Brendan Graham Dempsey of the Sky Meadow Institute interviews Swan Frayne-Dao, director of the Institute of Devotional Arts. The Institute plans to hold its first American gathering at the Sky Meadow Retreat Center in July.
I’ve recently returned from Sky Meadow, a soulful home-away-from-home retreat center deep in Vermont’s magical Northeast Kingdom. The Spring ’24 retreat was part of an ongoing series conceived and hosted by Brendan Graham Dempsey and Layman Pascal (whose own reflection upon the event is available here). The theme for this season was “God” (or perhaps … Read moreThe Spring 2024 Metamodern Spirituality Lab at Sky Meadow
A trailer for a 2023 retreat with the Institute of Devotional Arts, whose manifesto reads: We believe we are both actors and spectators of the divine comedy we call life. As spectators, we cultivate our sense of wonder and reverence. As actors, we find ever new ways to give expression to the human experience. Devotion … Read moreThe Institute of Devotional Arts
The good people of Cicely, Alaska enjoy their eccentric, Day of the Dead-inflected version of Thanksgiving in this scene from Northern Exposure (1992). As explained by Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles), the indigenous people of Cicely do not regard the orthodox Thanksgiving as a day of celebration. In fact, they carry a lot of ancestral anger … Read moreThanksgiving/Day of the Dead in Cicely, Alaska (Northern Exposure, 1992)
Ross Barkan writes for The Guardian on the strange meldings of the nascent neo-Romantic movement: Not all of the old romantics were opposed to Judeo-Christian religion, but they were drawn, like the youth of today, to spiritual realms that operated far beyond any biblical teachings or rationalist precepts. They were deeply wary of technology’s encroachment … Read more“The zeitgeist is changing. A strange, romantic backlash to the tech era looms”
An excerpt from the ever-increasingly-iconic Erik Davis’ 2006 essay on emergent cultic activity at Black Rock City: Thus it is with some trepidation that I turn to one of the more vexing questions that one might ask about Burning Man: can or should we speak of the event as a sacred gathering? Even if we … Read more“Beyond Belief: The Cults of Burning Man”
The Church of Omnism does not mandate or impose a universal creed or dogma, but possesses three core beliefs:
CHAPEL by [M] Dudeck/RELIGIONVIRUS September 7-9/2023 at Graffiti Gallery was a three day durational performance. [M] Dudeck, PhD, (born in Winnipeg, 1984) is an artist and cultural engineer who invents their own queer religion as art. Their project, called RELIGIONVIRUS, has been performed, exhibited, screened and published in over thirty countries worldwide. Their work as … Read moreCHAPEL by [M] Dudeck
As suggested on the BackRow.com movie blog: The Electrical Life of Lous Wain conjures the same sort of exhilaration that documentaries Jodorowsky’s Dune and Beauty is Embarrassing bring their viewers; the wildly ecstatic high of one man’s vision striking those around him like a lightning bolt, leaving the permanent marks of what was and will … Read more“Make ‘The Electrical Life of Louis Wain’ Your New Religion”
