Aug 21, 2024, 2:00 PM – Aug 28, 2024, 2:00 PM The Sky Meadow Mystery School is a free, week-long residential immersion into wholesome work and Deep Play in Vermont’s beautiful Northeast Kingdom. Our theme at the 2024 Harvest Mystery School is memento mori ergo carpe diem; “remember death and therefore seize the day.” For … Read moreThe Sky Meadow Mystery School: Harvest 2024
The First Protocols of Queer Goetia is an anonymous text first published in 2019. It begins: [1. QUEER: “strange, peculiar, eccentric.” From the German quer meaning “oblique, perverse, odd” which in turn comes from the Old High German word for “oblique.” twerh, which is derived from the root terkw, “to turn, twist, wind” as in “the labyrinth turns, twists, winds.” … Read more“The First Protocols of Queer Goetia”
Spring has sprung again and I’ve chosen today, with the temperature suddenly balmy at 68 degrees and at the height of the solar eclipse, no less, to “officially” begin the new season of Floralia this year. A lone Great Blue Heron at the riffle, doubtless soon to be joined by others of his kind as … Read moreFloralia 2024
In the first episode of his series on rites of passage, English artist Grayson Perry creates rituals to commemorate the life of Jordan Seddon – a 17-year-old boy killed by a drunk driver – and officiates a celebration of life for Roch Maher, a man dying of motor neurone disease. A powerful, moving argument for … Read more“Rites of Passage: Death”
Dr. Rowe’s book is available from Amazon and other retailers. Here’s the blurb: Collecting insights from powerful thinkers across multiple traditions―including Black radicals, Indigenous resurgence theorists, terror management theorists, and Buddhist feminists― Rowe argues for the political importance of seemingly apolitical practices such as meditation and ritual. On their own, these strategies are not enough, … Read more“Radical Mindfulness: Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital”
The good people of Cicely, Alaska enjoy their eccentric, Day of the Dead-inflected version of Thanksgiving in this scene from Northern Exposure (1992). As explained by Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles), the indigenous people of Cicely do not regard the orthodox Thanksgiving as a day of celebration. In fact, they carry a lot of ancestral anger … Read moreThanksgiving/Day of the Dead in Cicely, Alaska (Northern Exposure, 1992)
Incense burned, words were spoken, honey was tasted at midnight this evening, beneath a certain tree, overlooking a certain river. Memento mori ergo carpe diem, while you still can.
Today is the first day of Fall in the Northern Hemisphere, and the seasons are visibly (and in other ways) shifting. From my own perspective, within my own Way, this marks the unofficial beginning of Memoria; a festival of harvest and remembrance before the onset of the winter months. That festival will “officially” begin when … Read moreMemoria 2023
I suspect that, had the technology been available, the Shugenja of ancient Japan might well have devised an experience akin to the drop tower towards training themselves to die with grace. As a rider, you have a choice, in the liminal moments before the drop. The drop itself, of course, is happening whether you want … Read moreDrop Tower Shugendō: a memento mori ritual