Pagan Community Notes

Pagan Community Notes: Polytheist Leadership Conference, Polytheist.com, Cherry Hill Seminary, and More!

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Pagan Community Notes is a series focused on news originating from within the Pagan community. Reinforcing the idea that what happens to and within our organizations, groups, and events is news, and news-worthy. My hope is that more individuals, especially those working within Pagan organizations, get into the habit of sharing their news with the world. So let’s get started! As mentioned last week, the recently concluded inaugural Polytheist Leadership Conference was considered a success by all who attended.

Paganism

(Pagan) Books to Look For: Raven Grimassi, Brendan Myers, Christine Hoff Kraemer, and More!

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With all apologies to Charles de Lint for borrowing his column’s title, here are some recently released and upcoming books that I think readers of The Wild Hunt will be interested in checking out. “Facing the Darkness” by Cat Treadwell: We all face times of crisis and depression in our lives, and Druid Priest Cat Treadwell shares her strategies for supporting Pagans (and others) on their healing path(s). Quote: “Facing the Darkness aims to support those going through times of crisis and depression – primarily Pagan, but accessible to all. Utilizing Pagan spiritual imagery, skills and perspectives, a combination of inspirational text and easy exercises work with images and stories to distract and encourage for short-term relief and long-term healing. From the apparent hopelessness of deep night through to the inevitable return of sunrise, Nature imagery, tales of mythology and Deity combine in accessible meditations, activities and anecdotes to remind the reader that they are not alone on their path through the darkness.

Paganism

UK Pagans React to Same Sex Marriage Legalization

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This week a law was passed that will make same-sex marriage legal in England and Wales. The landmark legislation, approved by Queen Elizabeth II, clears the way for legal marriages to start in 2014. The way the new law is structured, religious organizations must “opt in” in order to perform a legally binding ceremony. This historic move follows recent advances for same-sex marriage in parts of the United States and for all of France. Just as I collected reactions from modern Pagans in America following the DOMA/Prop 8 Supreme Court decisions, so too did I want to see how Pagans in England and Wales felt about this development.

Hounds

Unleash the Hounds! (Link Roundup)

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There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up. According to a Gallup poll, confidence in organized religion has reached an all-time low in the United States. Only 44% of those polled had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in “the church or organized religion” today. Quote: “Two major findings apparent in Gallup’s confidence in the church and organized religion trend are, first, the long-term decline in Americans’ confidence in this societal institution since 1973, and second, the suppressed confidence among Catholics relative to Protestants starting in 1981, and becoming more pronounced by 2002.”