The Pagan Community is one filled with diversity and individuality - characteristics we celebrate. Our religious beliefs are often quite disparate. Yet, although we walk different paths, we do so in harmony with one another. We connect - often deeply - on a spiritual level. And it is through our spirituality that we become more than just a community. We become a family.

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Whispers in the Dark

My Oma has died and I can say that without crying. I miss her beyond words yet I am at peace with her death. It was her time and she knew that better than any of us and she made it so easy. There was nothing we needed to do except love her. I spent my time with Oma in the night. My mother and aunts sat with her as the days passed but I had to work. So I took the night shift. Most of the time I sat in darkness. The darkness of prebirth and of death. It can be very isolating or very intimate.
Extract from Editorials

The Death of Dumuzi

...As a vegetation god Dumuzi's death has always been symbolic of the death of the crops. He lies underground awaiting resurrection. It is an interesting departure from the commonly held significance of the summer solstice. So many Pagan traditions view it as marking the height of a deity's power. As a time of prosperity with the harvest still to come. Instead, in Mesopotamian lore, it marks the time of death and hardship. Dumuzi has died and the earth itself mourns. Ritual figures of the god around the country would have been ritually cleansed, annoited, and presented for the mourners - this was the ritual of Taklimtu or 'revelation'. The Taklimtu involved the public lying-in-state of the icon of Dumuzi. With this act the mourning period commenced....
Extract from Seasonal Festival

Whispers in the Dark

I've been having a debate with a few friends recently over morality and ethics as a Pagan versus the common misconception amongst the American public that only mainstream religions provide a moral and ethical framework.

What forms the moral compass of a Pagan - especially an Eclectic, for example - when there is no 10 Commandments or Law of 'Whoever' to follow. How do Pagans decide upon a set of morals - do they shift and change as need or desire dictate? What makes a Pagan be moral? And what happens when Pagan morality butts heads with (for example) Christian? Who's right? How is it decided?
Extract from Editorials

Spider Web

Apollon Phoebus

The golden god of the Greeks, Apollo is probably the epitomy of everything we think of as Hellenic. He is beautiful and graceful, strong and vigorous, artistic and athletic, a lover and a fighter. His sexuality - an important aspect of His nature - is one based upon love and attraction not gender. His is an ancient lineage stretching back to the Etruscans where He was known as Aplu and forward into our time where His image and name graces many modern things ranging from the Apollo space missions to website hosts to educational groups and more.
Extract from Festival God Feature

Fascist Pagans...

It runs in cycles...the linking of Pagans with Nazis and fascism and other such unpleasant political ideologies. The accusations are always there, but every now and then they rear up and seems to be everywhere. The last month or so I seem to be continually running into Northern Traders who are obsessed with Aryan purity and websites linking Paganism with Hitler and showing how Pagans have always been violent, bloodthirsty, unethical people.
Extract from Crossroads of the Pagans

Baptism - to Sink or Swim

...I know it's tempting to lie about your own path and just do it - it won't harm the child afterall. I can see the attraction of this concept. It's not like you're promising to raise the child Christian now, is it...Or is it? How harmless is it to baptise your child if you have no intention of raising your child Christian?...
Extract from Myth, Magic and Madness
   

The Hellenic Faith

I follow a Reconstructed Hellenic Path - that is I worship the gods of Ancient Greece in as historically accurate a fashion as I can. I occasionally explore festivals from Roman sources from both a curiosity angle and also because of the strong relationship between the two paths. Many Roman festivals are based upon Greek ones and at times the majority of information we possess on a Greek festival is reconstructed from a Roman account.

But overall I am Greek in faith and practice.
Extract from Diversified Paths

Artwork

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From the Desk of
Albineus Equinus

We have returned. Last issue seems to have vanished into the pit that is the life of most my staff recently.

Family injuries, personal illnesses, house movings, country movings, school and work demands, weddings, visitors...you name it we seem to have been facing it in one form or another.

The result was that somehow we missed completely, let alone publishing, last issue. And for that I am truly sorry.

To make up for it, this issue is larger than ever and packed with all sorts of goodies.

May your summer festival be filled with joy and good health,

Light and Love,
Albi
Managing Editor
   

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