We spend a lot of time here discussing activities related to Pagans in the English-speaking world, and it's sometimes easy to overlook the fact that there are Pagans and Wiccans all over the globe. Newsday has an interesting article reminding us of that, in which they interview several members of a Russian Pagan group.

Paganism has faced a lot of obstacles in Russia, no small thanks to the Orthodox church, which regularly denounces practices that are based in ancient Slavic tradition. In addition, some Pagans have been linked to right-wing extremist groups, and so mainstream society tends to see them as controversial.

At any rate, it's an interesting peek at a small group of people who gathered near Maloyaroslavets to celebrate the summer solstice. The ritual, which was a fertility celebration known as Ivan Kupala, focused on "self-purification, unity with forces of nature and the honoring of the Sun god."

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Tuesday is the date of this month's full moon, and it's the one we know as the Blessing Moon. In addition to being the perfect time to take inventory of the good things you have in your life, use this moon phase for magical workings related to dreams and divination. It's also called the Meadow Moon, so go for a stroll in your favorite fields, smell fresh flowers as you walk in the night, and just enjoy the chance to be outside!

Colors correspondences for this month include green and silver, gemstones are opals, pearls, and moonstones. July's moon is associated with the deities Venus and Cerridwen, as well as Lugh, whose day comes up in just a few weeks. Find a way to celebrate the watery magic of this month's cycle -- maybe hold your Esbat celebration at the beach!

• July's Blessing Moon
• Celebrate the Full Moon
• Drawing Down the Moon


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It's July 4th, and those of us who live in the U.S. are marking a day that commemorates our country's independence. While we still have a long way to go, there are so many freedoms we are guaranteed here that people in other countries can only dream of. We have the right to worship as we choose, or not at all. We are allowed to criticize our government loudly and frequently, without fear of punishment. Do we have room for improvement? Absolutely, but on the whole, we're pretty darn lucky.

As I'm sitting here getting ready to toss some burgers on the grill and snarf down a pile of fresh strawberries, I can't help but think of all the people who are unable to be at home with their loved ones today. I am imagining a group of soldiers stationed in a desert on the other side of the world. I am picturing the E.R. nurses, the police officers, the firefighters, the paramedics who are on shift today, working so that the rest of us can stay safe. As you light your sparklers this evening, and bite into your corncobs, send up a small prayer of thanks to those folks, the ones who are away from home today.

On that note, I offer this simple blessing for today: A Prayer for Unity. Happy 4th of July, everyone.

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From over at Religion Clause comes a report that a high court in Delhi, India, has struck down as unconstitutional a ban on homosexual sexual acts performed in private between consenting adults. The court concluded that the ban infringes upon the right to privacy guaranteed by other sections of the Indian Constitution.

The law in question, 377 IPC, was enacted in the nineteenth century, when India was a colony under British rule. Recently, it was challenged by a group working towards HIV/AIDS education. Of particular note is the following statement made in the court opinion: Section 377 IPC is based upon traditional Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards, which conceive of sex in purely functional terms, i.e., for the purpose of procreation only. Any non-procreative sexual activity is thus viewed as being "against the order of nature”. The submission is that the legislation criminalising consensual oral and anal sex is outdated and has no place in modern society.

In other words, trying to legislate private acts by invoking morality clauses just doesn't cut it in the Indian high court. It will be interesting to see if this sets a precedent in other countries that claim to be far more progressive.

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More often than not, when I post news stories about a mining company on this blog, it's nearly always in reference to someone who wants to destroy the earth with no regard or reverence whatsoever for the landscape. So when I saw this story out of Northumberland, I have to admit it made me smile.

The Shotton open-cast coal mine opened earlier this year, and rather than just dumping all the excavated dirt in a heap, they've decided to do something good with it. An artist has been commissioned to design a giant goddess statue to be created in the nearby hillside, forming the centerpiece of a new public park.

Local opinion is mixed - some folks say the goddess is a great idea, others pooh-pooh it as a publicity stunt and unecessary waste of money. The park development will cost about 2.5m pounds, and work should begin next year.

What do you think? If you lived nearby, would you want a 400-foot naked goddess peeking at you when you drove down the A1? It's certainly got to be better than some of the things I see when I'm cruising along my local freeway. Seriously, though, I think it's a nice idea. It's aesthetically pleasing, and it serves a purpose that will benefit the local community, so everyone wins.

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So there's a murder trial going on in England right now, which a woman named Arizona Devine Watterson is accused of killing a man named Billy Rogers. The defendant claims it's an accident, the prosecution says she's lying and that it was premeditated. At any rate, it's interesting to read the coverage of the story, because what's being focused on is not her defense or the testimony of witnesses. No, what makes the story newsworthy is ZOMG SHE USED A PAGAN DAGGER!

You actually have to read halfway through the article before you get to anything remotely connected to witnesses other than the lady who sold Watterson the athame. I'm curious, if she had whacked him with a baseball bat instead, would the lead paragraphs be ZOMG ITS A LOUISVILLE SLUGGER instead? Clearly, it's a really slow news week over in the Isle of Man.

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We've talked periodically about little Adriel Arocha, a Native American kindergartener in Texas. Adriel wanted to keep his hair long, because his family says it's part of their spiritual beliefs. Although the school segregated him for most of the kindergarten year and had him taught in an In-School Suspension setting (yeah, in kindergarten!), back in January a Federal judge ruled that administrators could not force him to cut his hair.

Now, the Needville Independent School District has filed an appeal on the case, saying that the "judge’s ruling “hijacked” the district’s authority to “regulate its population.” Superintendant Curtis Rhodes believes Adriel's father, Kenney Arocha, has worn his hair long for more than a decade because of “personal choice” rather than religious conviction. Apparently, during the January hearings, Rhodes complained that Arocha was "unable to provide him with "written evidence of their beliefs, a religion that could be researched or a tribal affiliation.”

Um, hello? Since when do all religious belief systems even have written evidence of anything? The family is Native American. They don't have a great big book o' rules like the Big Three, and the problem is that Rhodes and his supporters are viewing all spiritual paths through the Dominant Religion Lens. The judge in the case, Keith Ellision, ruled that it didn't matter if there was written evidence of the belief system existing, but that what was key was that "Plaintiff Arocha is only required to show that he himself has these ‘deeply held religious beliefs,’ which he has done."

Now the school district has filed an appeal arguing that Arocha's hair length is not a matter of spiritual belief at all, but of personal choice. The appeal claims that Ellision "erred in ruling the application of the Needville ISD’s grooming code violated Adriel’s freedom of religious exercise and freedom of speech."

So here's the big question. Are one's religious beliefs no longer valid if they cannot be documented under public scrutiny? Who gets to decide whether a religion is a valid one or not? In modern Paganism, we have many people who follow an eclectic blend of spiritual traditions. Many others follow a family-based system. Even among those who claim the same "label," there is still a lot of room for wiggling - not all Wiccans agree on every principle, nor every Druid or Asatruar. For many of us, the only documentation is what we ourselves have compiled. In the case of the Arocha family, does it matter that there is no specific documentation of their Native American beliefs, as long as they believe those things to be sacred? It's clear that Curtis Rhodes thinks he's entitled to make the call, so I'll be interested to see if a Federal appeals court agrees with him.

And really, how culturally insensitive is it to use the phrase "regulate our population" when referring to someone who's part of a minority group?

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• Create an Elemental Garden
• Magical Herbs
• Ethical Wildcrafting

More Wordless Wednesday photos at About.com and the Wordless Wednesday Home Blog.

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A reader writes in, "I attended a Pagan festival not too long ago, and I was shocked by how many people there consider themselves "warriors." I even met a bunch of men (and a woman) who are in the military - one of them had just come back from the Middle East, and another was getting ready to go over there. I was really uncomfortable around this group - how can any self-respecting Pagan have the "warrior mentality" when we're all supposed to be peace-loving people who do no harm to others?"

Wow. First of all, you're making an awful lot of assumptions about the belief systems of others. You're also using a pretty broad brush to paint everyone with here.

Second, I'm amazed that you were "uncomfortable" around a group of men and women who have pledged to sacrifice their lives should it be necessary, in order to prevent others from having to do so. Finally, you use the term "supposed to be," but we really don't have a Big List o' Pagan Rules that is universal to every single Pagan -- which is part of what draws people to Paganism in the first place. At any rate, I've put together a detailed response to your question here: Warrior Pagans.

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An interesting piece popped up in the Evansville Courier Press this weekend, discussing the different ways that religious groups look at body art, such as tattoos. Reporter Karen Owen-Phelps interviews people from a variety of Christian backgrounds to see how they view tattoos, and the responses vary from "I'm really proud of it" to "I'm so ashamed that I did it." One pastor from a Seventh-Day Adventist church says, "The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and we shouldn't defile it."

Although Owen-Phelps briefly touches on Judaism and Islam, there's no mention at all made of any other religious groups. It would have been a nice contrast if she had taken the time to interview people from non-mainstream religions, because for many of us, our body may be a temple, but it's also an art gallery. Go to any Pagan event, and you'll see a lot of tattoos, not so much because tattoos are part of our spirituality, but because we believe everyone is free to make their own choices.

By the way, if you want to see some of the tattoo art that our readers have submitted, be sure to check out the recently updated Pagan Tattoo Gallery.

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