Reader Smokeybones writes: Help! My nine-year-old son spent the night at a friend's and apparently the friend said a prayer before bedtime. Now my son wants to pray before he goes to bed, but I don't have any idea what he can say. Is it okay for him to do this even though our family isn't really big on praying? Any suggestions?

First of all, congratulations - your child has reached the age where he's about to figure out that other families are different than yours. And as much as they like to be individuals, kids also want to do what other kids are doing, and that's okay. If praying before bed is something that makes your child feel good, then by all means, go ahead and let him. Some Pagan and Wiccan kids like to pray to the family's god or goddess, but others prefer a less specific sort of thing (my daughter recites a litany of saying goodnight to her blankets, our pets, and the moon). At this age, it's mostly the activity of praying that is important to them. Here are a few you may want to try, and if your family has a specific god or goddess you honor, feel free to substitute their names and attributes where appropriate: Pagan Bedtime Prayers for Children.

Blog reader TJ is looking for a Pagan tattoo artist in the Orlando/Kissimmee area. She says, "I have designed a triquetra/heart design and I want it created with intent: Protection, Balance, Divine Feminine Energy." She has checked with a well-known local tattoo shop and they don't have any Pagan artists on staff. So, Florida blog readers, if you live in that area and know of any Pagan or Wiccan tattoo folks, please post some info in the Comments section!

In a fairly scary phenomenon, honeybees have been dying in record numbers. Colony Collapse Disorder has caused nearly a fourth of the North American bee population to die, and scientists have figured out that it's a combination of many things that has brought this about. Why should we worry? Well, because bee pollination is a significant factor in much of the world's food production. Now that the planting season is here, you can help out by putting "bee friendly" plants in your garden, which will help boost the population of native honeybees in your area. Herbs such as clover, lavender, jasmine, rosemary, and thyme, along with flowers like violets, sunflowers, and coneflowers, all help with bee pollination and lead to increased population. For more information, you can go to Help the Honeybees, sponsored by Haagen-Dasz, or the Burt's Bees website.

I know we have a couple of bee people who read this blog -- please chime in on this if you can!

Another interesting tidbit of news from the UK Independent: apparently, tourists who have been illegally sneaking bits of Uluru rock out of Australia are being plagued with bad luck, and are mailing them back in an effort to escape the negative juju. Uluru, formerly called Ayers Rock, is one of Australia's most well-known Aboriginal sites and is visited by nearly half a million tourists each year. Despite the fact that it's Aboriginal sacred land, there are no restrictions in place to keep people from trompling all over it. Taking rocks out of the country is against the law, but that hasn't stopped visitors from taking bits of Uluru home with them.

However, now people are sending back rocks on a daily basis with letters of apology, and about a quarter of them state that they've had runs of bad luck since they took the rocks home. A tourist from Britain sent back his rock, with a note saying, "Things were good in my life before I took some of Ayers Rock home with me, but since then my wife has had a stroke and things have worked out terribly for my children – we have had nothing but bad luck."

Morris dancing, that centruies-old tradition of English country life, is seeing a resurgence in popularity these days. The UK Independent does a nice piece on how Pagan groups are bringing back Morris dancing, and embracing not only the dancing but its spiritual aspect. As the Morris dancing population is aging, newer, younger groups are coming in, and many troupes (called sides) are full of Pagans; Wolfshead & Vixen is what you'd get if you had Neil Gaiman and Tim Burton design your Morris costumes, and they're amazing. One dancer says, "We quite consciously work with ideas of shamanism... it's a form of ritual theatre, a magical space embracing both dancers and audience."

Thanks to Rain for the heads-up on this one: The Four Quarters online store is offering free copies of their Wheel of the Year calendars. I haven't seen the 2008 edition yet, but previous years' offerings have always been very high quality and full of useful information -- it's more like a magazine than a typical calendar. There's a limited number available, so if you want one, order it soon!

It's probably a telling mark of my own levels of geekiness that I get really excited when I find scholarly papers available online. Last month was the 2008 International Conference of the Center for Studies on New Religions, and now a number of the presentations are available to view online here: CESNUR Papers. This year's theme was "Research into Minority Religions, New Religious Movements and 'the New Spirituality", so the papers all follow along that very wide topic. If you have time, be sure to check out Suzanne Evans' The Rise and Fall of a Public Witch Hunt and The Role of Nature, Deities and Ancestors in Constructing Religious Identity in Contemporary Druidry by Michael T. Cooper.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the case of teacher John Freshwater, who has a Bible on display (along with the Ten Commandments) in his middle-school classroom. The school district asked him to remove the items, and many kids came to school with Bibles of their own, to show their support for Freshwater. Now, however, some parents are concerned about the divisive learning environment that the case has created. There's some downright "us versus them" hostility going on, and some parents and kids think that "acceptance and religious tolerance is a one-way street for many concerned."

One parent refers to the atmosphere as one of "mob mentality", and says that kids are being harassed and picked on if they're not backing Freshwater. In fact, she says that it's being presented as though those who disagree with the teacher are "anti-Bible." Mom Christine Hamilton summarized the situation, saying, "This is the United States of America. You’re supposed to accept everybody for who they are, and none of this is supposed to matter. That is very frustrating to me. As a Christian, you shouldn’t judge anybody. ... We all believe in different things. I personally might not agree with the way you believe or the way you practice, but we can still be friends.”

You know, there's so much badly done coverage of Wicca and Paganism out there, that I really do enjoy it when some reporter does a nice little human-interest story on practitioners of nature-based faiths in which we're shown to be just like everyone else. This week's offering comes from the Great Falls Tribune in Montana, in which writer Stacy Byrne demonstrates that Wiccans are basically normal people who just don't do the same stuff as everyone else. It does seem that around the Sabbats there tends to be an increase in the number of these articles, and it will definitely be nice when Pagan faiths are seen as so mundane that they don't even rate a story at all. I mean, can you imagine if someone wrote an article entitled "Meet the Jews Next Door" or "Your Hindu Neighbors Are Nice People"? I guess the idea of Wicca and Paganism isn't quite mainstream enough yet, but at least things are being portrayed in a mostly positive light. Nicely done piece from Ms. Byrne, who took the time to interview people from more than just one spiritual path.

Rufus Wainwright is a musical genius, but now there's even more reason to think he rocks. Thanks to reader Linda for sending me a tip on this -- Rufus is suggesting a really neat way to celebrate the summer solstice on June 21. This is, after all, the longest day of the year, and a time when some people believe that magic is at its peak. Rufus is challenging everyone to select a twelve-hour period on the summer solstice and go without electricity. Just shut everything off. Spend that time, instead of watching tv or surfing the Internet, contemplating how you can make changes to help the environment in the coming year. It's a great idea -- and one great wayto celebrate the day. What if everyone just turned off the lights for the sheer beauty of the experience?