Let’s Party Like It’s 1999

by Brett Atkinson on

Well, the year 2000 actually if you’re a Coptic Christian living in Ethiopia. According to the calendar of the ancient Coptic Church, September 12 2007 is actually New Year’s Eve 1999. Based on the ancient Egyptian calendar the Coptic Calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar (the one we now use) in 1582. The Coptic Church ignored Pope Gregory XIII’s unilateral decree and maintained their own timetable. More than four centuries later the gap between the two systems is now seven years.

Despite it being the end of the millennium, the residents of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa have been surprised at the lower than expected number of visitors. Only 25,000 tourists are reckoned to have made the trip to one of Africa’s oldest cultures. A proposed food fair and a run by the great Ethiopian athlete Haile Gebrelassie had to be cancelled because of the threat of terrorism. In the absence of tasty street food and jogging, the biggest gig in town has been a concert featuring the Black Eyed Peas.

Now if only they’d managed to get Prince…

Thanks to Rudy Neeser on Flickr for the pic of downtown Addis.

Via The Independent

Least Religious Countries

by Iva Skoch on

When you travel to Europe, don’t be surprised to find that many Europeans don’t believe in God. I have even witnessed some alcohol-infused conversations between Americans and Europeans that almost ended in fistfights over His/Her existence. When you travel to the following countries, you might want to pick a less controversial topic of conversation … umm, maybe George W?

Here are the Top 10 least religious countries in the world:

1. Sweden (up to 85% non-believer, atheist, agnostic)
2. Vietnam
3. Denmark
4. Norway
5. Japan
6. Czech Republic
7. Finland
8. France
9. South Korea
10. Estonia (up to 49% non-believer, atheist, agnostic)

The one that surprised me was Israel, ranking 19th, with up to 37% claiming to be non-believer, atheist, agnostic. Compare that with the United States, ranking 44th, with 3-9% non-believers, atheists, agnostics. (I think I have met them all on the streets of New York City, too.)

The survey concluded that “high levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low homicide rates, low poverty rates, low infant mortality rates, and low illiteracy rates, as well as high levels of educational attainment, per capita income, and gender equality. Most nations characterized by high degrees of individual and societal security have the highest rates of organic atheism, and conversely, nations characterized by low degrees of individual and societal security have the lowest rates of organic atheism. In some societies, particularly Europe, atheism is growing. However, throughout much of the world — particularly nations with high birth rates — atheism is barely discernable.”

Talking Travel with Brad Olsen, Sacred Stomper

by Kelly Amabile on

Brad Olsen is the founder of CCC Publishing, the Consortium of Collective Consciousness, based in San Francisco. He is a man who wears many hats — publisher, writer, photographer, producer and artist. He’s also a seasoned world traveler and author of the new book Sacred Places Europe, the latest title in CCC’s series of travel guides focusing on spiritual journeys. Brad researched and wrote the book, and also provided all the photos and maps that appear throughout. Oh yeah, did we mention he dabbles in cartography too?

His strong interests in history, culture, spirituality and humanity have lead Brad down a career path full of creative pursuits and plenty of travel. I caught up with him recently via email for a quick chat about travel, the Sacred Places series and some of his other artistic projects.

How did you first getting started traveling?

It was an innate and insatiable curiosity to see the world in the days of my youth. And with many youthful indiscretions, partying with the opposite sex on the opposite side of the world had its draw.

When did you first begin writing about travel, both personally and professionally?

I started writing my first book World Stompers: A Global Travel Manifesto within the first week of getting my sponsored-visa job to teach English in Kyoto, Japan. That book was in the works for over three years, and has now gone into five editions. When I landed the job, I knew my dream of a self-financed backpacking trip around the world was going to happen. And it did.

Where did you go on that backpacking trip, and for how long did you travel?

I was out of the country for three years solid. I was in Japan for 14 months, Australia for 5 1/2 months, India for 5 months, Indonesia for two, plus Nepal, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Egypt, Israel and a dozen European countries in a month. See my online travelogue Stompers.

How did the idea for the Sacred Places book series first come about?

After a half dozen years publishing travel guides I started looking deeper into the demand of guides and saw an opportunity. From the beginning it was clear I needed to do a whole series on the subject. Besides, during my three-year trip around the world I found myself drawn to sacred places and I had a strong working knowledge coming into the first book.

What are the other titles in the series?

In order, we’ve published: Sacred Places Around the World: 108 Destinations (now in 2nd edition); Sacred Places North America: 108 Destinations (currently being rewritten into a 2nd edition); Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations (written by Karen Tate) and our latest, Sacred Places Europe: 108 Destinations.

Can you tell us a little bit about the destinations featured in the new Europe book?

It’s a collection of prehistoric megaliths, sacred mountains, pilgrimage destinations, obscure Christian shrines and other lesser-known locales. Some examples: In France, the book features sites like the caves of the Dordogne region and Carnac’s megaliths. In Central Europe, there is Rila Monastery in Bulgaria, Tipova in Moldova and The Visocica Valley Pyramids in Bosnia, to name a few. Special Christian sites pervade the European landscape. There are sections of sacred site listings for Scandinavia, Germany and the Alps, Greece, Italy, Malta, Spain and Portugal too.

One place included in the Great Britain chapter is the assorted monuments around the small village of Avebury, among the most important Neolithic ruins in England. They include Europe’s tallest artificial hill, the skeleton of a monumental stone circle much like Stonehenge, several underground passage chambers, and the remnants of two 1.5-mile (2.4-km) long stone avenues. The Avebury monuments were not just a concentration of elaborate ruins, but also a prehistoric staging ground for seasonal rituals and courting dramas.


Can you share with us a few of your personal favorites from the book?

Like Avebury, the Neolithic sites of Europe really blew me away, both on my first backpack trips across the continent, and during my three-month research trip for the book in 2004. In Holland, the “hunnebeddens” or “giant’s beds” are charming and delightful just like the Dutch people themselves. Ireland is loaded with Neolithic sites like Hill of Tara, Loughcrew and Newgrange.

Why 108 Destinations?

If you were a Hindu or Buddhist, 108 would be one of the most familiar numbers you know. It is sacred for any number of reasons – and fully explained in all my books!

So what was your methodology for choosing the locations you did?

Of course, this is subjective to my own system of qualifying a site. There are some we would all agree upon: Stonehenge, the Scottish stone circle Callanish, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Great Pyramids. For the secondary tier, I look for what the locals consider a sacred place, and which locations have the best story to tell. I don’t report on battlefield or holocaust sites, nor haunted houses or anything like that.

Have you visited all of them?

Close to 80 percent.

“Sacred travel” and things like “metaphysical tourism” and “spirituality tours” have been growing in popularity. To what do you attribute this trend?

People are looking for more in their vacations besides sipping mai tais by the pool. Why not venture off the hotel grounds and check out some of these sites? After all, they are the places that define the very best of the civilizations that preceded us.

More and more travelers are booking their vacations with the expressed interest of experiencing the power of a sacred place. Taking a pilgrimage is not a new idea, but this type of trip seems to correspond with a growing trend in seeking spirituality on a more individual or secular level — all while having an enjoyable time on an educational and invigorating vacation!

Will there be another title in the Sacred Places series in the future?

Either Sacred Places Southeast Asia: 108 Destinations or Sacred Places Central America and the Caribbean: 108 Destinations. What do you think? Can we take a poll?

Sure, Brad, here’s a handy poll for readers who want to make their pick:

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So what’s next for you on the travel horizon?

I’m leaving for a camping and music event up at Mount Shasta, California. We are doing a Peace Tour event in the shadow of the holy mount to see if we can activate the consciousness grid. Go to www.peacetour.org to learn more.

Sounds like another sacred destination worth visiting. Good luck Brad, and thanks for chatting with us.

Warsaw: Groundbreaking for Jewish Museum

by Kelly Amabile on

Here’s another bit of news from Poland: Earlier this week a groundbreaking ceremony was held for a new museum to be built in Warsaw. The Museum of the History of Polish Jews will be a $65 million undertaking that should rise in central Warsaw by late 2009. It will sit next to a monument to the Jews who resisted the Nazis during the 1943 ghetto uprising, and down the street from the rails where many Jews were deported to death camps.

The hope is that this museum will become a cultural landmark to match Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem, Washington DC’s Holocaust Memorial Museum and Berlin’s Jewish Museum. At the groundbreaking, Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski told the crowd that the Museum is “a great chance to… break the lack of knowledge about one another” and forge “deeper reconciliation” between Jewish and non-Jewish Poles as they remember their common history. Here’s a video and a gallery that shows what it should look like when it’s done.

Haitian Voodoo Pilgrimage

by Adrienne Wilson on

Here is one that may not tickle the fancy of all on this particular Sunday morning and could have possibly been a topic on the recently past Friday the 13th, but I discovered the news yesterday and found the time to explore it more and pass it on to interested arm-chair traveling minds today. So…

CBS News recently ran a piece on the annual Voodoo pilgrimage made by Haitians to an area called Souvenance complete with a small photo gallery of people with their eyes rolled back, women dressed in white and some even smeared with the blood of a freshly sacrificed chicken or animal. While the article is short it packs in enough to give you goose-pimples and provide some insight on this West African ritual. The Souvenance area sits 90-miles north of the capital city, Port-au-Prince and the ceremonies which take place for five days began last Sunday on Easter. Voodoo is one of three constitutionally recognized religions in the country and although the event seems to have passed it is practiced like any other on a regular basis.

After reading the brief summary of the event I went in search of some other sites with more information. Haiti Surf has additional Voodoo ceremony photos as well as more general pics relating to the country. Below the gallery one can learn of black magic, the ancient traditions and beef up your voodoo vocabulary with words such as houngan or mambo – meaning priest or priestess. We Haitians also includes a couple of pictures from the pilgrimage back in 2004 along with other news worthy events taking place at the time.