Culture
Event emphasizes more Indigenous legal recognition needed across the Americas
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A seminar in Mexico discusses the advances and challenges in implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Paganism
The latest on Stonehenge: Proposed A303 tunnel, and new grassland acquired
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The most recent update on the A303 tunnel, and the new grassland surrounding Stonehenge acquired by the National Trust.
Paganism
The great cloutie debate: U.K. Pagans weigh in on the practice
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The practice of leaving clooties at sacred sites has generated considerable debate amongst Pagans after a site in Scotland was recently cleared of all the items left at the site.
Paganism
Smithsonian Channel’s Sacred Sites explores ancient mysteries
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DUN LAOGHAIRE, Ireland — When David Ryan, a documentary film writer and creative producer, witnessed a Druid ritual in his native Ireland a few years ago, he was shocked – literally. Ryan and his colleagues with Tile Films, an Irish documentary production company, were filming Sacred Sites: Ireland, a pilot for a proposed series on such places around the world. “We did some filming in the Slieve Bloom Mountains with a group of local Druids who do rituals in honor of the ancient Celtic gods,” Ryan said during a Skype interview from his office in Dún Laoghaire just south of Dublin. “One of the Druids — quite an old man, a very nice man — brought me around the back of a farmhouse and showed me two standing stones. He said, ‘There’s an energy between these – put your hands out.’
“I was like I suppose your typical, skeptical 21st-century male,” said Ryan, who matter-of-factly noted he’s an agnostic when asked about his spiritual path.
News
Odinist group demands compensation for sacred sites in UK
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ENGLAND — : An open letter was sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby by the UK-based Odinist Fellowship asking for the return of sacred sites now occupied by Christian churches. These ‘stolen’ buildings must be returned, writes The Odinist Fellowship leader Ralph Harrison. The Fellowship, established by Harrison (“Ingvar”) in 1996, was formed after a split with the Odinic Rite, an Odinist group originally established by John Yeowell. As a result of the 2006 legal case Royal Mail PLC v Holden, the Odinic Rite reportedly became the first Odinist group to be granted charitable status in the UK in 1988. On its website, the current Odin Fellowship states that it seeks to increase awareness of one of the original faiths present in the UK, as practiced by the Saxons, Angles and Jutes.