Patrick McCollum’s legal challenge against the State of California may sound like it just concerns the religious freedom of prisoners, but make no mistake: the outcome of his case will affect every one of us, and determine whether our Constitutional right to freedom of religion is conditional or absolute. There have been several great articles written [...]
Newt Gingrich’s recent comments to a right-wing religious audience that “We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism” have been getting lots of coverage, and rightly so. What worries me more, however, are his comments immediately before and after the “paganism” line: that the ACLU is a “hateful, anti-religious system” aimed [...]
That’s PantheaCon, for those of you jaded enough to think something else. Yes, the much-ballyhooed annual Pagan gathering is commencing this Friday, held in the splendor of a downtown San Jose hotel, and will run all through the long President’s Day weekend.
My crew and I will be at the Serpentine Music booth just inside the front entrance to the vendor’s room, playing all kinds of Pagan music, and selling CDs, songbooks, and DVDs. This year I have teamed up with the excellent Jason Pitzl-Waters from over at the Wild Hunt Blog and A Darker Shade of Pagan radio. Jason suggested some great new music to carry, and I managed to get his very favorite in stock. (If you come to the booth and give the secret blog-reader handshake, you can see his whole top ten list.)
Well, all our vigiling worked! The sun is now rising earlier and setting later, with no end in sight until next Summer Solstice. My only regret about life continuing for another year is having to live through the insanity of a national election, not to mention the insanity of more 2012 predictions. Haven’t we had enough of the End of the World by now? I’ve still got pinto beans stockpiled from Y2K! In 2008 I think we should declare a moratorium on all wacky doomsday/super-evolution scenarios, especially those fueled by anything Daniel Pinchbeck says.
Anyway, that is not at all what I wanted to write about tonight. Instead, I would like to highlight a great new blog post by my friend Gus DiZerega. Bravely attending public Solstice rituals so you don’t have to, Gus managed to turn what could have been an occasion for heavy drinking into a really thoughtful essay on Pagan ritual and theology.
