Caroline Kenner to retire from Sacred Space conference

HUNT VALLEY, Md. –When the doors are opened for this year’s Sacred Space conference on the ides of March, it will be the last time Caroline Kenner attends the opening ritual as a board member. Kenner helped relaunch and re-imagine the conference after it spent time in “dry dock” last decade, and she is the last of that group to remain involved. Her retirement quietly closes a chapter for the Sacred Space Foundation, the nonprofit through which the conference is organized, but her presence will remain: all but one of the remaining board members have been her students. There is a long tradition of esoteric gatherings in the shadow of the nation’s capital.

Pagan Community Notes: Damh the Bard, Nature’s Path, Mountain Magic and more

GLASTONBURY, England — Popular musician Damh the Bard made mainstream headlines last week after delivering a talk at the Occult Conference in Glastonbury. During that talk, Damh discussed a ritual that he once co-led during a weekend camp back in 2005. The Daily Express published the story synopsis with the headline, “Top druid ‘slit people’s throats’ in bizarre Pagan sacrificial death ritual held in U.K.” Writer John Austin writes that Damh said in his talk that the attendees “were left convinced they had died after his mock execution,” which was done when Damh ran his fingernail across their throats. The Wild Hunt contacted with Damh to find out what exactly happened at the conference and what he said in his talk. In an email interview, he told us that the reporter sat quietly, observing the entire conference without asking questions.