Paganism

Column: Ritual as Action, Action as Ritual

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[Today we welcome Liz Cruse, a poet , passionate environmentalist and Druid in the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids. Cruse has worked as a nurse, health educator and trainer and has a profound interest in plants for healing, magic and food. She has Degrees in History and English and a Masters in Art History. Cruse facilitates workshops in the areas of Druidry and protection of the land. Recently she participated in the Generation Hex: Paganism and Politics at Cambridge University Department of Anthropology.]

I am standing in a field holding the northern gateway in a ceremony.

Paganism

Column: To Make the Voice of the Criminal Audible

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Jean Genet’s text “The Criminal Child,” previously unavailable in English, was translated and published in December 2015. An anonymous commentary on the text, included as an afterword within the same pamphlet, reads “The Criminal Child” as an intricately coded set of instructions for magical initiation and ordeal. “The Criminal Child” was originally written in 1948 as a speech to be read on a radio show in order to address reforms to France’s youth prisons that had been proposed at the time. It was rejected and never read on the air. When Genet published the censored text the following year, he wrote in his introduction, “I would have liked to make the voice of the criminal audible.

Paganism

Culture and Community: Countdown to PantheaCon

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For many people January symbolizes the start of one of the busiest times of the year. It is the start of the New Year, post holiday detox time, and a time for goal setting and planning. It is also during this month that PantheaCon preparation kicks into high gear for many people, and the count down to the mid-February convention begins. PantheaCon, a Pan-Pagan convention, consistently draws between 2,000 and 3,000 participants a year to San Jose, California for four days of non-stop magic, music, shopping and fun. It is at this time we see fundraising requests for hospitality suites, Facebook invites for workshops, and an increasing number of updates from the PantheaCon staff as the date gets closer.

Paganism

Column: What the Rain Will Bring

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I’ve spent almost my entire life in river cities. Follow the Missouri River and you’ll find a trail of my old homes – Kansas City, Columbia, and my hometown, St. Louis, where the Missouri enters the Mississippi. These cities, which form the Orion’s Belt of the state of Missouri, exist because of the river: American settlers following the course of the waterways, setting up trading posts and salt licks along its course, and before them, indigenous peoples from cultures as varied in time as the Kickapoo and the Mississippians. Without the rivers, the cities and the people in them don’t exist; their courses provide shape to the geography of human life.

News

Column: La Letra del Año 2016 (The Letter of the Year 2016)

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The Priests of Ifá (Babalawos) in Cuba have released their annual prognosis and recommendations about the energies of the year called La Letra del Año, or The Letter of the Year. The Letter is not just a statement, but rather an event that culminates in its release. Priests of Ifá gathered last week in preparation. As the new year enters, the priests, through castings and discernment, gauge the change in energies, and offer their guidance to maintain spiritual balance and strength. I thought it might be helpful to offer a brief glossary before looking at the Letter and describing its meaning.