Posts Tagged ‘Celtic’

News & Submissions 1/2/2011

Sunday, January 2nd, 2011

Press Release: Shopping for Wiccan Supplies Has Gotten Easier at Wiccan Joy
Palm Coast, FL, January 02, 2011 –(PR.com)– Shopping for Wiccan supplies has gotten easier with the December, 2010 launch of Christina Naves’ new website Wiccan Joy. She believes it will not take long for her Palm Coast, FL based company to grow into a leading, nationwide on-line shopping location.

Wiccan Joy contains blogs written by Ms. Naves in which she expresses the challenges of finding acceptance for a Wiccan lifestyle, which is often misunderstood. She also advocates understanding and acceptance of others despite their making different lifestyle choices. Furthermore, she claims Wiccan Joy is a visually appealing website that promises to be continually growing and evolving throughout its existence. Read full story from americanconsumernews.com

German Archeologists Uncover Celtic Treasure
German archeologists have unearthed a 2,600-year-old Celtic tomb containing a treasure of jewellery made of gold, amber and bronze.

The subterranean chamber measuring four by five meters was uncovered near the prehistoric Heuneburg hill fort near the town of Herbertingen in south-western Germany. Its contents including the oak floor of the room are unusually well preserved. The find is a “milestone for the reconstruction of the social history of the Celts,” archeologist Dirk Krausse, the director of the dig, said on Tuesday. Read full story from spiegel.de

Heavenly skies provide inspiration for angel charity
Floating serenely in the sky, this beautiful angelic cloud provided the photographer with the inspiration for a new charity.

CJ Holding was travelling through Somerset when she glanced up to see the fiery scarlet-framed head with its glowing yellow body and turquoise wings.The image left a stunning blue trail in its wake.

Miss Holding, 32, said: ‘The angel picture was actually taken during a despairing moment in my life nearly seven years ago.

‘I was travelling through a small village in Somerset on my way to the coast.

‘I looked up through my tears and saw the most amazing sight of my life.’

Miss Holding, from Henley in Oxfordshire, said: ‘I thought to myself, that cloud looks so strange.

‘It lingered in the sky for about 15 to 20 minutes before I took a picture of it, then it vanished.

‘I thought I’d imagined it and it wasn’t until I got home and printed the image that I would let myself believe what I had seen was real.’ Read full story from dailymail.co.uk

11 faith-based predictions for 2011
To open 2011, CNN’s Belief Blog asked 10 religious leaders and experts – plus one secular humanist – to make a faith-based prediction about the year ahead. Read full story from cnn.com

10 women share stories of challenge and triumph that will inspire you
At some point in a woman’s life, there comes an event or a moment that tests her – who she is, who she wants to be, where she will go next or what she’s made of. She has to decide whether to get up, dust herself off and keep going. She has to choose between keeping quiet or speaking up. She has to work through heartache. She has to do what she knows is right, no matter the consequences. She has to choose to lead. Or she has to take a chance. We have gathered 10 inspiring women who will awe you with their determination, grace and dignity. Read full story from azcentral.com

Witchcraft declared legal profession in Romania
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania has changed its labor laws to officially recognize witchcraft as a profession, prompting one self-described witch to threaten retaliation. Read full story from ap.org

Scunthorpe psychic to be buried alive for a week to raise money for charity
A SCUNTHORPE psychic will be buried six feet underground for charity.

Ian Lawman, who is also an exorcist and TV star, says he wants to stretch his talents and get as close to death without actually dying.

Of the week-long burial he said: “I have had the idea of being buried alive for two years now.

“At first it was just a thought, but now my coffin has been made I am becoming a lot more nervous.”

As the date of the burial approaches, Mr Lawman is training to ensure everything goes to plan.

“I won’t have any food or drink for seven days, but I will be taking 12 food tablets equalling 2,000 calories a day.

“My training involves hours of meditation, lying still for long periods of time. The coffin is larger than your average size, but movement is still limited.”

A live webfeed will be streamed throughout the seven days, enabling Mr Lawman to share his experiences and feelings with his fans. Read full story from thisisscunthorpe.co.uk

Pagan bride raises charity funds with wedding cookbook
PAGAN bride Sarah Bell has collected recipes from her unusual wedding to create a charity cookbook.

The 25-year-old, who lives in Burslem, decided to produce the Handfasting Recipe Book when all the guests to her Pagan wedding on October 2 started asking each other for their recipes.

Sarah and her husband Chris, aged 31, wanted to get married on a budget so they asked all their friends to bring a dish to their ceremony in Meerbrook.

The food was such a hit she has put all her guests’ recipes into a book, which is being sold to raise cash for SANDS – the stillbirth and neonatal death charity, which supports bereaved parents. Read full story from thisisstaffordshire.co.uk

Viking wolves return for first solar eclipse of 2011
Two beasts of Norse mythology are set to trouble the skies of northern Europe on Tuesday for the world’s first solar eclipse of 2011.

Ancient Viking legends recount that a giant wolf named Skoll chases the Moon, and its brother Hati pursues the Sun — and if either sinks their teeth into one and holds it back, an eclipse occurs.

For astronomers, though, eclipses are less superstitious affairs, occurring when the Moon swings between the Sun and Earth.
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Tuesday’s event will be a partial eclipse. This occurs when a fraction of the Moon obscures the Sun, and to those in its shadow a “bite” seems to have been taken out of the solar face. Read full story from smh.com.au

News & Submissions 11/27/2010

Saturday, November 27th, 2010

Christopher Hitchens vs. Tony Blair: the full transcript
You may need to set aside the rest of your Saturday to get through this, but here in full is the transcript of the long-anticipated Munk debate between Christopher Hitchens and former prime minister Tony Blair. The motion: “Be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world”. No prizes for guessing who was arguing for and against.

The debate was hosted last night in Toronto, Canada before an audience of 2,600. Reports suggest that touts were selling tickets for up to five hundred Canadian dollars.

According to post-debate voting on the Munk debate website, Hitchens won the argument against the motion by 68 per cent to 32 per cent. A pre-debate poll showed that 57 per cent were against the motion and 22 per cent were for it — demonstrating, I guess, the impressive debating skills of both men. Red full story from newstatesman.com

My Take: How real interfaith dialogue works
I’ve thought for some time that if more Americans had personal contact, even friendships, with their fellow Americans who are Muslims there might be less mistrust and misunderstanding about the role Islam plays in their lives.

The years have convinced me that interfaith dialogue, particularly the one-on-one variety, is a more viable way to break down barriers between people than large-scale efforts. Read full story from cnn.com

“What Do You Ask a Shaman?” on November 30 “Why Shamanism Now?” Radio Show with Christina Pratt
(OPENPRESS) November 27, 2010 — Streaming live on the Co-Creator Radio Network (www.co-creatornetwork.com) on Tuesday, November 30, at 11 a.m. Pacific time/2 p.m. Eastern time, on her show “Why Shamanism Now?: A Practical Path to Authenticity,” shaman and founder of the Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing Christina Pratt reviews some of the questions posed to her – questions like: Can shamanism help with mental illness? What about my depression? Am I cheating myself out of healing by taking my pharmaceuticals? Can you heal my father’s dementia? Does shamanic healing work long distance? How do I “pay the rent” with powerful psychoactive plants and stay in good relationship with the spirit world? Why does gratitude matter? Read full story from theopenpress.com

Snapshot of a Civilization in the Making
The eastern desert of Jordan is unforgiving, a lunar landscape that races 500 lonely miles from Amman to the outskirts of Baghdad. Along the main road, there are few signs of life: a dusty army base, a desert grouse, the bleached bones of a dead animal. Yet through the sandy silence, the wind carries whispers of luxury. About 50 miles from Amman stands a small, richly decorated bathhouse called Qusayr Amra. It is among the strangest, most spectacular examples of early Islamic art, a solitary monument to la dolce vita in this sun-scorched earth. At Qusayr Amra, we can catch a glimpse of Islamic high culture in the making. The picture that forms is surprising, to say the least. Read full story from wsj.com

White house confirms support of ‘clean Carcieri fix’
WASHINGTON – The White House has reiterated its support for a “Carcieri fix” – legislation confirming the federal government’s authority to take Indian land into trust for general purposes, while the Interior Department has distanced itself from a senator’s proposal that would virtually eliminate off reservation trust land for gaming.

“I think everyone in the administration that’s talked about it has made it very clear that we support the clean Carcieri fix,” White House spokesman Shin Inouye told Indian Country Today Nov. 23. “The president has said that, the Secretary (of Interior) has said that, we’ve said that in all our letters and testimony to Congress. Is there some confusion out there about our position?” Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

Loch Ness monster: new pictures and sighting of Nessie
The legend of Nessie has resurfaced with a new sighting and pictures of the Loch Ness monster.

Richard Preston, a landscape designer, has been the latest person to spot a mysterious shape that might be the Loch Ness monster and capture a series of images on camera. Read full story from stv.tv

There’s oxygen on Rhea, but aliens? Don’t hold your breath
On its journey around Saturn and its moons, the Cassini mission – jointly run by NASA and the European Space Agency – has made another breathtaking discovery. The findings, published in Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1198366), show that Rhea, the second biggest moon of the giant planet, has an atmosphere that is 70 per cent oxygen and 30 per cent carbon dioxide. This adds to the picture of Rhea that Cassini has already provided by imaging its craters and discovering its rings. Read full story from newscientist.com

Fun “green” projects from Marc de Vinck
We’ve done a lot of projects on MAKE over the years that use largely recycled or scrounged materials. As we continue our MAKE Green Projects Contest, we thought it’d be fun to feature some of them here. We figured we’d tag some of our own green! Read full stor from makezine.com

Towards a Spiritual future with Celtic beliefs:
In Ancient times, the ancestral races of many European nations today were known as ‘Celtics’ as they shared Iron Age inherent roots and they had many mythological belief’s with a touch of spirituality.

Literary Druids were Celtic priests and legend says that they were possessed by many magical powers.

As the Druidism movement was originally inspired by 17th, 18th, and 19th century Romantic movements, neo druids also developed fraternal organizations modeled on Free-masonry that employed the romantic figure of the British Druids and Bards as symbols of indigenous British spirituality. Read full story from dailymirror.lk

Man not denied chauffeur’s permit because he was a pagan
The man who claimed Vancouver police discriminated against him and refused to give him a chauffeur’s permit because he was a pagan whose sexual practices included bondage, domination, sadism and masochism has lost his appeal to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

Peter Hayes had filed a complaint against the Vancouver Police Board and Const. Kevin Barker after Barker refused to give him the permit needed for his employment as a limousine driver in May 2005. Read full story from vancouversun.com

Why is Cthulhu on this 300-year-old gravestone?
The Reverend Ichabod Wiswall (1637-1700) is a historical footnote. When he’s remembered, it’s for giving the first funeral sermon in America, in Duxbury, Massachusetts. So why is there a Lovecraftian cephalopod on his gravestone?

Wiswall was responsible, with the Reverend Increase Mather, for persuading Queen Mary to create the 1692 charter which united the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay into the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which became the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Wiswall served the town of Duxbury as a minister for 24 years and is buried in Duxbury in the Myles Standish Burial Ground, supposedly the oldest continually maintained cemetery in the United States. Read full story from i09,com

Priest accused of hiring hitman (source cnn)

Sacred Spaces: Meet the mason at the Washington National Cathedral (source cnn)

New Atheist Billboard Up in New Jersey (source cnn)