Mythical and Arcadian motifs in opera, classical music, and ballet are nothing new, but it’s always nice to remember that choreographers and composers have been mining these rich themes for generations. For instance, The New York Times reviews the American Ballet Theater’s revival production of “Sylvia” (aka “Sylvia ou La Nymphe de Diane”) and revels in the pure pagan pageantry of it all.

“The crescent, the moon, the horn and the hunt all tie brilliantly into Act I of “Sylvia,” which Ashton choreographed in 1952 and which American Ballet Theater has revived this week at the Metropolitan Opera House. The score is by Léo Delibes. Blow that horn! Or rather, those horns! None of the many hunts in music-drama prepare us for the full blaze that comes with the entrance of this ballet’s huntresses and, finally, Sylvia herself … No character in all ballet — and few in music drama — enters to more splendid music than Sylvia. She and her friends leap and do whipped (fouetté) turns, and the ballet moves into a new kind of scale and energy. Nobody has time to think what this says about gender stereotypes. The huntresses and pastoral hero of “Sylvia” were conceived not by Ashton in 1952 but by Delibes and his Paris colleagues in 1876, when Degas was painting ballet dancers and when, most of us tend to think, ballet stereotypes were thick on the ground.”

This ballet of pagan huntresses in love went on to inspire other works, including the more well-known “Swan Lake”. It’s lovely to see this unique gem get some attention (especially with themes that would delight the Pagan soul), if you’re in New York and want to see experience “Sylvia”, it’s running through Saturday at The Met.

Betty Sue Flowers, poet, mythology expert, Jungian, and consultant for “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth”, is making headlines in Texas as she steps down from her position as director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum to start a new life with her current partner, former Senator Bill Bradley.

“Sometime in July, Flowers — award-winning teacher of English and religion, expert in mythology, past director of Plan II, confidante of PBS journalist Bill Moyers, consultant to NASA and corporations around the world, author of three poetry volumes — will move away from her home in West Lake Hills to commence a personal and romantic adventure with Bill Bradley in New York City.”

In honour of her leaving, the Austin American-Statesman has reprinted a profile of Flowers from 2002, shortly after she was named as the new director of the LBJ Library. In it, Flowers recalls how the goddesses of ancient myth, specifically Demeter and Aphrodite, helped spur her forward into becoming a powerful woman, and sparked a lifelong love of myth.

“Sometime before the sixth grade, the Bookworm of Abilene happened upon the beauty of mythology. To her delight, Flowers discovered that the women in Greek myth were star players in moral drama. While not always virtuous, the Greek goddesses were spunky and brazen. They wielded power. They were the focus of stories. “The Greek myths were the only stories I could find, in fact, that involved powerful women,” says Flowers. “These goddesses: They throw their weight around! Demeter blasts the world! Zeus has to beg her to stop!” Flowers was so enthralled by the Greek myths that she carried a personal copy of Edith Hamilton’s “Mythology” back and forth to school with her throughout the sixth grade. But since this was West Texas, circa 1958, shy Betty Sue Marable covered her book of myths with aluminum foil — concealing the cover illustration of the naked Perseus, sword in hand, hoisting up the head of the slain Medusa.”

I encourage reading the entire profile, for while Flowers is no Pagan in the formal sense of the term, she lives a life that sings with the virtues of the ancient world. A powerful personal example that refutes the idea of Christianity or moral chaos. An individual who embodies some of the best qualities of the emerging post-Christian cultural reality.

Blogger and classicist Mary Beard reports back from the annual Classical Association conference and relates her experiences at a talk by noted author Richard Seaford concerning the ancient Greeks and what they can teach us concerning wealth, our environment, and global warming.

“The modern world had bought into the idea of the limitlessness of money, he suggested. The Greeks warned about just that aspect with instructive mythological exampla. What is the myth of Midas except the terrible story of a man whose whole aspirations are focussed on the ’sign of money’. Greek culture, as Seaford sees it, insisted on the culture of limit. And that has implications for environmental issues too. The modern disregard for the signs of global warming is reminiscent of Greek stories of those who allow their limitless desires to bring about their own destruction (sometimes even when they know what the consequences of their desires wlll be). One of these is the myth of Erisichthon, who first of all destroys a tree in the grove of the nymphs, in such a way that it brings down most of the grove — and then, in punishment, is afflicted with insatiable desire for food in the midst of a famine and ends up consuming his own body. So what can Greek culture do for us in our present dilemmas? It can allow us to see alternatives to our own culture (and cult) of ‘the unlimited’?”

These attitudes shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with ancient Greek culture and religion, after all, the temple of Apollo at Delphi bore the inscription “Meden Agan” (nothing in excess) and the ancient myths are full of punishments for those who are overly greedy or unthinking in their acquisition of wealth, land, or power. Certainly there were/are permitted times of excess, but these are again placed within certain limits, and balanced by forces of order and sobriety. The question remains if we can embrace a new narrative of “limit” regarding our environment in order to avoid a future straight from a Greek tragedy.

ADDENDUM: More on this talk from The Guardian.

If you’re around my age, and you had cable television, you have probably seen the 1981 film “Clash of the Titans” around a thousand times. Based very (very) loosely on the legend of Perseus, the story was truly epic, featuring a wide array of Harryhausen monsters and glowing, berobed gods and goddesses meddling in human affairs.

Harry Hamlin as Perseus

So imagine my surprise (and, I must admit, delight) in learning that not only are they remaking “Clash of the Titans” but the film is in direct competition with another film steeped in Greek myth and legend entitled “War of Gods”.

“The race for “War of the Gods” and “Clash of the Titans,” two rival projects set up at Relativity and Warners, is quickening. Both are close to casting their leads, with “Stardust” topliner Henry Cavill set to star in “Gods” and “Terminator Salvation” star Sam Worthington in negotiations to climb aboard “Titans,” which Thunder Road is producing and Legendary Pictures is co-producing.” In addition, the projects have set start dates. “Gods” would seem to have the edge — it’s tentatively planned for a February shoot, while production on “Titans” is slated to begin in April.”

What is interesting about both of these films, especially from the perspective of Pagans and Greek myth fans, is that they will directly address and involve mythological beings and deities. Breaking a recent trend to secularize or demean pre-Christian religion in films like “300″ or “Troy”.

“‘War of Gods’ concerns the battles waged by Theseus, a warrior from Greek mythology, who leads a fight against the imprisoned titans. Among the hooks is that, unlike some mythological tales, gods fight alongside mortals.”

While I sincerely doubt either film will hew close to actual Greek myth (Theseus never fought Titans alongside the gods), I’m not adverse to seeing new myths constructed for new times. Plus, with today’s green screen technology, you can expect some truly spectacular effects (though Harryhausen monsters will always hold a special place in my heart). Both films are scheduled to be released in 2010. It should be interesting to see who triumphs at the box-office, the son of Zeus, or the son of Poseidon?

If you’re a fan of “Oh My Gods!” and wish there were more Pagan-friendly comic strips, why not check out Mark Weinstein’s “Prometheus”, the wacky adventures of a Titan who was cursed by Zeus to have his liver eaten by a eagle on a daily basis.

The strip is published three times a week, and runs in two Greek publications. To read every strip in order, click here.

The Oregonian reviews a brand new book by Ursula K. Le Guin that explores the perspective of Lavinia (daughter of Latinus, wife of Aeneas) from Virgil’s “Aeneid”. Giving a feminine perspective to the male-centric Roman epic.

“Lavinia, an 18-year-old princess in “The Aeneid,” Vergil’s 2,000-year-old epic poem about the origins of Rome, gets little attention from Vergil as a background figure. He gives her not a single speech in his shimmeringly melodious, 10,000-line poem, despite that she is daughter to King Latinus, who rules the region; that multitudes of men die over who should marry her; and that her eventual marriage is crucial to the founding of Rome. The book “Lavinia” (Le Guin’s 56th!) repairs Vergil’s lapse and is also a loving tribute to the poet. It’s an earthy retelling of the last six books of the 12-book poem, told from the point of view of Lavinia herself.”

According to the review, Le Guin explores her “rich, pagan life”, and brings a feminine “balance” to Virgil’s work while avoiding outright revisionism. A work on par with Robert Graves’s “I, Claudius”, according to Publishers Weekly.

In an interview with Le Guin about the work, the author explains that she isn’t trying to improve on Virgil, merely telling tales he didn’t have time to get to.

“Virgil didn’t have time for little Lavinia,” Ms. Le Guin says. Virgil died in 19 B.C. and many scholars believe he still planned to do some work on the Aeneid. “I didn’t feel I was correcting Virgil, but here was something he didn’t have the time to do, and I did.”

“Lavinia” promises to be an interesting exploration of the early mythic history of Rome. You can read an excerpt of the book, here.

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

Jane Baker, from the Australian paper The Yass Tribue, holds up Hypatia of Alexandria as a beacon of inspiration when confronting various fundamentalisms and maintaining independent thought.

“In a time darker than ours, a time when reason was held hostage to fundamentalism, when only one form of thought and belief was permitted, when scholars were denounced and their works destroyed, Hypatia kept teaching and standing up for reason. “Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all,” she told her students. Those words should stay with us when we read the papers, listen to the news, hear the latest demagogue spruiking his zealotry. We have to think. We have to question. We cannot accept what we are told without thought and consideration. That is what stands between us and the darkness of ignorance and fanaticism.”

Now that Hypatia’s story is being adapted into a film, one wonders if the famous Neoplatonist will indeed become a sort of Pagan saint, invoked against intolerance and religious extremism by a variety of groups.

Students from Pagan/Wiccan club and Native American club at Joliet Junior College, inspired by one of their teachers, joined forces to create a Relay for Life team and raise money for Cancer research.

“Students from the Native American Club and the Pagan Wiccan Club joined together to create the JJC Thunderbirds team for the All-College Relay for Life being held this weekend at Lewis University in Romeoville. In a final push to raise funds for the walk, they created an event – ‘Clips for a Cure’ – on the JJC bridge Thursday afternoon. Anyone donating a foot of hair to Locks of Love was eligible for a free hair cut; others were given a hair cut with a donation as small as $5. Hairstylists from J&M Hair Salon in Joliet donated their time and talent to the cause, cutting both men’s and women’s hair.”

Thanks in part to the efforts of these clubs, Joliet Junior College has raised over $25,000 for cancer research in the past two years. This is a wonderful example of young Pagans involved in making the world a better place, and showing that the future of our religious movement is in good hands.

The Florida Sun-Sentinel re-tells the myth of Eos and Tithonus.

“Naturally Tithonus loved Eos. Who could resist the love of such a beautiful goddess? Just as she does today, in those years long ago, Eos woke the world each morning with curling rings of light, and every morning she mystically brought the world out of darkness. Whenever Tithonus looked at her, he felt a glow, the way so many people feel at dawn – as buoyant as an April morning on those days when the first buds begin to bloom.”

Just the myth. No commentary, no moral lesson, just the story. If re-printing the great stories and myths in newspapers is a new trend, I approve! Perhaps they can run a serial of the Trojan War?

A Druid from Portsmouth has turned in his ritual sword to the police in order to make a statement on the recent growth of stabbing incidents in the UK.

“A Druid who had to fight a legal battle to get his sword back after police confiscated it has now handed the weapon in to promote world peace. Merlin Williams used his blunt sword, Taliesin, to create a circle of safety around members of the druid order at ceremonies … He said: ‘The thought to hand the sword in to police came to me when I was meditating and thinking about world peace and the stabbings you read about in the papers all the time. ‘I wanted to show that druids are peace-loving and although the sword was never used for violence, I thought handing it in to the police station where it was confiscated would be a good way of doing this. I also want to discourage others from carrying knives as it can lead to violence and people being hurt.’”

Williams is a member and chief bard of the The Insular Order of Druids, an organization that has had more than one run-in with the law over confiscated ritual blades.

The Oshawa Public Library in Ontario has generated a bit of scandal over providing a tarot workshop to local teens.

“It’s not often that a school librarian takes issue with a library program. But Oshawa’s Susan Packer said she was driven to act last week, after learning Oshawa’s public library will be offering tarot card workshops for teens later this month. “I believe that tarot reading is a dangerous practice. Teenagers who might attend the program offered at the library will be dabbling in the occult,” said Ms. Packer, who is the parent of three teenagers and a teacher-librarian at an Oshawa elementary school … Ms. Packer shared her concerns with the Durham District School Board and sent a letter to the library board and local politicians last week, asking that the program be dropped.”

While such a controversy might have played out differently in America, it seems that Canada has little tolerance for religious hysteria. A librarian at OPL said that “we don’t let small groups of people dictate what large groups of people can see or do or learn”, and they plan to go ahead with the workshop. The workshops are being held on April 19th and 26th, and will feature Zsuzsana, author of “The Now Age”.

In a final note, a couple people passed along a link to a story from late last year that I missed. It concerns an ongoing rivalry between two Baltimore candle stores on the same street “Grandma’s Candle Shop” and “Lucky Star Candles: Home of Old Grandpa.”

“Grandma’s and Grandpa’s have both been caring for the spiritual health of downtown Baltimore for three decades, squabbling like an old married couple the whole time. The feud isn’t as hot as it was when Old Grandpa ran his store, but despite their similarities, there’s no love lost between the candle merchants.”

This story has it all: drama, allegations of intellectual property theft, bad blood, and different religious backgrounds (Grandma’s is Pagan-friendly, Grandpa’s is decidedly Christian in tone). Both uneasily co-exist while selling mojo and magical supplies to the locals. A must-read!

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

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

Spring is (sorta) here, and UU World reprints an article by Patricia Montley explaining why myths are often better received than coldly rational explanations for natural events (like the changing seasons).

“Why this cold, dreary season when birds abandon us and gardens stop producing their fruits and flowers … What have we done to deserve this? Surely someone has offended the gods. “Poppycock!” say the scientists, who propose some lame theory about the Earth going around the sun. But that can’t really be it. What’s the point of misery if there’s no one to blame? Besides, their story lacks imagination. Perhaps an explanation that we might find more appealing is one offered by the Greek poet Homer some 27 centuries ago.”

Montley then briefly retells the myth of Persephone, and explains that without the “gray” of Winter, “there is no joy in color”. While I might quibble with the idea of Winter being “gray” and “fallow”, after enduring a snow storm the other day, I truly hunger for the “joy” of a true Spring.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, a local reporter profiles a Druid group performing their Spring rites.

“The only thing the ritual shared with Easter was timing – and a few brightly colored eggs constituting an offering to the “shining ones.” They purified their ceremony by making a banishment offering to the “out-dwellers and tricksters.” They chanted, their voices ever rising and ever faster, to “open the gates,” a sign they had formed a spiritual center around their three altars. They drank apple juice from a communal horn in accepting the blessings of the “waters of life” from kindred gods and goddesses of the Celts, Romans, Gauls and Norse.”

The Three Cranes Grove is an ADF group, which explains the pan-Indo-European focus of the ritual.

The Beijing Olympic Flame was lit today in the Temple of Hera in Olympia. A ceremony marred by two protesters who managed to break through a cordon of about 1,000 police officers.

Actress Maria Nafpliotou lighting the torch.

“Two protestors breached a cordon of about 1,000 police officers at Ancient Olympia to display a flag demanding a boycott of the Olympics amid mounting controversy over China’s crackdown in Tibet … The incidents occurred despite drastic security measures taken by Greek police to avoid incidents that would internationally discredit the event, which was televised across the world.”

I don’t know about you, but when two protesters are able to break through 1,000 men to disrupt a tightly-controlled ceremony in the temple of Hera, I would take that as a bad omen. Perhaps the goddess is displeased? Too bad the “high priestess” is simply an actress, and unable to interpret the will of Hera.

The Manchester Evening News interviews popular novelist Sara Paretsky about her new novel “Bleeding Kansas”, and the real-live Wiccans who served as the inspiration for the Wiccan characters in the book.

“For eight years, I’d fiddled with this concept, on and off, of writing about the part of Kansas where I grew up,” explains Paretsky, ahead of a visit to book stores in Manchester and Cheshire. “When my parents got frail they sold the house to two women who were both Wiccan – followers of pagan religions – and lesbians. They thought that they could lead an anonymous life in the countryside, where their nearest neighbour was over a quarter of a mile away. “But they were wrong. There was talk of pagan rituals. Some people said they were naked and one neighbour started pursuing them in a really angry way, and my brother, who was a lawyer, decided to represent them on a pro bono basis.”

It’s rare that a novelist as popular as Paretsky makes a lesbian Wiccan a major character in a novel. “Bleeding Kansas” may open more minds than a dozen titles in the metaphysical section.

In a final note, Scottish hares (as opposed to “silly old rabbits”), which have been steadily dying out, seem to be on the rebound due to a variety of efforts.

“The problem was that – while Scottish rabbits were happily breeding with the enthusiasm for which they are renowned – the “bunny” we have historically associated with Easter is actually the hare, a creature whose prospects were for a while far more precarious. Long before the rather mixed-up imagery we now see on Easter cards of cute bunnies bearing baskets of eggs, the hare had a far more potent symbolism. In pagan mythology the creature represented love, growth and fertility … for the true meaning of the original celebrations surrounding the vernal equinox, only the hare will do. Wild, abandoned and universally appealing, these beautiful creatures are at long last reclaiming their rightful place.”

So welcome back to one of Britain’s (and Europe’s) sacred animals,

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

Pope Benedict XVI has released his newest encyclical on the theme of Christian hope. Entitled “Spe Salvi” (saved by hope), the work muses on Christian salvation, redemption, and the role of prayer in Christian life, but it wouldn’t be Benedict (the artist formerly known as Cardinal Ratzinger) without inflating the triumphal claims of Catholicism at the expense of polytheist forms of religion!

“Paul reminds the Ephesians that before their encounter with Christ they were “without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12). Of course he knew they had had gods, he knew they had had a religion, but their gods had proved questionable, and no hope emerged from their contradictory myths. Notwithstanding their gods, they were “without God” and consequently found themselves in a dark world, facing a dark future … Here too we see as a distinguishing mark of Christians the fact that they have a future… Myth had lost its credibility; the Roman State religion had become fossilized into simple ceremony which was scrupulously carried out, but by then it was merely “political religion”. Philosophical rationalism had confined the gods within the realm of unreality. The Divine was seen in various ways in cosmic forces, but a God to whom one could pray did not exist.”

There are quite a few problems with Benedict’s argument, a primary one is the confusion of mythological stories with the living and breathing religion being practiced at the time. The assumption that Roman polytheists had no hope for a pleasant afterlife, when in fact they had a systematic afterlife that included judgment, rewards, and punishments, and the characterization of Roman religious ritual as a clockwork obligation that had no belief or passion. The bugbear here for Benedict is the specter of “philosophical rationalism”, which along with relativism leads (in his view) to all manner of horrors, including the destruction of Christianity (and which, in his view, drained the life out of Roman polytheism).

Not that we should expect a fair hearing from the Pontiff, after all, this is the same Pope who claims that the Nazis were a “Neo-Pagan” invention, and not a product spawned from centuries of Christian antisemitism. Having said that, there were some other interesting things said in the Pope’s latest missive to the world, including some words on prayer that won’t make certain evangelical Christians very happy.

“He emphasized that prayer should not be isolating and should not focus on superficial objectives. Nor can people pray against others, he said. “To pray is not to step outside history and withdraw to our own private corner of happiness,” he said.”

It seems very likely that he is pointing his finger at prosperity gospel folks and certain stripes of “prayer warriors”, who “target” people of influence with prayer. It should be interesting if any reporters pick up on this jab at non-Catholic forms of Christianity. As for the Pope and Paganism, you would think that a man as learned as Benedict would hesitate to create religious straw-men to bat down. There are plenty of valid criticism of polytheistic systems, but portraying Roman polytheists as without hope and “lost” to nihilistic darkness is petty and untrue.

There are some new books of interest to Pagans, Heathens, and occultists of many stripes that I would like to spotlight today. The first is “Fire Child”, the long-awaited autobiography of English “Witch Queen” Maxine Sanders. Sanders is well-known in Witchcraft circles as a co-founder of Alexandrian Wicca, and for the many striking photographs taken of her performing rituals with Alex Sanders and their coven in the 1960s.

According to Sanders, the book is a way of answering the many questions she encountered from Witches about the history and development of the Craft.

“Last year I met American witches from different traditions of modern Craft who asked good questions and were not afraid to ask the sensitive ones. They made me see the impact Alex and I have had on the Craft. They had the right to ask and I felt obliged to answer. Writing ‘Fire Child’ was the perfect opportunity.”

This release should be a unique treasure, autobiographies from Pagan elders are rare, especially from figures who had as large a role to play as Sanders. The book will be released on November 23rd from Mandrake of Oxford Press.

On a similar Witchcraft-related note, a new book takes a deeper look at the history of initiation rituals within the Western esoteric traditions. “Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation” by Henrik Bogdan, a Religious Studies and Theology professor at Goteborg University in Sweden, explores the ties and similarities between Freemasonry, and later esoteric initiatory paths, including modern Witchcraft.

“For more than three hundred years the practice of Masonic rituals of initiation has been part of Western culture, spreading far beyond the boundaries of traditional Freemasonry. Henrik Bogdan explores the historical development of these rituals and their relationship with Western esotericism. Beginning with the Craft degrees of Freemasonry – the blueprints, as it were, of all later Masonic rituals of initiation – Bogdan examines the development of the Masonic High Degrees, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn – the most influential of all nineteenth-century occultist initiatory societies – and Gerald Gardner’s Witchcraft movement of the 1950s, one of the first large-scale Western esoteric New Religions Movements.”

The book seems like a must-read for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of where some ritual elements found within religious Witchcraft, and in turn many modern Pagan traditions, originated. You can preview the first chapter at the SUNY Press site.

Finally, we come to a book that has made it onto my Yule list, “Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes” by Chris Knowles (with illustrations by Joseph Michael Linsner). Knowles delves deep into comic-book history to explore the mythic, occult, and religious backgrounds for many of the crime-fighting icons we know and love.

“Was Superman’s arch nemesis Lex Luthor based on Aleister Crowley? Can Captain Marvel be linked to the Sun gods on antiquity? In Our Gods Wear Spandex, Christopher Knowles answers these questions and brings to light many other intriguing links between superheroes and the enchanted world of estoerica. Occult students and comic-book fans alike will discover countless fascinating connections, from little known facts such as that DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz started his career as H.P. Lovecraft’s agent, to the tantalizingly extensive influence of Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy on the birth of comics, to the mystic roots of Superman. The book also traces the rise of the comic superheroes and how they relate to several cultural trends in the late 19th century, specifically the occult explosion in Western Europe and America. Knowles reveals the four basic superhero archetypes–the Messiah, the Golem, the Amazon, and the Brotherhood–and shows how the occult Bohemian underground of the early 20th century provided the inspiration for the modern comic book hero.”

Anyone who has spent time dissecting “The Invisibles” or “Promethea” should definitely give this a look. As a longtime comic-book fan with an interest in the esoteric, this looks like a treasure-trove of information. You can listen to a podcast interview with the author, here.