Care for Nature...

We care for nature... it's not just something we say.... I know that SOME bands just like to talk a bit about nature and spiritualism during fake interviews and possibly hint at "saving the planet" etc... while they strut about in front of teevee and press cameras ,basically just exercising their tiny little ego's by trying to look "cool" and "alternative" ... "nature love" as a marketing strategy!... bweeeeurgh!!!... But nature love is not something you talk about, it'ssomething you DO...
We don't just pose, (although we are obviously as cool as a fridge stacked with cucumbers and as alternative as a UFO full of Martians) because we're very practical pagans (like Granny Weatherwax***) so we actually get down , roll up our black sleeves and try to do something usefull in this world (even if it seems just a "little" thing like trying to save some teeny tiny birdies) What is the life of one baby-"Tit" worth in the greater scheme of things? what is it worth? who will care if it lives or dies?... is one life more important than another? is it a matter of kilo's?
Well WE CARE!... let me tell you that even the life of the smallest little natural critter is as least as important to us as the lives of a busload of mutant monkeys... (erm... actually MORE important to us... I should say) So we care, when and where we can... a very large part of the money made by OMNIA and her recordlabel "PAGANSCUM"  (100% self-owned and 100% INDEPENDANT)
is spent on animal welfare and educating/changing the world of humans for the better... we don't advertise this fact because it's just something that we do...because it's "right" (as Buffy would say)... So now Stenny (who are two of life's natural "late-risers") get's up at sunrise every morning to feed the babies... by hand... every hour... untill sunset... we'll keep doing this till these four cute little feckers are big enough to fly away... (now I know why parent birds look so shagged out all the time)They are growing like anything! (ze groeien als Kool...meesjes! ;-)
BUT tomorrow we must drive all the way to Abenberg , which is about a 6 hour journey minimum) in the Black pearl! what to do?... we can't take them along!... luckily our really sweet neighbours Ans and Sylvia, here in the forest are also birdlovers who care an enormous amount for the wild birds... they spend so much of their time on bird wellfare...happily they have agreed to baby-sit our little foundlings untill we return from the Feuertanz festival!  So we can go out to Rock you people with 100% pure OMNIA PAGANFOLK at Feuertanz!!
See ya there! Greenthingz on tiny wingz! Stenny     (picture by Jenny birdmum)

***if you don't know who Granny Weatherwax is try reading some Terry Pratchett books!... you'll thank me for it later!

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Let's have a big hand for nature!

Summer seems to have arrived in our forest... the air is thick with the squeek, squawk and screech of thousands of little critters that have arrived new on the planet this season. It's like a forest "comedy central" out here when you see all the young birds (great tits, blue tits, woodpeckers, blackbirds etc etc etc.) clumsily exploring their living enviroment and demanding food from their over-worked and completely shagged-out parents! It's soooooooooo cute and endearing to see them all discovering what they can eat and finding out how to fly properly!... gosh!... nature is really beautifull and so fecking ALIVE! wow!  We already had to rescue a young thrush and later a young woodpecker that had wandered into our house by accident!... And now it seems we have a few little lodgers to take care of! We were out for a walk yesterday with our friends/family Renso and Marjolein (the wild-life artists who made all the bird drawings on the OMNIA album "Musick and Poëtree") when we came upon a small group of teeny tiny baby-Tits scattered on the ground below a huge old tree. They had fallen out of their their nestingplace, which must have got damaged by the storm-winds of last weekend. and they were very exposed and in bad shape. It was only a matter of hours before they would all be dead (one had already had it's head bitten clean off by some predator) and there was no way of getting them into their original home anymore.... so we took them home with us. After getting some brilliant advice from the animal rescue centre :" just leave them where you found them" , we decided to try and give them a chance at life instead and that's what we're doing now. feeding them with baby-bird-food every hour from sun-up to sunset, keeping their little surrogate nest clean and warm... they are still so  young that basically all they do is sleep, eat stare around a bit with bleary eyes and ofcourse, poo.... (a bit like most humans actually, but then smaller and without the use of any televisions or computers)... and now three of them are looking very strong and really have a will to live... but sadly one (the smallest), doesn't seem to want to eat at all, he just lies around and sleeps and sleeps , we think that the trauma of falling from the nest, accompanied by the stress of near death etc. has damaged the little fecker on the inside somewhere and I don't think he/she will last untill tomorrow... but such is life (and death) we'll do our best for them and see what the future holds...    Take good care of all you see and praise the earth on bended knee! Greenthingz! Stenny    (picture by dr.Doolittle)

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Rock on MPS! First SUNNY festival day of the year! YEAH!!!

Wow! Crazy weekend! It was awesome at Chief Gisi's travelling time-machine fest! The MPS Dortmund Rocked with a record amount of visitors!! WE had a beautifull Medieval stage set up under the protecting arms of the huge, ancient and gnarly trees which surrounded us... we got to share the resonant wooden planks of the festival buhne with our old and dear friends of the Celtic folk band Rapalje and Faun, as well as a fantastic audience of smiles, cheers and energy! It's always wonderfull to meet so many of YOU who tell me that you like to read my blogs because then I can relate more to YOU when I'm typing these words... simply because for every reader that reads these words there is a chance (no matter how small) that YOU are some body I spoke to about THESE BLOGS when we did a signing session after a show somewhere or just walking around on the festival areas... anyway, excuse me I'm rambling a bit (tired)... anywhaywhatsitallaboutagain? ... oh yeah!...
the sun beamed down upon us all from way up high in the sky... The Musick flowed like celticpaganmittelalter honey... the day passed blissfully into a campfire-lit night as hundreds of bonfires and torches were lit to give the whole place a flame enlightened atmosphere of times gone by, times that lives in our dreams, possibly a time that there never was... but still one which we are making real together every day... When I walk around on these summer festivals, then I realise that Together we can keep on fighting for our freedom to live like we want to,fighting for the Earth , her children and for each other!

Greenthingz and PaganPeace XXX OMNIA

(picture by Jasper van Gheluwe)

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OMNIA Shirts back in the shop and on the festivals!

Finally the "Heart of Celtic Gold" OMNIA tee-shirts have been reprinted and are now back in the online OMNIA-shop (sizes S, M , XL , XXXL ), as well as the Lacy-girly top , also with "Heart of Celtic Gold" print and available in the sizes (S,M,L)
Ofcourse we'll also be selling them at our Big Black Pagan-Merchandise stand during our live-gigs like at the Amazing MPS Festival in Dortmund tomorrow!
(we're really looking forward to seeing all the beautifull fans, all our music-friends and of course Gisi and his crew again!... and... we'll be trying out yet another NEW SONG called "EARTH WARRIOR" tomorrow!
So ....we'llgonna be there! how about you!? XXX greenz dr.SteveSic
(picture by Marcel Bakker)

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Do YOU want to be part of the next Raven-Times Newsletter?

Hi there! It is almost time for the next OMNIA newsletter ( Raven-Times Midsummer ).

Do you want to know more about OMNIA or look inside the life of a pagan musician? Do you want to read about the latest news around OMNIA? Sign in for the News-Letter and make sure you don't miss a thing from the World of OMNIA! 

Subscribe HERE ;-) 

We also need YOUR help to make our Raven-Times complete…

As always there will be a OMNIA Fan-Art page and a OMNIA-Shirt World Tour.

Do you have a nice tattoo inspired by OMNIA, a lovely painting or some other form of Art inspired by us? You can send it to: raventimes@worldofomnia.com and maybe I will choose your picture, so a lot of Freaky people around the world of OMNIA will see your Art! 

For our OMNIA-Shirt world tour we need nice pictures of fans wearing an OMNIA shirt, sweater or top on a nice place on earth. 

Send it to: raventimes@worldofomnia.com if you want your picture to appear in the upcoming Raven-Times. Don't forget to tell us your name and where the picture was taken ;-) 

Stay up to date, be part of our PaganClan, be part of the World of OMNIA!

Greenz DaphydCrow

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How about a Pagan-Reggae Song?, here's a sneak peek at "EARTH WARRIOR"!!!

We're practicing at Dreamharps again on this beautifull day, it's part of our job you know... working on all our new material for the upcoming OMNIA Album we'll be recording this winter...Today we're finalising the live version of our latest baby called : EARTH WARRIOR... it's a Pagan-Reggae song which The Reggae-police forced us to write,  due to the enormous amount of dreadlocks in our band at the moment...(it's a union thing) .. also we are very much into the music of mr. Marley, mr.Tosh and mr.Ciao (to name but three) and it is amazing fun to play a cheery battle/protest-song like this... it's almost like musical THC!... If all goes well today We will play Earth Warrior LIVE as a special gift to the audience this weekend at the MPS festival in Dortmund!
We realise that most of YOU who read these words will not be there, so to give YOU an idea of the 'feel' and meaning of this new song, so it won't be too weird for you when it is finally released on an album, I'll give you the lyrics here to read:

"EARTH WARRIOR"   (Pagan Reggae song)
lyrics and musick: SteveSic and Jenny Evans van der Harten
arrangement: OMNIA
©2013-Paganscum records

I'm a Warrior! Earth Warrior!
True-born Pagan Yeah!
I'm a Warrior , Nature soldier fighting for the Earth

This is my home, it's where I belong
from the clouds in the sky to the roots an' stones
I see the Sun in the sky , make me feel so high
I see the full moon shine, make me feel so fine
Her river my blood, Her rock my bone
Her earth my muscle, her heart my soul
Her children my children, their freedom my goal
I'll be fighting fighting fighting fighting fighting for them all!

I'm a Warrior! Earth Warrior!
True-born Pagan Yeah!
I'm a Warrior , Nature soldier fighting for the Earth
I'm a Warrior! Earth Warrior!
True-born Pagan Yeah!
I'm a Warrior , Dreadlock soldier fighting for the Earth

People breed disassociation
Industrialisation of elimination
a million mutant monkeys making mutilation
deforestation from nation to nation
the Earth and her children, no they cannot hide
from pollution, confusion and genocide
but I will protect them, yes I got the right
'cause I am a Soldier, I fight the good fight!

I'm a Warrior! Earth Warrior!
True-born Pagan Yeah!
I'm a Warrior , Nature soldier fighting for the Earth
I'm a warrior! Earth Warrior!
True-born Pagan Yeah!
I'm a Warrior , Dreadlock soldier fighting for the Earth!

Greenthingz! Folk Musick is also Protest Musickand so VIVA la GREEN REVOLUTION!!   XX Shaman SteveSic and OMNIA

ps: coming saturday should turn out to be quite an old-fashioned party on the "festival buhne" of the MPS Dortmund because apart from OMNIA's PaganFolk you'll be treated to loads of pure Scottish, Dutch and Irish Folk by our old friends of Rapalje as well as the thumping electronic Mittelalter beats of Faun! because they will both be sharing the same stage with us! Rapalje,Faun and OMNIA together on one stage for the first time in like...8 years?Yeah! I'm looking forward to it!! how about you?!    ;-)
 
(picture by: "the Dread Boys")

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less tattoos... more hair ;-)

This is me... quite some years ago...  in this picture I seem to have more hair and a lot less tattoos and other decorations ... I also seem to be wearing only a loin cloth and some leaves, so the summer weather was warm and groovy  ;-)  ... Jenny and me had just started helping a nice young couple to set up their very own little medieval festival in Holland by lending them our fan-club as volunteers and doing their band-bookings and creative management for a while (they wanted a modest medieval event in wijk bij duurstede ,a small town in Holland, but we managed to convince them to think bigger and make it more Fantasy and Pagan on a bigger location with a castle or something ...  "Castlefest", maybe you've heard of it? , of course we'll be playing there again this year :-) ... anyway... this picture was taken at the 2nd Castlefest I think?... Daphyd the Crow (a skinny dreadlocked teen-ager we had met) had tried-out as one of our new merch-babes on that festival ... but sadly I had to ask him to stop within a day because he was such a crap salesperson, he was just playing a didge and mucking around most of the time!... I remember telling him all those years ago that he didn't belong NEXT TO a stage but ON a stage not realising that it would be OUR OMNIA stage he would be standing on some years into the future... wow! Tempus Fugit doesn't it? Times change, people come and go,but the mountains still stand, the earth keeps on turning and I'm still smiling in the sun!

Pagan Peace and Greenthingz! Shaman SteveSic    
(picture by dr.Senseless aka Daphyd the Crow)

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testing testing... "Three musicians ,three fingers"

I thought it might be nice to share some of the rough test-photo-shots we made , to scout the locations , before we started on the 'official" photoshoot to make the new OMNIA promo-pictures... (a process which will still take a while yet... no... the last one in which we were "flipping the bird" wasn't a real promopicture...it was a joke...something which we pagan freedom fighters like to call "humor")... anyway...
 I kinda liked this one, which was taken in our "singing tree" (a very friendly tree-friend of ours in which a few of our new songs have been written)...
 To carry on with the "finger-theme" that we set last week... you will see even yet more fingers in this one too (a subject which delights as well as horrifies many readers of these blogs ;-)
Greenthingz on Nature's wings!  XXX OMNIA
(picture and irony by SteveSic :-)

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OMNIA PHOTOSHOOT Great SUCCESS!

We had a great photoshoot today and we've tried to incorporate as many of the great suggestions we got from all the people on the internet… Well I think we really hit the jackpot with this amazing shot made by our Belgian friend Jasper… it took ages to climb up into this 30 foot tree, and the crane set-up for the photographer was expensive, it took a whole team of photoshop experts to have it ready and online within mere hours  of shooting the pic (but in the end we really think it was worthwhile)… We feel this photograph really expresses all the positive and diverse emotions that OMNIA and THE EARTH feel towards Humankind in general! beautiful isn't it?  

XXX Greenthingz and Peace to the Peacefull! OMNIA

Picture by Jasper von Sarcasm

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HURGH! ... Now we SHOOT!

We make great PIC for make fans glad now... go out in wood and shoot with pic box ...urgh... make us look good!... yes! ... onga!   

Green!   US!   (pic by Sic)

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