Paganism

Column: Of Apologies and Eagles

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This coming Friday and Saturday will mark the most sacred of yearly Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur. As a child, I remember my mother explaining that Yom Kippur was “a day to atone for our sins.”  Having grown up only culturally Jewish, I stared back blankly.  A what? Sin?  She eventually clarified by saying, “It is a day to say you’re sorry.”  That I understood. In a recent Huffington Post article, lawyer Diane Danois contemplates the words “I am sorry” in relation to her Jewish faith.

Culture

Where science and religion meet: a discussion with Jeff Mach

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What do Druidry, the Steampunk Movement, Nikola Tesla, Isaac Bonewits and Staten Island all have in common? Answer:  Jeff Mach

Jeff Mach is a modern Druid and founder of New Jersey-based Widdershins, LLC (a.k.a. Jeff Mach Events), the production company behind the popular Steampunk World’s Fair, Wicked Faire and other similarly-themed events.  More recently, he began producing The Geek Creation Show, a fundraising event to benefit the Tesla Museum at Wardenclyffe on Staten Island. The Museum will be a science learning center at the reconstructed laboratory of famed-scientist, Nikola Tesla.  By raising these funds, Mach is able to give something back to the local community.

News

Facebook, Witch-Hunts and the Stand for Human Rights

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This past week we witnessed a crescendo of frustration and fury fly from the global Pagan community in the direction of a Facebook Fan Page called “Witches Must Die by Fire” and a Facebook Group called “Those Witches nd Wizzards [sic] should die by Fire by Force.”  The rally cries came by way of social media, blogs and email.  At this point, I would include the links but the “pages” were removed by Facebook around 4pm EST on Thursday, August 23 2013. These offending Facebook “pages” advocated for the extrication and burning of alleged witches and wizards throughout the world. Using a Christian fundamentalist context, the moderators repeatedly preached their gospel on the evils of witchcraft while celebrating all attempts to defeat it.  As proof of witchcraft’s existence, the Fan Page displayed a photo of a South African-Zimbabwe sensationalist rag called H Metro Zim with a headline that read something like “Woman gives birth to frogs…daily.”
Let’s first examine the pages themselves and who owned them? The answer is important because it contextualizes the accusations and religious zealotry.

Paganism

Patterns, Histories, and Tendencies of Place

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“The Parks Department may not want me here, but this land tells me otherwise.”
We were standing on the north bank of the Willamette River, where I had come down to check up on a friend who had lived on the river next to the boat landing for as long as I had known her. I had come to the riverbank bearing root beer, but Mary Ann met me at her entryway bearing bad news and a yellow piece of paper. Maintenance workers had just come through the area earlier in the afternoon, and the yellow paper had been left taped to her door. She was being evicted from her home. I looked around, forgetting for a moment as I always did that her “home” was not a house in the traditional sense, but a primitive hut built from waddling and covered with a canvas tarp that was tucked away within the confines of a city-owned park.

News

Civil Disobedience in Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County

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What happens when one suburban county decides that it doesn’t like its state’s laws and openly defies them? 

It all began on June 26th when the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) declared DOMA (The Defense of Marriage Act) unconstitutional in the case of The United States vs. Windsor. By that ruling, all legally married same-sex couples are now entitled to federal benefits. The key phrase here is “legally married.”  The U.S. federal government does not issue marriage licenses. That job falls to the states, many of which do not recognize same-sex marriage at all.