As niche and subversive a notion as CultPunk may be, it has some fairly recent cultural progenitors, if you look hard enough. One was the “Church Punk” aesthetic of the Canadian visionary artist and poet ManWoman, who sought to reclaim the ancient emblem of the sun wheel/swastika from association with Nazi atrocity and who wrote, … Read moreManWoman and Church Punk
M.L Clark writes for OnlySky: One unspoken tenet of anti-theist discourse is that we are limited by the religious stories at the core of our culture. For that slice of the nonreligious spectrum, it’s not enough not to believe, personally, in a god. The nature of religion poses a narrative problem that anti-theists feel must … Read more“Solarpunk humanism: How we dream bigger than despair”
Taking place during late August of 2024, the inaugural Sky Meadow Mystery School was a free, week-long, residential immersion into wholesome permaculture practice and the mythopoetic mysteries of Life and Death. As an experiment in countercultural community-building, the Mystery School was also a time and place to learn new skills and perspectives. One of our … Read moreThe Sky Meadow Mystery School, Harvest 2024 in a few words and many images
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”