It's that time of year again folks, when the media starts releasing lists. The "Most Memorable Moments of 2015" or the "Top Ten Really Important Things That You've Already Forgotten About". I'm not a fan of lists. I find that lists make me grumpy. Why should I only remember these ten things? I frequently find that I didn't see any of those Top Ten must see movies and I'm pretty sure that those Top Ten Celebrities That Changed America, didn't actually change much at all.
So this is not a "list" blog. Think of it, perhaps, as a collection of my favourite seven (I like seven, it's sort of witchy and isn't Ten) Pagan writings that you might like to read at some point, and in no particular order (except number one on the list. You do have to read that one first). Imagine that the author (that's me) just sort of bumped into you at your favorite eating spot and said "Oh! Look what I think is interesting and compelling. Read these."
I went to PantheaCon this past weekend. PantheaCon is a real, honest to goodness gathering of all sorts of folks that identify in some way as Pagan. It's made up of vendors and presenters and ritualists and authors and seekers and party people and dabblers and long, long time practitioners.
There were many moments throughout the conference that just made me proud of being a Pagan and more than a few moments where I was in complete awe of our community at large. As I was writing this piece,I noticed that I tend not to write about other people in the Pagan community, but rather about my experiences as a Pagan. So this is a bit of a departure for me.
I'm not a fan of Top Ten lists. In fact, Top Ten lists frequently make it onto my Top Ten list of things I dislike. Having said that though, I feel inexorably compelled to write about 9 folks that have greatly influenced me this year. And as a Top 9 list is not the same as a Top 10 list I think I can live with myself. I considered a Top 11 list but thought that was too reminiscent of Spinal Tap and let's face it, 9 is a good witchy number.
Now some of these folks you might recognize from their books, or Pagan festival appearances or blogs and I imagine that several of them might appear on other people's year-end retrospectives too. My hope is that there will be at least one or two folks that you don't know and, much more importantly, I hope to convey just why these people have been so deeply influential to me this year.
The Pagan News Beagle is back after a brief vacation, and today we have a wonderful set of articles on news of our many Pagan communities! Common Yuletide myths debunked; Peter Dybing's 2014 list of influential Pagans; rediscovering the artist of the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot; avoiding fake psychics; Satanists teach Pagans about PR?
Jason Mankey brings (as always!) his trademark wit to the question of common Pagan Yuletide myths. Sorry, folks, Santa did NOT get high from eating shamanic mushrooms. (And druids didn't invent Christmas trees, either.)
In today's faithful Friday post, we are concentrating on the upcoming season of Samhain -- high holy days for Wicca- and Wiccan-influenced Pagans. In today's Beagle, we highlight posts from outside our PaganSquare channel -- watch for our PaganSquare Samhain special edition next week, where we will highlight the Samhain posts of our in-house writers.
Thesseli
You should post on Substack too, where you won't have to worry about being deplatformed or kicked off the site for your views. (Also, I've archived th...
David Dashifen Kees
I feel it necessary to state, unequivocally, that anti-trans points of view are not an essential part of Paganism. As a trans Pagan myself who helps ...
