on Earth.” – Jordan Paper, The Deities Are Many: A Polytheistic Theology

“As part of my commitment to my spiritual path, I choose to take on many obligations. One of those is to be a responsible steward of the earth. While I recognize that not all Pagans and Wiccans make this same commitment, it’s also important to recognize those who do. If indeed we are to honor the earth and its contents as a creation of the Divine, or to believe that the Divine can be found in nature, I feel that it’s important for us to take charge of our planet’s future. We can make changes now, and educate the coming generations, that will have an impact for centuries to come.” – Patti Wigington, About.com Guide to Paganism / Wicca

“…environmental care and action play an important part in the Wiccan ethic. That is why Witches get angry – and active – when oxygen-creating trees are cut down faster that they are planted, when whales and seals are massacred for commercial profit, when chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used regardless of their ecological impact, when indifferent industries pollute the atmosphere and the rivers and the seas with their waste products and when the concrete jungle (often with more concern for commerce that for housing) spreads like a rash over the Earth’s complexion.” – Janet and Stewart Farrar, A Witches Bible: The Complete Witches’ Handbook

Want to get active? Find out where you at, reduce your carbon footprint (and your water footprint), support small farms and eat ethically, teach on global climate change as a moral issue, invest green, vote green, and go green. Make every day Earth Day.

PS – Check out Grist’s fourth annual Earth Day list of the year’s goodies, oddities, and inanities.

Emily Dugan of The Independent profiles the tree-sitters and eco-warriors who have spent nine years living in the trees at Stanton Moor in the Peak District National Park. Their goal? To stop the planned re-opening of two mines that threatened the Nine Ladies stone circle.

The Nine Ladies

Now awaiting the official letter from Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears confirming their victory, the tree-sitters spend their last days saying goodbye to what has become their home, and wondering how they will re-enter normal English life.

One of the tree-houses.

One hopes that the admirers and supporters of the Nine Ladies will be able to help the protesters re-acclimate to the modern world after living a Robin Hood lifestyle for nine years*. This is truly a group who “walked the talk” of wanting to save England’s heritage. To read more about the history of this protest you can head over to the Nine Ladies Collective web site, or the Nine Ladies page at The Modern Antiquarian. As for Stancliffe Stone, the company that wanted to re-open the Lees Cross and Endcliffe quarries, they will be allowed to extend an existing quarry in exchange.

* I hope I’m not the only one who noticed the mythic resonances of protesters sacrificing nine years of their lives in order to protect the Nine Ladies.

Did restaurateur Bob Wolf, co-founder of the eco-awareness organization The Green Train, fire a volunteer for being a Pagan? That is the accusation being made over at The Nashville Scene’s blog.

“Nashville’s Green Train, an eco-educational non-profit run by Merle Haggard and restaurateur Bob Wolf, had a witch in its ranks until recently. Or, to be more precise, a pagan. Not the kind historically drawn and quartered or burned at the stake, but rather the contemporary tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, vegan variety. That was until Wolf charged this Wiccan ordained minister, Susan Hunter, with creating Green Train’s MySpace page. The personal networking catastrophe that followed– replete with online earthy salutations and pentagrams–saw Hunter canned in spectacular fashion back in mid-September. She’s crying discriminatory foul.”

Apparently Hunter, after creating the organization’s MySpace page, did what almost all MySpacers do, invite people she knew to “friend” the organization. Anyone familiar with the ways of MySpace can guess what happened next.

“Hunter sent out “friend invitations” to 40 of her friends who also happened to be earth-loving hippies and pagans of various stripes. When the messages started flowing in—“Blessed be” or “Faerie blessings,” usually accompanied by a pentagram and pictures of ivory-skinned ladies identifying themselves exotically as Asterope Morgaine and Feryia—Hunter says Wolf blew a gasket, ordering that all pentagrams be deleted. She says she deleted the Christian symbols too, out of spite before being summarily dismissed.”

So is telling a Pagan volunteer to delete only Pagan symbols, and then firing her when she deletes all the religious symbols, discriminatory behavior? Susan Hunter seems to think so.

“‘It’s my opinion that I was fired for religious reasons,’ she said. Wolf claims Hunter was just a volunteer. But perhaps the most stinging accusation hurled by Hunter was this: ‘The guy doesn’t even recycle.’”

Wolf insists this is much ado over nothing, and that Hunter “got her feelings hurt” and is now “witch-hunting” him in retaliation. Wolf says he has nothing against Pagans, and even attended a Pagan Pride Day festival and bought Hunter a book.

“This is a witch hunt by somebody who got her feelings hurt,” Wolf said, though the old cliché would seem to be reversed here. “I don’t have a problem with people’s opinions. I even went to a pagan day festival; we bought her a pagan bible.”

So, discrimination or misunderstanding? Something tells me that lawyers will soon be hired to figure it out.

For over a year, Dixie Deerman (aka Lady Passion), a Wiccan from Asheville, North Carolina, has been a driving force in trying to save a century-old magnolia tree from being cut down by local developers. The tree has become a galvanizing issue in Asheville, gaining support from local environmentalists and community members, and being used as a political football in City Council elections. Recently, Lady Passion and others had been keeping a 24/7 vigil at the tree in order to protect it.

Lady Passion under the magnolia tree.

Now it seems that the Witches (and their allies) have won. On Aug. 28, Superior Court Judge Marlene Hyatt ruled in favor of the family who had originally donated the land to the county, saving the tree, and the surrounding park, from further development.

“The lawsuit asserted that Pack had donated the land on the condition that it be preserved in perpetuity for public use—and that it would revert to his heirs if it were ever sold for private purposes, as the county did in 2006. Coleman had planned to build the nine-story Parkside condominium project on that land and an adjacent parcel he’d previously purchased. “George Pack made it abundantly clear exactly what the purpose of this land was: It was meant for a courthouse, for county offices or for public purposes,” Ferikes told the court.”

Lady Passion and Coven Oldenwilde are naturally quite happy with this ruling.

“We are thrilled with this unprecidented win, and very appreciative of the over 9,000 people who signed the Stop Parkside petition, the hundreds who actively enabled our tree sit in innumerable ways, and the God/desses who answered our hearfelt pleas: All hail Hecate, Herne, Themis, Maat, Flidais and Nike! We remain vigilant in preventing retribution against the tree until Hyatt signs the official order restoring the land into public use (she’s on vacation at present). Please help us continue to defend the magnolia if you’re nearby; if you live afar, do so by viewing the tree 24/7 via webcam…”

So it looks like those “Barbarous Words of Power to thwart the developer”, and a lot of local activism, have won the day. Congratulations to Lady Passion, Coven Oldenwilde, and the Stop Parkside coalition on saving the tree, and the land surrounding it, from development.

My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

A Boy Scout troop helps clean up a local graveyard in Florida and finds three “authentic Voodoo/Santeria” poppets hanging from a tree. Cue superstitious Hollywood-fueled misconceptions of folk magic in 3… 2… 1…

“That’s when they spotted the strange objects on a nearby Spanish moss-draped oak. Three 5-inch-tall voodoo dolls, hung in a vertical line on the tree’s bark. “They looked nothing like dolls,” said Bryan McDonough, 12. “They were kind of like ugly creatures that would eat you alive,” added his 10-year-old brother, Kevin, a Webelos Cub Scout. Nails peeked through their stuffing. Rusty pins stuck in their faceless heads, arms and legs. “It freaked out a couple of the boys,” said scoutmaster Marty Robertson. “Some thought it was kind of cool.” … One curious adult claimed she touched one of the dolls, and her friend wrecked his scooter that same day. Was there a connection? Cue spooky music.”

I’m glad they admitted that some of the kids thought it was cool, I mean, real Voodoo dolls? How awesome is that? Thankfully, the rest of the article is fairly even-handed, with one Boy Scout investigating the dolls and telling the press that they can be used for healing in addition to hexing, and a local professor of religion talking about the context of poppets used for magic.

The Independent looks back at the bizarre occult and death-obsessed life of artist Robert Lenkiewicz. Lenkiewicz, at his death, left behind a huge library of texts on witchcraft and the occult, a well-preserved corpse hidden in a bookcase, and a large assortment of children, legitimate and otherwise.

“In the six years since his death, Lenkiewicz’s estate has been gradually sold off to the tune of more than [5 million Euro]. While sales of his enormous collections of books at Sotheby’s – the occult and witchcraft were among his favourite subjects – account for about [1.6 million Euro] of the total, the rest of the money has been generated through sales of his paintings … Luckily, in his work, as in all other areas of his life, Lenkiewicz was prolific. ‘There are some incredible statistics about Robert,’ recalls Jojo, a local photographer who knew Lenkiewicz for 20 years and has now written a play about the artist’s life, The Man in the Red Scarf, which will be performed at Plymouth’s Barbican in December. ‘He produced 10,000 works, had relationships with, if you believe him, in the region of 3,000 women, was married three times…’ And how many children did he have? ‘I think the official count was 11.’”

You can see some examples of Lenkiewicz’s work at his official Internet site.

The conservative Catholic blog Churchill’s Parrot indulges in the sin of bad satire to warn us Pagans of the “spy nuns” infiltrating our ranks.

“We have recently uncovered a development to which we are compelled to alert you with utmost urgency. It is our belief that armies of Catholic nuns have been dispatched by the Vatican to infiltrate, mimic, subvert, and corrupt the sacred beliefs, rituals, and practices of your family of Earth Religions. Their goal: to arrest Neo-paganism in its present ascent in contemporary society and banish it – yet again – to the ill-regarded fringes of mainstream culture.”

The key piece of “evidence” for his “charges” are the Catholic orders who signed on to the Earth Charter. Hitting on all the usual pantheist, God-denying, “worshiping the creation not the Creator” charges religious conservatives have been prattling on about for decades. Of course, the Roman Catholics appropriated just about everything else from the pagans, so why not religiously-motivated environmentalism too? Oh, and you can’t truly “subvert and corrupt” a religious movement that has no hierarchy, single liturgy, or uniform conception of the divine. The dominant monotheisms on the other hand…

The Houston Chronicle documents the growing trend of “ayahuasca tourism”. But unlike other kinds of drug-related tourism, these aren’t kids looking to get high legally in foreign lands.

“But this is not some Amazonian Kool-Aid Acid Test and these are not Merry Pranksters. LSD and other recreational drugs are not for them, and many shun alcohol. Ranging in age from early 20s to late 50s, they work as university professors, marketing executives and environmental activists. Then there’s Heather, a tall, muscular woman who competes in Ironman races. With the help of ayahuasca, they hope to address persistent emotional, physical or psychological afflictions that Western medicine has failed to alleviate. Others seek more spirituality in their lives.”

This “spiritual psychotherapy” is very close to what LSD pioneers like chemist Albert Hofmann envisioned (albeit in far more clinical settings). A “medicine for the soul” used to make major breakthroughs.

In a final note, the “Witch City” of Salem is bracing itself for another October tourist season, and trying to tackle the ongoing logistical problems that have plagued the New England seaport.

“Mayor Kim Driscoll, who moved recently to have 25 percent of the revenue the city receives from the hotel/motel tax dedicated to tourism promotion, spoke of the difficulty she faces balancing the effort to keep the industry healthy against the burden visitors sometimes place on the city’s services and neighborhoods – especially during October. Those concerns, she added, are heightened by the fact that the next three Halloween nights are on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday respectively. As Salem’s Halloween festival has grown in popularity, so have the problems. Driscoll cited efforts – which this year could include the hiring of an events planner – to keep the month-long celebration both fun and orderly. One of the big concerns: After people are here, especially on Halloween night, how do you tell them the party’s over and it’s time to go home?”

Some suggested improvements included better signage and more toilets. Still no word yet on how to signal “the party is over”. A fireworks display last year didn’t seem to do the trick. Maybe you could have Salem’s Witches do a big closing ritual?

That is all I have for now, have a great day!

“There is a love of wild nature in everybody an ancient mother-love ever showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties.” – John Muir, 1924

Today is Earth Day. Originally spearheaded in 1970 by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson as a national “teach-in” on urgent environmental issues, it has since become an internationally recognized holiday in 174 countries. Earth Day is partially credited with jump-starting the modern environmentalist movement, and helping to pass legislation like the Clean Air and Clean Water acts.

The Earth flag.

Modern Pagan and Heathen faiths, whether they identify as “nature religions” or not, have a special sacral relationship with the natural world. Our gods and goddesses can be found in oceans, rivers, forests, and mountains (indeed, in many cultures, Earth is the primal mother of most acknowledged gods and powers), some pre-Christian cultures envision a World Tree that binds reality together. Our rites often mark the changing seasons, and once tracked the progress of crops essential to our survival. Deity is not merely a transcendent force separate from creation, deity is everywhere and within every thing. Each of us holds the potential to be like the gods, and we acknowledge that the gods and powers walk and exist among us still. So it isn’t surprising that many Pagans feel a special urging to advocate for the environment and the protection of the natural world.

The Pagan notion of a sacred and interconnected Earth still persists today, and continues to make some people, both Christian and secular, uncomfortable. But as the true magnitude of potential ecological crisis becomes ever more plain, bridges are being built between Pagans and monotheists, to work for mutual benefit and survival.

On this Earth Day, here are a few Pagan thoughts about the Earth, immanence, environmentalism, and our involvement in the environmentalist movement.

“The spirit of Earth Day 1970 did not just happen; its roots could include the gradual stirring of environmental consciousness that accelerated in the 1960s, but that stirring itself had deeper roots in an American consciousness of a special relationship with the land, even if that relationship was often abusive. Still, if there was a year when Wicca (in the broad sense) became “nature religion,” as opposed to the “mystery religion” or “metaphorical fertility religion” labels that it had brought from England, that year was 1970.” – Chas Clifton, Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America

“When it comes to climate change and other environmental crises, it is increasingly clear that we can’t afford to wait; we can’t let it get too late. That may seem obvious, but too often the slightest glimmer that we might fail is a significant de-motivation to action. We quiver with indecision, only to resolve that it won’t be worth the struggle. For many, the salient information provokes a deep dread, and fear is never a sound motivation for the kind of profoundly creative, imaginative and co-operative action that is now required. To the Pagan then, it isn’t about urgency, about last ditch attempts to save the world: what is needed is that we continue to take each step, ethically awake, with as much honour as we can draw into consciousness.” – Emma Restall Orr, Living With Honour: A Pagan Ethics

“A truly vicious act is one which does not allow the dialogue with the Immensity to take place. Against the Earth, the vicious person thinks nothing of urban sprawl, pollution, and destructive forms of waste disposal or resource development. He may even deny the reality of global warming and climate change, as some major corporate interests have done.” – Brendan Myers, The Other Side of Virtue

“For most of our history, we slept on the dirt, perhaps cushioned by a thin layer of leaves or animal skins. We rested on Earth as on the bosom of our mother. Until we polluted the lakes and streams, we sipped the water, our lives utterly dependent on it, as we sucked the milk from our mothers’ breasts. The food we require for life either grows directly from the soil or the waters or else consists of herbivores and omnivores who eat plant life and whom we eat in turn. Earth nurses us and feeds us as do our mothers, who themselves in turn are dependent on Earth.” – Jordan Paper, The Deities Are Many: A Polytheistic Theology

“…environmental care and action play an important part in the Wiccan ethic. That is why Witches get angry – and active – when oxygen-creating trees are cut down faster that they are planted, when whales and seals are massacred for commercial profit, when chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used regardless of their ecological impact, when indifferent industries pollute the atmosphere and the rivers and the seas with their waste products and when the concrete jungle (often with more concern for commerce that for housing) spreads like a rash over the Earth’s complexion.” – Janet and Stewart Farrar, A Witches Bible: The Complete Witches’ Handbook

Want to get active? Find out where you at, reduce your carbon footprint (and your water footprint), support small farms and eat ethically, teach on global climate change as a moral issue, invest green, vote green, and go green. Make every day Earth Day.

PS – Check out Grist’s third annual Earth Day list of the year’s goodies, oddities, and inanities.

My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

We are saddened to report that Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, the musical and spiritual partner of Psychic TV founder Genesis P-Orridge, passed away on October 9th due to a previously undiagnosed heart condition.

“Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and her reactivated Psychic TV aka PTV3 are terribly sad to announce the cancellation of their November North American tour dates. This decision is entirely due to the unexpected passing of band member Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge. Lady Jaye died suddenly on Tuesday 9th October 2007 at home in Brooklyn, New York from a previously undiagnosed heart condition which is thought to have been connected with her long-term battle with stomach cancer. Lady Jaye collapsed and died in the arms of her heartbroken “other half” Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.”

A visual and conceptual artist, Lady Jaye spent more than a decade exploring the concepts of “pandrogeny” in which she and Genesis strove to become one being incorporating all sexes and sexualities. The P-Orridges and Psychic TV were instrumental in the development of music that explored occult concepts and imagery.

Several interesting stories have emerged that touch on environmental issues. In England, there is a plan developing to save Sherwood Forest, which is in increasing danger due to storms, forest fires, and vandals which are killing the ancient oak trees at an alarming rate.

“For the people who care for Sherwood Forest it is like a death in the family when one of the ancient oaks falls, a tragedy that is now becoming depressingly frequent. They used to lose an average of one a year, now it is usually five, and the rate is accelerating. The appalling calculation, which almost breaks the foresters’ hearts, is that in 50 years’ time the greatest collection of ancient oaks in Europe, many 1,000 years old and more, may be no more.”

The foresters hope to plant 250,000 oaks on 350 acres, in order to help preserve and protect the ancient oaks. The article also discusses the folkloric history of the forest, including tales of Robin Hood and Druidic rites.

Why are environmentalists like Al Gore and Wangari Maathai winning a prize dedicated to peace? According to Slate.com, sudden environmental shifts may be one of the biggest contributors to war and strife.

“I asked Maathai what reforestation had to do with ending conflict. “What the Nobel committee is doing is going beyond war and looking at what humanity can do to prevent war,” she answered. “Sustainable management of our natural resources will promote peace.” … The idea of a connection between conflict and climate change is fairly new, and one that had been mostly relegated to academic journals until earlier this year. Then, in June, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon went on record to suggest global warming as a cause for the fighting in the Darfur region of Sudan.”

More proof that everything is interconnected. A rise in temperature doesn’t only mean running your air conditioner more in the summer, it can mean drastically changing whole cultures and peoples, a point that is further explored in a column by Jodi Rave. Rave reports on how climate change is affecting the way indigenous populations struggle to live and interact with a quickly changing landscape.

“I was in Alta, Norway, as an invited speaker at an international indigenous journalists’ conference. Indigenous people – communities whose homelands have been invaded by colonizers yet still maintain distinct languages, cultures and customs – share common concerns, including a right to live off the land … But global warming is changing their landscape … In Alaska, sea ice is melting and the permafrost is thawing. Native Inuit villages are being destroyed … What will happen in Scandinavia and other parts of the Arctic when snow disappears little by little?”

Some indigenous groups are now working with scientists in order to understand and adapt to the changes, hoping to meld science with traditional wisdom.

As Samhain approaches, those hoping to save the Hill of Tara in Ireland from highway development are planning magical and symbolic actions to help raise awareness and stop the planned M3 expansion. The TaraWatch organization is raising funds to create a “protective light shield” around the historic spiritual and political center.

“Tara Light will consist of an elaborate light show with beams of white light illuminating Tara valley the home and source of the Celtic Halloween festival (the Celtic New Year), while a live radio broadcast will provide an audio backdrop to those viewing the event from Tara and others tuning in around the valley, surrounding area, Ireland and beyond … The objective of the lighting event is to show the positioning and significant quantity of sacred sites throughout the complex, in relation to the motorway route proximity and to show the importance of immediately halting the destruction to maintain the integrity, balance and beauty that has existed here for over 5000 years of history.”

Meanwhile, Celtic Reconstructionists from around the globe are planning rituals to help protect the site. A web site for the “I Stand With Tara” ritual is now up, and details are going to be posted soon.

Since I brought up Al Gore earlier in this post, I thought I would mention that Pagan author and pundit Isaac Bonewits is calling for magical action to urge Al Gore to run for President.

“As a Druid and as a priest of the Earth Mother I know how important it is to use both magical and mundane methods to draft Al Gore, kicking and screaming if necessary, to run. There is no other position from which he could have the power and influence he will need to push major American corporations, our national and state governments, and other nations of the world to take the drastic action that will be needed to avert the worst of the already tipped-over climate.”

Finally, the blog Tropaion links to a BBC documentary concerning “Togas on TV”, a look at how ancient Rome is viewed in popular culture.

“The question that the narrator asks is what is Rome for us today and how we conceive it, and whether or not that is right or wrong. Enjoy it, as I must confess I enjoy it, especially with the marvelous points by our Mary Beard.”

That is all I have for now, have a good day.