Kari Tauring
Kari Tauring is a Nordic folk musician, dancer, and storyteller and author
of “The Runes: A Deeper Journey”. A volva in Old Norse, she “carries the staff” of spiritual tradition within the folkway of her Nordic ancestry through performance, education, and authorship. Kari combines deep scholarship and personal practice to create new interpretations of what it means to be Nordic. Called “innovative folk” music, Tauring gives modern relevance to the ancient poems and songs that inspire her.
Kari played original folk music in the Twin Cities and around the Midwest from the early 1990’s. From 1999 – 2006 she produced large scale Winter Solstice celebrations with original music, dancers, puppets, and visual artists.
Her early studies of Runes and ancient texts about them (1989) began making their way into her musical life in 2003 as she began reconstructing the staff carrying women’s traditions of her Norwegian heritage. Using the staff and stick for chanting runes is at the center of Volva Stav is her original work aligning the body and its processes with the world tree and its many inhabitants. The use of staff rhythm for journey and rune expression, and the dovetailing of rune postures within Nordic movement is unique, profound, and well received around the world.
Kari began studying Scandinavian folk dance in 2006 and putting rune postures to traditional Scandinavian folk dances sparked her programs in Nordic Roots Dance in 2011. She continues to dance in performance groups, teach runes in the dance workshops, and connect the very ancient to the very modern through the threads of these folk ways. Jason Mankey
Jason Mankey read his first book on Witchcraft in the seventh grade, and at age 22 dedicated his life to the Craft. Today, Jason is a third degree Gardnerian High Priest and helps run two witchcraft covens in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Ari. Jason is a popular speaker at Pagan and Witchcraft events across North American and Great Britain, and has been recognized by his peers as an authority on the Horned God, Wiccan history, and occult influences in rock and roll and heavy metal music. He writes online at “Raise the Horns,” and can be found on the “Witch With Books” podcast. His latest book, “The Witch’s Book of Spellcraft” was released in March 2022. As someone who grew up in the American Midwest (Big 10 country!) coming back to Paganicon is always a big deal to him.
Jason is the author of The Witch’s Athame, The Witch’s Book of Shadows, The Witch’s Altar (with the amazing Laura Tempest Zakroff), and because he doesn’t want people to call him “tool boy” he also wrote Transformative Witchcraft, The Witch’s Wheel of the Year, The Horned God of the Witches, Llewellyn’s Little Book of Yule, The Witch’s Book of Spellcraft, and coming this December Modern Witchcraft with the Greek Gods (with Astrea Taylor).