This year, NYC’s very own self-described “Urban Shaman,” Mama Donna Henes, will be holding her yearly vernal equinox egg balance celebration/ritual/happening at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza. For thousands of years, households have been divided over the veritability of standing an egg on end, which is (wrongly as I understand it) […]
This Saturday the Broome Street Temple will host a six-hour kirtan from 4–10pm. Featured kirtan walas include (but I’m guessing not limited to) such chantanistas as Gaura Vani, Acyuta Gopi, and Ananta Govinda. Check out this Third Wave of Krishna Consciousness and find yrself lifted (or grounded depending on how […]
It’s like, when you tune your antennae in on something specific you start to see things you might have previously missed. Not that it’s really possible to miss the bright yellow Dorje Ling Buddhist Temple in DUMBO/Vinegar Hill, but you’d be surprised at what slips by unseen. Occupying what used […]
Can’t stop. Won’t stop. Above is a short clip from the documentary “The Other Side of the Water: the Journey of a Haitian Rara Band in Brooklyn.” The official synop goes as follows: The Other Side of the Water follows a group of young immigrants who take an ancient music […]
We’re going to be sharing a great deal more on this gem of a temple, but wanted to first share this gem of a video. Gems for everyone!
Ben Dickinson’s film “First Winter” is currently being shot on location at Heartland, a blooming yoga community in upstate NY. The official synop: In December 2012, a massive collapse of infrastructure leaves a group of Brooklyn yogis snowed-in at a country farmhouse without electricity, cell phone reception, or running water. […]
Vodou at the Crossroads: Conversation with a Mambo & book signing Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute March 2nd, 2011 Some people felt Mambo Marie Carmel was too young when she became a priestess. But, her frankness easily skirts the skeptics aside: “The spirits don’t want old people,” Mambo Marie […]
This exhibition is going to be up for a while (January 28, 2011–July 4, 2011), and worth checking out. For youngsters into the yoga, into the spiritual stuffs, into the video games, looking at pictures of sadhus is like crack to a baby (AKA goji berries to a Lululemon model): […]
Here we go again. “A voodoo priest allegedly placed the candles on the floor around the bed on Saturday after a woman paid him $300 to perform a ceremony with a sexual component, that was meant to bring her good luck, fire department officials said.” For those who don’t know, […]
Finally got a chance to check out the Proteus space in the Gowanus geometrics of Brooklyn last night, which managed, with the lure of screening Eva S. Aridjis‘ “La Santa Muerte,” a documentary on the cult of Santa Muerte in Mexico, to draw me out of a threatening cabin fever […]
Using the internet to learn about real live human beings can take you and your mind only so far. If you want to actually learn something, at some point you need to hit the concrete and start knocking on some doors. Before I did that, however, I needed to make […]
Who’s more excited than me to find out that Morbid Anatomy in conjunction with Observatory will be screening “La Santa Muerte” (“Saint Death”), this Thursday, February 24th? No one. From the website(s): In Mexico there is a cult that is rapidly growing–the cult of Saint Death. This female grim reaper, […]
The very wonderful Galen Stolee took this photograph as part of his Subway Nights project, which documents NYC subway life between the hours of 2 and 5am. A few years back the Chick Tract peeps decided saving souls was a 24-7 undertaking and began keeping their little shop o’ horrors […]
It’s pretty slim pickin’s when it comes to New York City travel books catering to the spiritually inclined. With the exception of Mitch Horowitz’s Occult America, which has quite a bit of information on turn-of-the-century mystic happenings just north of the city, there’s not much out there when you’re looking […]
NOT NEW YORK 