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The Sabbat Wheel made a lot of sense for our Pagan ancestors, for whom the seasons and their mid-points roughly corresponded with the Year-Wheel as we know it.  But more and more, I'm finding that it makes little sense in other places, especially where I live.  When I was growing up, the Wheel had only the loosest correspondence with the seasons I knew anyway. The snow was starting to melt by Imbolc, for example, and we had mud season a lot, but crocuses were still at least two weeks away. You knew it was Ostara because there were bees.  The hawthorn and fruit trees were usually blooming by Beltane, but it was still too cold (and often too wet) to camp outside. And so on.

With climate change taking hold, this has become less and less true.  With each passing year I find it more difficult to find meaning in the symbols and landmarks that are supposed to be associated with each Sabbat. The last few years, it simply hasn't felt like the Sabbat at all.

Tapestry is a long-running and respected CBC Radio program that looks at different religions in Canada.  As far as I know, this is the first time Wicca, or any Pagan faith, has been featured on the show.  I thought it was worth sharing!

Listen here:

Violence against a religious and ethnic minority in Southeast Asia. A major city in the Caucasus gets a plan for revitalization. And a horrific story out of Chechnya in southern Russia. These are some of this week's news for Fiery Tuesday, our segment about political and societal news from around the globe. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle.

No, this is not the United States.

This is Canada.

Well, looks to me over here across the border in Canada that the American government is having a meltdown.  I feel a bit like a neighbour listening to a domestic dispute in the next house over.  It’s loud.  Things are crashing around.  People are screaming; people are crying.  I want to help, but I don’t know what to do.  Should I call the police?  I don’t think there’s any police I can call!  Should I go over there and knock on the door to protect the people getting injured?  I suppose I can roundly condemn the abusive person who’s starting the fight, but it’s not like my neighbours listened when I tried to convince them not to marry the jerk in the first place, so why do I think they’ll listen to me now?  I’ve done this much; I’ve tried to keep an extra bedroom open in case it’s needed.

A Quest for Canada is a series of articles that will appear in both my Witches & Pagans column 49 Degrees and my Patheos blog Between the Shadows on an alternating schedule between the two blogs.   Links will be provided in both blogs.

It was the perfect moment.

Quest for Canada is a new series of articles that will appear alternately in both my Witches & Pagans column 49 Degrees and my Patheos blog Between the Shadows.  It will be published once a week in an alternating schedule between the two blogs.   Links will be provided in both blogs.

I believe in new gods as well as old gods.  When you invest spiritual and emotional energy into a concept, it acquires its own egregore; and when enough people do it for long enough, it develops a very powerful egregore.  Most of my readers will have heard of Lady Liberty, or the American Dream.  Simon and Garfunkle wrote a beautiful song about searching for the spirit of America, which was remembered recently in a political campaign ad.  I, as a Canadian, went in search of the spirit of my own country, Canada.