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
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
Selected passages from Edgar Morin’s Homeland Earth : A Manifesto for the New Millennium (1999): I would expand the line from Hölderlin by saying: We dwell on Earth both prosaically and poetically. Prosaically (when we work, aim at practical targets, try to survive), and poetically (when we sing, dream, enjoy and love, admire). Human life … Read more“Life for life’s sake” (from “Homeland Earth: A Manifesto for a New Millennium”)
Aug 21, 2024, 2:00 PM – Aug 28, 2024, 2:00 PM The Sky Meadow Mystery School is a free, week-long residential immersion into wholesome work and Deep Play in Vermont’s beautiful Northeast Kingdom. Our theme at the 2024 Harvest Mystery School is memento mori ergo carpe diem; “remember death and therefore seize the day.” For … Read moreThe Sky Meadow Mystery School: Harvest 2024
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
An elegant expression of the CultPunk/Poetic Faith perspective courtesy of Ross Douthat, writing for The New York Times: Start with the broad youthful impulse toward what you might call magical thinking, ranging from the vogue for astrology to the TikTok craze for manifesting desired outcomes in your life. In certain ways this is an extension of the … Read more“Be Open to Spiritual Experience. Also, Be Really Careful.”
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)