Back in 2000, I was writing an article about a prescribed fire on the national forest near my home, so I hiked in with the ignition crew. Some point during the day, I heard a radio crackle with the message, “Come up that little ridge and bring fire with you.” Bring fire with you. I [...]
A British historian argues that Robin Hood was based on a guerrilla bowman nicknamed Willikin of the Weald, although he might have passed through Sherwood Forest. (A snippet of the longer article from History Today) That puts him fighting for “bad King John” (a minus) but against the French (always a plus for an English [...]
My old friend Oberon Zell of the Church of All Worlds is backing this show because he designed some jewelry for the characters. A Facebook commenter calls the show “the kind of CRAP our spiritual community has had to put up with for decades!” According to the projected TV series’ website, Janet, Crystle, and Tawnya [...]
“Two nations live in this country — the Icelandic nation and this invisible nation.” Huldufólk 102 is a wonderful 2006 documentary about Icelanders’ relationship with the Hidden Folk (elves, fairies) in their landscape. You can watch it online here (74 min.) Here is the trailer. One of my favorite parts starts eight minutes in, when a [...]
Religion Dispatches lists five important new books on alternative and metaphysical spirituality in America — I prefer that to saying they are about the “nones,” which is a vague term — yes, well, so is “alternative.” Catherine Albanese of UC-Santa Barbara has done important work in identifying first the non-theistic “nature religion” current in American [...]
First, although this is not directly about “the Goddess movement,” I want to point out the blogging that Aidan Kelly has been doing, particularly about the history of contemporary Paganism in America, at his Patheos blog, Including Paganism. Another resource is Dancing with Gaia, a video subtitled “Earth Energy, Sacred Sexuality, the Return of the [...]
Not just a cult-favorite TV show but an issue of free speech on campus at the University of Wisconsin. With Neil Gaiman and a thick-headed campus police chief. Don’t underestimate the fans of Firefly. UPDATE: Sorry, the YouTube link disappeared for a while.
The trailer to a new documentary, The WinniPagans, focusing on the (largely Wiccan, I think) Pagan scene in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It will be available as video-on-demand — details at the website Complete with a cute Pagan puppy and a nice shot of Boletus edulis.
Don’t count on me for breaking pop-culture news. That Pagan classic film The Wicker Man was released in 1973, but I did not see it until the mid-1980s. I always say that I missed the 1980s in pop-culture terms. Part of that was due to graduate school and a general turn away from or just [...]
On Peg Aloi’s recommendation, I recently watched Season of the Witch, also known as Hungry Wives. As Peg mentioned, part of it is witchcraft-meets-Second Wave feminism, and part of it acknowledges the whole “occult explosion” of the late 1960s-early 1970s. Maybe it it is what the old Bewitched series would have been if that show had any [...]
