Archdruid John Michael Greer and the Four Quarters Sanctuary figure in this article on “doom time religion.”
Based on my limited experience, a strong religious emphasis might hold a communal group together. Otherwise, the people you need are not always the ones who want to live in the commune. The hard workers don’t want to have to carry a bunch of parasites and wannabes who think that “communal living” equals “easy.”
M. gave me this vintage (late 1940s) Smith-Corona “Silent” portable typewriter for my birthday earlier this month. Let it be a sign. Time to start writing—with the latest technology!
Speaking of writing, my former department chairman used to teach a once-weekly one-credit course called “Careers for English Majors.” He would bring in outside speakers, and he always tapped me to talk about a writer’s career path.
But there isn’t one.
Some people figure that out, e.g., Cassie Boorn, 24, in this article, “Six Young Female Journalists, One Year Later.”
Here is what I spent the past year learning; there is no path to success. Social media changed everything, the recession ruined most industries, too many people go to college and any sort of path that once existed is gone. That path is now paved with women who are too poor to have children and burn out by the time they are thirty. Forget the path you have been sold and make your own. Start a blog, major in Philosophy, have a baby in college, pitch a story to Forbes, ask too many questions, take things apart and put them back together and turn it into a good story.
The path is that there is no path. If you are a writer, you will be writing. Says another of the six, speaking of her still-younger self, “My diaries read like chapter books, with clear beginnings, middles, and ends as I planned, undertook, and achieved milestones.”
That kind of thing.
Salafist Muslims proclaim that eating tomatoes might lead you down the false path to Christianity.
The group posted a photo on its page of a tomato – which appears to reveal the shape of a cross after being cut in half – along with the message: “Eating tomatoes is forbidden because they are Christian. [The tomato] praises the cross instead of Allah and says that Allah is three (a reference to the Trinity).
[God help us]. I implore you to spread this photo because there is a sister from Palestine who saw the prophet of Allah [Mohammad] in a vision and he was crying, warning his nation against eating them [tomatoes]. If you don’t spread this [message], know that it is the devil who stopped you.”
Silly fundamentalists. Eating tomatoes will lead you to worship Coatlicue.
A history and defense of free speech — from an Australian perspective. As Zendo Deb says, it’s worth ten minutes of your time.
I saw this video at The Wild Hunt this morning and wanted to give it more circulation. It is beautifully done — a visual reflection on one person’s (?) or a small group’s (?) clandestine effort to revive a Pagan pilgrimage in the ancient Lebanese city of Sidon, an observance that was suppressed seventeen hundred years ago. This is how the old gods and their followers began once again to meet each other.
At The Juggler, Zan continues the series on witches in pop culture with a look at the 1990s.
No, I did not know that Charmed wins the category of “longest-running hour-long series that features a trio of women.” But then it started after M. and I had moved up into the hills where, not being committed enough to TV to get a satellite dish, we get by with one or two channels.
If you watch this video, the original Latin lyrics for “O Fortuna” will be erased from your brain. You have been warned.
If you do watch, save the Wikipedia link above.
The trouble with book lists — like this list of “27 essential Pagan books” — is that no two readers’ lists are the same.
On the other hand, I am pretty pleased with number 16.
And I am happy to see Michael Strmiska getting some recognition too.
So says the mother of the man shot by Miami police while eating the face of his victim.
But catch what the girlfriend says: ” ‘ That wasn’t him, that was his body but it wasn’t his spirit. Somebody did this to him,’ WFOR quotes her as saying.”
Isn’t that pretty close to the pop-culture definition of zombie? (Professor Davis, no need to call your office.)
Should we consider Rudy Eugene to be Patient Zero in the zombie outbreak—unless that dubious honor should have gone to this woman, three years ago?
UPDATE: Music for the Zombie Apocalypse.
And remember, even the Obama Administration wants you to prepare for the zombie apocalypse.
A visit to an intentional community devoted to Santo Daime, more often known as the entheogenic drug ayahuasca, complete with authoritarian spiritual leader and chorus of virgins.