East coast Pagans and Heathens endure a winter blast

Over the weekend, the east coast was hit with record snow falls, blizzard conditions, white-outs, thunder snow and more as a Winter Storm “Jonas” came in for a visit. According to The Weather Channel, who began naming these winter storms in 2011, Jonas is the “largest snowstorm on record for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Baltimore; and JFK Airport in New York City, with all of those locations receiving over 2 feet of snow.” As far south as Georgia through New York, the snow fell in varying degrees, and Pagans and Heathens took to social media to report the conditions at their locations. We reached out to a number of them to get a better idea of the conditions. Hardest hit was the New Jersey, Washington D.C. and New York City metro regions.

Pagan Community Notes: Taylor Ellwood’s Open Letter, The Pagan Marketplace, The Golden Dawn and more!

Publisher and author Taylor Ellwood has posted two open letters to Pagan convention organizers asking for, at least, partial expense compensation. In the first open letter, he writes, “In my pursuit of self-respect, one of the realizations I’ve been having is that how I allow my work and myself to be treated professionally is indicative of the respect I’m giving to myself. And if I don’t set standards and boundaries for that treatment then I’ll get walked all over.” Ellwood goes on to say that he will no longer present at conferences with the exception of three already scheduled in 2016. He argues that his presence as a guest helps bring people to the conference, and that the promised exposure received in return doesn’t pay his bills.

Culture and Community: Black Lives Mattering At The Parliament

[Crystal Blanton is one of our talented monthly columnists. She writes the Culture and Community column, focusing on a number of very vital community topics, like the one below. If you like reading her work, please consider donating to our fall funding campaign and sharing our IndieGoGo link. There are only 9 days left! It is your wonderful and dedicated support that makes it possible for Crystal to be part of our writing team.

Pagan Community Notes: Robert Rudachyk, Fairy Survey, Many Gods West, Heathen Groups and more!

Heathen Robert Rudachyk has announced his candidacy for Canada’s Liberal Party of Saskatchewon. Rudachyk ran in 2014 and, in an interview with The Wild Hunt, talked about his goals and his work as an openly Heathen candidate. He said, “If I am able to become the candidate, I intend to run my campaign on the issues facing all Canadians, not on my faith. I will never hide who I am, but I will also not whip my hammer out in public and shove it into people’s faces.” This year, Rudachyk is running “to be elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly ( MLA) for this seat or district as you might call it. It is for the provincial government of Saskatchewan It is essentially the provincial parliament.” The campaign was just announced, and we will have more from Rudachyk in the weeks to come.

Mystical Mashup: Sacred Space Joins Forces with Between the Worlds

HUNT VALLEY, MARYLAND –When at any single Pagan conference with a robust lineup of workshops, panels, and rituals, a participant might find it difficult to choose what to attend and what to pass on. When two conferences join forces, those decisions become, at very least, four times as difficult to make. Such was the experience for 3-400 people who attended the combined Sacred Space and Between the Worlds conference in Maryland this past weekend. These two events became one this year through a combination of cooperation and astrology. Sacred Space is an annual conference which is held around this time.