The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/erick-dupree/page/2)
Yes it is true. Instagram, the photo sharing social media site, has banned the searchable hashtag #goddess. As could have been predicted, there is now a growing, worldwide backlash against the move. The new rallying tag is #BringBacktheGoddess. In mid July, Instagram, a Facebook Inc. company, decided to ban the term #goddess to help curb policy violations.
[With the Summer Solstice just a week away, we decided to take a pause from our regular schedule and invite Erick DuPree back to share his thoughts on this seasonal celebration. DuPree is the author of Alone in Her Presence: Meditations on the Goddess and editor of Finding the Masculine in Goddess’ Spiral. He teaches heart-centered practices that unite breath to heart, inviting a holistic relationship with the Goddess. His writing can be found on his own website as well as on the Patheos Pagan Channel.]
“Who made the world?” begins Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day … “Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?”
It is all over the media – the hot story for summer. Caitlyn Jenner makes her first public appearance before the entire world. With help from photographer Annie Leibovitz, Jenner introduces herself on the cover of the upcoming July issue of Vanity Fair magazine. Wearing a white, strapless bathing suit with her brown locks cascading down around her shoulders, Jenner recalls the romantic images of golden age Hollywood starlets. Jenner’s story has captured the media’s attention, from newspapers to ESPN broadcasters.
The use of the internet in modern Paganism has changed the way that people access information and express themselves in modern culture. One of the most widely used mediums for information sharing has become the blogosphere. Pagan blogs range from having an academic theme to the purely personal, and everything in between. The popular transition from reading books to reading blogs has created a culture of fast information gathering and the ability for everyone to have a format. This has also contributed to the idea that everyone is a potential “expert,” making the distinctions of reliability challenging.
[As this is the weekend that many Pagans celebrate Imbolc, we are taking a pause from our regular schedule and have invited Erick Dupree to share his thoughts on the seasonal celebration. Dupree is the author of Alone in Her Presence: Meditations on the Goddess and is a co-founder in the Dharma Pagan movement. He teaches heart-centered practices that unite breath to heart, inviting a Tantric relationship with the Goddess. His writing can be found on his own website as well as on the Patheos Pagan Channel.]
We are approaching that time of year, the moment between Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. It is for many Pagans, the birth of spring’s great return from the darkness of winter’s embrace. We celebrate this time as Imbolc, a cross-quarter day within the Wheel of the Year, a time for initiations, a festival of candle-light, and of the Goddess beginning her life-cycle again, ever anew.