All Blog Comments

Allessandra - Reality Television Witch Converts

Allessandra — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 19:58:03 +0000

One of the things that struck me about Rev. Hovey's story was her claim that no one in Wicca tells you what to believe. Well, to that I say "Hallelujah!" That ws one of the things that I personally disliked about christianity - and I used to be an evangelical.

Gitana - (Pagan) News of Note

Gitana — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 19:39:41 +0000

The Catholic Church, in it's increasingly fundamentalist agenda, is simply alienating itself from any relevance to today's world, and many of it's own members. I expect they will continue to do so, focusing their efforts primarily in third world countries where their Grand Narrative can still be sold, along with it's accompanying social restrictions and taboos. (See El Salvador, particularily women's rights and abortion). I see increasing efforts from all the xtian fundamentalist groups to again relegate women to 2nd class status. There are more and more patriarichal groups forming (the recent SC Senator and his group Promise Keepers) and the message that men are the head of the church, household and women is steadily coming to the fore. Would be a good topic for Wild Hunt to research. ;)

Gitana - Quick Note: Recycling Journalism

Gitana — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 19:25:41 +0000

Well, I wrote a letter of complaint anyway, to newstips@ajc.com, and a copy to letters@ajc.com. It won't make much difference, but I don't think letting these sort of things go without a peep is necessarily a good idea, either; particularily in light of the growing demonization of anything pagan by the xtain fundies in this country. What I wrote: "Hello, Given the second printing of this piece, in 2006 and again a couple of days ago: Proud pagans party for magical time By CHARLES YOO, Wednesday, July 01, 2009 I would like you to please direct me to an article you published that mocked Christians (or Jews, or Muslims...whatever you have), too. Given your obvious -and repeated- appreciation of religious satire by Charles Yoo, I am sure you must have several other pieces by him, making fun of religions, that you previously published and I missed. You may email or send me a link to an article. Thanks much! Sincerely,"

Baruch - Amendment That Would Eliminate 6 Sources Defeated

Baruch — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 19:03:23 +0000

" I suppose the difficulty is in finding out *which* UU churches are friendly to people of Earth-centered traditions." The only way to find that out is to go there and see. Nobody keeps a list. As a committed UU and a committed Pagan, I went to the leadership of the UU fellowship in the town I moved to in 1994, with my wife (a committed Pagan and less-committed UU at the time), and asked point-blank what our reception would be. They were positive, and we were allowed to do a show-and-tell (mostly tell) Pagan Intro, which went over OK, and then my UU Samhain service, which blew them away. Our UU Pagan services have been part of the Sunday morning worship cycle ever since. Recently I started a UU Pagan Affinity Group (I've done the CUUPS Chapter thing, no more, thanks) that was well received as an official Adult Religious Education activity of the church. But I could never have done any of this without putting my hide on the line up front. Baruch Dreamstalker

Hecate - (Pagan) News of Note

Hecate — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 18:51:10 +0000

Be interesting to see who'd win in a battle for the property (which is what it always comes down to) between American nuns and Ratzi.

BookhouseGal - Amendment That Would Eliminate 6 Sources Defeated

BookhouseGal — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 18:04:09 +0000

My suspicion would be that a lot of places where there was 'friction' no longer have 'friction' cause they're no longer having the Pagans around. Or else worked things out, I suppose. I suppose the difficulty is in finding out *which* UU churches are friendly to people of Earth-centered traditions. It seems that the pattern tends to be, but isn't always, that actually the bigger a Pagan community there is in an area, the more they take notice... It's places where we're most isolated and scattered where, ironically enough, we're least visible to them that perhaps there's the least amount of communication. In my experience, the UU's been of most interest cause in general I like them and what they stand for, and where there *isn't* much of a Pagan community, mostly a place where maybe I'd like to go and help out with any helping-people enterprises, , make some contact with people, establish some relations. I'm one of those who's inclined to balk at the 'churchiness ' of it all, for myself. Not looking to go take over or anything. I'm sure, as some have mentioned, a lot of this is about identity for the UU's. They, like Pagans, are kind of on new ground with that in these times. I think we're naturally people who can be good friends, ...not a problem in assimilation or exclusion. There's a lot to be done out there, and neither of us are the 'big guys' right now.

erinyx - (Pagan) News of Note

erinyx — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 17:28:45 +0000

I find it interesting that some nuns are practicing Reiki. Good for them!!!

Matt - Quick Note: Recycling Journalism

Matt — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 17:05:44 +0000

Oops! Should have said, "As for fairy wings, there were a couple of teenage girls who were there with their father's Druid group and a 20-something guy wearing some (with some devil horns)."

Matt - Quick Note: Recycling Journalism

Matt — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 17:03:57 +0000

I remember that particular Pagan Pride. There were a couple of teenage girls who were their with their father's Druid group and a 20-something guy wearing some (with some devil horns). The newspaper totally played up the "weirdos" and "eccentrics" angle.

Baruch - Amendment That Would Eliminate 6 Sources Defeated

Baruch — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 15:24:17 +0000

I once co-founded a CUUPS Chapter within a UU church, and we started to draw in outside Pagan. Some were fine, supportive members. Some had no interest in anything UU or why this church allowed Pagans space within it. To deal with the latter, we passed a Chapter bylaw that non-UU members had to sit through the church's UU orientation session -- not to trawl for membership but so they would know what this UU stuff is all about. The slackers faded like an analog TV the day of the switch to digital. Baruch Dreamstalker

Tigernach - Amendment That Would Eliminate 6 Sources Defeated

Tigernach — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 15:16:40 +0000

Uh, that would be no. If anything they are leaning way more toward the side of folks like Richard Dawkins. That said, there are also a large group of people seeking a more "spiritual" experience within the UU church and those two sides seem to butt heads periodically. Neither side is very "Christian". In fact, I find that most of the Christians (at least in our congregation) have more in common with the Pagans as a minority within the church. As to the Megachurch thing, I have noticed in my home congregation that we do just keep growing and growing but there's very little movement to start new UU Churches in the area. There's some myth out there presumably pushed by the UUA that starting new congregations just pulls funds and resources from the existing one without decreasing the number of people in the current church. I don't really understand it myself...

William C - (Pagan) News of Note

William C — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 15:15:19 +0000

Kinda ironic, dontcha think?

Tigernach - Amendment That Would Eliminate 6 Sources Defeated

Tigernach — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 15:06:39 +0000

I think where I've seen most CUUPS chapters fail is when an outside group of Pagans wants to start a chapter at the local UU Church. I think the desire to have a CUUPS group must come internally from the congregation members itself in order to be successful. Even then, as people from outside the church are then attracted to that group, there can still be a certain amount of tension. We really don't like pressuring our members to join the church, but we've had to push that line a bit to maintain our support with the congregation.

Tigernach - Amendment That Would Eliminate 6 Sources Defeated

Tigernach — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 15:01:18 +0000

I read something totally different in these motives. I think UUs are tired of being called the church that believes in "everything and nothing". I think there's a movement to shift away from being a church that contains a diversity of faiths to being seen as complete faith tradition unto itself. Having self contained groups practicing any faith tradition is perceived as a barrier to that goal. Regarding CUUPS, our group left the organization long ago, but kept our affiliation with our church. The organization just seemed increasingly irrelevant to us, and generally unresponsive to the needs of chapters. We felt the significant money spent on annual dues could really serve some better use. I've seen few lasting CUUPS chapters in our state, and I think it comes down to a general lack of support of chapters by the representatives. Maybe things have changed though?

Sara A - Quick Note: Recycling Journalism

Sara A — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 09:44:48 +0000

I don't like the blame-the-victim tone of some of the comments. I've BEEN to Pagan Pride in Atlanta, and it's not nearly as freaky as Yoo is depicting it. Nor are the people; I know the Sylvan Grove folks, and they are part of the Unicorn Tradition, a Wiccan trad that uses the unicorn as a symbol. But his description is that they "believe in unicorns." The rest of what he says is exactly as skewed. There probably were some kids wearing fairy wings...but they have those at the state fair, too. Don't believe everything you read, especially when you know up front that the author is an idiot.

We can't deflect criticism by being "serious" because it really has everything to do with the puerile impulses of people like Charles Yoo and nothing whatever to do with us. We are better off doing things by our own lights and having fun at what is supposed to be a fun occasion, fairy wings and all.

FreemanPresson - Quick Note: Recycling Journalism

FreemanPresson — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 02:14:52 +0000

There are two desires Pagans have in differing degrees about the relationship between their Paganism and the surrounding culture: to be counter-cultural, and to be accepted. Neither of these is illegitimate, but they work against each other. This is why we see as much fantasy stuff at PPDs and elsewhere as we do, but also frequently hear people saying that one may have no idea that the person in the next cubicle or the EMT who revived one's cousin is actually Pagan.

embreis - Quick Note: Recycling Journalism

embreis — Thu, 2 Jul 2009 23:49:57 +0000

Since the AJC is apparently cutting the budget for everything, I suppose they will have run this crap over and over again. They've no one left to write new crap.

anne johnson - Quick Note: Recycling Journalism

anne johnson — Thu, 2 Jul 2009 23:31:19 +0000

Oh HA HA HA HA! Not. PPDs vary from location to location. Personally I do not wear my faerie garb to PPDs. My Druid attire is anything but Ren-faire or Playgan, it is very serious clothing, nothing at all flippant about it. When I went to Spoutwood this past May, I wore my faerie clothing during the day and changed into my Druid robe for the Alchemical Fire. You wouldn't have known it was the same person. Oh well, I didn't wash off the face paint.

FreemanPresson - Quick Note: Recycling Journalism

FreemanPresson — Thu, 2 Jul 2009 23:16:16 +0000

We do tend to put our best fantasy foot forward on PPD. All the Ren-faire garb and fairy wings does look, let's face it, distinctly Playgan. Of course, PPDs seem generally tame compared to Gay Pride parades ...

BookhouseGal - Quick Note: Recycling Journalism

BookhouseGal — Thu, 2 Jul 2009 18:51:19 +0000

They do this all the time, even if there were a thousand letters to the editor the first time. Or maybe *because* there were.