Virtually Troy

I still have not see Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom in the movie, but, meanwhile, some complex computerized reconstructions of the various levels of Troy can be seen online here. They are part of a web site, Project Troia, documenting collaborative archaeological work between the University of T?bingen and the University of Cincinnati.

The Pagan Blogosphere

If you’re reading this, you may be wondering where to find other blogs by Pagans. And the short answer is, there is no one place. But here are some suggestions:

The gigantic and professionally designed Witches’ Voice web site has a blog section.

You can find some links at The Juggler, the collaborative Pagan blog.

Another site that rates blogs is Pagan Blogs of the WWW. Find yet another list here. And there is a somewhat outdated site here, although some links were dead the last time that I looked.

“A Witch among the Navajos” update

I have added a photo of Malcolm Brenner to his article “A Witch Among the Navajos,” which I added recently to my web site. This humorous photo did not appear in the original Gnosis article, but it was taken about the time of the events he describes, outside the very trailer next to the chapter house in Shiprock, New Mexico.

Malcolm posts occasionally about his writing and life here

Berkeley’s Pagan Pride Parade

Some photos from the Pagan Pride parade, 15 May 2004, in Berkeley, California, are online. (Image-intensive pages will load slowly on a dial-up connection.)

Blogging–and gardening–resume

Back from visiting a key North American cell of the International Tazi Conspiracy, M.C. and I are deeply involved (sore backs, dirty fingernails) in the frantic May gardening spurt imposed by Colorado weather, which goes from blizzard to summer in the blink of an eye.

One of this year’s goals is to enjoy some hawkmoth watching in the fading light of dusk. Actually, that’s a side benefit to having some of the Solanaceae with their white blooms in the night: Datura, Nicotiania, Hyoscyamus.

Read ‘The Policeman’

The creation of the blogosphere has given us new, unofficial ways of getting information. We can watch the television news about the fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, for instance, and then read one Iraqi’s personal response to it in a blog like Riverbend’s.

For another “behind the walls” perspective, this time on our loyal ally Saudi Arabia, visit The Religious Policeman. (No, that’s not his picture at upper right.) His take on life in the non-magic kingdom is a useful antidote to all the official coziness between the House of Bush and the House of Saud.

Greek Pagans battle for their rites

Followers of traditional Hellenic religion are becoming more visible, notes The Independent in this story.

Georgios, a distinguished lawyer with a turquoise ribbon in his hair to signify the circle of life, cannot see where the credibility problem lies. “The ancient Greeks invented logic, science, medicine and philosophy and built the Parthenon,” he says. “Are you telling me they didn’t know what they were doing when it came to religion?

No doubt the upcoming Olympic Games and, possibly, the meeting of the World Council of Ethnic Religons upcoming in June have something to do with this move for religious freedom.

Folk religion means ignoring the art critics

Robert Ellwood, one of my favorite and most-readable historians of religion, has a new book out, Cycles of Faith, a sort of lifespan-development theory of how the major religions of the world grow, develop, and change.

Christianity he places in the Folk Religion phase, when although still vibrant, the religion is no longer organically connected to the sources of political power and to “high culture” generally.

Today, although plenty of third-rate and derivative art is produced and although such artists as the early twentieth-century symbolists have drawn from alternative esoteric strands of spirituality, art based on the dominant religious traditions that could be called original and distinguished is miniscule.”

The 19th century, Ellwood notes, had its “revivals” — Gothic Revival, Byzantine Revival. But in the 20th century, “high culture” no longer depended much on religion for inspiration. Even church architecture, after a Modernist phase, seems to have drifted into lassitude.

Into this atmosphere comes Image: A Journal of the Arts & Religion

Image’s manifesto: One of the legacies of the modern era has been the secularization of culture. For much of the twentieth century, the belief that God is dead, or at least inaccessible, has stripped a great deal of religious vision and wisdom from the modern imagination. Most of our leading critics and thinkers have been skeptical of, or indifferent to, artistic expressions of religious faith.

A culture is governed by its reigning myths. However, in the latter days of the twentieth century, there is an uneasy sense that materialism cannot sustain or nourish our common life. Thankfully, religion and art have always shared the capacity to help us to renew our awareness of the ultimate questions: who we are, where we have come from, and where we are going.

They are trying, but I think that Ellwood may be right.

Do visit The Juggler, a new collaborative Pagan blog with a strong group of contributors. I have put a permanent link on the right.

Trojans, anyone?

I have always wondered why sports teams and condoms were named after the Trojans too, but these guys do it so much more lucidly.

And the word is that the movie totally ignores the gods. What’s the point without that essential flavor of human futility that the Olympian backstory adds? But the Notorious M.C. has been commenting on how buff Brad Pitt is looking these days, so maybe we will see it anyway.