As Pagan/Heathen religions grow and develop, we find that other cultural needs develop as well. In past issues I’ve interviewed Pagan/Heathen authors, musicians and even cartoonists, but there soon comes a need for media as well to let the community and the public know about the growing traditions and offshoot cultural development.

In researching background information on Hauk, I came across my first exposure to Ravencast Podcast. I asked David and Sandi for an interview and they gave me a bit of their time.

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Ellen Hopman alerted me to a nice review of her last book on the Celtic Myth Podshow. That was how I came to find out about this place for all the old Celtic myths. Knowing how popular all things Celtic are with many of our Pagan readers, I asked Gary and Ruth if I could interview them and find out more. They were kind enough to take a bit of time out of their busy schedule to answer the questions.

Christopher: What draws you to Celtic myths?

Ruth: I have always had a interest in folklore, spawned I suspect by fairy tales that were read to me as a child, but my true love is faerie folklore, and Europe abounds with tales of faeries and magical beings of all kinds. So when I discovered Celtic myth and the mythical faeriefolk, I was hooked.

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While looking up Celtic Myth Podshow, I ran across a Druid singer, Damh the Bard and a song, “Cauldron Born.” I contacted him and asked for an interview. There turned out to be a lot to know, including him hosting a podcast brought on by the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids.

Christopher: How long have you known you were a singer?

Damh: I've been singing since I was a small child. While all of my friends were into football, I was obsessed with music. I started learning the guitar when I was eight years old, wrote my first songs when I was 11, and had my first live concerts the same year. I got sidetracked from the folk stuff when I hit my teens and early twenties, but then picked up the acoustic again in the mid ‘90s.

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Raven Grimassi brings to mind of a variety of things. Founder of the Aridian Tradition of Stregheria, a researcher of Italian Witchcraft, he has studied and practiced several Wiccan traditions. He has been a constant student and teacher. He refuses to call himself a scholar, despite lifelong study and prefers calling himself a religious writer. He freely shares what he has learned by both giving lectures and workshops on what he has learned.

Yet any attempt to pin him with a label usually sets you up to discover that he does not neatly fit into the box you tried to put him in. To some, he is controversial, at least when his opinion differs from theirs, nor does he back off from what his own studies seem to reveal.

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One benefit of the Internet age is we can explore far afield of our own country. Hence I keep in touch with some Pagan organizations in Europe. One, the Children of Artemis in England, is where I have had the good fortune to get in touch with Kate West, a well-known author, speaker, and workshop teacher. She is also the High Priestess of the Hearth of Hecate. I guess the nicest thing about the internet is discovering that well-known people are often quite nice people. So I asked for an interview; she said yes.

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We have our religion, beliefs, and our practices and then there is the rest of our lives, job, social activities and so forth. Or at least it is separate in the beginning. But what happens when we decide to combine them? What happens when we work both within our religious community and in the larger society at the same time?

Damian Carr and Craig Melia are Druids in northwest England who found themselves in just that situation.

Christopher: What brought this idea that what you were already doing was not enough?

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It is only December 9 as I type this, and Yule is not until December 21. For the last week, on the high desert at 4,600 feet, I notice my morning walks with my cats have been at near-freezing. This morning I looked up and there was the first snow of the season on the mountains. Certainly feels like winter here.

Our readers brought to my attention some Heathen and Pagan podcasts, a type of community media we are developing to get out the stories that might not interest the mass media.

Our readers asked for interviews of authors, teachers and tradition founders, this time on both sides of the pond, as the English refer to the Atlantic Ocean.

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