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As with every year, this year’s Pantheacon offered too rich a menu of workshops and performances for any of us to see all we wanted. This year I was lucky. Several of my favorite Pagan singers (and wonderful people as well) offered back-to-back performances, and I was able to see them all. Ruth Barrett and Holly Tannen  were prominent Pagan minstrels and bards when I first entered our community back in 1984.

 Gentles in this hall,

give ye heed to what we say:

tidings from the East

we bring to you this day.

For all its liturgical and cultural importance, Samhain has yet to inspire much popular music.

So when we end our big public Samhain ritual by joining hands and announcing, “Let's finish with the Samhain song that everybody knows,” you'll see eyebrows go up all around the circle.

When you first start in, you'll get a nice laugh, and then folks will belt it out like they mean it. After all, what's Samhain for, if not for Old Long Ago?

Tara Rice is a brand-new Pagan artist from Toronto, Ontario.  She contacted me via my website to ask me to listen to her new single.  I was enchanted!  I immediately invited her to join our Canadian Pagan music anthology project (now set for this November) and asked if she'd be willing to do an interview.  She's a friendly and enthusiastic but professional young woman and I was impressed with her thoughtful answers.  You can find more information on her or her music at her website: www.tararice.com.

The walls of the medieval castle flicker in the light of the torches as crowds mill across the courtyard. The smell of cooking fires and stew waft from the kitchen and another group of people in medieval clothes, some in chain-mail, pass me on their way to the tavern. I watch them descend the well-trodden stone stairs, then turn toward the tower, hoping to get a break from the crowd and a better look at this medieval market from above.

Hello there!  Once again I only had one entry so she got the books!  Here's my Google Hangouts on Air video revealing the winner and talking about the next giveaway:

Here we go with round two if the "In My Ear" series, this time featuring the albums currently spinning on Christopher Bingham's turntable. (I'm sure he has one.) I hope you are enjoying this series, I will post more as I get the information sent to me.

1. Penguin Cafe Orchestra "Signs of Life"
2. Jethro Tull "TAAB2"
3. Yes "Close to the Edge"
4. Bastard Fairies "Memento Mori"
5. Solas "The Words That Remain."
6. Steely Dan "Gaucho"
7. Russell Simins "Public Places."
8. Trillian Green "Metamorphoses"
9. Pat Metheny "Secret Story"
10.Santana "Abraxas"