Living

Column: Ásatrú Ritual and Climate Change Ethics, Part One

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The Ásatrú religion can offer new perspectives on climate change ethics via examination of the modern practice of historically grounded ritual known as blót – a rite that foregrounds reciprocity with the earth, inherent value in the natural world, transtemporal human relationships, global connectedness, and the consequences of human action. In addition to discussing Ásatrú textual sources and examples of ritual, this column offers a new ethical model for responding to issues of climate change. Ásatrú is a religion with a life that already relates to reality in a way that addresses major issues raised by climate change ethicists. Practitioners are both certain and competent in a life-practice that directly engages relationships within the transtemporal human community and with the wider world. Through study of lore and celebration of ritual, the practice of Ásatrú reinforces understanding of reciprocal relationships with the natural world, inherent value of living things, connections to past and future peoples, interrelatedness of all human actors, and consequences of human actions.

News

Multiple reports of ritualistic torture in New England leave Voodoo practitioners cringing

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MASSACHUSETTS –Two apparently unrelated cases of child torture and murder in this state have been attributed to Voodoo by the perpetrators, which has led to precisely the sort of negative attention in the media that practitioners of African traditional religions seek to avoid. The word “voodoo” is often used in the mainstream to refer to spiritual practices of the African diaspora that emerged in the Caribbean, and have strong elements of animism and magic use. The practices are also sometimes syncretized with Christianity. That six-letter spelling is mostly associated with Louisiana or New Orleans Voodoo, while practitioners of the Haitian variant prefer to spell it “Vodou” instead. Regardless of the spelling, it is a tradition that has been sensationalized in film and on television for close to a century, which leads many adherents to avoid interviews about their practices even if it’s for a positive reason.

Paganism

Column: Uh-oh, it’s Magic

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It’s that time again. We are close to Imbolc (and Lupercalia) and the largest and, I think, most public display of Paganism, is about to get underway.   Personally, I think the event is intentionally inspiring both emotionally and mechanically, and its equal comes only rarely. This gathering is magic. I’m always impressed by the careful planning, attention to detail that a complicated event requires. The organizers must attend — often in painstaking detail — to the varied and storied mystical community that attends the gathering.

Culture

Musician Wendy Rule goes techno with live-streamed full moon concerts

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SANTE FE, N.M. — When Wendy Rule led a full moon ritual on Jan. 1 at her home in Santa Fe, some 1,200 people took part as the Australian-born Witch tapped her snake-emblazoned frame drum to invoke the spirits of air, fire, water, and earth. But those 1,200 ritual participants didn’t have to crowd into or around the 1930s adobe home that Rule shares with her husband, Timothy Van Diest, below the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Instead, Rule said, her fellow ritualists were participating through their “crystal balls.”

Those ritualists watched as Rule, a musician who proudly identifies herself as both Witch and Pagan, picked up her guitar and performed her gentle ballad “My Sister the Moon.” Then, over the next hour, Rule continued to weave music, myth, meditation, magic and magical affirmations before closing the sacred circle by expressing gratitude to the Goddess, “moonlight, sunlight, the light within us” and . .

Culture

Column: Six Heathens Speak of Fall

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The fall equinox is celebrated in many different ways by practitioners of Ásatrú and Heathenry. Those who practice modern forms of polytheistic religions rooted in Northern Europe have revived, reconstructed, and reimagined a variety of practices and rituals to mark the turning of the year from summer to autumn. Haustblót (autumn sacrifice) is mentioned by name in the saga of the Icelandic warrior-poet Egill Skallagrímsson. The Ynglinga Saga of Snorri Sturluson tells of laws established by the god Odin, including the timing of the main annual sacrifices:
Þá skyldi blóta í móti vetri til árs, en at miðjum vetri blóta til gróðrar, hit þriðja at sumri, þat var sigrblót. There should be sacrifice toward winter for a good year, and in the middle of winter sacrifice for a good crop, a third in summer, that was victory sacrifice.