Pagan Community Notes: Cherry Hill Seminary; Tarot Ban Lifted; TWH Fall Fund Drive and more!

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Cherry Hill Seminary (CHS) has announced the launch of a new Community Ministry Certificate. In partnership with the Sacred Well Congregation, the new 15-month program is designed to lead to ministerial credentials. The program covers such topics as ethics, leading ritual, diversity understanding, family dynamics, addiction and more. As we previously reported, CHS has recently found itself at a crossroads. Director Holli Emore has said, “Unpredictable cash flow has compromised our ability to be sustainable.

Pagan Community Notes: CalderaFest 2017, Michigan Pagan Fund, The Troth and more!

CalderaFest will be returning in 2017. The festival was a landmark event bringing together Pagan musicians from around the globe for four days of fun. Organizer David Banach said, “I decided to do CalderaFest again mostly because the first one was simply pure magic.” The 2016 festival was held in Lafayette, Georgia over May’s long Memorial Day weekend. Most attendees agreed that, despite the problems, CalderaFest was a unique and powerful experience .

West Virginia man found guilty of murdering Wiccan woman

TAOS, NM — After four hours of deliberation a Taos jury found 51-year-old West Virginia native Ivan Dennings Cales Jr. guilty of the murder of Roxanne Houston and of tampering with evidence. During the investigation as was brought forward during the trial, the state found data and gathered testimonies, suggesting that the accused may have been on a modern day Witch hunt. Houston, a Wiccan practitioner from Colorado, disappeared in July 2014 after moving to New Mexico. Her body was found by a hiker near the “Two Peaks area” in December of that same year. According to a local news agency, “Elizabeth Hagerty said she was walking with her husband, Robert, and their two dogs when one canine began rolling on what appeared to be a burnt part of a brassiere.”

Column: From Canada to the Stars

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” — Vincent van Gogh
There once was a time when earlier generations could look up at the night sky and they were able to observe the cosmos in its entire splendor. The depth and range of the stars were obvious, far beyond what we can see today. Our ancestors created art, philosophy, religion and culture based on how they perceived themselves in the universe. This was inspired by what they could witness in the night sky. Somewhere along the way we lost this vision, our perspective was blurred and diminished.

Canada: Canadians in Print

For many pagans, books are the gateway to knowledge. They are our first teachers of magic and offer a new world of esoteric lore and knowledge. If you enter the home of just about any modern pagan you will no doubt find a bookshelf (or many bookshelves!) piled high with books written by English authors such as Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente or the Farrars. There will no doubt be more than a few by high profile American writers, names like Margot Adler, Isaac Bonewits and Scott Cunningham or maybe the more contemporary Orion Foxwood or Christopher Penczack. Both Britain and the United States both have successful and high profile publishers of pagan books, Minnesota based Llewellyn Worldwide LTD.