As I write this, I can hear the little mama sparrow chirping outside my corner front window. She and her partner have been busy building a nest in the corner overhang between our apartment and the one next door, much to the great interest of my kitty cat, Tessa. We’ll definitely be keeping that window closed for the birds’ sake. Along with the many robins I’ve seen happily bob-bob-bobbing along recently, spring definitely is making itself known, despite even some late April snow this week. Earth Day is always a pleasant turning point to mark this occasion, because the gaiety and frolic of Beltane/May Day is soon to follow, and that brings a smile to my face.
It's a basic question of being-in-space: where do you face?
Orientation. The word itself documents the immemorial tendency of both Indo-European and Semitic cultures to face East.
Qibla (“direction”) is the Arabic word, and in Islam has come to mean specifically towards Mecca. (Qibla ultimately comes from the same Proto-Semitic root as Qabala, lit. “received,” but there's no real connection.) In Old Craft we say “North,” because the Old One sits in the North and that's the default, well, North.
I apologize for the formatting wonkiness of my posts to this blog. I think I've exhausted potential remedies. However, I still want to keep in touch with readers and share my thoughts to those who may be interested in reading them. Therefore, this time at least, and possibly in future, depending upon Pagan Square policies, I'd like to share what I've been struggling to post here by directing you to my Broomstick Chronicles blog here: http://besom.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-power-of-north-wisdom-of-earth.html
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
