Posts Tagged ‘Samhain’

News & Submissions 10/27/2010

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

Witch Direction: The group for Leeds pagans
I’m proud of Witch Direction and the way we have grown stronger together over time.

The group used to be called the Leeds Pagan Moot before I took it over about a year ago. Read full story from yorkshireeveningpost.com

Alabama Wiccans find faith in nature
What do most students think of when they think of witches? Harry Potter? Halloween? “Hocus Pocus?”

Instead of thinking of fictional characters or a secular holiday, there is a more serious religious ideology that can be associated with the word witch. A number of Alabama citizens and local Tuscaloosa and Birmingham residents practice paganism or Wicca, which is a neo-pagan religion. Read full story from cw.ua.edu

Letter: Bible prohibits tattoos, piercing
A Oct. 9 article cited the Church of Body Modification as a genuine religion, arguing a girl should be allowed to have body piercing in a Johnston County school. A Bible believer is commanded, “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:28) Read full story from reflector.com

Halloween no longer old traditions
With candy, costumes, tricks and treats, this is our own

Four days from now the chance of some short folk ringing your doorbell is pretty high.

Unless you live way out in the country or in a high-rise or put a pit bull in your front yard, the rituals of Halloween will draw them to your door like children to chocolate. Read full story from amarillo.com

Pagan pioneer says Missouri center’s sale illustrates challenge for movement
As the leaves both blaze their last glories on the trees and crunch beneath our feet, Pagan thoughts turn to the endings of cycles.

My own thoughts turn often these days to Diana’s Grove, the retreat center in the Missouri Ozarks that has helped so many Pagans and fellow travelers. While Grove programming will still be offered next year, the land is for sale. Autumn is upon it. Winter is closing fast. Read full story from sltoday.com

HALLOWEEN THE TRUTH AT LAST
What the bigots ‘DONT’ want you to know about this ancient, native, Pagan British festival

The actual festival of Halloween was originally called ‘SAMHAIN,’ which comes from the Gaelic/Celtic meaning for ‘November’ and ‘Summer’s end’.

The original Celtic settlers arrived here in around 600 BC, fetching with them their own ‘Nature Based’ polytheistic form of spiritual belief systems. SAMHAIN marked the beginning of the long cold winter, a time when the cattle had to be herded into sheltered quarters as a defensive measure against expected harsh snow-fall, frost, and blizzard. It was also a cheerless period for numerous Celts, as the winter’s chill could always prove too much for many elderly, sick, or loved ones badly injured in battle. Read full story from ufodigest.com

Dog who says grace live on CNN this morning (source cnn.com)

News & Submissions 10/14/2010

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

Shamanism: Spirits in the valley
The cultural heritage of pre-Islamic philosophy and mythology is so interwoven into the mountainous Gilgit-Baltistan that strands of it survive to this day. Religions born of their environments, the influence of centuries of Shamanism, Buddhism, Baoism and Zartosht are seen most clearly in their interaction with nature, where the word worship can be interchanged with respect for and love of. Read full story from tribune.com.pk

Media needs to stop enabling stigmas
The Senate is on the verge of change as 37 of the 100 Senate seats are up for election in November. However, one candidate for the senate in Delaware is causing quite a stir. Tea party favored Christine O’Donnell caused an upset when she became the GOP Senate candidate after the primaries. Though I disagree with everything the tea party stands for, my issue with O’Donnell does not revolve around her party affiliations, but rather her idiotic comments. Read full story from understatesman.com

State wants death in trial
Two women charged with first-degree murder in the death in 2004 of a Winston-Salem woman plotted via e-mail to kill her, a prosecutor said yesterday in Forsyth Superior Court.

Katherine Hofmann, 45, and Kim Stout, 55, were charged last year in the death of Sharon Snow on Feb. 1, 2004. Read full story from journalnow.com

Red Power activist Madonna Thunder Hawk going strong at 70
“I  was kind of a radical from day one,” said Lakota activist Madonna Thunder Hawk, a veteran of many of the battles of the Red Power movement, from the occupation of Alcatraz and Mount Rushmore to Wounded Knee. Now a 70-year-old grandmother, Thunder Hawk remains politically active, just as her grandmother before her. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

Indian vets score a win in Congress
WASHINGTON – Legislation supporting Indian veterans and their survivors has made it through both branches of Congress, and will soon be signed by President Barack Obama into law.

The Senate moved Sept. 28 to pass the Indian Veterans Housing Opportunity Act, which remedies a problem that has seen Indian veterans who receive federal disability and survivor benefits being denied support under the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

Happy Halloween Month, San Diego
If San Diego (and I don’t think we’re alone) can take Halloween as a month-long theme, why not me? And why not here? I don’t think the chamber of commerce has adopted the once-pagan holiday as an official 30-day refrain but many businesses certainly have. My favorite (mentioned last column) is the Crypt on Park at University. How this display designer managed to incorporate childlike, playful fun into leather, whips, chains, blood, rats, spiders, and general imagery of punishment and humiliation, is, I think, remarkable. But then, we’re a can-do kinda town. Read full story from sandiegoreader.com

Florence mosque defaced with bacon
FLORENCE, SC (WMBF) – A national Muslim civil rights and advocacy group is calling on the FBI to investigate a message written in bacon at mosque in Florence.

Three chair members of the Islamic Center in Florence discovered the words “pig” and “chump” written in strips of bacon on the walkway along the mosque Sunday afternoon. Read full story from wmbfnews.com

News & Submissions 10/30/2009

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Does a Wtich live Next Door?
With Halloween coming up tomorrow, most folks are stocking up on candy and other treats to be given away to all the little ghosts, goblins and witches who will be trooping up to the front door screaming, “Trick or Treat.” Read full story from somd.com

Americans embrace alternatives to ‘pagan’ Halloween
WASHINGTON — Witches, beware. Mummies, be gone. Halloween may be a celebration of all things creepy and macabre, but a growing number of US communities are shunning traditional ghoulish festivities, seen by some as tainted by association with paganism and the occult. Read full story from google.com

Paganism, Just Another Religion for Military and Academia
NARRAGANSETT, R.I. — If personal tradition holds, just before sundown today, Michael York will stand before a colonial-style wooden cabinet in his bayside town house here and light a candle. As night falls, it will illuminate the surrounding objects — tarot cards, Tibetan silver bowls, a bell, and statues or icons of deities from the Greek earth-mother, Gaia, to the Lithuanian thunder god, Perkunas. Read full story from nytimes.com

It’s not about Satan – or the pagans
Having read the article in Tuesday’s Journal in which the Rev Jonathan Campbell linked the Halloween festival in Derry with Satanism and Paganism, I felt that I should write in on the issue. Read full story from Derryjournal.com

The True Spirit of Halloween, for Real Witches
Halloween is here again. Pumpkins deck our porches and Witches in pointy hats swoop across the walls of classrooms and offices. Children accost one another, asking “What are you going to be for Halloween?” and grownups stock up on candy. Read full story from washingtonpost.com

Inmate gets his wish: Witch name
Just in time for Halloween, former Fremont resident Billy Joe McDonald has received a judge’s permission to change his “Christian” name to his “witch” name: Hayden Autumn Blackthorne. Read full story from Omaha.com

Real Witches Practice Samhain: Wicca on the Rise in U.S.
This Saturday while her neighborhood outside Columbus, Ohio, is crawling with costumed witches in search of candy, Wigington and a group of other local witches will not be celebrating Halloween, but the new year festival Samhain, which also occurs Oct. 31. Read full story from abcnews.go.com

News & Submissions 10/29/2009

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Day of the Dead honors ancestors
Día de los Muertos, meaning Day of the Dead, is celebrated on November first within the Hispanic cultures around the world. Originating in Mexico, this annual ritual dates back some 3,000 years in history. The rituals are about honoring and communicating with one’s dead ancestors, and was practiced among the Zapotec, Mixtec, Olmec, Maya, P’urhepecha, Totonac and Mexica societies. Read full story from The Examiner

Why the witches like to fly high
PICTURE the scene: it’s midnight on All Hallow’s Eve, the Witching Hour is upon you and flying above you are silhouetted figures with pointed hats, riding broomsticks, each with a black cat sat behind them. Their shrieking and cackles pierce the night sky. Read full story from theolivepress.com

Halloween: A User’s Guide
Halloween is no Hallmark Holiday. While it may have evolved into a kitschy festival of hard candy and plastic masks, its roots are actually thousands of years old and every bit as dark and sinister as we like to pretend. Read full story from piquenewsmagazine.com

From Samhain to Halloween in 2,000 years
Halloween today may seem — to some — like a played-out, secular commercial endeavour, used by candy companies and dollar stores to senselessly whore their cheap products to consumers, but the holiday also has deep religious historic roots, which Danzig hints at in the classic Misfits tune celebrating All Hallow’s Eve. Personally, I’ve always loved Halloween: the candy, the costumes, the pranks and the ghoulishly gothic atmosphere of graveyards and dark streets in autumn. Read full story from themanitobin.com

Founder of The Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing Christina Pratt talks with Dr. Gina Ogden
Teacher, author, and founder of The Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing Christina Pratt talks with Founder of The Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing Christina Pratt talks with Dr. Gina Ogden about her groundbreaking healing work integrating sexuality and spirituality by using shamanic practices. Read full story from bignews.biz

Halloween’s magic
With Halloween around the corner, it is hard not to miss the green-skinned, warted witch who has been immortalized in popular culture by the Wicked Witch of the West from “The Wizard of Oz.” For those Broadway musical buffs our society has created an even more modern version, Elphaba from “Wicked.” Though sometimes we might not want to take the time to realize it, underneath all of the corporate packaging that goes into advertising Halloween, there lie remnants of ancient practices that honor and celebrate life’s less spoken of aspects. Read full story from Campus Times

Trick Or Treat
Spirit of Halloween explained, defended Pagans don’t believe in the devil, evil or hell Read full story from blog.syracuse.com

Wiccan, not wicked
Deborah Snavely cackled wildly when asked if she had a flying broom. For Snavely, a British traditional Wiccan priestess for 13 years, witchcraft is no matter of Hollywood hocus-pocus — it’s a reality. Read full story from dailyemerald.com

The witches and witchcraft in Wells and Arundel
Wells minister Rev. George Burroughs was hanged as a witch during the Salem delirium of 1692. A century later, widow Elizabeth Smith of Arundel was accused of witchcraft at the York County Court of Common Pleas and Sessions in Biddeford. Read seacoastonline.com

Witchcraft merchants in Tampa: It’s all good
On a rainy day in August, Kelley Sattley sat in the atrium of her apartment complex, waiting for the rain to stop so she could get to her car. She felt depressed and anxious about a pending divorce. An old woman she had never seen before sat down next to her and told her everything would be okay. Read full story from tampabay.com

New local network welcomes witches, pagans and others
While staunch Roman Catholic parents were teaching her about that church, she said, some maternal aunts were secretly grooming her to be the family’s next strega — Italian for female witch. It made for an interesting childhood — with memorable Sunday services Read full story from post-gazette.com