Now that the Veterans Administration has granted the Wiccan pentacle as a grave marker, the quest for Thor’s hammer begins.
Pesky polytheists!
Quick Notes
¶ I went away for a high-school graduation and a small family reunion in one of the non-fashionable parts of Colorado, a trip that prompted these thoughts in my other blog.
¶ Ian Jamison, a British Pagan graduate student, seeks people to take The Pagan Environmental Engagement Survey. In some instances, such as the political parties environmental groups listed and the assumption that taxation is the cure for pollution, it has a British slant, but Pagans from other countries will still relate to most of it.
¶ A New York Times article describes Wicca as “a religion under wraps.”
Wicca and Christianity
I have not yet seen it, but English scholar Jo Pearson has a new book, Wicca and the Christian Heritage. Amazon-UK link here.
From the publisher’s catalog:
What is Wicca? Is it witchcraft, Paganism, occultism, esotericism, magic, spirituality, mysticism, nature religion, secrecy, gnosis, the exotic or ‘other’? Wicca has been defined by and explored within all these contexts over the past thirty years by anthropologists, sociologists and historians, but there has been a tendency to sublimate and negate the role of Christianity in Wicca’s historical and contemporary contexts.
Joanne Pearson ‘prowls the borderlands of Christianity’ to uncover the untold history of Wicca. Exploring the problematic nature of the Wiccan claim of marginality, it contains a groundbreaking analysis of themes in Christian traditions that are inherent in the development of contemporary Wicca. These focus on the accusations which have been levelled against Catholisicm, heterodoxy and witchcraft throughout history: ritual, deviant sexuality and magic.
Baca County Beltane
In the photo, the Beltane Sun (astronomical Beltane–May 5) has recently risen. When it appeared on the horizon, it fit right into the little notch in the rock just below its current position–an alignment that happens only on Beltane and Lammas.
The site, on private land, is known to the students of archaeological sites as “the Sun Temple.” I went there last weekend with filmmaker Scott Monahan, researcher Phil Leonard, and Martin Brennan, author of several books on Irish megalithic alignments, including The Boyne Valley Vision and The Stones of Time.
Some people prepare for ritual with baths and meditation, but maybe a 150-mile drive into the gradually darkening prairie works as well. A little synchronicity: on the way to La Junta, I heard the NPR report on the Neolithic temple unearthed in Ireland.
We camped at the site. A wall of lightning flickered silently to the north. Some 200 miles to the east, Greensburg, Kan., was being obliterated, but we did not know it. Our part of Colorado, which had been smashed by blizzards last winter, was warm and quiet. A great horned owl and a screech owl called from the cliffs.
Left: Martin Brennan viewing the sunrise.
On of the cliffs, someone centuries ago scraped the rock smooth and pecked a circle a little bigger than a human head. If you sit precariously so that your head is in the circle, then you see the alignment. A couple of alleged ogham inscriptions are nearby.
I am not qualified to judge the ogham, but I know that more and more (although still few) people visit such sites at the appropriate days. They watch as the old drama of sky, Sun, and rock plays out for a few seconds on a quarter or cross-quarter days. Afterwards, I suspect, they feel a little different about their place on this planet and on the southern High Plains.
This is not my Beltane post
But the Beltane post is coming. Maybe tomorrow. It was interesting–meaningful in a kind of low-key way.
And should I mention that it is snowing? Just another springtime in the southern Colorado foothills.
Postcards from the Future that Never Was
From a German chocolate maker in 1900, postcards showing life in 2000.
Thank the gods we never got to the personal flying machines, when you consider how some people drive in just two dimensions.
The source is Paleo-Future, a blog that looks into “the future that never was.” (Via Making Light.)
What I Will Be Doing for Beltane
Yes, “will be doing.” Some people look at the calendar and say that Beltane is this evening and tomorrow. Others celebrated last weekend, according to the “weekend nearest the cross-quarter day” rule. Only by that rule, it comes next weekend.
By the Sun, it falls on Saturday the 5th, as this archaeastronomical Web site will show you.
I plan to visit one of the archaeastronomical sites in southeastern Colorado of which I have written before. This one, the Sun Temple, as the contemporary researchers call it, will be new to me. Something is supposed to happen there on the cross-quarter days. I hope to post photos and/or video links next week.
Meanwhile, you may decide if Beltane and the other cross-quarter and quarter days is
a. Calculated by the solar/astronomical calendar.
b. Calculated by the secular calendar and celebrants’ work schedules.
c. A week-long season, so the day does not matter.
If (a) or (b), is it better to celebrate early to get “rising energy” or as close to the actual moment as possible?
Teen Witches and Sociologists
Teenage Witches: Magical Youth and the Search for Self, a sociological study of young Pagan Witches, will be shipping in a few days from Rutgers University Press.
I have heard co-authors Helen Berger and Doug Ezzy give presentations from their research, which is excellent.
From the Rutgers University Press catalog:
As Helen A. Berger and Douglas Ezzy show in this in-depth look into the lives of teenage Witches, the reality of their practices, beliefs, values, and motivations is very different from the sensational depictions we see in popular culture. Drawing on extensive research across three countries-the United States, England, and Australia-and interviews with young people from diverse backgrounds, what they find are highly spiritual and self-reflective young men and women attempting to make sense of a postmodern world via a religion that celebrates the earth and emphasizes self-development.
Not to be confused with Silver Ravenwolf’s Teen Witch.
The Wight-Hand Path
Robin Artisson has an interesting posting on house-wights and land-wights:
Land wights and house wights are kin to humans, in many ways. They are another population of sentient beings that share our world, and we spring from the same source, the same web of life. The same Gods that preside over the human world also act as “chief powers” over the wights of any world.
And he is right about the offerings. I should do that more; I tend not to visit the outdoor shrine enough during the winter, when it means slogging through snow. But the snow is over now, let’s hope.
Gallimaufry
Leftovers tossed into a pot:
¶ From my friend Rowan in Colorado Springs: Ten Things to Do to Get Ready to Join a Coven. Nothing about candles or astral projection. Learn to cook, keep your word, have a life.
¶ Using the “Mary Magdalene as sacred prostitute” meme to sell sex aids, if you consider the site’s overall purpose. (See also Aphrodite pandemos.)
¶ M. and I watched The Last King of Scotland on DVD. Forest Whitaker owned the title role of Idi Amin Dada. He fully deserved the Oscar.
¶ I think that two of my nature-writing students have joined the cult of Charles Bowden.
¶ Weirdest Web search string of the month to bring someone here: sex in cotopaxi colorado. I hope he found some–Cotopaxi is pretty tiny–but is AOL Search the best way to start?