Banrigh na Boogie

Grian-Stad Geamhraidh: A' Ghrian

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:02:27 GMT

For those who aren't on the feed for my blogspot blog:

Fàilte ort féin, a ghrian nan tràth,
'S tu siubhail ard nan speur;
Do cheumaibh treun air sgéith nan ard,
'S tu màthair àigh nan reul.

Thu laighe sìos an cuan na dìth
Gun dìobhail is gun sgàth,
Thu 'g éirigh suas air stuagh na sìth,
Mar rìoghain òg fo bhlàth.

A' Ghrian - Traditional Gaelic song to the sun, from the original Gàidhlig, as recited by Iain MacNìll of Barra, at the turn of the century before last. #316 in the Ortha nan Gàidheal.
And in English:

The Sun

I welcome you, sun of the seasons,
As you travel the skies aloft;
Your steps are strong on the wing of the heavens,
You are the glorious mother of the stars.

You descend into the deadly sea
Without distress and without fear;
You rise up on the wave of peace,
Like a youthful Queen in bloom.

Writer's Block: Super-human

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:17:59 GMT

If you could choose one super-power, what would it be and why?

Submitted By bloodlustshow

View 1267 Answers

The ability to heal.

Self-explanatory, really. There's too much pain and suffering in this world. It would be good to have more of an ability to change that.

"Redeemed through pain, Not through joy"

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:24:08 GMT

Jim Carroll (August 1, 1949 – September 11, 2009)

I don't know how I didn't hear about this till now. Light upon your path, Jim, your words and music were the soundtracks to some key times in my life. Whether pogoing on the porch in Dorchester to "People Who Died", wandering the streets of Cambridge singing songs from "Catholic Boy", singing "Them" while lost on the South Side of Chicago at 3am, or subtitling a photo essay with lyrics from Jealous Twin ("She moves through the black door / She turns toward the desperate light"), your words captured my mind and heart during a time in my life when my emotions and events around me were intense, violent, and difficult to survive. Thank you for helping me through those passages.

This song is for you my brother.

Not a Virus - Wysong Toxic Mold Recall

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:42:01 GMT

All my dogs are fine now, but it looks like it wasn't a virus at all. After they were all well again, we found the visible mold further down in the bag.

We do the BARF diet for their dinner, but had been giving them a bit of the dry food for breakfast on mornings when we were in a rush. So much for that. I'm just glad all our dogs are OK. I'm not sure if any other dogs have died from this, but if we hadn't gotten them emergency medical care, I don't doubt that both Mara and Sheena could have died from this; they were that sick. Ripley, despite being elderly, apparently has the constitution of... well, what she is: a survivor. Life on the streets and in the shelter didn't kill her, and she's the only one who, though sick, did not need rehydration, antibiotics or anti-nauseau meds. She was very sick, but not as bad as the other two. I think Wysong owes us for some vet bills.

Thanks to imafarmgirl for this:

A manufacturer of natural pet food has recalled some of its products, fearing they may contain mold.

Wysong Corporation ( http://www.wysong.net/index.php ) has recalled bags of dry dog food from certain shipments. The foods involved are of the Maintenance ( http://www.wysong.net/products/maintenance-natural-healthy-dog-food.php ) and Senior ( http://www.wysong.net/products/senior-natural-healthy-dog-food.php ) product lines. The company announced on its Web site today that these batches have proven to be "above acceptable moisture levels and may contain mold."

If your bag of Wysong dry dog food bears one of the following batch numbers, do not feed it to your dog:

Wysong Maintenance: lot numbers 090617, 090624, 090706, 090720.
Wysong Senior: lot number 090623.

Depending on which type of mold grows on the moist food, the effects can range from barely noticeable to lethal.

Vomiting and diarrhea are common symptoms, says Lee Herold, a critical-care veterinarian at DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital ( http://dovelewis.org/index.aspx ). But, she says, some forms of mold can produce a bacteria called Mycotoxin, which can cause life-threatening seizures or liver failure. Usually, she sees these extreme cases in dogs that get into a moldy compost bin and eat a lot of it, but she says mold in dry food is definitely cause for concern.

The lot number is located in one of two places, depending on if you bought the food in a bag or a box. On the box, it's easy. A number following the format in the list above will be on the top of the box. On the bags, it's a little trickier: hold the bag so that you're looking at the front of it. Turn it upside down, so you're still looking at the front, but the writing is upside down now. Now you should see a number imprinted into the crimping on the bottom of the bag (which is now on top), the company says.

You can return the food to the retailer you bought it from or contact the company for product replacement. To contact Wysong, send an email ( mailto:Wysong@Wysong.net ) and put "Product Replacement" in the subject.

New Age Death Sweat III - Response by Arvol Lookinghorse

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:22:52 GMT

Original Post here: Lakota Pipekeeper’s Statement Concerning Sweatlodge Deaths

My blog post (just reposted same text, but in case that site goes down

Oh, and the syndicated feed for my blogspot blog so it will just pop up in you LJ friends list: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/paganachd/profile

New Age Death Sweat II - NYT Editorial by Dr. Al Carroll

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:09:31 GMT

At the request of the New York Times, Al has written an editorial on the Newage Death Sweats. The following is scheduled to appear this coming Thursday or Friday.
* (Re)post on Pàganachd Bhandia
* Original Post
* Thread on Oprah's forum (we'll see if it stays up)

Plastic Death Sweat

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:33:19 GMT

2 Dead, 3 Critical, More Hospitalized

James Arthur Ray promised to make them Spiritual Warriors.

The newage, pyramid-scheming, scam artist crammed 21 people into a plastic sweatlodge. In the hot, wet dark with the man who had no idea how to lead an Indian ceremony, and no connection to any culture that could have taught him how (or told him this was a really bad idea), they sweated for two hours... till two were dead, three were unconscious, and everyone else went to the hospital.

more...

The Do's and Don'ts of Being a Good Ally

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:19:27 GMT

For anyone who is trying to be an ally to any oppressed group they are not themselves part of:

http://karnythia.livejournal.com/1387435.html

Required reading, IMNSHO. :-)

Peltier denied parole

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:49:31 GMT

http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/index1.htm

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/21/18618042.php

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112116843&ft=1&f=1001

Writer's Block: Lights Out

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:51:56 GMT

All it takes is a blackout to realize how much we rely on electricity. What's your most memorable story from a power outage?

View 501 Answers

1990-something. Central Massachusetts. The depths of winter. Without power, without running water, for about nine days in an ice storm. Due to living at the end of a dirt road, in a forest, essentially on an island, we were totally marooned. Ice took down all the phone lines, power lines, and multiple trees. The state was declared a disaster area, and we waited for crews from Canada to come help us out.

Thank all deities we had a wood stove and plenty of wood. Having been raised by paranoid midwestern farmers, I know enough to keep a good stock of food and water on hand, or we could have died.

I read a lot, with the aid of a battery-operated reading light. We talked and tended the fire and slept three to a bed for maximum warmth. The dog was perfectly happy and didn't notice anything was wrong.

For extra credit, I had my period at the time. And the flu. You will notice I have no icons that include snow or ice.

Suirbhé Mór na Gaeilge / The Big Irish Language Survey

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:30:40 GMT

The Trust for Irish Medium Education / Iontaobhas na Gaelscolaíochta are asking for wide participation in this survey. No matter where you live in the world, no matter what language(s) you speak, they are interested in your opinion on preserving the Irish language (Gaeilge). Go raibh maith agaibh for taking a few minutes to help out.

Please send this to everyone you know / Cuir seo ar aghaidh chuig gach duine a bhfuil aithne agat orthu.

English below

Iontaobhas daonchairdis i mbun Suirbhé Mór na Gaeilge

Tá Iontaobhas an Gaelscolaíochta ( InaG), iontaobhas atá ann le tacaíocht a thabhairt d’fhorbairt na Gaelscolaíochta, i mbun taighde ar dhearcadh an phobail i leith na Gaeilge. Dúirt An Dr Réamaí Mathers de chuid InaG , "Mar eagraíocht daonchairdis bíonn sinne ag obair i gcomhpháirt le pobail agus le daoine aonair ar fud an Domhain. Is é an ról is mó atá againn ná a bheith ag obair go dlúth le deontóirí agus daonchairde le tacaíocht a thabhairt do phobail eagsúla an Ghaelscolaíochta a bheith acu agus chuige sin tá suas do 5 mhilliún caite againn go dtí seo.

Ní féidir praghas ar chur ar luach ár dteanga féin agus tá neart eolais anois ag teacht chun cinn ar éifeacht déarfach na Gaeilge agus an tumoideachais ar pháistí agus ar an phobail ar fad. Is é an mian atá againn mar iontaobhas ná obair s’againn a leathnú ar fud na tíre agus níos faide mar sin de, tá sé de thábhacht go bhfuil eolas domhan againn ar dhearcadh an phobail i leith na dteanga bíodh sin maith nó olc. Tá an Suirbhé Mór anois ar shuíomh idirlíne Iontaobhas an gaelscolaíochta www.iontaobhasnag.com

Philanthropic Trust Fund carrying out 'The Big Irish Language Survey'

Iontaobhas na Gaelscolaíochta (InaG), The Trust Fund for Irish-medium Education have started what they hope to be the biggest ever online survey on attitudes towards the Irish language. Dr Réamaí Mathers from InaG said “As a philanthropic and charitable trust we work closely with communities and individuals throughout the World. Our main role at this stage is to work in partnership with donors and philanthropic bodies to support communities, primarily in the north of Ireland, who wish to fulfil the dream of an education for their children through Irish. The value of our native culture and bilingualism is being increasingly understood in relation a range of social, intellectual and academic benefits. The work we are involved in is exciting; it enriches lives and indeed whole communities

It is an ambition of our Trust to extend our work throughout Ireland and indeed perhaps overseas, it is therefore of paramount of importance for us to hear the opinions of people in relation to the language be they positive or negative. To this end we have devised a survey that will allow people to express their thoughts on a range of issues. The survey will run online from now until the end of July 2009.
The survey can be found on our website:

www.thetrustforirishmediumeducation.com

Go raibh maith agat to Eireannoir over on Óenach for passing this one along. Sláinte Mhaith!

Кэтрин Прайс. Религия - о публичном и приватном

Tue, 19 May 2009 22:07:03 GMT

No, it's not the Return of the Cyrillic Spammer. Members of a Ukranian LJ community have translated one of my blog rants into Russian:

Кэтрин Прайс. Религия - о публичном и приватном

I have no Russian, so I'm taking the translators' word here that that's what it is ;-)

It's funny, because I don't think the original rant is among my best writing. I was tired and rambling, and I've always meant to do some editing on the (imho, long-winded) piece, but I got the translation request before I got around to it, so I guess I'll just let it stand. Apparently I'm not all that easy to translate into Russian. I've heard this from translators in other languages, too. Perhaps my colloquial style relies overmuch on... colloquialisms?

It's always interesting to me which pieces people key in on, as it's often not the same ones I pick as my best or most relevant. But I've had the same experience - there have been times where a piece of writing and music that means a lot to me I'll later discover that the creator just tossed it off, while something sweated over will be met with a resounding, "meh".

Mothers Day

Sun, 10 May 2009 21:15:16 GMT

On this Mothers Day I honor all the women who are raising their children with strong values, teaching girls to respect themselves and boys to always treat women and girls with respect. And I honor the women who have chosen not to give birth, but who put their mothering energies into helping the community and fighting for justice. Be well, women, and look out for one another.

Identifying the Predator: Spiritual, Financial, and Sexual Abusers

Sat, 02 May 2009 06:52:08 GMT

As some of you know, I've been involved for decades now in trying to do something about predators in our communities. And as some of you also know, one of the reasons I do it is that I, and some of those I love, have been harmed by predators. All of these guys initially seemed kind, soft-spoken, spiritual and loving. Until they... weren't. They all waited until we loved them to harm us, until we were committed to the relationship and invested in "making it work," and the abuse always happened behind closed doors. Once the honeymoon was over, life with them became hell. The reason they were able to fool us long enough to gain our love and trust and then hurt us is because they are skilled at it; it's what they do. If they weren't good at it, they would have moved on to another sort of con game by now. Hopefully this information will help those who may have been victimized. Even better, maybe it will help someone spot a predator before they have a chance to harm them. I'm not sure if there's anything more devastating than having someone you love assault you. I hope no one reading this ever has to go through it.

You want me to go to sleep... when?!!

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:22:51 GMT

Larks, Owls and Hummingbirds
By Leon Kreitzman

Only cultural norms and the alarm clock give us the pretense of choice by overriding our inner rhythms — and there is increasing evidence that we are paying a high cost in terms of our health. Disruption of the circadian clock is linked with cancer, cardiovascular diseases, gastric illnesses, asthma, schizophrenia, learning disorders and other conditions. more...

Bear this in mind the next time you're nodding off while I'm wide awake, or nudging me in the morning while I'm still having my beauty coma. Or if I'm up awaiting the dawn while you're snoring. The odd thing is, I have sometimes been able to change my normal rhythms... for a while. Sometimes for years at a time. And then I always revert. Should probably get those cortisol tests done, if I can ever be awake at the right time.

Bronze Age burials on the Island of Barra, Outer Hebrides

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:38:51 GMT

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/time-team/catch-up#2871811

Tony Robinson and the team travel to the windswept island of Barra where a recent storm ripped apart one of the dunes, revealing Bronze Age burials.

A Scottish friend sent me this. The summation of this program, and some of the others, looks intriguing. But so far I haven't been able to get the video to load. Let me know if you figure out how to view it, and what you think.

crossposted to oenach

New Online CR Community

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:43:33 GMT

From Felmac:

Óenach (Old Irish: assembly, gathering) is an online Celtic Reconstructionist (CR) community and forum--open to newcomers and the experienced alike--for the discussion of CR and other Celtic-related topics from a traditional perspective, that is a perspective more strictly in accordance history, culture and tradition.

"Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism (CR) is a polytheistic, animistic, religious and cultural movement. It is an effort to reconstruct, within a modern Celtic cultural context, the aspects of ancient Celtic religions that were lost or subsumed by Christianity." -- From the CR FAQ

Principles and Parameters

What We Mean by CR
1. Celtic Reconstructionism is a methodology to restore and revitalize the pre-Christian worldviews and polytheistic systems of the various Celtic peoples in the context of contemporary yet traditional Celtic cultures.
2. This methodology is part of a manner of living and being that involves a commitment to the living Celtic cultures and their pre-Christian thought and character.
3. History, culture and tradition form the foundation that informs our methodology, everyday lives, and the process of restoring our pre-Christian spirituality, values and conceptions.

What We're Not About
1. Celtic Reconstructionism does not involve and in fact rejects modern and artificial syncretisms, eclectic practices and modernist interpretations, and does not affiliate with Neodruidism or Neopaganism.
2. This community supports and wishes to preserve the space of women in relation to the flame of Brigid, ie male flametending is not a supported practice.
3. While we maintain that reconstructed Celtic Polytheisms are ethno-religious traditions, this is not an excuse for embracing notions of racial or cultural superiority, or racialist ideologies, and we firmly oppose discrimination based on factors such as race, heritage, nationality, gender or sexual orientation.

What's On Topic
Anything directly relating to Celtic cultures (past and extant), history, languages, and polytheisms.

Please consider joining!
oenach

Moran Taing to Tomás for his work on this, and to everyone who's been participating.

Chris H.

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:09:49 GMT

Any friends of Chris H. who are reading this and haven't been updated recently... If you want an update, please contact Bonnie or email Paul or me.

Writer's Block: More Island Time

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:06:38 GMT

You're packing your bag for that other desert island—the one with no electricity—what 5 books do you take with you?

Submitted By mika_uriah

View 501 Answers

1. The Carmina Gadelica, complete bilingual set.
2. The Gaelic Otherworld - Campbell/Black
3. My best Gàidhlig dictionary
4. Teach Yourself Gaelic
5. Psychotic Reactions and Carbeurator Dung - Lester Bangs

Alternates: The Dictionary of the Irish Language (DIL), and something else with lots of Gaelic song lyrics. More practical sorts would also bring The Whole Island Catalog - a manual for survival on that sort of Island. (No, the book doesn't exist; but it was one of the options when I did an exercise like this at an awful conference.)

Yet another note on terminology

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 02:13:22 GMT

Recently someone online was confused by some of my mentions of "traditionalism," "traditionals," or "traditionalists"; specifically, when I mentioned that some of my family, friends and political allies are traditionals (or consider themselves to be such).

So, to clarify for anyone who's looking at this through a different frame than I do: I am not talking about any of the white Americans, of any ethnicity, who have in recent years* misleadingly called their polytheistic revivalist or reconstructionist efforts "traditionalist". In general, I am referring to those in the historically (and currently) Gaelic-speaking areas, who are maintaining the cultural traditions they were raised with; and in many cases I am referring to traditional Native Americans who were raised with intact traditions, languages and cultures, who still live this way and are passing the traditions on to the younger generations.**

As many of you know, the history of some of these terms in the online world has been fraught with confusion, misrepresentation and conflicts (though the confusion has usually only been among white Americans, or the baffled response from traditionals as to why revivalists would call themselves "traditionalists"). Many times the term chosen by a reconstructionist or revivalist group or individual has had less to do with what they were actually doing, or what their values were when it came to maintaining traditions, than with a need to keep from being associated with those whose beliefs or practices they found to be unacceptable or offensive. In other cases, people seem to have picked the term that sounded most romantic and appealing to them, without really thinking about what the words actually mean.

And in some cases, we really did have the problem of people lying about their backgrounds and misleading people about the culture, claiming to be "traditionalists" when they were clearly revivalists at best.

But in living cultures, there isn't much controversy about the meaning of these things. Questions of "Who/what is traditional? Who/what is revivalist?" don't have to be struggled with so much in communities where more of the culture survives. Living communities usually have living, worked-out definitions for these things, and more shared vocabulary. It's only when those who don't have a traditional background have tried to claim more than they have, or when people are really speaking different languages (even when using the same words) that confusion has resulted.

This has especially been a problem in a written medium that relies increasingly on soundbites, and which may be completely divorced from groups of people who live and work together in a world that doesn't have much to do with the Internet.

When I look back now on the early days of the Celtic Reconstructionist movement, I think "revivalist" would have been less prone to misinterpretation that "reconstructionist". I also think it's a generally more accurate term for what we've been doing these past decades. But as I've said before, I never made a decision to choose a term for this stuff. A lot of terms got tossed around in the proto-CR years, and for some reason "reconstructionism" is the one most people gravitated to... even if I now realize that, all along, many of us were using it to mean rather different things. I just wanted to find common ground and communication with others. I never tried to plan out, organize, or start a "movement". I just wanted to do my work and collaborate with others I hoped had a similar vision... even when I really didn't know people well enough to realize we meant different things by some of these words.

So, I've always found this obvious, but I'm going to say it again, since I appear to be one of the people to blame for the word "reconstructionism" having been popularized: If you, or the people you learned from, had to piece together what you're doing from a combination of cultural survivals and books, that's reconstructing. It's also reconstructing if you had a ceremony surviving intact in your family of origin, but it was done for a saint, and you back-engineer the prayers to be for the Pagan deity you believe it was originally for. If you find a tale in one place and a mention in a song in another place, and a mention in an Old Irish manuscript in another, and combine them into a fuller picture: that is reconstruction. The source materials are traditional, but it's simply dishonest to say that having to put the pieces back together now is the same as growing up in a family where everyone had that full, complete, living polytheistic practice that the children learn by exposure and osmosis.

As an example: One of the things that survived in my family of origin were some of the harvest customs and divination "games". I don't remember learning how to do the apple divination thing. Since it was just something the women in my family did casually, I don't remember the first time I saw it done. I was too young. My earliest clear memory of the practice is of teaching it to other girls in the lunchroom at elementary school. I didn't even know it was an Irish and Scottish tradition until I found it, as an adult, in McNeill and Danaher. So, that was an inherited tradition. Who knew? It didn't have to even be revived, as it never fell into disuse in my family. But if I choose to add prayers to the process now, prayers I wasn't taught with the custom as a child, that is combining reconstructionism into it. Similarly, the harvest and spring bonfires that were traditional among my Irish grandparents in Indiana, and maintained to some extent among a variety of families I grew up around in Illinois, were maintained as a secular custom. Many of the same ideas and functions were maintained, but my grandparents were not praying to Pagan deities when they did these things. The kids I danced around the fire with may have been doing dances passed down through many generations, but the religious component was missing. I'd say there was still a sense of the mystical attached to these customs for those of us prone to it, and some, like me, have grown up to expand on that mystical part in the spirit of the tradition, but it's not the same as implying that all the kids (or adults) were praying and making offerings and trancing out and having visions. Only some of us were.

But this is how it's always been: in a functional, living community (of whatever ethnicity, race or religion) there are always people for whom ceremonies, even religious ones, are merely a rote, secular custom. Others may feel something more, but only some of the time. People who feel the need to commune with the spirits on a deep, ongoing basis, who feel the need to make our religion the center of our lives, are always in the minority. The only reason so many white people seem to be having problems with knowing how to describe these things is that the structures for how to be an earth-based ceremonial person have largely fallen away in caucasian-American communities. In the recent Irish and Scottish history, what I see is that those of us who would have more easily found a place amongst other ritualists and seers in our ancestors' times seem to have chosen the route of artist or Christian clergy. (And by artist I include all the arts: poetry, music, visual arts, dance, etc...) Also in modern times, the lack of resonance many of us felt with Christianity also led us to explore other religions before making the decision to return to our roots and do the work to revive, re-establish and expand on the authentic religious survivals we have.

At this point I could go on a further tangent about the pitfalls and pratfalls I've seen in this process over the last (mumble) years, but I think I'll tuck this behind the cut tag for now. It's turning into another essay I've got kicking around in draft form, so those who've (re-)read this far will see some of this cropping up elsewhere before too long. Assuming I still care. Lately I find myself less and less interested in what people call themselves and watching what they do (more on this below).

So, I hope that clears things up. I often forget that many of the people who read these posts are coming from a primarily Neopagan background, where these things are less clearly defined, or redefined on a whim. But in recent years I seem to be speaking less and less with Neopagans, and more with people for whom these terms are not really confusing or debated. That's where I feel more at home these days.

Even in the various traditional communities, there are at times discussions or disagreements about who is really being traditional, whether ceremonies or songs are being done in the right way, and where the lines are drawn. And there can also be the problem of outsiders to those communities trying to claim more position or knowledge than they have. But these discussions happen in a very different milieu, for the most part, with very different customs and expectations than found in the Neopagan communities. So, as traditional cultures and cultural preservation efforts have been my predominant milieu in the past few years, that's the framework I've been tending to see and speak through. We speak the languages of those around us and, more and more, that's where my life has tended to be centered.

ETA: What mystifies and amuses me to no end are those who seem ready to Internet-battle to the death over semantics. Seriously, what defines someone is what they are *doing*, how they are *behaving*. Until you get to know someone, and know them in the context of their daily lives, and know their family and community, you can only tell so much by what words a stranger chooses to wrap themselves in. Sad to say, most people on the Intarwebs don't bother to figure out what words mean before they don them. On the Internet in particular, it can be almost impossible to know where someone is really coming from if all you have to go on is their self-reporting and public persona.

Additionally, and I really can't believe I need to spell this out, but I will, slowly, for some who are still unclear on the concept:

I. Have. No. Control. Over. What. Other. People. Call. Themselves.

Seriously. Read that again. If someone is choosing to call themselves by terms I've been associated with in the past, or even terms I am credited with originating or popularizing, that doesn't mean there is any connection between me and that person; that doesn't mean I have any control over what they are doing, let alone any approval of their actions. Especially strangers on the Internet I've never met. Really, why is this hard for some people to figure out?

There are some people who seem to think I have far more power in all this than I do. Or that I somehow am being paid royalties whenever some noob calls themselves something on Teh Intarwebs. How can people be so dim? And if I am supposedly making money off these simple terms of definition people are bandying about (yes, someone is claiming I am doing that; or at least I think that's what she's claiming, her angry rants are unclear), I would really love someone to show me the money. Who knew that donating all my book royalties to Gaelic cultural preservation, refusing to sell ceremony (or workshops or readings) and refusing to write for magazines that publish authors who promote cultural misappropriation could be so profitable?

So if any of you know where all those crumbling leaves of faerie gold are, please pass them on to the phone and utilities companies for me, OK? Thanks; my family and I would really appreciate it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* By "in recent years" I mean in the past ten, twenty, or thirty years. For an actual living, traditional culture, that is a very short span of time. Traditional culture moves in generations and millennia, not mere decades.
** In a broader sense, I'm also referring to "traditionals" of other cultures who fit the above definition - such as some of the Yoruba and Hindu folks who were kind enough to take me in when I was young and confused, or the parents or grandparents of friends and family of European heritage who have maintained a significant amount of old traditions. Again, people can have varying degrees of traditionalism in their lives and families, and not everyone agrees on where to draw the line. But it is still a very different framing than seen among most contemporary Euro-Americans.

R.I.P. Ron Asheton

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:57:25 GMT

Ron Asheton, guitarist for the Stooges, has died.

http://www.nme.com/news/the-stooges/41906
http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2009/01/punk-guitar-pio.html

Astonishingly influential, though many who imitate his riffs and style probably never heard of him. I'm glad he got a chance to shine again in his final days. May all the Guitar Deities light your path and welcome you home, Ron. Slàinte Mhath.

More videos in the comments. Including some not-exactly-SFW bits.

New Year's Day

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 06:55:46 GMT

U2: New Year's Day

Good Hogmanay all...

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:40:40 GMT

Let us know if you first foot.

Off to get ready for festivities.

Just Because...

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 08:14:11 GMT

Just Because...

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:38:40 GMT

Cheap Trick_He's A Whore_pre-first album