A short documentary on Edinburgh’s annual Beltane Fire Festival, a revival of the ancient Celtic custom whose more recent roots dates back to the 1980s, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher attempted to crack down on rave culture in the United Kingdom.
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
Author Craig Chalquist on Lamplight, the religion of his Assembling Terrania Cycle of stories: Even more than readers, writers find themselves astonished by unexpected plot twists. In the story “Ten Lamps,” a mysterious philosopher named Simeon writes down ten cosmic operating principles that work at any scale, even inside us. One of these Lamps declares … Read moreLamplight
Gaianism is a new ecoreligion aiming to: a) build a community of those who believe Gaia is sacred and that there is no calling higher than protecting and restoring Gaia; b) provide ways to stop the horrors that we are unleashing on the planet, ourselves, and countless other species; c) offer means to prepare–oneself, one’s … Read moreThe Gaian Way
Juju Lane writes for Psyche on the curious relationship between eco-activism and the faery faith: It may seem that Paganism has returned to Ireland. But the truth is, it never really went away. What is new about this modern resurgence is that it has become an Indigenous European response to ecological destruction. Paganism in Ireland … Read more“Paganism is a potent force in Ireland’s conservation movement”
Blogger Yvonne Aburrow writes: Constructed religions, whatever their origins, suggest that there is a need not filled by pre-existing religions, and offer new ideas, stories, and rituals. Many of them focus on environmental concerns. Parody religions perform the very important function of preventing religion from taking itself too seriously – but if they are well-constructed, … Read more“Fictional and Constructed Religions”
Much more on Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir here.
I’ve just returned from a three-day Sacred Harvest event at Sky Meadow, an idyllic 115-acre spiritual retreat in the rugged and mountainous Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. The Harvest is a work-stay arrangement, with free accommodation and an organic feast on the final night offered in return for harvest labor – weeding, picking vegetables, stacking wood … Read moreSky Meadow: a place to be
VICE’s Fernando Perez has long been fascinated by Shugendo: an ancient Japanese spiritual practice centered on finding enlightenment through nature. The monks who follow it are known to wander through the forests of Japan for months on end, meditate under freezing waterfalls, and stand on the edge of towering cliffs—all in an effort to bring … Read more“Searching for a natural high in the mountains of Japan”
The first instance of Cultpunk at a generational scale occurred during the late 1960s and ’70s, when utopian counterculturalists – mostly on America’s west coast – began inventing new religions under the neo-Pagan banner. These pioneers notably included Frederick Adams (himself a very early outlier, having founded his goddess-oriented religion during the late 1950s) and … Read more“… a religion of atmosphere instead of faith …”