This isn’t to say that Pagan-run media is uniquely in trouble. Our microcosm mirrors the painful changes the mainstream media is going through as they try to navigate a severe recession and a shift towards making new media journalism pay. However, our (relatively) small size does allow us some opportunities to collaborate and evolve into this changing market. I’d like to introduce a new venture that I hope will not only spark a renaissance in Pagan journalism, but also create the needed synergy to allow existing and forthcoming Pagan media outlets to thrive in an emerging world of hyperlocal news and “hyperdistribution”.

The Pagan Newswire Collective is an open collective of Pagan journalists, newsmakers, media liaisons, and writers who are interested in sharing and promoting primary-source reporting from within our interconnected communities. The idea is simple: a pool of journalists and writers within the collective share sources and collaborate on dynamic and timely stories of interest to the Pagan community; media liaisons from various Pagan organizations pass along news and current events for possible coverage; editors, bloggers, podcasters, and other media outlets can call for submissions, collaborate with the collective, and negotiate with individual writer(s) to distribute finished product. All work created from within the collective remains the property of those who produced it, and it can be distributed in any number of ways, from Creative Commons to more traditional arrangements with various periodicals.

The variety of possible coverage models are endless, from syndicated multimedia packages for large events, to local beat-reporting when “hot” stories emerge in local Pagan communities, to “evergreen” human interest stories suitable for periodicals that publish infrequently. In short, we hope to become the “Pagan Reuters”, as Yvonne Aburrow put it.

Since we are brand new, we are looking for Pagans and like-minded allies, especially those with writing or journalism experience, to join our collective. If you use Facebook, you can join our official Facebook group, or join our mailing list at Google Groups. Here’s to building a better Pagan media.

When you factor in publications that actually have a national or international reach that small grouping of surviving publications becomes even smaller. And the ones that do survive seem to focus less and less on news and current events and more and more on “evergreen” content suitable for journals that come out only two or four times per year. Perhaps Jack Lux and Michael Night Sky are correct when they asserted in the latest issue of Thorn magazine that Pagan periodicals in their current state can no longer act as a functioning news organ for the modern Pagan movement.

“…the purpose of a magazine changes to suit its audience, and Pagan journalism may be fixating on a role for which it is no longer useful … perhaps the most useful goal of Pagan publications is no longer to disseminate information about outer limits, but to delve deeper into the ideas of the past forty years and fill the gaps between them. With the Internet and the growing festival network, magazines are best suited not for community building, but for culture building.”

As if to confirm the idea of a shift toward culture-building within our publications, Treadwell’s bookstore and Fulgur have announced the launch a new journal of occultism entitled Abraxas. Scholarly and cultured, printed in a limited edition, it is marketed almost as a collectible art-object rather than a “zine” to thumbed through at your local newsstand.

“Nearly all the material is published for the first time. Here may be found inspiring essays from luminaries within the esoteric community, many of them written especially for the journal. Artists too are well represented, both established masters and emerging talents: a feast for the eyes and soul. Our poets include Allyson Shaw, Zachary Cox and, from beyond the veil, Aleister Crowley, whose evocative verse ‘Babalon’ finally finds itself in print more than sixty years after it was written. Produced in a large quarto format, with 128 pages printed on high quality paper and richly illustrated in colour and monochrome, we hope Abraxas will offer you a strange mirror through which may be glimpsed the zeitgeist of the global occult community today.”

I’m not singling out Abraxas for any sort of criticism, it looks very lovely and inviting indeed, but to point to what might be needed to succeed today in a contracted world of niche publishing.

So where does that leave Pagan news and Pagan journalism? It seems almost solely in hands of bloggers, podcasters, and e-zine editors. While there are several excellent places online where you can find news and incisive editorial aimed at a Pagan audience, a large number of Internet publications seem to mimic the world of print, publishing sporadically and sticking to think-pieces, rants, and lighter fare. This leaves Pagan journalism in a precarious position, one that could cast us back to a place where dissemination of news to our communities becomes increasingly haphazard, prone to errors, and one-sided. A place where rumor and baseless speculation runs rampant. A place where mainstream journalism defines almost unilaterally who and what is newsworthy within the world of modern Paganism.

We need to start having serious conversations about how Pagan news is created and disseminated. We need to ask how well our surviving print publications are serving us, and, if Internet publications are indeed the future of Pagan journalism, how they can become more stable, sustainable, and accountable to the readers. In the next six months I’ll be attending major Pagan events on two coasts, in Florida at the Florida Pagan Gathering for Samhain (where I’m presenting), and at Pantheacon in San Jose during February (where I’m going to see if I can do a presentation). For those of you concerned about the Pagan press, and attending one of these events, perhaps you’ll join me in-person for that discussion. Otherwise, I urge all of you to get together at your own local gatherings, large or small, and talk about the future of our news, our periodicals, and what we’ll need to keep subsequent generations informed about the day-to-day events and changes that surround us.

In other “stuff that I do that isn’t The Wild Hunt” news, my article on influential Pagans for the 50th (and last) issue of PanGaia is available for free download from the PanGaia web site. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, author J.C. Hallman, who I interviewed a couple years ago on this site, has released a new short story collection entitled “The Hospital For Bad Poets”. In one of the stories, “Dalyrmple”, Hallman honors me by giving one of the characters my last name (Pitzl-Waters). A shame though that my fictional existence had to be cut so short!

Certainly the Pagan community hasn’t been immune to this rough transition. Several anecdotes seem to point to strains and belt-tightening, and the recent merger of Pagan magazines PanGaia and NewWitch mirrors the troubles faced by the larger less-niche publications. As Pagan commentary and journalism has (seemingly) contracted in the print world, it has exploded on the Internet. Thousands upon thousands of Pagans hit the Pagan blogosphere’s “A-List” (Gus diZerega, Chas Clifton,  Patti Wigington,Thorn Coyle, and myself, among several others) on a regular basis for news and opinion, while the ever-timely (and unafraid) Pagan Centered Podcast has racked up over 150,000 downloads of its show. However, the question remains of how journalism aimed at the Pagan community will ever “pay” in the same manner that the once-dominant publications do. Some, like Thorn Magazine, have attempted to create a print-online hybrid, but it’s too early to tell if that project will continue to thrive in the longer-term.

So what is the future of journalism, and what does it mean for “professional amateurs” like myself who service niche information markets like the modern Pagan community? Two recent essays really give some clarity as to the extent of what’s coming, why it will almost certainly get worse before it gets better, and why we have reasons to hope for a brighter media tomorrow. The first is from author Steven B. Johnson who reminds us what informaiton gathering, especially niche informaiton gathering was like before the Interent, and why the tech and political news worlds are showing that the future isn’t a barren news desert but a rich news rainforest ecosystem.

“The metaphors we use to think about changes in media have a lot to tell us about the particular moment we’re in … today’s media is in fact much closer to a real-world ecosystem in the way it circulates information than it is like the old industrial, top-down models of mass media. It’s a much more diverse and interconnected world, a system of flows and feeds – completely different from an assembly line. That complexity is what makes it so interesting, of course, but also what makes it so hard to predict what it’s going to look like in five or ten years. So instead of starting with the future, I propose that we look to the past. To use that ecosystem metaphor: the state of Mac news in 1987 was a barren desert. Today, it is a thriving rain forest. By almost every important standard, the state of Mac news has vastly improved since 1987: there is more volume, diversity, timeliness, and depth. I think that steady transformation from desert to jungle may be the single most important trend we should be looking at when we talk about the future of news. Not the future of the news industry, or the print newspaper business: the future of news itself.”

Johnson sees a future in which the “old media” establishment become massive filtering organizations, using their editorial skills to provide clear and accurate narratives on important news. Becoming part of a “bottom-up” news distribution system and economy, that advertisers and news agencies will eventually find a way to make the new media economy work for them (though not without further casualties in this unnatually hastened transition). While Johnson talks about a hopeful media future that includes all players at the table, New Media consultant and teacher Clay Shirky bluntly reminds us that when you’re in the middle of  revolution all bets are off.

“That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing. (Luther and the Church both insisted, for years, that whatever else happened, no one was talking about a schism.) Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify. And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to. There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie.”

One thing I rarely see mentioned by defenders of “old media” is that proponents of  new media rarely want newspapers or magazines to fail, or for journalists to lose their jobs, they merely understand that the current upheaval is going to play out no matter what we do. You can’t unring a bell, and you can’t stuff the genie of digital media back into its bottle. As Shirky says, we are in the midst of a revolution, and we have no idea what exactly the future will look like. I hope for Johnson’s lush ecosystem, but we can’t be sure.

What will the “pro” model of Pagan journalism look like in the future? Will it be the slick and academic-minded site Patheos? The corporate-backed blogs of Beliefnet? The massive “everyone gets a say” editorial page of the Newsweek-backed On Faith? Maybe even a renassaince of Pagan periodicals? Perhaps it will be something none of us ever saw coming. Looking at the last few years, I can’t say what the future of media and journalism will truly be, but I do know that Pagan journalism has grown in a variety of ways. Our community is more personally empowered than ever to inform, communicate, and ignore ineffecient gatekeepers. In the “old” mainstream media Paganism was treated as a fad, or a joke, or a “human interest” story stuffed into the “lifestyle” section. We had to wait for months for any news from our own periodicals, and those were often (due to the nature of scheduling) more interested in “evergreen” material than in what is happening in the here and now. Thanks to the citizen journalists and determined aggregators we have more “news” for Pagans than ever before, and if we’re lucky, a successful business model will emerge in that will allow for timely Pagan reporting that actually pays.

From MetaPagan: Spirituality, Identity and Community (by Yvonne Aburrow).

But is a religious label really about beliefs, or about participating in community, and sharing values and practices? Is it about doing something for the wider community? Or about a quest to understand the world and know how to live in it well? When does identifying with a label become membership in the group? Where and how does membership end? If you were accused of practising your religion in a court of law, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Perhaps religion is really a convincing narrative that helps to confer meaning on the world and our place in it. Even if it isn’t literally true, it’s symbolically true and internally consistent.

From The North West Passage: The Passing of Deo’s Shadow (by Brendan Myers)

I have to admit this affected me greatly, and not just because I was a guest on the show four times. Deo is a friend and a fellow philosopher. Before I moved to Hamilton, I was living only 20 kilometers away from him. He is also a remarkably generous, friendly, fun and kind person. I was dearly glad of someone in the community who has the same background and knowledge in philosophy as I do, with whom I can talk about such things. His departure from the community, therefore, hit me hard. His reasons for leaving it were sound and rational. It made me wonder if I have given much of my adult life to a community that doesn’t care about philosophers, and if I, too, have become merely a spokesperson for a tradition that is ultimately a dead end.

From Letter From Hardscrabble Creek: Pagans are not a Community nor a Tribe — Not Yet (by Chas Clifton)

What we have is a network, not a community nor a tribe. Maybe in a few generations that will change, who knows? (For you anthro and sociology majors, it is the Gemeinschaft / Gesellschaft issue, no?) Everytime I hear someone going on about “the Pagan community,” I say to myself, “Not yet.” Not when you can walk in and walk out so easily.

From Cernunnos’ Path: On the Threshold Between One Life Path and Another (by Mahud)

I have no idea where my path will lead (who knows, perhaps back to Christianity. I’m open minded enough to consider that a valid possibility), but I’m going to take it slow and not rush into this ritual or that magical practice or suddenly start worshipping a pantheon of Deities, just to fit in with the wide world of Paganism. Whether I stay or go, I’ll always have a piece of the Pagan community with me. But the way things are going now, I’ll be sticking around for some time yet.

From Chrysalis: Where Can We Grow From Here? (by Pax)

Well, it seems to me that the Pagan community could really stand to do a lot of work and soul searching on issues of Pride and Community.  I say this as a Pagan and Gay man who has often seen parallels and contrasts between his two subcultural communities. Why do we seem to have so much trouble coming together across lines of faith or Tradition to build community on the local, regional, and national levels?

And that seems to only be the beginning, I’m sure there are even more posts I’m missing out on. If you have commented on the transition to atheism by Deò and Mandy, or the issues it (and subsequent blog commentary) raises in your own blog/journal feel free to share a link in the comments (you can also consider this a “fresh” thread to discuss the topic if you feel a bit overwhelmed by the number of comments on the original post).

Making deòs Shadow was usually a joy, and as the show grew more popular, we had many opportunities for new experiences which helped us to grow as people. One of the interesting side-effects of such growth is that one can end up growing out of that which induces the growth. We’ve moved on from Paganism and are now practicing atheists. We’re both in our 30s now, deò is half finished his PhD program (he began the show as an undergrad), Mandy is busy at a successful career, and we’ve got our eyes on the mundane things in life like securing a future and starting a family within the next few years.

In a follow-up post Deò ellaborates on his journey from Christianity, to Paganism, and into atheism (and why he isn’t jumping from Paganism into a different spiritual/religious practice). Spurring the follow-up was a comment by a listener of the podcast who experienced a similar (though not identical) trajectory.

I understand outgrowing things. I was a self proclaimed Pagan for 13 or so years. Recently after much study, therapy and self reflection I knew I had to take the plunge and drop the label. I can no longer label myself as a pagan. Doing this felt amazingly liberating. Who would have thought? Now this wasn’t necessarily a rejection of Paganism. I still find great value in many things deemed Pagan. This was just a moving forward from the need to put myself in a “box” that was stifling my growth. Now I know that this could be very offensive to some and I understand that.

Reading those pages made me think of the excellent posts by Cat Chapin-Bishop on her Quaker Pagan Reflections blog about balancing a Quaker and Pagan identity, about Al Billings’ (from In Pursuit of Mysteries) move from a Pagan/occult identity to Buddhism (albeit one still informed by his Pagan past), and even, briefly, about the conversion of author Carl McColman from Paganism to Catholicism. All of these narratives – Deò and Mandy’s, Cat’s, Andrea’s, Al’s, Carl’s – speak of growth, a growth that in most cases leads them away from a Pagan identity (or at least a displacement of Paganism as their core religious affiliation). Someone “outgrowing” Paganism (or hyphenating their Paganism) seems almost like a cliche nowadays, and it makes me wonder if we are alienating some of our more skeptical and philosophically-minded adherents in ways we don’t realize?

I say none of this because I resent Deò and Mandy’s (or anyone else’s) decisions, or that we should try to win them back. I wish them both the best, and thank them for their years of service to our communities. However,  that the hosts of a popular Pagan program have turned atheist should evoke some soul-searching about growth and maturity in our communities. Chas Clifton recently pointed out that pre-Christian (pagan) philosophy used to embrace everyone from the “hard” polytheists to the skeptical materialists. Who (and what) are we not embracing? Where are we not growing that these smart and talented folks must find their spiritual (or philosophical) satisfaction elsewhere? What do you think?

“Thorn is a new quarterly print magazine about paganism and modern culture. Through a combination of news articles and investigative research, photographic spreads and academic essays, comic strips, original illustration and historical analysis, we hope to illuminate the joys and complications of living ancient paths in the wired era.”

Cover of Thorn #1.

Turning to a thorn of an entirely different variety, I was recently interviewed by author and Feri priestess T. Thorn Coyle for her elements-themed podcast “Elemental Castings”.

“Thorn talks Air with Jason Pitzl-Waters of the Wild Hunt and a Darker Shade of Pagan. Topics include DJing, club culture, and magic on the airwaves.”

To directly download the hour-long talk, click here. It was fun doing the podcast with Thorn and I hope you enjoy listening to it. Be sure to check out her other podcasts, featuring interviews/talks with Anne Hill, Sharon Knight, and several others.
]]> http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/12/thorny-bit-of-self-promotion.html/feed 4 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/12/darker-shade-of-pagan-top-ten-of-2008.html http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/12/darker-shade-of-pagan-top-ten-of-2008.html#comments Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:36:00 +0000 Jason http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/12/a-darker-shade-of-pagan-top-ten-of-2008.html While I generally keep my music podcast A Darker Shade of Pagan from getting entangled in the daily workings of The Wild Hunt, every once in awhile I like to alert my readership of some great Pagan and Pagan-friendly music that I come across. Since I just posted my ADSOP top ten of 2008 show, I thought I would share what I thought were some of the best albums that speak to the Pagan soul from the past year. Consider it a gift-giving guide to the Pagan in your life dissatisfied by what usually passes for “Pagan music”.

ADSOP’s Top Ten Albums of 2008

10. sToa – “Silmand” [Purchase]

Veteran neoclassical darkwave band sToa returns after a seven-year hiatus stronger than ever. New lead singer Mandy Bernhardt ably fills the shoes of her predecessors, while the album as a whole is enriched from contributions by Louisa John-Krol and Love is Colder Than Death vocalist Ralf Jehnert. This is a beautiful autumnal disc that displays a mature and complex melancholy. Perfect for fans of bands like Ataraxia, Amber Asylum, and Dead Can Dance.

09. Arcana – “Raspail” [Purchase]

Arcana, lead by Swedish songwriter and musician Peter Bjargo, continue to evolve from their starker darkwave past and into territories mapped out by the legendary Dead Can Dance. While the DCD comparisons are inevitable on this disc, the final product is something altogether colder and grimmer than the emotive pessimism of Brendan Perry (or the transcendent glossolalia of Lisa Gerrard) . Whether he’s singing about alienation or environmental destruction, Bjargo brings an almost stoic resolve to present the world as it is, rather than how we wish it would be.

08. Various – “Perfect As Cats” [Purchase]

While tribute albums are often a dime a dozen, this tribute to The Cure, with proceeds benefiting the “invisible children” of Uganda, shines thanks to a unique and diverse lineup of talent. Indeed the mixture of goth/darkwave, psych-folk, and experimental artists seemed almost custom-tailored for a show like A Darker Shade of Pagan. Worth the admission price for stellar efforts from Bat For Lashes, Silver Summit, Ex Reverie, and Mariee Sioux alone.

07. Trobar de Morte – “Legends of Blood and Light” [Purchase]

For those sad that 2008 didn’t see any new material from European Pagan folk bands like Omnia or Faun, perhaps Trobar de Morte, a band that exists in a “world of dreams” where “fairies exist”, and where “the witches dance around the bonfire and share their desires with the night and the stars”, can fill the gap. This is music for the otherworld, complete with songs about sorceresses, and a rousing ode to the goddess Morrigan.

06. Mirabilis – “Sub Rosa” [Purchase]

Few groups can match the intertwined heavenly vocals of Summer Bowman and Dru Allen. I’ve been a fan of Mirabilis since their 2004 debut Pleiades, and Sub Rosa doesn’t fail to deliver another excellent set of songs that expertly meld classical, medieval, and electronic elements. Only Mirabilis can work from sources as diverse as middle-age chants, Beatles’ tunes, and jazz-age standards and have them all sound as if they were written specifically for the album. Throw in some strong originals, and you have an entrancing example of transcendent vocal mastery.

05. Ex Reverie – “The Door Into Summer” [Purchase]

Gillian Chadwick’s Ex Reverie provides the kind of music I always imagined the glory days of 1970s folk-rock would have sounded like, a heretical fusion of psychedelic (sometimes bordering on early heavy metal) rock riffs with complex folk ballads from “ye olde countryside”. A deeply esoteric record, The Door Into Summer is almost shamanistic in orientation, complete with songs about sea goddesses and natural forces. A natural fit in-between your Fairport Convention and Led Zeppelin albums.

04. Sigur Ros – “Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust” [Purchase]

I’m not sure I can add anything to the mountains of praise that Iceland’s Sigur Ros have garnered over the years. Needless to say, their latest album is another strong collection of orchestral post-rock that have caused endless critics to come up with different ways to say “otherworldly”. Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust sees them breaking out of their mold a bit with some tracks that come close to being downright poppy, and, for the first time ever, a song sung in English (”All Alright”).

03. Fern Knight – “Fern Knight” [Purchase]

A mix of folk, prog, and classical elements that serves as “an ode to all things green and living”, and showcases the amazing songwriting abilities of Margaret Wienk. This self-titled album, like its predecessor Music For Witches and Alchemists, contains songs that are darkly magical in construction and explore subject matter close to the Pagan soul. It’s pastoral and romantic, but unafraid to face the harshness of reality. An album I have returned to many times without it running out of new things to say to me.

02. Silver Summit – “Silver Summit” [Purchase]

A heady mix of psychedelic folk and mysticism, Silver Summit’s debut album is an ode to what lays beyond. The album plays like an initiatory journey to the otherworld, from the opening chimes of Music In the Afterlife, to the breathy chant-like In-Between Place (appropriately placed near the the middle of the album) to somber and spooky closer The Bridge. You are left feeling changed and deeper entwined in mystery than before you started. It is little wonder that other reviewers are describing Silver Summit as “bewitched”, “a collision of heaven and earth, fire and water”, or for “sonic voyagers seeking to ascend to the next level.”

01. Sharron Kraus – “The Fox’s Wedding” [Purchase]

Fans of pastoral British folk are in for a treat. Sharron Kraus, who has been generating buzz for some time now among fans of darkly-inflected folk music, delivers a masterwork that is both mythic and deeply personal. There isn’t a weak track to be found here, all the songs seem to lead you towards an ever-shifting seasonal journey that reminds you how deeply personal turning the wheel can truly be. That sacrifice and rebirth are simultaneously inside and outside of us. For fans of The Wicker Man soundtrack, surely, but also for those wondering who is envisioning the future of folk music. Wonderful.

You can download my latest podcast, featuring songs from all these albums, here. I hope you’ll explore these releases, and perhaps find some new music to love. As always, apologies to all the other artists who released great albums this year, I only have room for ten.
]]> http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/12/darker-shade-of-pagan-top-ten-of-2008.html/feed 4 http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/02/pagan-news-of-note_22.html http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/02/pagan-news-of-note_22.html#comments Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:55:00 +0000 Jason http://wildhunt.org/blog/2008/02/pagan-news-of-note-46.html My semi-regular round-up of articles, essays, and opinions of note for discerning Pagans and Heathens.

A paper in Livingston County, Michigan reports on the closing of a Pagan/Metaphysical shop in downtown Howell. The paper cites a depressed local economy and competition from larger retail and outlet stores as the primary reasons for the shop’s failure, achieving what Christian protesters failed to do eight years ago.

“Wisdom of the Ages has withstood a religious protest against the store’s Wiccan tradition and set up shop in mostly Christian Livingston County, but has fallen victim to Michigan’s struggling economy … The year Wisdom of the Ages opened, two Howell-area churches protested outside the building, praying for the souls of Lindsay and store staff. The Daily Press & Argus and television stations in Detroit, Lansing and Jackson picked up the story. Business spiked as a result, Lindsay recalled. “They wanted us shut down. It was the best thing that could have happened to us,” she recalled.”

The owner, Mona Lindsay, will be opening a smaller shop (called “Moon Magick”) in nearby Hamburg Township, where no doubt rents are cheaper and the chances for success in a struggling economy a bit better.

Student Newspaper The Appalachian explores divination, magick, and Paganism, through the lens of a new class taught by anthropology professor Dr. Gregory G. Reck.

“As an outgrowth of Reck’s anthropological interests, this spring semester he instructs a ‘Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion’ course that strives to understand different theoretical approaches to religious behaviors and beliefs. ‘We use religion and magic as a kind of prism through which we can explore questions of the nature of the human experience,’ Reck said. It is through that prism that such individuals as psychics, tarot card readers, or Pagans regard their world.”

The article also talks to James Crew, an interdisciplinary studies major with a concentration in contemporary Pagan studies, and local tarot card readers Cheryl and Sage.

The American Muslim has posted a petition to appeal the execution in Saudi Arabia of Fawza Falih Mumammad Ali, a woman who has been accused of “witchcraft, recourse to jinn, and slaughter of animals”. Among the signatories are Pagan leaders like Phyllis Curott, Ellen Evert Hopman, and Selena Fox.

“Surely it is the wisdom of God who is, as so many of the verses of the Qur’an teach, much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace, which must inspire mercy for Fawza Falih, and it is you who embodies that compassion in this realm where the least of humanity most needs your protection. In the name of God, please, halt the execution of Fawza Falih immediately and release her from the Quraiyat Prison.”

You can add your signature, here. The New York-based Human Rights Watch has also written to King Abdullah asking for clemency. I’m still wondering why Abdullah’s good pal George W. Bush hasn’t responded to this controversy.

Executive Pagan points out that two major Druid organizations now have regular podcasts. OBOD’s Druidcast, hosted by Damh the Bard, and Tribeways, the official podcast of the ADF.

“ADF’s very first podcast, Tribeways, was released into the wild on February 19, 2008! You can download the podcast directly from our host, or through iTunes … The February Feast features the following contributions: “Make Offerings, Dammit!” by Rev. Kirk Thomas … “Comparative Mythology – Why Bother?” by Rev. Jenni Hunt … “Trance Meditation” by Archdruid Emeritus Ian Corrigan”

The Tribeways podcast also comes with “liner notes”, featuring notes and transcripts from the show.

In a final note, last week was Pantheacon, one of the largest indoor Pagan-themed conventions in America, and reports, pictures, and videos have been trickling in from the event. Cherry Hill Seminary has photos and commentary, Deborah Oak discusses embracing paradox at Pantheacon, Chas Clifton shares the news of who won the Llewellyn and BBI Media co-sponsored Pagan fiction contest, T. Thorn Coyle discusses the magic of possibility, and M. Macha NightMare leads us to some videos of the WOW Besom Brigade.

As for me, I’ll be taking the rest of the day off from blogging to spend time with family. I’ll be back tomorrow, though blogging will be lighter than usual until after Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (the birthday of the unconquered Sun, AKA December 25th). Plus, be on the lookout for my posts concerning the top Pagan stories of the year come the end of December.
]]> http://wildhunt.org/blog/2007/12/little-holiday-music-and-other-things.html/feed 0