On Feb. 7, as we reported, Green Egg Magazine had announced that it would be abandoning its traditional format and developing a full-time, online blog-style presence. However, after hearing from disappointed fans, the Magazine decided to shift gears once again. On Feb. 22, Green Egg’s publishers announced that they would be keeping with the original quarterly e-zine format and abandoning regular blog publishing.
In addition, they announced that “Hollis Taylor is no longer publisher. The position of publisher will be co-managed by Sylveey Selu, long-time webmistress for Green Egg, and Ariel Monserrat, the magazine’s publisher for the past 8 years.” Monserrat was planning on retiring but, after hearing the overwhelming response from the readership, she decided to return as co-publisher. The team also has plans to bring back the The Green Egg Radio Hour and expand the magazine’s website. The first issue will be Ostara, for which they are currently asking for submissions.
* * *
Mark Kay Lundmark
In February, Minnesota’s Pagan community lost one of its beloved members, Mary Kay Lundmark. A tribute to her life was recently published in PNC-Minnesota. As writer Nels Linde said, “Described as a most loyal and caring friend and priestess, Mary Kay chose to avoid the lime light. She took a major supportive role in many peoples craft and online spiritual paths, and was known to many who never met her in person.”
The article quotes a number of Mary Kay’s friends and students. Through their words, they share Mary Kay’s personal history, her love of the Craft and of life. One of these quotes is from Thea Sabin, who also published an entire blog post about Mary Kay. In that post, Sabin described a woman who was passionate about her religion and the Craft, dedicated to her students and honest with herself. Sabin wrote, “Perhaps most important, Mary Kay loved with her whole heart, without reservation, and in a way that was utterly authentic” When Mary Kay died, she was surrounded by her husband and loved ones. What is remembered, lives.
* * *
After a three year hiatus, the Bay Area Pagan Alliance will be, once again, hosting The Pagan Festival in Berkeley, California. The event will be held on May 9 in Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park. In celebrating the event’s return, this year’s theme is Spirituality Through Service. Organizers wrote: “2012 Keeper of the Light T. Thorn Coyle will pass the staff to the 2015 Keeper of the Light Crystal Blanton. Our Master and Mistress of Ceremonies are Shay Black and Diana Rowan.”
The day-long event includes “altars, rituals, stage performances, speakers, Authors Circle, Druid Story Telling Pavilion, and vendors and information booths in the Pagan Market Place.” The organizers are excited to bring back this well-attended and popular festival. Local Priest Storm Faerywolf created new flyer art, giving the Festival a fresh look. More information can be found on the Bay Area Pagan Alliance’s Facebook page.
In Other News:
- Bates College in Maine has begun a public lecture series titled “Unusual Positions: Controversial Approaches to the Study of Religion and Sexuality.” Co-sponsored by the religion studies department, women and gender studies program and the humanities division, the five-part series runs into April. It finishes on April 8 with a lecture by Cherry Hill Seminary’s Christine Hoff-Kraemer on “Eros and Touch from a Pagan Perspective: Loving Touch as Divine Birthright.”
- The Aquarian Tabernacle Church (ATC) is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its annual “Spring Mysteries Festival.” This year’s event will feature “a two-day psychodrama, recreating the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece. Participants will get to see priests and priestesses representing the Gods and Goddesses as they recreate one of the most sacred rituals of ancient Greece. Festival-goers will also have the opportunity to commune with the Gods individually.” In addition, Rev. Selena Fox will be there to speak about her many years working alongside ATC Pete Pathfinder, founder of ATC. This year, ATC’s Spring Mysteries will be held from April 2-5.
- This year, MythicWorlds was held in Seattle from Feb 20-22. During the three day event, Jason Thomas Pitzl “moderated a panel discussion featuring Orion Foxwood, Grimassi Raven, and Stephanie Taylor.” The panel subject was “walking between the worlds.” He recorded the conversation and posted it on SoundCloud.
- The American Council of Witches 2015 updated its site as promised on March 1. Although not fully finished, the site now lists many of the councils members with extensive bios, as well as the group’s overall mission and stated tasks.
- Coming up at the end of the month is the 3rd online international conference of the Pagan Academic European Associates Network (PAEAN). The all-online conference is comprised of a number of panels held throughout the day. Attendees and speakers come from all over the world with a diversity of expertise and religious backgrounds. As a whole, the conference’s main focus is “the different aspects of the future and development of contemporary Pagan culture and Witchcraft practices.” PAEAN’s event is open to the public and will be held on March 31.
That’s it for now. Have a nice day.
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Our hope is to initiate discussions that may lead to a broader understanding which may facilitate a greater acceptance of Paganism in America, correcting the misinformation written by some seeking a dollar or fame, challenging our own egos at all times, and publishing as many informed works of discussion with discovery in truth as possible. Thus the mission statement of ACOW 2015. I find nothing objectionable but it seems to lack focus and leaves up in the air the previously indicated intent to codify Witchcraft.
The middle part of it merits an Onion-esque headline:
“Self-Appointed Witch Council Forms to Save Craft from Hubris” !
And yet they are data mining things said on their FB group for that book they are trying to put together and sell on the website, as well as silencing all who question their and removing entire threads that do the same. I see no evidence that they are interested in discussion and every evidence that they are seeking “a dollar or fame”.
I could almost live with the money hustling aspect of it, but does it always have to be on our community’s name? And such a schlocky scheme at that? Why can’t they just go off and steal a few million credit card numbers like the rest of the data miners? 🙂
American Council of Witches site bios are very poorly written and edited.
Yes, and so is the mission statement. Linguistically it’s on the same level as most of the offshore phishing emails.
I didn’t know if all the chuckles I had were fair or not, but it *is* Monday.
Oh good gods where do you even begin with that ACOW car crash?
1. admittedly I am not in the US so might be lacking completely but have never heard of or come across these people before so what level of clout do they hold?
2. They come across as a bunch of people from a pagan forum who decided it would a good idea to set up a group or something. Its all very…amateurish.
3. With such a number of people who have been self professed solitaries for a fair while, what on earth experience do they have to speak for, and represent a community they have not been much involved with.
It might not end well, but it will be fun watching it go wrong.
/Bitch
I think I actually have heard of one of the members, at least… Their Council member “Greybeard” looks very much like the frequent commenter on The Wild Hunt, “Greybeard Wise.”
Whether that is a strength or a weakness of the organization is left as an exercise for the student…
😉
Yeah, he seems like a right bloody riot.
American cousins, you have my sympathies 🙂
Are you British? If so, can’t you guys prevail upon that Arthur Pendragon guy to come and put an end to this madness? 🙂
Isn’t this guy kinda like, completely inoffensive?
I am indeed, I wouldn’t want to inflict Arthur on you to be honest. He can be a bit hit and miss in his targets. A few years ago he could be relied upon to be arseholed in a pub somewhere. He probably isn’t the best of what we have to offer.
It’s fair match. Your not-so-best against ours. Fighting fire with fire sort of thing, though I have to give Arthur some points for character. We can fix him up further on the green screen, give him Christopher Lee’s voice etc. And just for good measure, we’ll back him with a crew of your finest football/rugby hooligans. Big ones. And ugly – the guys who can only get better with a hit to the face from a bicycle lock!
No, it won’t even be fun to watch go wrong. It would be like watching a gang of local renfaire knights go marching off to a real present-day crusade against ISIS wearing plate mail and clapping coconut shells for the war horse effect.
It might be funny in the abstract, but it’s the kind of thing I couldn’t bear to watch play all the way out…
What further diminishes the humor for me is that some of our movement’s hard-won credibility will go down with them.
Actually, they make me nostalgic. Other than reviving an old name and creating a website, they remind me of so many flash-in-the-pan small, officious Pagan organizations I’ve seen over the decades.
I think this moment, where they’re actually being discussed on The Wild Hunt, is going to prove the pinnacle of their fame. If I am correct, they won’t have much impact on our hard-won credibility one way or the other. If I’m incorrect? They are following in some well-worn footsteps.
As Doreen Valiente once said, there are three types of Witches: good Witches, bad Witches, and publicity Witches. It is a time-honored tradition…
I think I love you.
Bugger! Now I have to grant them credit for catalyzing something positive 🙂
Who’s to say I’m not the puppet master’s puppet master? (Cue evil laughter here 🙂
Perhaps ACOW should have chosen someone with proofreading and/or editing skills to join their ranks.
I feel that way about a number of Change.org petitions.
There seems very little to instil confidence that ACOW will do anything more than either make decisions or implode in some spectacular fashion. Hopefully, given the nation specific nature of it, the results of its actions wont be too wide spread (a la liguliformean; you have my condolences U.S folks) however it is worth noting at least a few things awkward about the members and their profiles nonetheless:
– For something intended to be the public face of both the organisation and (ostensibly) all witches in the U.S, the biography pages show a dearth of professionalism. Whether spelling mistakes, phrases that don’t make sense or austentatious claims that don’t seem to be verifiable.
– When something reads like a biography on an unpopular modern fantasy role playing website, it says a lot. There is a difference between being ‘authentic’ (an greatly overused word in general these days) and straining credulity in even the most flexible of minds.
– Related to the previvous: I used to think that it was impressive (but crazy) that my mother had to carry a diary for the current year and one for the next year in order properly schedule her meetings and what-have-you. Looking at some of these biographies I wonder if perhaps some of these people could be making more significant contributions to humanity by persuing these many, many fields they have studied. Surely the discoveries would be, enlightening. That or the real secret behind ACOW is that they, like the Time Lords, have mastered the control of Time.
– Not everyone has had my benefit of growing up with the Internet being an everyday thing, having the skills to use a computer and the Internet from an early age etc; that said, for something intended to be an official frontage, the biography page is amateurish at best in terms of its layout, design and formating.
– For a council purporting to represent all witches in the United States, there are a surprising number of commonalities shared across all the biographies. Things that are and are not there.
– Much like the prevailing attitude that mistakenly says that by merit of a person being an expert in a field they are therefore able to teach said field to others; decades of being [insert here], having gifts or blessings of X, Y and or Z, being an author, etc, et al… None of it makes you capable of managing a group of people who make herding cats look easy. Not a single mention of any kind of leadership, managerial, directorial, or any other kind of ‘in charge’ role held currently or experience thereof.
Its sad that ACOW is occupying so much attention at the moment, particularly in light of things like Daesh/ISIL/Islamic State destruction of millenia old artefacts but hopefully the constant scatching and thinly veiled reprisals will cause ACOW to either put a (much) better foot forward or back down entirely.
Destruction of antiquities makes me actively sick. That’s history stolen from all of use, future generations as well.
THAT is ACOW’s big reveal? I was hoping to find something that either proved our skepticism wrong or at least something worthy of stinging criticism. What finally came out is just kinda sad. We have a roster of names at least, not a single one of which I have ever heard. That in itself might not be a fatal obstacle, though it does say something about the gravitas of the effort.
They have still not managed to articulate anything substantial about their real purpose for existing and what it is they propose to do, or by what mandate they have to do any of it in the name of witches generally.
For any organization, and especially one with aspirations to a national identity, to earn legitimacy, it must be able to answer several very basic questions: What is the nature of the problem which you propose to solve, and which is not being adequately served by existing organizations? How are you particularly qualified and well-positioned to take on that problem? What specific constituency do you represent and through what kind of consent/mandate? What do you propose to do in terms of work, on Day One and over the next five years? ALL of those pieces should be in place when a new org goes live and sends its first press release. None of these things are in place for ACOW 2015 weeks on from announcing itself to the world.
Look at the mission statement, which is essentially all we have to go on beyond bios. It’s a ragbag of positive-sounding but utterly non-specific things. It speaks about raising awareness and correcting misconceptions. That’s nice, but don’t we already have a thousand different interfaith initiatives and Pagan Pride events and organizations which have been doing this for decades? There is something mushy about saving the Craft from financial or fame-seeking exploitation and egos even as they seem to be using the whole thing as vehicles for their own names and work. Finally, the mission speaks to an ambition about publishing stuff. Really cool and informative stuff!
If this were just some local group or Pagan artist co-op, this amateurism could all be chalked up to the work of newbies finding their feet in the organizational game. To roll out this vapid nonsense under the name and legacy of ACOW is insulting. This new effort has none of the juice of the 1970s project.
The 2011 abortive effort left the name with an enormous credibility gap. Rather than getting their ducks in a row to try to overcome that gap, the new organizers rolled out something every bit as premature and sketchy and then got angry with us and Pagan reporters who dared press them on details.
This project is not simply premature. It is stillborn.
How can journalists take ACOW seriously?
They might for the simple reason that most mainstream media do not invest the time, money or interest to report about religion in any depth. That’s even true of the big Abrahamic denominations, and minority religions get the one-off at midsummer or Halloween.
Sometimes journalists go with whoever is easiest to find and answers the phone consistently. Then, too, a title as lofty as “American Council of Witches” certainly sounds authoritative and widely representative.
At the same time, I’m not too worried about ACOW in that respect for a few reasons. One, I sense they have climbed down somewhat from their initial ambitions to represent others, though they still seem to cling to the implication in a big name. Two, I think the average Pagan today is more media-savvy and perfectly willing to reach out to media sources and tell them who does and does not speak for us.
Finally, I don’t think ACOW has yet figured out enough of its business to even tell the media anything concrete about itself let alone the wider movement.
They just come across as amateurs, bumblers and goofballs without both oars in the water. IMO, that’s a story itself, that journalists outside the Neo-pagan sphere will pick up on. Do we need that? No.
Now that this controversial person is alleged to be ACOW’s puppet master, that’s more fodder. If I was a journo, I’d be sniffing around this.
It’s really not such a hard concept. If you want to serve the Pagan community–or any community–find a job in need of doing, and begin work. As you do the work, others who see the same need will join you, if you are doing it well. At that point, build the organization and let a wider audience know what you have to offer.
But begin with the work, not the publicity. That way lies… let’s just say, being the butt of a certain amount of satire.
Let the work you have done define you, not your publicity packets.
Does anyone else think A COW’s logo looks like it came from the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval?
I’m amused that I recognized one of the ACoW folks, Frodo Okulam, because I’ve read her book on Julian of Norwich. In the ’80s and ’90s I read almost everything that was published on Julian and her Revelations. Other than that, I got nothin’.
I have nothing good to say about the #ACoW15:
https://cymraes.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/the-american-council-of-witches-plagiarised-me-and-others/
I found your blog about this earlier and was about to link to it, far more appropriate that you do 🙂
Be my guest – link away 🙂
ACoW is a joke. Their mediocre, shoddy attempt at reviving this project has failed, horribly. Not only have their supporters been plagiarized by them, those with any solid questions about how the organzation operateor intends to move forward have been silenced and censored.
Their council members claim long lists of false credentials leave no room for trust or credibilityeccept maybe by proxy of the Name or others who the may convince to be on their council. At one point the chairwoman took the false credentials down graciuously claiming that it was detracting from the real work that needed to be done which was apparently erasing a significant percentage of questions and posts from members of the Facebook page because of the overwhelming negative response to openess and respectful discourse. There are screen caps of proof floating around the internet somewhere. I am sure a reddit thread amd tumblr have already been buzzed.
Did I mention? Zero transparancy and banning people who question their authority on their social media page for asking real questions about vetting protocols for members who claim they belong to a traditional path.
Stay away from these charlatains, the will suck you dry if you let them amd clap on to your coat tails for validity.
I got banned for mentioning their “upcoming book” that they planned to fill using Facebook Contents… *supposedly* from a “secret” group, but since they lifted their FAQs DIRECTLY from their Facebook page, WITHOUT accreditation or permission….
Yeah.
I’ll believe their not “mining” their “tell us how you’d Change the Thirteen Values” At. All.
/Extreme sarcasm
Oh, and I have proof from a Council Member that Robert Aaron of Unity Of Wicca fame, and the attempted “GoFundMe-gimme your spells for FREE” BOS attempt is actually the “man behind the curtain” and “Dr” Herman is actually fronting for him.
Alas, this doesn’t allow screen Caps, but I do have them.
So finally, there is a rhyme and reason for this seemingly out-of-no-where decision to resurrect ACOW. Thank you for the information. Now we know that behind the poorly edited mediocrity is a disturbing agenda.
For those of you who know who Robert Aaron is, he is the puppetmaster here woth ACoW. Onece upon a tome he was affiliated with another mainstreaming, pagan pimpimping organization called Unity of Wicca which has spawned many sorry franchses and breeding grounds for predators. This is a scary cultish attempt to gain noteriety. He is promising to puBlish books on behalf of the council and claims that their participation will bring fame and glory. Stay away, stay far away from this organization. the cluless do not realize they are signing their sould over to the devil homself. The original founding members are all turning in their graves.