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The Moon draws to the full,

and the milk is dried up in the breast of the wheat.

And so it came to pass that the Horned Shepherd himself, the living likeness of the white image in the forest, is seen in the marketplace.

And Big Anna gives the old sign, the secret sign, for those who have eyes to see.

That night, the wise ones of the village come to Big Anna, speaking the secret words, to know the When and Where. The chief of the wandering Egyptians comes. Olaf of the Northern Land, Captain of the Princess' Guard, comes. The Ethiopian, of the retinue of the knight from over the sea, comes. Even old Mispereth the Jew comes. (Says the Egyptian: “All the world is the country of the wise. There are many wise ones among the Jews.”)

Egyptian: I never looked to see the Horned One.

Big Anna: Nor I.

Hello, and welcome to my new blog “Myth Maker: Modern Mythopoeia.”

In the next post, I’ll get to the meat of this blog, introducing you to a variety of lesser-known spirits from around the world and telling you the stories and teachings they tell to me. But I thought I’d start off by talking a little about mythopoesis as an art and a magical practice. The English word mythopoesis comes from the Greek μυθοποιία, and literally means “myth-making.” The second part of the word, “poeia,” is the root of our word “poet.”  Historically, the word was an obscure technical term, describing, as Victorian historians would tell it, that period of time when humans made myths “instead of science” to explain the world around them. However, in 1931, J. R. R. Tolkien (author of The Lord of the Rings) published a poem titled Mythopoeia, which was a direct response to his frenemy and Oxford colleague C.S. Lewis’s skepticism about the value of myth.  Lewis (at the time, although his views softened with the wisdom of age) believed that  myths are "lies and therefore worthless, even though 'breathed through silver.”'  Tolkien's poem replies...

While people look for many things in a religion, community is undoubtedly one of the most important. This week for Watery Wednesday we took at the ways in which community shapes religion and vice versa. Read on to learn about the 2015 Mythopoeic Awards, the nature of the Muslim fast of Ramadan, and how you can support contemporary Pagan artists. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!