Home explosion strands three Pagans

NOTTINGHAM, England — Around 4 p.m. on the night of June 6, an explosion ripped through the house of three Pagans in Bulwell, a suburb of Nottingham. The explosion destroyed their living room and kitchen. The explosion occurred just after Anthony Bowen, Phillippa Morgana Mair Cashion, and Vanessa Amy Bowen had gone to bed. Previously they were watching the Great British Bake Off. Vanessa Bowen and Cashion believe they would have been killed if they were still in their living room.

Pagan chaplain’s voice for change is heard by global conference

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Mary Hudson made waves when she became the second Pagan chaplain at a higher education institution in the United States, continuing a service that began with the advising the Syracuse University student Pagan club. Two years after that chaplaincy appointment, Hudson decided to attend the Global Conference for Chaplains in Higher Education, which was being held at Yale that year. Unfortunately, the experience left a decidedly bad taste in her mouth, which she shared with the conference organizers. They took her feedback to heart, and asked her to return this year as a presenter. Hudson would like very much to return to the conference to do so.

Accepting a Sacred Wound: an interview with Orion Foxwood

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Orion Foxwood is a role model for many in the Pagan and related communities who wish to make their living serving their gods. A prodigious writer and familiar face at Pagan conventions and festivals, Foxwood criss-crosses the country lecturing on southern conjure practices and teaching the principles of Faery Seership. In recent years, attendees at Foxwood’s classes may have been surprised to see that he has been having difficulty walking even with a cane, the result of two chronic health conditions colliding. However, his students may have been reassured by his perennial good mood that the condition wasn’t as bad as it looked.

Fundraising Pagan style

Despite the strong countercultural thread that runs through many Pagan religions, there has long been a concurrent drive to develop the infrastructure and tools of the overculture, and turn them to our own ends. Arguments over owning land, creating seminaries, forming churches and other not-for-profits have been hashed out for decades, and this will likely be the cause of lively discourse for many years to come. At the same time, those in the community who do forge ahead with these projects continue to speculate why one idea might flourish and another fail. For example, some posit that Pagans are too poor to support these works or perhaps too cheap. Others claim that Pagans want all the nice things but don’t wish to pay for them.