COG Interfaith Reports

Workers' rights campaign from Unitarian Universalists

2012-01-23T16:31:00.000-08:00

The Unitarian Universalist denomination is starting an interesting social justice campaign for workers' rights. I am posting an announcement from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. -M. Mueller

With the launch of our Choose Compassionate Consumption campaign this fall, UUSC supporters joined together to form a powerful block of consumer advocates.

In October, we targeted Hershey and the use of child labor in chocolate production, sending more than 1,100 letters to Hershey, along with samples of a competitor’s fair-trade chocolate. In November and December, UUSC supporters generated approximately $15,000 in sales for the Southern Agricultural Alternatives Cooperative, a socially responsible pecan-processing cooperative that creates jobs in southwest Georgia.

Now let’s use our power to make a positive difference in the lives of restaurant workers, by choosing where to eat based on how restaurants treat their employees!

The U.S. restaurant industry employs over 10 million workers nationwide and is one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy. But sadly, the restaurant industry also has a very high rate of workers’-rights violations.

That’s why the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United), a UUSC partner organization, has released the ROC National Diners’ Guide 2012: A Consumer Guide on the Working Conditions of American Restaurants. The guide rates restaurants throughout the country based on how they treat their workers, listing responsible restaurants where you can eat knowing that your server can afford to pay the rent and your cook isn’t working while sick.

Download the restaurant guide today --— and use it to choose compassionate consumption when you dine out!

Thanks,
Kara Smith
Associate for Grassroots Mobilization

What do Pagans Get From Interfaith Activities?

2012-01-16T22:59:00.000-08:00

In his recent blog Chas Clifton writes in response to several previous comments revolving around the idea of Interfaith, and Intrafaith when he asks the question “ What do Pagans Get From Interfaith Activities?” Those of us involved in Interfaith up to our...well lets just say I'm still looking for the plug to the swamp...tend to forget that not everyone is aware of what Interfaith involves or seeks to attain and I am delighted to have this opportunity to add a bit of elucidation.

Ecumenism is an interaction that takes place between members of one religious group no matter how fissured it might be. For instance right now on the “Pagans” Facebook page we are having an ecumenical discussion on the various merits (or lack thereof) of Pantheism vs. Panentheism. We are all Pagans of various ilks...er traditions. In the larger picture of religious discussion many would prefer to call this type of dialogue “Intrafaith vs. Interfaith. In this growing world of religious exchange the current popular theory is that Intrafaith is oh-so-much more difficult than Interfaith. My own experience tends to confirm this opinion; not to mention the question of whether it serves any useful purpose at all (provided the goal is not to convert). Well perhaps it answers to the pure joy of (intellectual) argument for its own sake.

A more pertinent question is “What DO Pagans get from Interfaith Activities?” (emphasis mine) The very most succinct answer that I can offer is legitimacy, respect, a place at the table. If this doesn't matter to you stop reading here...

If it does, there are three major paths to that goal: The first is the work that Chaz and others are doing in the academic arena. When we started out, Paganism was regarded as a sideshow of cultists and goddess worship at such distinguished conferences as the American Academy of Religions (this year with over 10,000 people in attendance). Now, due to the work of these intrepid academics Pagan studies has its own tract. This is Interfaith work at its most subtle and important; working with and among academics of the world's religions to earn that place at the table. Certainly the Covenant of the Goddess, a national organization of Witches, recognizes the value of this work and its place in Interfaith by supporting M. Macha NightMare as a national Interfaith representative to the AAR.

Still others are earning our silverware through their work with the Parliament of the World's Religions. People like Andras Corban-Arthen, Angie Buchanan, and Phyllis Curott, have been or are on the staff of that august body. In fact Pagans probably represent a far larger percentage of staff proportionately, than do any of the Abrahamic traditions. Working (and looking) as regular professionals doing the job of organizing one of the largest religious gatherings in the world. They are not proselytizing for our beliefs. They are simply walking their talk and making it clear in so doing that they are no different than any other professional with a set of specific religious beliefs.

Many are serving the dinner and washing the dishes at this table. I have done so for the last ten years (in many cases literally) and as a result of service was recruited for the board of the North American Interfaith Network, one of the oldest Interfaith organizations in the United States. Personal interaction is the third though hardly least path of which I spoke above. The interaction and work between and among professional clergy and other religious professionals who will form opinions and influence their own people in Intrafaith dialogue has made major inroads into bringing us into respectability and acceptance.

If you think that this does not make a difference consider a comment from one United Church of Christ minister when told that individuals from a local Interfaith organization in Las Vegas had threatened to leave if Witches (In this case a full professor at ULV) were allowed to join. He wrote to the organization and then followed up with a call that boiled down to: “if they want to quit let them. You will loose nothing and gain a group of sincere people who are always the first to arrive (to be available for set up), the last to leave (to assure that everything is clean). They are not interested in trying to convince you of how important they are. They are simply involved to serve and share.

When Lady Liberty League and others were fighting for the right of Pagan Vets to have the pentacle on their grave stones, we were shoulder to shoulder with Ministers, Priests, and other Professional clergy who wrote letters and in some cases occupied the offices of the of the Veteran's Administration. These religious leaders know who we are and respect us because of our long tradition of service. When Pagans are faced with violations of our civil rights, we are now supported, often by very well known and prestigious religious leaders. It pays to have friends.

In Her service and yours
R Watcher, National Interfaith Representative

AAR Report - Michelle Mueller

2011-12-30T10:19:00.001-08:00

I finished my first semester as a doctoral student at the Graduate Theological Union. The Unitarian Universalist church that I work for installed me as their Director of Religious Education on Dec. 18. We merged the Installation ceremony with a Winter Solstice ceremony (my idea). I collaborated with Worship Associate Christina to plan the service. Christina picked out some great Winter Solstice songs that my visiting Pagan friends loved. I had been in the position since August; an Installation is a ceremony formalizing my role as religious educator for the congregation.

Now, I have some things to report from the American Academy of Religion meeting in November. It is important to understand that the American Academy of Religion meeting is not an interfaith meeting persay. AAR is a professional organization of Religious Studies scholars and theologians. The annual meeting is where professors and graduate students share their research and academic papers in the fields of Religious Studies. There are of course people of faith present. Some faith leaders (ministers, etc. or interfaith organization directors) choose to join the AAR or attend meeting. I noticed Paul Chaffee, Emeritus Executive Director of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio, present. Plus, Eboo Patel was in the program. Many Religious Studies scholars are religious or spiritual themselves. Many are secular, agnostic, or atheist. They share a genuine interest in the human capacity for religion--experience and/or beliefs. In general, Religious Studies scholars are respectful of religious experience, whether they are religious or not. There is also conjoining SBL (Society for Biblical Literature) meeting, which focuses on Biblical Christian and Hebrew scripture with a strong archaeological focus. The modern discipline of Religious Studies understands religion as a practice of humanity. Religious Studies scholars are therefore frequently friendly towards Neo-Paganism, understanding Neo-Paganism as a natural expression of this human practice of religion that is not better or worse than others. (Religion as a human practice is not exhaustive either, as there is the Animals and Religion section at AAR!) Still, there are Religious Studies scholars and theologians who are unaware of formal academic Pagan Studies or of Neo-Pagan movement. At every AAR (and I've been to quite a few), I always so some education around Paganism, NeoPaganism, and the Covenant of the Goddess. It is important for CoG members to be present for this reason.

I see the value in CoG Interfaith presence at AAR in the importance of educating the educators. AAR meeting is not, as I said, a proper interfaith conference; it is not an intentional meeting of people of many faiths. But, it is a place where CoG Witches can educate professors of Religious Studies about what Neo-Pagan practice looks like and who we are, so that they may return to their universities and colleges with information and experience. CoG presence at AAR will have a positive effect on public understanding of Witchcraft and Paganism.

Many thanks go to Robert Puckett, the Director of Meetings for AAR, and a Pagan, who offered his suite for our NCLC reception for local Pagan representative leaders and Pagan Studies scholars.

2011-12-15T15:46:00.000-08:00

Dear All

On Thursday the 8th of December I received a request to please Send a Pagan speaker representing CoG to an organizational gathering in Fremont California, just an hour or less from my house. Very late notice indeed. I wrote back and requested that the person call me directly so that I might have a better idea of what the organization needed and who they were. None of us in this area had heard of this organization before. It is called “The International Center for Cultural Studies”. I love this web page. Its front page has a changing marque that states the idea of more than on way to achieve a goal and the joining together of people of diverse cultures in order to achieve a greater vision.

It focuses on wisdom from ancient roots...which means the wisdom of pagan or pre-Christian religions.

Mr. Praveen Veldanda called me almost immediately and spoke to me for a few minutes explaining that what they were having a gathering at which they were hoping to have different Pagan practices explain the ways in which they were connected. I said that I would be happy to go and because the flyer that they sent out mentioned Romuva I called Prudence Priest and asked her whether she would like to come with me. Deborah Bender allowed as how she too would like to see what we did at an interfaith gather and so also came along...talk about your Weird Sisters.

I did explain that we are clearly a new religious movement trying to create a religion based on what our ancestors practiced but tailored for today's culture. While our wisdom was a ancient as we could determine, our practices were not. He said that he thought that this was fine and assured me that he wanted to hear from us. I painstakingly wrote a twenty minute talk on possible reasons why we are the fastest growing religion in Canada and the United States among the eighteen to thirty year old demographic and how we connected with other Pagan practices then, after consultation with a couple of other Interfaith Reps, left it at home.

This turns out to have been not such a bad thing since I was very late in the speaking order and was, instead of a prepared speech able to simply speak a bit to our growth and the reasons for it and then respond point by point to other speakers and our similarities to their own practices.

Prudence was delighted to discover that these folks knew Jonas Trinkunas and his wife Inija and they equally delighted to discover that she knew them. When I introduced her as Ms. Priest they immediately assumed, and in this case correctly that she was a Priestess of Romuva and asked her to be one of the four Priests/esses for the Hindu fire ceremony. Way better her than me as the entire thing was in a foreign language and she was familiar with the ceremony as a similar ceremony is conducted in Romuva.

It was an interesting atmosphere as the three of us were the only women in attendance. I wish that I could say that I was a smashing success. People did listen attentively. Deborah assures me that I did not make a fool of myself, and they have invited me back to speak to larger groups. Otherwise I cannot gauge my success in communication as everyone sat with a polite closed look and no questions were forth coming.

Prudence and I were both invited, nay urged to participate in an international gathering in March and I have been further encouraged on many sides to go. Unfortunately the gathering is in Delhi India and finances are questionable. They have assured us that all we have to do is get to the airport in India and they will cover all further expenses including board, housing, and conference registration costs. Now this actually sounds like a group used to dealing with Pagans.

Over all they were a very nice group of folks who were well educated, and appeared to be sincere in their stated goals to bring the Pagan world together around ancient wisdom from many sources. I will continue to work with them and perhaps Prudence and I will go to India in March. Funding remains a critical consideration. I will certainly continue to keep you appraised of developments. In the meantime I would highly recommend that you check out their website where they list First Nations of Canada and the United States, right along with Pagans and Druids; fun if nothing else.

In her service,
R Watcher

AAR Annual Meeting, Part V

2011-12-12T05:50:00.000-08:00

Shawn Arthur of Appalachian State University presided over the Contemporary Pagan Studies session on Pagan Analysis and Critique of "Religion on Monday afternoon.

Suzanne Owen's paper described "Definitions, Decisions, and Druids: Presenting Druidry as a Religion." In England, where they do not have separation between church and state, residents are asked to state their religions on census forms. For religious groups other than those of the state religion to thrive, they must be sanctioned or approved or in some way officially recognized by the government. In recent years Druids have sought, and eventually received, such recognition. Dr. Owens' paper detailed their efforts. During Q&A, Patrick McCollum noted that this case in England has been useful in efforts here in the U.S. for inmates who are Druids (and other Pagan inmates) to assemble as a group in prison chapels for worship and ceremony.

Dr. Christine Kraemer, Cherry Hill Seminary, delivered an excellent paper on "Perceptions of Scholarship in Contemporary Paganism." Of course, since Christine is Chair of CHS' Department of Theology and Religious History, I'm confident that she's knowledgeable and current on such matters. She offers several examples of Pagan critiques of Pagan scholars and their responses -- Ronald Hutton, Ben Whitmore, Aidan Kelly, Don Frew, et al. While confirming the value of these critiques, she also cites Richard Hofstader's contentions, propounded in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life , that this attitude is "historically rooted in deeply held American values such as egalitarianism and democracy." He claims that nineteenth-century evangelical religions have influenced American thought so that it expresses "more heart-centered than head-centered values," and that this attitude is found among modern amateur Pagans as well.

Helen Berger, Brandeis University, delivered a paper called "Fifteen Years of Continuity and Change within the American Pagan Community" that follows up on her earlier studies. She noted that religions either die or change.1 Among the changes she found in her follow-up studies are:

The population of American Witches and Pagans2 who are female has increased from 65% to 71%.
Pagans are geographically more evenly spread, pointing towards "normalization."
Pagans are more educated than most Americans; 98% have high school diplomas compared to 87% for the rest of the population.
There are fewer "older" Pagans. I don't recall that Helen specified what age would be considered "older," but it appears that more of her respondents were "younger." This fact, coupled with the fact that religions either change or die, reinforces the need for us to explore the notion of eldership, as I've been doing.3
Seventy-eight percent of those surveyed claim to be solitary; 86% of "younger" people consider themselves to be solitaries.

These data provoked lots of questions. For me, I wonder if the fact that so many claim to be solitaries reflects perhaps: A dearth of teachers and/or training covens? An unrealistic expectation of what covens are? An indication of poor social skills and difficulty getting along with others or building trust with others? A move away from a more private practice and towards a preference for larger-group or community rituals?

Caroline Tully, University of Melbourne, delivered the final paper, "Researching the Past as a Foreign Country: Cognitive Dissonance as a Response by Practitioner Pagans to Academic Research on the History of Pagan Religions." Caroline is someone many of us have known for some years online, but on this, her first trip to the U.S., we had the good fortune to meet her and hang out. Her paper reminded me once again of a phenomenon in Paganism that I call a "yearning for authenticity." Many people, not just Pagans -- Christians are a fine example -- seem to require evidence of antiquity or of a long unbroken (or broken and reclaimed, revived, reconstructed) tradition to cite as a claim of authenticity, to claim credibility. I am not among them. On the contrary, I see much syncreticism in almost every religion of which I have some knowledge. I don't think a religion is more or less authentic because of its alleged antiquity. I think it's authentic if it speaks to its practitioners' spiritual needs, if the practice of its forms offers meaning and comfort,

Later I attended the Comparative Studies in Religion Section session on Noncanonical/Nationalist Reinventions of Religions' Narratives of Origin, Christopher Patrick Parr, Webster University, presiding. Chris, who teaches religious studies and I had encountered one another at other sessions and we had a friendly chat before the meeting began. The subject intrigued me. Pagans have many stories of their origins. All religions and ethnicities and groups of people seeking to distinguish themselves from the rest of the world, or seeking to define themselves, and seeking a sense of group solidarity and cohesion, have narratives of origin. We Pagans have a few ourselves.

I apologize ahead of time for confusion about which speaker was speaking about what, since the program only listed their names and not the titles of their papers.

The first speaker said that there were numerous neopagan nationalist groups in Russia who posit an advanced Russian civilization before St. Cyril, and that they claim a conspiracy of silence on the part of monks and others to suppress knowledge of this earlier time. These groups are more bookish than outdoorsy and do not perform outdoor rituals. They claim a mysterious Russian or Cyrillic or "planetary" alphabets comprised of 147 characters, and that the monks' theft of this alphabet paved the way for aliens and alien culture to proliferate in Russia. Slavs had an autochthonous alphabet and writing before Cyril.

To me, the most interesting paper was about Buddha Shakyamuni and Mother Earth, or Mae Thoranee. Mae Thoranee is a Thai and Laotian Earth mother figure found beneath the Buddha in statues and paintings. The fingers of the Buddha's right hand touches the earth. A tiny image of Mae Thoranee appears underneath the larger image of the Buddha. This Mae Thoranee foundation upon which the Buddha rests reminds me of the appellation of Mary as Mother of God found in Catholic prayer.

Mae Thoranee, protrectress of the land and its fertility, exists in localized versions. She is both animist and Buddhist; the soil is her spirit and the trees are her children. Merit is stored in the water in her hair. She is shown wringing water from her hair, pouring the waters of merit to redistribute it among any wandering spirits. One of the slides showed a statue of Mae Thoranee in the act of wringing water from her air on the grounds in front of a civic building.

Another paper was about Takeuchi Kiyomaro (1874-1965), a priest of the Shinto sect known as "Takeuchi-bunsho," dating from the 3rd-4th centuries CE. The speaker told of how this sect, and others, asserted the superiority of the Japanese people.

* * * * *

Tuesday morning, the last half-day, and which session to savor? I was interested in:

Ethics Section, Economic Ethics and Political Reform, in particular, "Whole Foods or Whole People?: The Madness of Neoliberalism and the Paradoxical Political Economy of Hunger" and "Reforming Economic Excess: Towards a Solidarity Economy." I don't know how much effect a bunch of academics talking about these topics might have to influence economic change or to fill empty stomachs.

North American Religions Section, Industrial Effervescence: Manufacturing Economic Selves and Producing Religious Collectivity in American History, in particular, "Gilded Age Railroad Brotherhoods as Industrial Religion" and "Parts of a Whole: Ecological Consumerism in a Global Age." I find the whole culture of railroads fascinating, and know little about it. I'm also intrigued by brotherhoods, lodges, and other "in-group" organizations. I suspect we could learn more about creating group cohesion, group identity, group solidarity from studying these phenomena.

Women and Religion Section. Performing Gender and Identify through Song in South Asia, "Dancing with the Goddess, Singing for Ourselves."

However, I attended the session on North American Hinduism Consultation, California Dreaming: South Asian Religions Encounter the Counterculture.

"Utopian Settlements, Californian Vedanta, Huxley, Isherwood, and Friends," presented by Smitri Srinivas of UC-Davis, described places and people I've heard of or encountered in my years in California. It was interesting to hear these times spoken of from a historical and analytical perspective when one has some awareness of how they have influenced one's life. I say that as a person who lived in the heart of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury during the 1960s.

"The Reception of Kundalini Yoga in California and Its Relation to Sikh Dharma/3HO," was presented by Michael Stoeber, himself a practitioner of kundalini yoga.

"California Hinduism: The Shiva Lingam of Golden Gate Park, 1989-1994," by Eliza Kent, Colgate University, related to a new audience a story I like to cite when the topic of sacred images and sites comes up. I remember when this occurred; it's a wonderful tale.

Jeffrey J. Kripal of Rice University and Shana Sippy, Carleton College offered thoughtful responses. I'm familiar with Dr. Kripal from my readings about my matron, Kali Ma. He wrote Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna as well as other writings on Kali.

I enjoyed comments from people of a certain age, myself included, during the Q&A session at the end of the session.

As I was leaving the room, I was pleased to encounter Samir Kaira, a friend from the Hindu American Foundation. I had expected to run into others from that organization over the course of the Annual Meeting, but other than seeing Dr. Mihir Meghani at the Pagan studies reception on Saturday night, I saw no one. No doubt this is because there were so many intriguing sessions and they probably focused on the Hindu related ones while I focused on the Pagan ones.

This concludes my reports on the 2012 AAR Annual Meeting.

In service to Coventina,
M. Macha NightMare

~~~~~~~~~~

1. Interestingly, it is our survival, and the changes necessary to ensure it, that motivate my work.

2. She did not, to my knowledge, make a distinction between the terms Paganism and Witchcraft.

3. Please see my survey on Survey Monkey Note that this survey has been extended to January 15, 2012, so if you haven't already participated, I invite you to do so now.

AAR Annual Meeting, Part IV

2011-12-07T03:55:00.001-08:00

On Monday morning I attended the New Religious Movements Group on Religious Appropriation of Secular Culture. All five papers interested me from a nascent-culture perspective. First was "Haunted Ground: Nature's Nation form the American Metaphysical Perspective," followed by "Summer Camp and New Paradigms of Sacred Space in New Religious Movements," by Ann Duncan, Goucher College. In past posts on this blog, I've commented about Reclaiming's Teen Earth Magic, a summer camp for adolescents. Many of these teens are alumni of the annual Witchlets in the Woods family camp. Summer camps have been a part of American religious life since at least the early 19th Century, if not earlier. I attended both Girl Scout and Methodist Church summer camps in the 1950s.

"From HippieCrits an' Jesus Freaks to the Twelve Tribes: the Integration and Reinterpretation of Vietnam Era Pop-culture into a Fundamentalist Communitarian Movement's Ideology" had great potential, but I think this was the first paper the two young scholars, Bryan Barkley and C.A. Burriss, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, had ever presented because they fumbled a lot when their Power Point Presentation didn't respond as they'd planned, and as a result they lost time and had to abbreviate their talk. It dealt with a Christian camp created by counterculture boomers, presuming to appeal to younger seekers, but the reality turns out to be that there's a lot of transiency. People come but don't stay long. I think only six people have been there any length of time.

I'm only minimally knowledgeable of the many Pagan attempts at creating Utopian communities, but I do know that it is a desire for, a yearning for, a belief in the possibility of a "better" world that motivates many Pagans. "Better" means different things to different people, but one might reasonably assume "better" would include plenty of nourishing food, warm, comfortable shelter, clothing, loving family and community, the pursuit of "right livelihood," education, music, art, all in an atmosphere of safety, mutual love and trust, a spirit of cooperation, working together for the common good.

Shannon Harvey spoke on "'Eat Your Way Back to the Godhead': Reducing Karma and Calorie-intake Using International Society of Krishna Consciousness Cookbooks."

But it was the final paper that I found most intriguing, "Hoop Spiritualities: The Hula-Hoop and Embodied Spiritual Practice," presented by Martha Smith Roberts and Jenna Gray-Hildenbrand, both from UC Santa Barbara. Both scholars are hoopers themselves. They undertook this study because anecdotally they learned that hoopers underwent spiritual experiences when they got "in the zone," and they themselves had had similar experiences. They surveyed many hoopers from around the country. Hooping appeals more to women than to men, although among the men there are charismatic teachers. Some hoopers spin for many hours a day. Respondents described their experiences as being meditative, offering a sense of oneness with the universe, a sense of peace. Hooping rebalanced them from the stresses of their daily lives. It created an altered state of consciousness in the hoopers. The sense of being a part of the world both increased and decreased with this sense of wellness. It increased a feeling of interconnectedness yet allowed hoopers to let go of worldly concerns.

As Roberts and Gray-Hildenbrand described their findings, I was struck by all the parallels I was seeing between hula hooping and Pagan religious practices. First, hoopers are literally working within a circle; most Pagans construct sacred space in a circular form. Hoopers have no guru and neither do Pagans, although we do have organizers, ritualists, writers, and leaders among our illustrious co-religionists. Hooping has no doctrine. We call the space we create one that is "between the worlds." Hoopers feel suspended between the worlds. Respondents described individual spiritual experiences in the course of hooping, as Pagans do of experiences in ritual, and their experience/learning is embodied. More women practice Pagan religions, as more women spin hula hoops "religiously." I spoke to Ms. Gray-Hildenbrand after the session, since any Q&A time had been eaten by delays of one kind or another. She agreed with the similarities I had observed, and said that as it happened, a large percentage of their survey respondents identified as Pagan.

While I attended the NRM session described above, I forewent a Wildcard Session on Gods and Monsters of the Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Imagination. The session addressed ideological and material exchange among Greco-Roman, Anatolian, Mesopotamian and Levantine cultures in the form of shared religious and mythological themes from the Bronze Age to late Roman civilizations. The five papers were "Hearing the Chaoskampf in Iliad 21," Further Parallels in Greco-Anatolian Disappearing God Rituals: the Hittite Kursa Hunting Bag and the Dios Koidion (Fleece of Zeus)," Syncresis and the Cult of Isis in the Greco-Roman World," The Greek Gigantomachy and the Israelite Gigantomachy: Giants as Chaosmacht in Israel and the Iron Age Aegean," and "The God Aion in a Mosaic from Paphos and Helleno-Semitic Cosmogenies in the Roman East." Don't they sound juicy?

Monday afternoon I was tempted by several sessions. In particular, the

Native Traditions of the Americas Group, Resilience and Revitalization in Indigenous California. "Asumpa (To Flow): Native American Language and Cultural Revitalization through Hip-Hop," Melissa Leal, UC Davis. This whole session sounded intriguing.

North American Hinduism and Yoga in Theory and Practice Consultations, panel on Mother India Meets the Golden State: California Gurus and West Coast Yoga.

Religion in Europe and the Mediterranean World, 500-1650 CE Consultation on the theme of Mapping Medieval Boundaries: Textual, Physical, and Institutional, two of four papers, "The Anachronistic Crone: Margery Kempe and the Hands the (Re/Un)Wrote Her Theology of History" and "From Dominican to Benedictine, form Benedictine to Dominican: Religious Women and Reform in Late Medieval Italy." The second paper interested me because I have formed friendships with two Dominican sisters1 in MIC, and I have heard them speak of the powerful feeling they experience when they consider that they have 800 years of tradition behind their work. I don't quite understand how Catholic religious orders work, but I understand that the Dominican Order includes friars, nuns, and congregations of sisters and lay members. I also know that Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, Dominicans both, wrote the Malleus Malifacarum (Hammer of the Witches) that was so cruelly employed during the Inquisition against segments of the populace I identify with. Regardless, the Dominican sisters I know are wonderful, caring women.

Religion in South Asia Section and Hinduism Group, Mughal Bhakti: Devotees, Sufis, Yogis, and Literati in Early Modern North India. Paper entitled "Bitten By the Snake of Love: Jogis, Tantra, and Mantra in the Poetry of the Bhakti Saints." The San Francisco Asian Art Museum's current exhibit, "Maharaja: The Splendor of India's Royal Courts" compliments this session.

Indigenous Religious Traditions Group, Sacred Mountains in Indigenous Traditions. Of the five papers, two interested me: "Places with Personality: Sacred Mountains, Sacred Geography" and "Returning to Foretop's Father: A Sunrise Ceremony in Wyoming."

Mysticism Group and Music and Religion Consultation, Music, Mysticism, and Religion. What can I say? Isn't that a lot of what we are about? The four papers that most appealed to me: "The Musical Self: A Nonemotive Reinterpretation of Schleiermacher's Aesthetics of Feeling," "'Drumming' Ritual Identity in Santeria," "From Breath to Dance: Music as a Language of Experience in an American Sufi," and "What the 'Strange Trip' of the Deadhead Community can Teach Us about Religion." Well, duh!

Religion and Disability Studies Group, Metaphor, Language, and Corporeality, in particular "Of Gimps and Gods: Disability as Embodiment of the Divine in Yoruba and Diasporic Religions," by Amy Ifátólú Gardner, UC Berkeley.

Western Esotericism Group, Western Esotericism and Material Culture. Five papers. Egil Asprem of the University of Amsterdam, who spoke first on "Technofetishism, Instrumentation, and the Materiality of Esoteric Knowledge, had joined us on our pilgrimage to Isis Oasis, et al. on Friday. "The Use of Tracing Boards and Other Art Objects as Physical Aids of Symbolic Communication in the Rituals and Practices of Freemasonry," by Shawn Eyer of nearby JFK University. (I'm fairly certain that Shawn's path has crossed with mine somewhere along the line, but I cannot place him at the moment.) I had chatted with the next presenter, Stephen Wehmeyer, at the NCLC-CoG reception on Saturday night, but missed his talk on "Conjurational Contraptions: 'Techno-gnosis,' Mechanical Wizardry, and the Material Culture of African American Folk Magic." Henrik Bogdan of the University of Gothenburg's paper was ""'Objets d'Art Noir,' Magical Engines, and Gateways to Other Dimensions: Understanding Hierophanies in Contemporary Occultism." If I'm not mistaken, Bogdan published a book about Asatru a few years ago that caused a stir. The final paper was "Storming the Citadel for Knowledge, Aesthetics, and Profit: The Dreammachine in Twentieth Century Esotericism."

Though many of the papers speak from the rarefied air of academia's ivory towers, one can also see how many are relevant to, and informed by, contemporary 21st Century (CE) culture. Pop culture and embodiment flavor much of this year's studies. The reader can see from the samplings mentioned here and in my other blogs how the AAR can be viewed as a banquet table laden with a glorious intellectual feast.

Please check this blog in a few days for more about the rest of Monday and Tuesday morning.

In service to Coventina,
M. Macha NightMare

~~~~~~~~~~~

1. Sisters may be confused with nuns. Nuns live cloistered lives. Sisters live and work in the public world.

AAR Annual Meeting, Part III

2011-12-03T04:46:00.000-08:00

Here are a few of the intriguing sounding presentations I missed on Sunday:

New Religious Movements Group, Strategies of Legitimation in New Religion, one talk in particular: "Jungian Archetypes, Metagenetics, and Kennewick Man: Scientific Discourses and Racial Theory in American Folkish Asatru," Carrie Dohe, University of Chicago.

Ritual Studies Group, Case Studies in Ritual Practice, three papers: "Homa: An Exemplary Asian Fire Sacrifice, Holly Grether, UC Santa Barbara; "Dismantling Gender: Between Ancient Gnostic Ritual and Modern Queer BDSM," Johathan Cahana, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; and "Ritual as Technology of the Body in Early Confucianism." Ori Tavor, University of Pennsylvania. The second paper seemed especially helpful given ongoing discussions of gender within contemporary Paganism.

North American Hinduism Group, Constructions of Hindu Selves and Hindu Others in North America, in particular "Sightings and Blind Spots: The 'Protestant Lens' and the Construction of Hinduism," Michael Altman, Emory University. Again, because we are a new religious movement, and because there is a phenomenon identified in the field of ritual studies known as "the Protestantization of religion," whereby immigrant religions strive for assimilation by adopting a Protestant church structure, I thought this talk might offer insights and ideas that might prove useful to us as we Pagans establish ourselves within wider society. We can learn what methods and templates suit the organizational structures and institutions we create and adopt or adapt them, and we can learn what customs, roles, policies, and forms don't suit us and might compromise our uniqueness. In other words, what to emulate and what to avoid. As someone who's been deeply involved for the past ten years or so with establishing a Pagan seminary, I'm acutely aware of the tendency to parrot the "overculture" -- because it's easiest, because it's what we're familiar with. At the same time, I try to consider whether these forms and roles are concordant with who we are.

Death, Dying, and Beyond Consultation, Death in Popular Culture, featured "The Power of Death and Dying: Images as a Means of Conversion and Modes of Shaping Afterlife Beliefs in Nineteenth Century America," The Guide of Souls: Characteristics of the Psychopomp in Modern American Media," (there's that pop culture theme again) "Shimmering Between the Symbolic and Real in Pan's Labyrinth and The Fisher King," and "Jewish Ghosts: A Content Analysis of Some Jewish Folklore." This is just one of the death and dying sessions I'd have liked to attend. I did, however, run into my friend Megory Anderson at Starbuck's between sessions. Megory founded the Sacred Dying Foundation, on whose Advisory Board I serve. We met when we were both researching books on death and dying; there is a Pagan blessing from The Pagan Book of Living and Dying in the alternative religions section of her book, Sacred Dying: Creating Rituals for Embracing the End of Life.

Anthropology of Religion and Ritual Studies Groups, Ritual and the Construction of Sacred Space. Right up our Witchen alley, right? Of the three papers, I was most intrigued by "A Trip to the Spring: A Four-Generation Water Ritual at Shingleroof Camp Meeting." Summer camps seem to be one of the ongoing themes addressed this year.

Templeton Lecture, Martin J. Rees, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge and Astronomer Royal -- pretty impressive title, huh? It appears he's also titled, Baron Rees of Ludlow -- gave a lecture entitled "Our Final Hour: Can Our Species Determine the Fate of the Earth?" I figured that Dr. (or might the proper title be 'Sir' or 'Baron'?) Rees, a theoretical astrophysicist and winner of this year's Templeton Prize, would be offering his scientific perspective on this rather daunting topic and that he was probably well worth listening to, but alas, I had no time to attend.

PlenaryAddress, New Thoughts on Solidarity, considering the relationship between sexual and religious minorities in the context of the right to appear in public [?]... [and] the affiliative meanings of queer in light of new efforts to separate queer politics from anti-racist and anti-colonial struggles," Judy Butler, UC Berkeley, panelist.

The theme of the Body and Religion Group was Somatospiritual Development: Matter, Symbol, Transformation, again reflecting notions of both embodiment and the embodied spiritual experience and secular culture's influence. Of five papers, one, "Muscled, Mean, and Sometimes Moral: Professional Wrestling and the Embodiment of Cultural-Ethical Tensions," Dan Mathewson, Wofford College, interested me most. Our religion(s) is an embodied practice, meaning that we do our rituals, we perform them with our bodies and voices, rather than listening to an authority figure, often presumed to be more spiritually evolved or "closer to God" than the assembly, tell us what to say and do. We often explain this to mainstream religious practitioners as being experienced rather than revealed (i.e., revealed to Moses or some other mortal).

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation held a session on Religion and the Internet. Had I perfected the art of bilocation, I'd have attended this for two reasons: one is that I wrote a book called Witchcraft and the Web: Weaving Pagan Traditions Online, which discussed the effects the Internet has had on Paganism and the Pagan presence on the Web. The other is that I made the acquaintance of a lovely man named Dr. Ian Jamison, a Face to Faith Teacher Trainer with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation -- and he reads this very blog!

What I've listed here is just a sampling of the many sessions that I was interested in yet had to forgo in order to go to ones I felt were even more important to me to attend. These should give you an idea of the breadth and depth of studies given voice at this annual meeting of 10,000 people -- religious studies scholars, religious leaders and practitioners, religion journalists, seminarians, publishers of religious titles, and many more. You can also see how difficult making those choices is. You can also see thematic threads having to do with pop culture and secularism, mixed and revived cultural and religious practices, legitimation, multiculturalism. All the while, the elephant in the meeting rooms, sometimes named, was Occupy San Francisco nearby and the Occupy Movement in general, as I've mentioned before.

Check back here in a few days for more detailed posts about the sessions I did attend.

In service to Coventina,
M. Macha NightMare

Contemporary Pagan Studies Sessions at AAR -- Report II

2011-11-30T03:15:00.000-08:00

This is the second installment of my reports from the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting held in San Francisco last weekend.

There are always dozens of alluring presentations going on at the AAR; usually the most compelling are scheduled simultaneously. This year was no different. I passed up so many that I wanted to attend, but unfortunately I have not yet learned to bilocate, or even trilocate. Sunday was a big day for Pagan Studies.

The first morning session was a joint one presented by the Contemporary Pagan Studies and the Religion and Ecology Groups on the theme of "Elemental Theology and Feminist Earth Practice." Starhawk and Rosemary Ruether shared the panel, with Marion S. Grau, Jone Salomonsen,1 and Heather Eaton responding. Naturally, due to the theme of the session and the fact that Occupy San Francisco is only a few blocks from Moscone Center West where we were meeting and some AAR folks visited the encampment (not to mention the fact that Starhawk and others are there nearly daily), the subject of the Occupy Movement arose, as it did in several other sessions. This also led to talk about group organization, leadership and no (overt) leadership, egalitarianism, consensus process, and related aspects of group dynamics and movement health and sustainability. One of the first questions addressed to Starhawk and referring to groups and group process was whether we (meaning, I assumed, any of the groups in which she's active, but after speaking to the querist after the session, learned was Reclaiming) had any "rituals of reconciliation." Wow! This took me aback. I had never thought of such a thing, yet it seems so obvious.

Rumination on Reconciliation

Most of the groups I've worked in over the years, 95% of which have run by consensus process, have had problems with divisive issues, difficult people, personality conflicts, and similar disturbances. This is just part of being human and interacting with other humans. As often as not these episodes (or ongoing disputes) lead to one or more members leaving the group. These individuals are usually hurt by the leave-taking, and in addition their loss to the group can leave a rend. The group itself can ritualize the leave-taking, and sometimes they do, but that doesn't account for the disharmony within the leave-taker(s). Of course, it is not a group's responsibility to heal the person who is longer a member; if that were possible, the person probably wouldn't have taken the extreme measure of disaffiliating in the first place. So where does reconciliation come in? Somehow I can't imagine that some of the people I've seen leave a group would seek to reconcile. Not that I don't view that as a positive act towards the ultimate healing of all parties involved. I do. Perhaps it's worthwhile for us to consider how we might create such a ritual, even when we have no candidate seeking to be reconciled. I do think we're all in this together, and we are best served by at least operating in harmony with each other, with other groups and such, even if from a distance. So enacting a ritual of reconciliation, with or without the presence of the hurt former member, could have beneficial effects on all parties involved. This is something I'll have to ponder.

The afternoon session of the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group addressed "West Coast Pagan Practices and Ideas."

I had been looking forward to my friend Kerry Noonan's paper on "Wish They All Could Be California Grrrls?: The Influence of California Women on the Goddess Movement and Neo-Paganism," but unfortunately ill health prevented Kerry from being there. This paper was about us!

Dr. Christopher Chase of Iowa State University spoke on "Building a California Bildung: Theodore Roszak's and Alan Watts' Contribution of Pagan Hermeneutics." I always appreciate and learn from Christopher's presentations and this one was no exception. Learning more about influential people you know or know of and who are of your time and place is so much fun.

Kristy Coleman was the last presenter, on the topic of "Re-riting Women: Dianic Wicca." This is another topic I know fairly well; it's of my time and place. Dr. Coleman pointed out that Dianic Craft, as promulgated by Z Budapest, Ruth Barrett, Circle of Aradia, and emanating from Los Angeles and beyond, will be meeting to celebrate their fortieth anniversary this December. An impressive milestone that speaks to sustainability and ongoing relevance.

Fritz Muntean, co-founder and Editor Emeritus of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, responded.

The final session I attended on Sunday was the Religion and Ecology Group's "Author Meets Critics: Bron Taylor's Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future" featured panelists Sarah Pike, Lisa Sideris, Laurel Kearns, and John Baumann, Bron Taylor responding. The panelists read papers critiquing Bron's book and pointing out what they saw as weaknesses, oversights, or distorted emphases. The general tone, but for Sarah's paper, was that it wasn't "Christian enough." Bron disagreed, and so do I. This is an important book that I hope many people will read.

Sunday evening's Special Topics Forum featured a "Conversation with Gary Snyder, 2011 AAR Religion and the Arts Award Winner," presided over by Mary Evelyn Tucker.2 I've long admired Gary Snyder and his work, even have a quote of his on the back of my business card: "Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there." Alas, I wasn't able to make it.

Because of my involvement in the world of interfaith relations, I had also wanted to attend the Wildcard Session on "Institutionalizing Interfaith: Emerging Models for Educating Religious Leaders in a Multireligious Context," addressing "How do we train the next generation of spiritual leaders, rooted in their own religious tradition with the skills and motivation to work across faith lines?" The panel, as listed in the program, was comprised entirely of Abrahamics.3 All the more reason for me to have been there, since I would have spoken up about my own real multireligious experiences working in interfaith. I guess it's good that they're addressing this topic as being seminary-study-worthy. We Pagans have been developing interfaith trainings for nearly 20 years, and in fact, Cherry Hill Seminary's 2012 Leadership Institute, "Transforming Our World," will include a session on "Our Place in the World of Interfaith."

In service to Coventina,
M. Macha NightMare

~~~~~~~~~~

1. Dr. Salomonsen is the author of Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco.

2. I have never met Mary Evelyn, but have known of her work since the late '90s when I served on The Biodiversity Project Spirituality Working Group with her husband, John Grim. Not that he'd necessarily remember me, except that I was the lone Witch among the dozen participants.

3. The Abrahamic religions are those that sprang from the legacy of Abraham, i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Thanksgiving Eve Celebration

2011-11-28T04:46:00.000-08:00

Once again this year I joined the Rev. Paul Gaffney and the folks at Marin Interfaith Street Chaplaincy for a Thanksgiving Eve celebration with the homeless population of our city. A significant part of the ceremony is the gathering of offerings -- primarily sleeping bags and socks -- and blessing them for their use in keeping people warm and cozy through the cold, wet winter months.

Some of the ritual contributions, mostly drumming, poetry, and singing, came from the homeless population. I've come to know a few of them over the years and to appreciate their talents. In particular, we have enjoyed the singing of Cup Bach Pham, a woman from Southeast Asia.

Among the religious leaders who participated were Fr. John Balleza, the new priest at Church of St. Raphael and Mission San Rafael Arcangel; Dr. Laura Stivers, a religion and philosophy professor at Dominican University; Qayyum Johnson from Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center, the Rev. Dr. Curran Reichert of Community Congregational Church of Tiburon (site of the 9/11 Contemplative Service for Peace reported on earlier); the Rev. Dr. Liza Klein of San Rafael First United Methodist Church; and others.

Most touching, to me, was a personal story told by Clair Mikowski from Congregation Rodef Shalom about her parents' immigration to this country and some of the things her mother taught her. She delivered this story on the day her mother would have turned 100 years old.

Among the musical offerings, Taneen, from the International Association of Sufism, sang an evocative sacred chant. They have performed at MIC events in the past and I always look forward to hearing them.

Corby usually accompanies me to this annual event and sings with me. This year he was away for the holiday. I was fortunate in that my friend Gwion from North Bay Reclaiming joined me as a Pagan presence. I told an abbreviated version of the story of the abduction of Kore, later called Persephone, by Hades and the searching and grief of her mother, Demeter. It's a familiar story to many non-Pagans, and since we are celebrating harvest and the fruits of field, orchard, and barnyard, it seems perfect. We followed the brief story by singing "Demeter's Song" by Starhawk. I love the song. I love the melody and harmonies. And I especially love the theology, or worldview, it illustrates.

After the service we moved to a room nearby to share seasonal comestibles.

In service to Coventina,
M. Macha NightMare

Report from 2011 AAR Annual Meeting, Part 1

2011-11-27T01:18:00.000-08:00

Ritual in the UU World

Before the big NCLC-CoG-hosted party on Saturday evening, I attended the Unitarian Universalist Scholars ad friend Discussion on the theme of "Celebrating Embodied and Transformative Worship and Ritual." As a ritualist, I was intrigued by the topic, and as someone scheduled to teach liturgical design at a UU seminary, I was doubly intrigued.

The first panelist, Dr. Robert N. McCauley of Emory University, explained that in UU there are two kinds of members: anti-ritualists and non-ritualists.

The former are those who were reared in religious traditions with extensive, prescribed ritual practices. They were pressured to participate in and perform these rituals and they experienced pressure to conform and censure for non-participation. In addition, many carried the Protestant attitude that rejected the elaborate rituals of the Roman Catholic church in favor of simpler rites. Further, one would assume, they did not find the rituals to be satisfying or enjoyable, the result being that they were anti-ritualists.

The non-ritualists, on the other hand, had little experience with religious rituals in childhood, perhaps from being brought up in secular families. They were uninformed and indifferent; hence, non-ritualists.

Both groups overlook some of the benefits of shared ritual practice. Rituals help create a shared identity and enhance group cohesion. They foster a sense of "morality and ritual connection." They separate the shared ritualists from non-belongers, and increase in-group cooperation while fostering out-group hostility. They way I would put this is that shared rituals create bonding among the participants.

One of the examples Dr. McCauley used to illustrate his points was the cargo cults of Melanesia, a fascinating phenomenon of which I had been ignorant.

"Special agent" rituals, "those in which the relevant supernatural being is the agent of the action," acting either as the giver or the receiver. They are performed only once, since the result is considered to be permanent. Rites of passage are special agent rituals, which usually involve high levels of sensory pageantry (music, aroma, garb, implements, lighting, etc.) and are done once for each "ritual patient."

I'm intrigued by Dr. McCauley's work and intend to explore it further.

The Rev. Nancy Palmer Jones of the First Unitarian Church of San José (California) spoke of using storyteller's art to embody the other. [her emphases] This is a familiar ritual technique in Reclaiming Tradition Witchcraft, particularly in the contexts of WitchCamps. Embodied learning and experiencing the divine in the physical body is a distinctive characteristic of the Craft.

Dr. Emily R. Mace addressed the phenomenon of rituals within the overall UU world that draw liberally upon other, non-Christian sources, usually interpreted loosely. To me, this tends to foster a reliance on scripture over lived experience. While this borrowing from other religious sources acknowledges a wider range of wisdom, it also brings up the problem of cultural appropriation. I'm sensitive to this phenomenon, yet I view most religions, including the Abrahamic faiths, as being syncretic in many ways. In addition, we live today in a wildly diverse multicultural world, one where we are exposed to all manner of religious and artistic expression of the spiritual dimension of our beings. If we learn from those exposures, if we find value in their teachings, if we consider that those teachings enhance our spiritual lives, can incorporating them into our personal practices be wrong? I know this topic is a big bugaboo, but we do need to view it clearly and discuss it honestly.

The Rev. Dr. Dorsey Blake of Starr King School for the Ministry, serves the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, "the nation's first interracial, interfaith congregation," founded in 1944, whose mission was "to create a religious fellowship that transcended artificial barriers of race, nation, culture, gender, and social distinctions," is a dynamic presence who speaks in a deep, resonant voice. He explained that the church is comprised of folks from diverse backgrounds who do ritual together. They create shared experience; they find common ground. He claims that members don't have to be religious, they only need to share values and want to do ritual with others. "Isn't that community?" he asked.

He claims that "worship is radical." An individual may be nobody in society but in ritual he or she is somebody. Shared ritual deepens the spiritual lives of the people who participate. He explained the overall format of the Fellowship ritual, which follows the sequence of Matthew Fox's Cosmic Mass, i.e., four phases progressing from via negativa (grief and sorrow experience) to via positiva (dance of joy, delight and celebration of existence) to via creativa (communion with the divine) to via transformativa (receiving energy of the ritual to, as Dorsey says, "fire souls with the energy of apostleship," or to transform society). These phases include meditation, which can be yoga or breathing or standing and singing; drumming; music for "sitting in the presence"; "the word" (sermon).

The speaker and I share the goal in ritual of not having it become routine with too much repetition, but rather to mix things up, add elements of surprise, and make them participatory. We also both believe that singing without reading the words can allow for "singing from the heart."

Where we differ on ritual practice is the inclusion of preaching. I want ritual to foster an experience, or experiences, or lead to insights or clarity or serenity, or whatever. I don't want to listen to someone tell me how to live or what's going on around me. That doesn't mean I don't love an eloquent, inspiring orator; I definitely do. But I don't necessarily want sermonizing as part of my ritual experience. Perhaps this antipathy comes from my Christian childhood, which was full of preaching, but in any case, in ritual I prefer embodied experience .

The Rev. Clyde Grubbs, recently retired from the Throop UU Church of Pasadena, was the last to speak, but not before I had to leave. This session has refined my thinking about ritual and inspired me to follow up on some resources I hadn't known of before.

Yours in service to Coventina,
M. Macha NightMare

Student Panel on Interfaith Dialogue in Philadelphia

2011-09-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

There is an upcoming interfaith event connected to Bryn Mawr College--where there is sufficient public Pagan presence--in Philadelphia. Jane McAuliffe, current President of the College and well known Islamic Studies/Religion scholar, will give opening remarks for a student panel on interfaith and intercultural dialogue.

“When Cultures Meet on Campus: Interfaith and Intercultural Dialogue”  
on  Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at the National Museum of American Jewish History  

101 South Independence Mall East, Philadelphia, PA 19106–2517

4:45 p.m. - Docent tour of the museum

 6:00 p.m. - Remarks by President McAuliffe followed by student panel discussion and reception

I believe this is the new Jewish history museum in Philadelphia. I won't be at this particular event because I am in the Bay Area now. I look forward to hearing about the event though and sharing anything that I learn.

-Michelle Mueller

Hindu American Foundation Fund Raiser

2011-09-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

On Saturday evening September 17^th, the Hindu American Foundation held it’s annual fund raising dinner. Two of the Covenant of the Goddess’s National Interfaith Representatives were there to enjoy the dinner and witness the professional finesse with which this organization handles its only SF Bay Area fund raising drive.

What makes this event of interest to us as Pagans and Wiccans, is that this religious organization holds so much in common with us, recognizes that connection, and is actually reaching out to us to form bonds of mutual support. Rather than bore you with a blow by blow description of the evening let me instead mention some of the many reflections that occurred to me.

The first thing that struck me so forcefully was the repeated mention of PantheaCon and their attendance at that event last year. Samir Kalra made a point of coming over to join Macha Nightmare and myself prior to the start of the program to introduce himself as the HAF California representative this year. He wanted to thank us for our presence and mentioned how much he had enjoyed attending the PantheaCon conference. For those of you reading this who may not have attended the Convention last year, the Pagans and Hindus put on a ritual combining elements of both systems and everyone on both sides seemed to be very happy with the result. Mihir Meghani, one of the co-founders also present at PCon, even mentioned it during his main presentation.

I was struck by all of the ideologies, practices and beliefs that we share as the program moved forward. Army Oficer Rajiv Srinivasan, of Roanoke, Virginia, now a recruitment officer for West Point, spoke of his isolation as a practicing Hindu, in the Armed Forces and how his faith was tested in Afghanistan as a platoon leader almost constantly in harms way. As a Wiccan myself who was in the military I can very much relate to his feelings of being pressured to attend one of the religious services offered on base on Saturdays and Sundays and, having partaken of mess hall food can only imagine his difficulty in maintaining a vegetarian diet. Many young pagans have spoken to me of similar issues.

They spoke of the difficulty that their children face in school. Where Pagan children can sit quietly back and not worry that issues of their religion will arise, Hindu children must face that fact during the fifth and sixth grades here in California when, during Social Studies and World Culture, religions of the world are discussed. Many of the text books are incorrect in their information on Muslim and Hindu practices and the children must face the decision to correct them, or set themselves up for ridicule from class mates during breaks and after school. To counter this mis-information on the Hindu religion, they have developed their own textbook in partnership with several Hindu scholars and professors which is due to be released in hard back within the next two weeks.

Their Gods, like ours are multiple and complicated and they emphasize the equality of power among genders. Their practices vary as much as ours, and they respect men and women in modern practice equally. Within this organization there were as many highly positioned and professional females as males. Many of their spokespersons are women.

We do also have vast differences between us. They worship in a congregational manner, with temples and all of the infrastructure that this implies. As I looked around the room I noticed that most of the people in it were Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, or other very highly paid professionals. A person at the table next to us, during the fund raising part of the program, wrote a check for $20,000 without even wincing. Can you imagine? A Hindu comedian commented that if you were an American Hindu male you had only four choices of career, doctor, lawyer, engineer, or failure. Unlike most Pagans today, they have grown up with and have a deep commitment to their religion that goes back five thousand years over countless generations. This means that they don’t even have to think about how much they wish to commit to this religion. It is simply who they are. Many of these still fairly young professional families are donating a year or two away from careers to work full time without pay for this organization.

During the program they spoke about how they came to develop HAF and the plan that they implemented, which is certainly a model that we could all use. The first step was reaction. They took immediate action against articles and news reports that were incorrect and set forth to both correct and educate the people and organizations involved. The second step was pro-action. They quickly discovered that there was no “go to” place to get accurate information on the Hindu religion and so they set out to let those same people and organizations know about them. The third step was activism.

This has been reflected in many ways. They began a program to take back Yoga. Over the course of many years here in the United State there had been a real effort on the part of health practitioners and the new age movement to play down and separate the practice of Yoga from its religious roots and connected practices. The program was very successful with great news coverage by all of the major news media. We received word during the dinner that several of the Lawyers in the room were flying back to Washing DC the next day to attend a congressional hearing on the case of the Hindus in the Kashmir.

There is much that we could learn from this organization and I believe that we will profit from the work that they are doing on behalf of Hindus and Pagans. As a new religion I believe that Hindus have much to teach us about dedication to a belief, and as an organization I believe that HAF has much to teach us about organizational structure and how to use its members to their best and fullest ability.

As a final note, all that this organization has accomplished has been done with only four paid staff employees and a budget one tenth the size of any of the comparable major religious organizations out there doing the same work. They raised approximately a quarter of a million dollars last night. I wish us how to do THAT.

More photos of event

Rachael Watcher

Greek Orthodox 9/11 memorial photo

2011-09-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

From inside the Greek Orthodox Church of Stockton, CA during 9/11 memorial.

Michelle Mueller, M.Div.

MIC Contemplative Service for Peace

2011-09-13T18:45:00.000-07:00

Like so many millions of Americans across the country, we here in Marin County stopped to remember the events of 9/11/2001. There were about a dozen events listed in the local newspaper commemorating that day, so I wasn't expecting too many people to come to this one offered by Marin Interfaith Council, but come they did, about 80 in all. In speaking with others who were there, I learned that some were not religious people, but simply wanted to come together in community for this occasion. They didn't want preaching, of which we had none (and if we had, I likely would not have participated).

We gathered in a circle around Community Congregational Church of Tiburon's new labyrinth. One arc of the circle was shaded by a small grove of redwoods, and another opened onto a vast view of the Golden Gate and the Golden Gate Bridge. A central altar table held a staff (gift to the church from the woman who consulted on building the labyrinth), a blue glass novena candle, a Tibetan singing bowl, and a small statue of Lady Liberty. I placed the last two items there. Lady Liberty's torch held a small candle. There was a light breeze blowing, so I didn't expect to be able to keep a candle lit. Those who saw me about to do so told me not to bother. Still, it was important to light it, so I did. It burned for a few seconds, maybe a minute, and blew out.

The Marin interfaith singers opened the gathering with "Dona Nobis Pacem," a lovely song that most, if not all, religions seem comfortable with. I know I am.

We were welcomed by the Rev. Carol Hovis, Executive Director of MIC, and the Rev. Curran Reichert, pastor of the host facility. I was encouraged to hear Carol speak of the religious dimension of the 9/11 attacks and of the fact that all religions have their dark sides.

The Rev. Jeremy Levie of Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center, read from the Buddhist tradition. Rabbi Henry Shreibman, a reconstructionist Jew, recited in Hebrew from the book of Lamentations, then spoke the words in English. Then MIC intern Abby Fuller rang a bell signaling silent meditation.

From Brahma Kumaris, a Hindu order, Sister Kyoko Kamura played flute while Sister Roslyn Seaton read.

Group chanting and silent meditations occurred between readings.

Sister Colleen McDermott, of the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael, read a Roman Catholic meditation.

Following another period of silence, in honor of Lady Liberty, I read "The New Colossus," by Emma Lazarus, written in 1883 and inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York City Harbor.*

As I walked back to my seat on the other side of the labyrinth, I stopped to relight Lady Liberty's torch. It lit, and it stayed lit.

After a musical meditation by Stephen Iverson, Music Minister at Sleepy Hollow Presbyterian Church in San Anselmo and Cantor at St. Rita's Catholic Church in Fairfax, a youth leader, Nura Heydari, from San Rafael Bahá'í Community, gave a reading.

Author Nafisa Haji of the International Society of Sufism, gave the final reading, followed by closing words from MIC intern Abby Fuller from San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo and First Church of Christ Scientist, San Rafael.

We closed with a group chant that was written by a member of the EarthSpirit Community in Boston as her immediate response to the 9/11 attacks. As I led the chant, I extended my hands to grasp those of the people on either side of me, until the we all created one circle.

Rabbi Schriebman played taps.

The magic of the day was that for the duration of the service, Lady Liberty's flame stayed lit. It would flicker and seem to be gone, and then it would leap to life again. Corby and I were watching it intently. I noticed that Carol Hovis across the circle was also watching it. As it turned out, almost everyone was watching that sacred flame, as many of them commented to me afterward. I told them it was magic, which indeed it was. We Pagan priestesses are good at doing magic.

Corby and I, and others, I'm certain, found each different reading offered something comforting, wise, and inspirational to be gleaned.

One could not have asked for a more beautiful day to commemorate such a horrendous day ten years earlier. Or a more beautiful location. Healing is happening.

Yours in service to Coventina,
M. Macha NightMare (Aline O'Brien)

* I was pleased to learn that my colleague at CHS, Holli Emore, read the same piece at an Interfaith Gathering for Peace in which she participated in Charleston, SC.

Saratoga California - 9/11 Observance: Moving Forward: Transformation through Community Engagement

2011-09-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

On September 7th the Islamic Networks Group (ING) in partnership with the Council on American Islamic Relations – San Francisco Bay Area, Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center, Roman Catholic Diocese of San Jose, Jewish Community Relations Council, and the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council (SiVIC) hosted an interfaith gathering commemorating the tenth anniversary of 9/11 in Saratoga, CA. The event was meant to both memorialize the victims and honor those who sacrificed their lives trying to save others on that day.

There was a lovely reception with Middle Eastern snacks. The lobby of the McAfee Center was colourful with all the religious garb and other nicely dressed attendees. There were over 30 religious leaders, a dozen first responder representatives and Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese, two filmmakers and I would estimate 100-150 attendees and staff. Local service organizations were present in the lobby offering volunteer opportunities.

The program started with the documentary Love Hate Love by Dana Nachman & Don Hardy chronicling three families torn apart by terrorism. The Aldermans lost a son in NYC's World Trade Center, the Hymans lost a sister in the London Underground bombings and the third story was about Ben Tullipan, who was himself caught in the Bali nightclub bombing where he was severely burned and lost both of his legs. In each case the survivors turned to helping others in their search for meaning. The Aldermans have created mental health clinics in war torn areas to help those afflicted with PTSD make new lives. The Hymans support a children's eye clinic in India because their lost sister discovered as a teenager that she was nearsighted and corrective lenses let her appreciate art. Ben helps new amputees get back on their feet and supports the Bali community with his import store in Australia. It was very nicely done and filled with hope and meaning.

After the film, Supervisor Cortese welcomed people and the 30 faith leaders processed up to sit on stage. (So I have no pictures of the event, first they put us in the very back and then on stage.) Then the first responder representatives were called and they joined us on stage. We had four keynote faith leader speakers Fr. Jon Pedigo from the Catholic Diocese, Shifu Jian Hu from the Sunnyvale Zen Center, Rabbi Dana Magat from Temple Emmanuel and Imam Aladdin El Bakri (that is Al eh Deeeen not Aladdin like the Disney movie). Between them they hit on absolutely every theme that was appropriate for the day. I am very impressed by our local interfaith community!

We finished on time and folks were so energized that they continued to chat in the lobby (and finish off the snacks). It was a really beautiful ceremony and brought our community together.

Rowan Fairgrove
NCLC Interfaith Rep

Marin Interfaith Council Considers Death Row

2011-09-02T02:39:00.000-07:00

Please see guest blog at California Correctional Crisis blog.

Yours in service to Coventina,
M. Macha NightMare

Full report of NAIN Connect (including text of Don's talk) on NAIN website

2011-08-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

The good folks at NAIN have put a comprehensive report (with photos) of the NAIN Connect conference on their website at http://www.nain.org/news/NAINConnect2011ReportWeb.htm

If you wish, you can go directly to my talk (which was originally titled "Am I not welcome?": The Dark Side of the Golden Rule, but was mysteriously renamed Weaknesses of the Golden Rule) at http://www.nain.org/news/NAINConnect2011ReportWeb.htm , or get the full text as a PDF at
http://www.nain.org/news/DonFrew.pdf.

If you DO read my talk, please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Blessed Be,
Don Frew
National Interfaith Representative

CoG Interfaith Reps on Board of new Interfaith Journal

2011-08-12T09:59:00.000-07:00

Rachael Watcher and I are serving on the Board of a new interfaith journal / website. It will be to interfaith work what Beliefnet and Patheos have been to comparative religion. I urge you to take a look at the pre-launch site and subscribe if you are interested. http://theinterfaithobserver.org/

Don Frew
National Interfaith Representative

WELCOME TO THE INTERFAITH OBSERVER (TIO)

Thirty attended an early-morning discussion of TIO’s September launch at the North America Interfaith Network’s annual Connect, July 24-26, in Phoenix, Arizona. [Photo: Terry Weller]

In a world beleaguered with poverty and violence, an emerging interfaith movement offers opportunities to become friends with ‘the other’ safely, a first step in peacemaking. The whole human family is showing up in neighborhoods in countries everywhere, thanks to airliners, the internet, videocams, and so much more. This new diversity can terrify or delight us but will not go away. The strategic question – whether to choose ‘fight or flight,’ or, as those in the interfaith movement would suggest, to reach out.

In spite of the daily news, the great good news is that people everywhere, in fact, are reaching out. A thousand interreligious flowers and more are blooming across the globe. No one organized, planned or even predicted this surging proliferation of activity. It seems to be a natural human response when the races, religions, and cultures of the world interact freely with one another, face-to-face, on a daily basis.

The very spontaneity of this development in world religion means most of us involved don’t know the bigger picture, haven’t yet connected with brothers and sisters working on the same issues elsewhere. Amazing stories wait to be told, and multiplying resources deserve promotion. TIO aims to connect the dots.

On September 15, 2011, a group of seasoned interfaith activists who care about these matters will launch The Interfaith Observer, casually known as TIO. It will be a monthly e-journal telling new stories, exploring new issues, identifying exemplary resources, and connecting us to each other. TIO will look for the big picture while providing hundreds of links to particular opportunities. For more details about TIO, click this link.

If interfaith dialogue and relationships matter to you, please subscribe to TIO. It is free, written and edited by volunteers with decades of hands-on experience in this new arena. It aims to be a provocative, useful source of hope. Thanks for passing this invitation on to anyone else you know who cares.

In peace and love,

Rachael's NAIN Conference Report

2011-07-31T12:44:00.000-07:00

On the 22nd of July I headed out to Phoenix to attend a North American Interfaith Network "Connect". I was gone five days and those days were packed. Up at 6 or 6:30 to take advantage of a delightfully warm swimming pool and get some kinks out then to breakfast. At 9 meetings started. The first two days were filled with board meetings which (with breaks of course) lasted until 9pm. Then there were informal talks at night, until I staggered to bed to begin again in the morning.

As Don Frew has faithfully reported on the happenings of the Connect, I will give you an overview of my time there rather than over saturate you with details. I did not mention specific names where I had less than positive things to say of someone for the sake of their privacy.

On the 24th with the yearly board meeting behind us the conference got under way. The theme was "Living the Golden Rule". As a member of the program committee I might have protested more vigorously about such exclusivity of terms, but this group stepped in when we were totally without a plan for the next year and had just published a book of days with a short meditation from every religion that they could find that had anything connected with a Golden Rule type of philosophy and wanted to showcase their work.

The programming results were predictable; one saccharine sweet talk or panel after the other touting the "Rule" as a universal panacea for a perfect world. Two major concerns arose for me when I realized that the first plenary speaker, who was introduced as the leading academic expert on world religions and the Golden Rule knew nothing of almost any religion except the Abrahamic faiths. He was not even aware that Wicca (currently listed as the fourth largest religion in the US by more than one reliable poll) existed, and had no clue what Rastafarian tradition was (which is arguably among the Christian faith groups). As the days passed and I had an opportunity to speak with him personally I realized that his knowledge was woefully lacking in just about all areas including Jainism and huge chunks of Hindu practice. Worse he has written books on the subject that are pointed to as the authority on why the Golden Rule is universal and teaches college courses in it. Heavy sigh!

The other major speaker was probably a bit more informed but spent most of his time quoting Confucius and using phrases like "All Gods Children" (a phrase that the Inquisition used to distinguish between Christians and all those whom they persecuted). Neither of these men, in personal conversation, were in the least willing to consider that they were not as fully informed as they believed and were being insulting and exclusionary to religions who did not have any such philosophy.

Fortunately two speakers, Rabbi David Kunnin, and Elder Donald Frew, stepped forward to point out the flaws in such thinking and, surprisingly, were well received, most likely because they were both well educated, excellent speakers whose points were pretty much irrefutable.

Not every religion has the Golden Rule, most specifically those closer to indigenous and/or pagan practice

Post colonial occupation either translated and re-worked native doctrines so that they looked more like the Golden Rule or..

Post colonialized populations re-worked their own ethical systems so that they looked more like the Golden Rule in order to be more accepted by their "new friends".

By stating that the Golden Rule is universal we are saying that any religion who does not have an ideology that might be tooled to apply is, by definition not a religion.

Such exclusionary terminology is detrimental to the practice and idea of interfaith.

For me, however, the topics and themes were only of secondary interest as I had just been promoted to the Chair of Internal communications, an office that had here-to-fore been held by one person who handled both the internal and external communications for us. She was falling behind in both technology and time and wanted to focus on the Newsletter and other forms of communication with the broader community of interfaith practice. Unfortunately I inherited a web page woefully out of date and an internal communications network that was totally unworkable.

She had been trying for ages to get the board to release us from a program that was really not designed for our needs but only this year were she and I able to convince the board to drop it in favor of easier and free programs for calendar and list serve processes. However she had proven reticent to release design of or make any changes herself, to the web page. I spent most of the time during the day being collared by members of the board who wanted me to do something about the web site. As it happened I made some excellent connections with the younger contingent who were a part of our young adult program and had received scholarships to attend this year's Connect. They managed to hunt me down when they discovered that I would be doing the new site and volunteered their services.

This was, almost in full, the work of a young intern who had been on the board with the chair of the communications committee for the past year and who was very aware of the need for change and the reticence of the chair to relinquish responsibility. It was she who recruited the "volunteers" for me and helped me formulate a plan to acquire charge of the website rebuild without hurting the person involved. She will be continuing to work with me on this project as a volunteer herself as her time with the board has expired. She is also, though it makes no difference to the process, of a neo-pagan leaning and had a long conversation with me on the history of Craft in general and the various traditions which have come out of it.

I did realize that there might be some generational disconnect while visiting with the younger folks when they started to throw out strings of letters such as LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, transgender) and then added even more letters which I can't begin to remember. I told them I had enough trouble just remembering BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Sadism, Masochism) which had taken me years to figure out. They laughed and we had a good time discussing all of the latest issues and agendas around such things. I didn't learn much but I did learn what they are calling it now days and, interestingly, what the academics are saying. I can't be certain but I think that they were a bit surprised and delighted to find that older people in a religious setting were open to and interested in such conversation. (Not to mention World of Warcraft, South Park, and Family Guy.)

Another advancement that I believe was very important was that every board member decided to completely endorse the use of Adobe Connect for meeting purposes. We had had two members who were dead set against any further advances in electronic usage, but Paul Chaffee, one of the previous hold-outs finally allowed me to show him the program and was so enthusiastic that along with my plea to curb our carbon foot print and set a cutting edge example to other organizations that even the most resistant member finally came to me and told me that he was moved by my sincerity and offered me his commitment to work to familiarize himself with the program and use it.

In fact I may have done too good a job on sales as they began to discuss the possibility of a future connect that was all electronic offering plenaries and workshops on line that were totally interactive. Exciting, I have to admit but.... Don't ever think that people over sixty can't get with the idea of a world in the clouds.

By the end of the Connect I was able to report back to all of those who had spoken with me about the web that we were moving ahead. We have a site for our Connects for the next two and possibly four years, and have commitments to better communications both internal and external. We have committed to having ten scholarships available for youth participation and two intern positions for young adults. We determined that every committee chair will have a co-chair to help with work and international communications, and we founded an ad-hoc financial group to help bring back lapsed members and seek new ones along with asking organizations for more financial support. All of the board members and in particular the Chair left feeling very optimistic about our growth and headway and despite the topic of the gathering I felt very good about the general outcome.

At the end of the meeting, at dinner, the Producer asked that anyone who had a brief comment on the time we had spent together or next year's connect should stand up and speak up. I stood and suggested politely that, as we had focused on our similarities this year perhaps we might focus on our differences in the love and safety of our gathering next year. I saw a very large number of people nodding in agreement. Who knows, perhaps we will finally get down to some really interesting conversations next year.

In Her service and yours,

R. Watcher, National Interfaith Representative

Memorial Procession

2011-07-30T04:05:00.000-07:00

The sound of drums drew people together to a circle made of flowers under the trees in Albert Park in downtown San Rafael. The Rev. Paul Gaffney, of the Marin Interfaith Street Chaplaincy, welcomed us to the "14th Annual Memorial Procession in Honor of Those Who Have Died on the Streets of Marin County," beginning with a brief meditation.

A man whose name I don't know played a Native American flute, followed by an offering of incense by the Rev. Michaela O'Connor Bono of Green Gulch Zen Center, and a blessing by the Rev. Liza Klein of the First United Methodist Church of San Rafael.

Bearing our flowers, we proceeded in silent reverence up the street lined with palms, as Paul sounded a bell.

It was strange walking by diners sitting at little tables with crisp linens and glasses of wine on the sidewalk and in the windows of restaurants, since they did not appear to know what we were about. We had no sign. Our silence and reverent attitude, together with the ringing of the bell, made it obvious were about something serious. The distracted part of me wanted to engage these folks in conversation about the very fact that we have homeless people in this rich country of ours, to ask them for money to support the chaplaincy, but I refocussed my mind back on the lost ones......

We arrived at the courtyard of St. Raphael's Church, built at the site of Father Junipero Serra's Mission San Rafaél. Some years ago this same group planted a tree in memory of those we were honoring this day on the church grounds, and it was around the base of that tree that we laid our floral offerings.

We were joined by others who had been waiting in shade of a tree in the courtyard, and welcomed by Fr. John Balleza, who has just taken over as pastor from Fr. Paul Rossi, and who is new to Marin Interfaith Council.

This annual memorial was scheduled later in the day this year than it has been in the past, partly due to the scorching sun and uncomfortable heat of the earlier afternoon. This made for a welcome more shaded venue.

People took turns reading the names of everyone known to have died homeless in Marin County since 1995. After each name was spoken, all assembled repeated it together. This act stirred several mourners to tears as he or she heard the name of a loved one and grieved openly in community. I think this is a healthy part of the grieving process, which is one of the reasons I so look forward to hearing each name when I gather with my co-religionists to honor the Beloved Dead on Samhain night.

As I have in past memorials, I offered a prayer for those who have died violently or in great distress, concluding with an appeal to the Mother of Justice that justice be done. Then I taught a four-line chant written by Starhawk and Anne Hill. When everyone had learned it, we sang it together for a while. This year I didn't try to break it into a round -- it's beautiful when done as a round -- and it seemed to flow more smoothly. There were also fewer people this year than in past years. Usually there a contingent of Dominican sisters come. I think the singing went better this time because some people had sung it in the past and because we were in a cooler space. In any case, some people harmonized and overall it sounded really sweet. I trust it did its job of allowing us to blend our voices in song for the dead.

Paul concluded the ceremony with a reading from the prophet Isaiah.

The Marin Interfaith Street Chaplaincy "provides a compassionate presence for those who are living outside."

If you are a Pagan and you are reading this, especially if you've ever considered doing any work in the world of interfaith relations, you might consider participating in such events in your area. If there is no homeless chaplaincy, there are surely other activities directed toward aiding less fortunate residents of your community. Consider offering your assistance in their work. There is no need to bring religion into it, except in a gentle way. There are no theological discussions, no "whose god(s) is/are better, more real, more authentic, more powerful, more righteous, or even if you have a belief at all, rather than your lived experience with the numinous divine as you've perceived it. Further, it's easy to join in these efforts without compromising the uniqueness of your Paganism in the slightest. Instead, by sharing something of your ways, you not only educate others about who we are, but also you dispel fear and enrich the overall experience for all participants, yourself included. By joining with other people of other religions in projects beneficial to the commonweal, we help mend tears in the fabric of society.

Yours in service to Coventina,
M. Macha NightMare, PW

NAIN Report (Day 2)

2011-07-27T00:46:00.000-07:00

Rachael and I were up for a 7:30 breakfast meeting of The Interfaith Observer (TIO, http://www.theinterfaithobserver.org/. Rachael and I serve on TIO’s Advisory and Editorial Boards, respectively. About 20 folks associated with TIO are here at NAIN and Paul Chaffee wanted to host a little meet & greet. In a group of about 30 people, 25 were Christians, 2 were Muslims, and 3 were Witches. I am noticing that most interfaith efforts seem to be organized and led by Christians & Jews, while the only other folks who show up for the organizing meetings are the ones who feel threatened in our society. This leaves the few Witches to speak for the interests and concerns of ALL non-Abrahamics.

The opening plenary was introduced by Eldred Spain, the President of the Arizona Interfaith Movement (AIFM). He introduced a Baha’i named Ernie Bruce who led three other Baha’is in opening prayers: one sung in English, one read in Spanish, one sung in Arabic, and one read in English.

Eldred then introduced the day’s keynote speaker, Dr. Harry Gensler (who will be my co-presenter tomorrow). Harry is a professor of Philosophy at John Carroll University in Cleveland www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/. I was more than a little confused by his presentation. While he described himself as a leading defender of the Golden Rule, he started right off by saying that “sometimes the Golden Rule is hard to apply & gives confusing results” and so it needs to be reworded to be understood. He gave us his version: “Treat others only as you consent to be treated in the same situation.” While he was addressing an audience of religious professionals, his presentation used stories of funny, talking animals to illustrate common “fallacies” in interpreting the Golden Rule and his chronology of the Golden Rule started with its use by Fred Flintstone c. 1,000,000 BC. This might be fine for a grade school class, but it seemed out of place in this setting.

Harry’s first fallacy was the “literal” one. This was illustrated by “the foolish GR monkey” seeing a fish in water and knowing that HE wouldn’t want to be underwater, lifting the fish up onto a branch, thereby killing it. Kita, the smart GR monkey, imagines what it would be like to be a fish, and realizes that if she was in the same situation, she wouldn’t want to be lifted onto the branch. (“Kita” stands for “Know, Imagine, Test for consistency, Act”.) I noted that this requires that a person know that they don’t know something in the first place in order to then seek out knowledge. If the monkey doesn’t know that fishes and monkeys are different, then there is no reason to inquire. Similarly, people who assume all people are like them won’t inquire into another person’s circumstances before acting.

Fallacy #2 was the “soft” one. In this example, Willy, the baby squirrel, wants to stick his fingers in a light socket and Mama Squirrel follows the Golden Rule and lets him do it, to predictably ill effect. Many of us found it difficult to imagine ANY mother stopping to consider the Golden Rule ramifications before protecting their children, but be that as it may, this example requires that one party have superior knowledge such that they can say to themselves “Well, if the other person knew what I know, then they would want me to act this way.” I found this highly problematic since most humans tend to assume that they know more than others and this would provide a carte blanche for subverting the intent of the Golden Rule.

Fallacy #3 was the “doormat” fallacy. This basically interpreted the GR to say “I wouldn’t want someone to say ‘No’ if I asked for money, so I can’t say ‘No’ to them when they ask me.” The workaround requires thinking, as Harry said, “But hey, I’m willing that others say ‘no’ to me in similar circumstances!” I can think of a LOT of folks through whose heads Harry’s thought would never cross.

Fallacy #4 was the “third-party” one. This did not consider the effect on third parties. The example was giving someone an undeserved A in a class so the person could get into law school. The third-party effects could include another, deserving person NOT getting into the same school and, later, another person hiring a crappy lawyer. The workaround requires yet another alteration and expansion of the Golden Rule: “Act only as you’re willing for anyone to act in the same situation, regardless of where or when you imagine yourself or others.” At this point, I was beginning to feel that if the main defender of the Golden Rule was having to restate it and amplify it so often, then he was making the case for its inadequacy for me.

The final fallacy Harry presented was the “easy” one. This boiled down to mistakenly thinking that the Golden Rule could be easily applied in all circumstances without thought or consideration. You can say that again, as the above has shown.

I couldn’t help thinking that the more Harry said how much the Golden Rule needs to be reworded and amplified to apply it properly, the more he undermined the argument that the Golden Rule is “the’ guiding moral principle.

During the Q & A that followed I pointed out that Harry had argued both that the Golden Rule is severely undermined whenever we assume that we know more than the other person and that (in the case of Fallacy #2) it was necessary to assume a position of superior knowledge to prevent little Willy Squirrel from electrocuting himself. Since humans are usually prone to assuming that they know more than others, I asked, doesn’t this create a considerable risk in being guided solely by the Golden Rule? Harry’s response was basically that “we have to be better in knowing when we do and don’t have superior knowledge.” I remained unconvinced.

The morning presenters introduced themselves and gave previews of their programs, followed by a short break.

During the break, I reconnected with Earl Smith of the Church of Scientology of Toronto. We had shared a suite at the first NAIN Connect I attended in Southern California many years ago and had had many wee-hour conversations about Wicca and Scientology. Earl is a great spokesman for Scientology and I always enjoy conversations with him.

After the break, we had our first choice of workshops, between:
* The Golden Rule and the Ethics of Reciprocity
* Women Transcending Boundaries
* The Golden Rule Curriculum for Schools

I attended the first, given by Jeffrey Wattles, Professor of Philosophy at Kent State University. Jeff discussed Golden Rule-like concepts, wandering between Chinese Confucianism, Ancient Greek philosophy, early Jewish thought, and late 19th century US Christian Revivalism. In the last case, he focused on the philanthropic life of textile businessman Arthur Nash. This last was the most interesting part for me as he discussed how ministers & businessmen (not theologians) emphasized the Golden Rule as “a mean between competitive ruthlessness and naïve idealism” in guiding ethical business practice. (“How do I make money and still be a good guy?”) He also discussed the Golden Rule’s use as a symbol at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions of interfaith unity, cooperation, and friendship.

He closed with an interesting quote from Moby Dick, but without comment, leaving several of us wondering what point he intended to convey. Ishmael writes about Queequeg:

<< He then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed the paper fireboard. By certain signs and symptoms, I thought he seemed anxious for me to join him; but well knowing what was to follow, I deliberated a moment whether, in case he invited me, I would comply or otherwise.
I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator in worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth - pagans and all included - can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship? - to do the will of God - that is worship. And what is the will of God? - to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me - that is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of worship. consequently, I must then unite with him in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. >> (page 51)

For whatever reason, Jeff didn’t give us the rest of the quote:

<< So I kindled the shavings; helped prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the world. >>

In the second morning session, we had two workshops to choose from:
* The Golden Rule and the UN
* Women’s Leadership.

Again, I attended the first one, led by Grove Harris, who is known to many of us. This was a VERY good presentation on the ins and outs of trying to do spiritual / environmental work at the UN. Grove discussed the complexities of protocol, the competition for time and resources between different administrative entities, the personal difficulty if addressing heart-rending global crises in clinical terms, and more.

She said that at first she was put off by the US’s approach of never signing on to anything that they weren’t already doing, until she saw how many declarations and plans full of lofty words and expressions of intent came to nothing. She talked about the “buzz words” and phrases that can get you into hot water because they refer to some conflict behind the scenes that you may know nothing about.

She gave us a thumbnail sketch of many of the UN groups that would be of interest to us:
* Interfaith Consortium for Environmental Concerns
* Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
* High Level Panel on Sustainability
* Forum on Forests
* Forum on Oceans
* United Nations Environmental Program
* UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
* Rio +20 / Green Economy

Grove said that all documents and declarations are finalized BEFORE the events about them, so folks are surprised when they show up for a conference and discover that they have no input into the document coming out of the conference. The time for input is well in advance of the event.

She said that the UN buildings are constantly under construction as the number of countries in the world continues to increase. Delegations from new, small, poor countries arrive at great expense only to find that only a couple of their people can have an office.

She reminded us that ALL negotiations at the UN are political. Each delegation is representing, first and foremost, the interests of THEIR people. Political interests and consensus process are often in tension. There is also a great tension between human rights and environmental protection. Many delegations have no choice but to focus on the immediate, desperate humanitarian needs of their people, relegating the ultimately more crucial issues of environmental collapse to second place. Grove commented that the Golden Rule really didn’t offer much guidance in these matters since it is so human-centered.

(Actually, there was a LOT of information in Grove’s presentation. Too much to even try to reproduce here. Fortunately, NAIN was videotaping the talks and they’ll be available soon on the NAIN website.)

During the Q & A, the issue of overpopulation came up often. Grove said that there is a constant focus on feeding people rather than having fewer people in the first place, and that it is vitally important that the religions get on board with endorsing condom distribution and use.

After this session, most of the folks got onto buses to visit a local Indian temple – very unusual in that it combines a Jain temple and a Hindu temple in a single complex (www.ektamandirarizona.org/). Once again, I stayed at the hotel, since the visit would involve a sumptuous Indian feast for lunch, a gracious act of hospitality that I would have to refuse. Rachael also remained to work on a project for the NAIN Board, so we grabbed lunch in the Mexican restaurant in the hotel.

When everyone returned, we had a panel on “Broad Questions Faced by Interfaith in the 21st Century”. Salim Jaffer, a Muslim, spoke about the importance of reaching out to youth and about looking to Canada as a model of religious pluralism. Rabbi David Kunin, who had originally prepared a program somewhat similar to mine, but found himself placed on this panel instead, read the foreword from his paper warning about the dangers of a “narrative of similarity” in which the uniqueness of our faith traditions is lost in language that implies greater similarity than actually exists. His points were clear, concise, and very well-received. Beverly George, a practitioner of Soka Gakkai Buddhism, tried to make some point about dependent origination using Buddha’s story of the Poisoned Arrow, but I confess that neither Rachael nor I could figure out what point she was trying to make. Finally, Jason Smith, whose faith tradition was listed as “Young Adult”, brought up some very interesting thoughts about how the interfaith movement might engage “secularists” and “exclusivists”. His remarks were also very well-received.

During the Q & A, Bettina Gray (current NAIN Chair and long-time interfaith friend, dating back to the Berkeley Interfaith Council) mentioned that 20 years ago, Diana Eck (of Harvard’s Pluralism Project) had warned that while the “exclusivists” rejected the faith traditions of others, we could also b e SO INclusive that we ended up doing the same thing. David observed that while a syncretic religion could be a member of NAIN, syncretic religiosity itself is not a goal of NAIN.

After a short break, we reconvened for NAIN’s actual annual business meeting. Unlike CoG, almost all of NAIN’s business is conducted by its Board and is merely ratified by their membership at the annual meeting. There was a remembrance of those who had passed in the last year, the usual introductions of and thank yous to the Board Members (including Rachael), approval of the previous year’s minutes, and a presentation of the budget for next year: ~ $9000, over half of which is for youth scholarships. However, this budget is a deficit one and the Board pledged to raise more money. Even so, they did not raise the membership dues, which are $125 for an organization. Rachael was appointed Chair of the Internal Communications Committee. Next year’s NAIN will be in Atlanta GA and NAIN Connect 2013 will be in Toronto.

After the meeting, it was back on the busses for a trip to the L.D.S. Student Center at Arizona State University. Our L.D.S. hosts told us about the recently-opened center before serving us a yummy dinner. Dinner was followed by a panel of the 10 recipients of Young Adult scholarships to attend the NAIN Connect. They were asked to answer questions about using the Golden Rule in their interfaith work. While the Golden Rule itself seemed to have little bearing on their answers, we were VERY impressed with just how much they are doing in community service and how deep their commitment to interfaith in their private and professional lives seemed to be. (I wasn’t able to take notes or I would have a lot more to say, as the Young Adults were the most interesting and lively part of the whole program.)

On the busride back to the hotel, I sat with Josh and had a fascinating discussion of “religious naturalism” as a new form of atheism gaining popularity among the youth, which sounds suspiciously to me like a less devotional form of Neopaganism. We agreed that there are some important connections to be made here and exchanged emails to pursue later.

Over dinner, I had been informed that some strings had been pulled behind the scenes and a separate room had been arranged so that Harry and I could each present our own programs in a full time slot. This was great news, but meant that I now had to take what I had prepared for half of a joint presentation and retool it into a single, 50-minute piece. Staying up late attending to that made this report a day late.

More to come... the last day of the conference.

Blessed Be,
Don Frew
National Interfaith Representative

Report from North American Interfaith Network conference (Day 1)

2011-07-24T23:45:00.000-07:00

Rachael and I are at NAIN Connect 2011, the annual meeting of the North American Interfaith Network (www.nain.org). Rachael is on NAIN’s Board so she’s already been here a few days and been through hours of grueling Board meetings. The general conference started today. The facility we’re in is great (http://embassysuites1.hilton.com/en_US/es/hotel/PHXTPES-Embassy-Suites-Phoenix-Tempe-Arizona/index.do), if you can deal with the 100+ degree weather. (“Yes, but it’s a dry heat.”)

Some things about the conference are a little odd… not bad, just odd. It’s the first interfaith conference I’ve been to that started on a Sunday evening. It’s the first interfaith conference that has had a scheduled “Happy Hour” every evening for getting a drink and meeting some new people.

I met and had breakfast with Dr. Harry Gensler (www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/). He and I have had our programs mushed together by the conference organizers and we thought we should sort out who would be doing what. The theme of this year’s NAIN Connect is “Many People, Many Faiths, One Common Principle: The Golden Rule”. I’m on the program to give what might be called a dissenting opinion called “Am I not welcome?: The Dark Side of the Golden Rule”. The conference organizers had renamed my talk “Weaknesses of the Golden Rule” and Gensler is a noted defender of the Golden Rule. I explained that I was only planning to use the Golden Rule as one small example of a larger problem, that of assuming ANY universals about religion and how that has the tendency to keep people out of the discussion. (I mean, let’s face it… would MOST Witches come to a conference titled “Many People, Many Faiths, One Common Principle: The Golden Rule”?) Genlser is a Professor of Philosophy and a Jesuit, but he is new to interfaith and knew almost nothing about Wicca. We agreed that we need to have a few more discussions before our program on Tuesday morning. (Back in the room, I emailed him some docs on Wicca to read while he is here.)

[Rachael:
While Don was duking it out with the Jesuit priest I spent the morning finishing up with the board. We ended up by giving me the task of developing a list of “deliverables” which in real English means a list of advantages for joining the organization.]

Mid-day there was a field trip to a local Sikh Gurudwara. The Sikhs were including a Langar, a sacred meal. I passed, since I am terminally allergic to an unknown ingredient in Indian food and I didn’t want to refuse the Sikh’s hospitality. Rachael also didn’t go since the long meetings have put her back out-of-sorts and she didn’t want to spend a couple of hours sitting on the floor.

[Rachael:
It was during this time that I worked on my list of “deliverables”. I just love this committee speak.]

Conference registration began after the field trip and included a lot of familiar faces – Bud Heckman, Ruth Sharone, Paul & Sybil Eppinger, Paul & Jan Chaffee, Anne Roth, Bettina Gray, Grove Harris, and more. Mussie Hailu is here from Ethiopia to give the keynote address.

After registration, we saw a film called “Globalized Soul” (www.heavenearth.net/globalizedsoul.html), a pleasant film about the importance of interfaith focused on the work in Jerusalem of Sheikh Bukkari of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order. I was a bit distressed to learn that the Sheikh had died last year, as I had known him. He spoke at Shambhala Booksellers a couple of times and had tried to arrange attendance at a Sufi event for me in Turkey.

Happy Hour was accompanied by a Mariachi band and followed by the Opening Dinner. I sat at a table between a Christian Scientist couple and one of the Board members of our hosts, the Arizona Interfaith Movement (AIFM, www.azifm.org). Bettina, Bud, and Paul & Jan were also at the table.

The dinner was very good, featuring Arizona cuisine. Paul Eppinger, Exec. Dir. of AIFM was the Emcee. Bettina, as Chair of NAIN welcomed everyone. As is standard practice for AIFM, the welcome was followed by six invocations, in this case: Jewish (a shofar), Muslim, Sikh, Jain, and Christian Science. The last “invocation” was in the form of an amazingly intricate Hopi hoop dance performed by a young man accompanied by his father on a drum.

The dinner conversation at my table focused mostly around my explaining what Wicca is to my AIFM table-mates and bringing everyone up-to-date on the activities of the Lost & Endangered Religions Project.

[Rachael:
Because Don and I were last into the room, we were seated separately and I had the surprising pleasure of sitting next to Rabbi David Kunin whom I had met a few years ago at the Connect in Kansas City. He had given a talk on why the “Golden Rule” was neither complete nor totally acceptable as a universal ethical construct. I made a point of introducing myself during lunch to speak to him of why Witches and Wicans in particular were in complete agreement with that statement. Imagine my surprise when he not only remembered me immediately this evening, but based upon our brief conversation in Kansas, learned more about Wica and Craft and using us as a prime example continued to pursue his argument at University levels. At one point he was told that “if there was nothing in a religion that could possibly be construed as analogous to the Golden Rule then that Religion had no God.”, which makes no sense at all.

He is also presenting at this connect and also against the assumption that the Golden Rule is the panacea for good in the world. This is promising to be a very interesting Connect indeed.]

The dinner closed with a local musical duet singing “Living the Golden Rule” and with Mussie’s keynote address. Mussie has been at the forefront of peace efforts in Africa and spreading the Golden Rule has been a big motivator for him. The crowd loved him and his speech was followed by much mutual awarding of medals and certificates by Mussie, representatives of NAIN, representatives of AIFM, and others.

[Rachael:
Don returned to the room to begin this report while the board was requested to be available to meet the young adults who had received scholarships. While I was returning to the room one of the board caught up with me and gave me edits for the “Deliverables” list which I worked on while Don finished his portion of this report. When done we traded, so that he could look over my work and I could add to this report. A horrendous thunder and rain storm broke over us and lightening struck somewhere very near by knocking us off line temporarily. We are now winding down and will report more tomorrow.]

More to come...

Blessed Be,
Don Frew & Rachael Watcher
National Interfaith Representatives

Report from Rachael Watcher

2011-07-20T23:36:00.000-07:00

July 17th 2011

This has been a long couple of weeks. I had told the United Religions Initiative that they were welcome to use the Adobe Connect program for their Global Council meeting as, is so common with many large organizations in this economy, there was not the funds to bring everyone together from all over the world.

Now this might have been all there was to it but Monday before the meeting on Thursday, they decided that they needed the support and equipment that I had to offer and asked that I be “available” during the week end and help to set up on Thursday. This meant that Monday and Tuesday were spent in setting up the equipment and checking it to be certain that everything was working. On Thursday I showed up at Vallombrosa in Menlo Park, CA to discover that they had already set up what they considered to be an adequate system using web cams and web mics and felt that the equipment I had brought was unnecessary.

Needless to say, aside from failing to understand the difference between HD chips and high resolution lenses on real cameras, they did not do adequate research into what the pipeline would carry. The result was a pretty radical failure but like most similar situations my associate, PK McCary and I learned some valuable lessons. As it turns out, everyone who had joined from a distance very much enjoyed the experience and are now pushing to continue the the use of the program. PK and I will have a larger part in the participation, organization, and production of these meetings to be certain that they are successful. This means about a year of information gathering about the people who will be involved and the systems that are available to them. Heavy sigh....all I really wanted was to help one meeting be more accessible to distance folks.

Yoland asked that Don and I provide the opening ceremony, but at the last minute Don could not attend due to the fact that he simply had too many other commitments piling up so I did the opening alone, having the group preform a walking meditation to the spiral dance leaving mundane space and entering into sacred space for the duration of the meeting time. I then called down the ancestors to stand by us and guide us in right thinking, and the land wights to bless our presence, lit a candle and rang the bell three times. I got home at ten and had a late dinner with friends who had come down to visit, unaware that I would be out. Late night.

On the following Monday after the meeting, Elias Pinto, a representative from Brazil and the South American Region of the URI, asked if he could visit a bit before going home and I collected him and brought him back to Walnut Creek. Greg decided that he should go to Yosemite as the excessive rains over the winter and spring would make it the most spectacular place for waterfalls in twenty years. So...Tuesday after lunch with Don in Berkeley, and a two and a half hour visit with the Hub in San Francisco while I actually got some work done pulling permits for my construction crew, we headed back to Walnut Creek, threw clothes, cameras, and other tourist junk in the car and headed to Merced to spend the evening in a Motel 6 in order to get an early start toward the Valley on Wednesday morning.

Elias was fascinated with the motel. He'd never stayed in one before and explained that in Brazil motels were strictly for sex and were very sensual places very decorated for the “occasion”. When I asked him what people who were traveling did for rest, he told me that one planned trips based on getting to a city where they would either stay with friends or in hotels.

The trip to Yosemite was great but very long. I gave him my video camera and some quick tips on how to use it. We drove the long way round, about fifty miles, to the Giant Sequoia grove where he got to see the big trees. He had seen the Sequoia Sempervirens and I was able to show him the differences in the two species. We then drove thirty miles to Glacier Point. On the way we actually so a brown bear. You don't see too many of them anymore. They pretty much stay out of people's way now days.

At the Point we got a good look at Half Dome from that side and he got so excited because he immediately saw the “eagle” that is outlined in the rock and kept pointing out that this was a good omen for 'the people of the eagle', which is how the Central and South American people refer to the indigenous people of North America among whom they count us. Another thirty mile drive into the Valley floor and by this time he was beginning to understand just how big the park is. We visited several falls and the museum at the park which showed him many interesting artifacts about the Miwok and Paiute cultures that inhabited the valley prior to European influx.

With that we started home, stopping every whip stitch for Greg to take pictures. I finally had to promise him that we would come back in October and stay in the park for the weekend so that he could take all the time he wanted for photography just to get him to stay in the car long enough to get out of the park. It was fifteen miles to the park entrance and one hundred and fifty miles home. We arrived home about nine PM and spent the next several hours putting his video on DVD and editing all of the pictures that Greg took and getting all of those plus all of the the other pics we have of Yosemite in all types of seasons and weather on a DVD also. On Thursday morning PK came by and picked him up to take him to the airport.

Needless to say much of our time together was spent in discussion about the URI. He was also interested in the Gay and Lesbian Rights movement here in the US and I was sorry that I could not speak more fully to that issue.

For the Global council meeting Think Peace International developed a short film on the roll of the Global Council through the Seventh Generation, working to make them more aware of the necessity to to plan for the future and take into consideration such factors as the economy and environment and how we need to be able to sustain an international organization as resources become more dear.

Throughout all of this very busy time I was involved in board planning for the upcoming North American Interfaith Network meeting in a week in Phoenix, and helping to form a new Blog zine called “The Interfaith Observer” with a very interesting group of folks. I have no idea why I was asked to be among this incredibly prestigious group, but perhaps time will tell what it is they think I can contribute. I hope that they will not be disappointed. More on this as it develops.

In Her Service

Rachael

MIC Annual Meeting -- Vote Your Values

2011-06-21T03:39:00.000-07:00

On a hot evening in at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in San Rafael, Marin Interfaith Council held its annual meeting. Executive Director Rev. Carol Hovis updated the gathering on the status of the council -- what MIC has sponsored, review of budget, thanking various members for specific work, honoring outgoing and incoming officers, etc. Author Nafisa Haji, whose second novel, The Sweetness of Tears,1 has just been published, and who represents the International Association of Sufism, has concluded her term as President and is now freer to promote her book and work on new ones. The Rev. Rob Gieselmann of St. Stephen's Church in Belvedere takes over. Other Board members' terms are completed and new members have come onto the Board.

Among the announcements, Robert Plath,2 founder of Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance, invited everyone to the 15th annual International Day of Forgiveness on August 7, preceded by workshops on August 6. The honorees share incredibly inspirational stories of forgiveness in their lives. I hope this event is widely celebrated in other towns and cities as well.

Anne Ryan, a former intern with Marin Interfaith Counsel and recent graduate of Dominican University, who now works for CompassPoint, gave a presentation entitled "Vote Your Values: An Interfaith Conversation about the California Budget Crisis." Using a power point presentation and giving more relevant facts about the state budget crisis than I could note, Anne also had us do some role-playing and small-group discussions at our tables.

As a result of one of these discussions, when we were talking about the prison system, I made the point that there are only five religions recognized by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation: Protestant, Roman Catholic, Judaism, Islam, and "Native American." Five Abrahamic faiths and one vague name for several belief systems, but one that benefits Native American inmates, and sometimes can benefit Pagans. I pointed out that in that room there were far more than five religious traditions. Perhaps it is assumed that Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and others don't commit crimes? I spoke briefly about Patrick McCollum's lawsuit in the 9th Circuit. News of this situation was met with dismay.

Among the few facts I managed to note were:

A one-half cent sales tax would generate $3 billion in one year. Of course, this would impact the poor more severely than the wealthier population.
California ranks 48 in the nation on education (spending per student, and teaching results). For a state blessed with so much wealth, this is shameful. It would be shameful even if California were not so prosperous. It's just flat-out shameful! We do our children a disservice by leaving them ill prepared to earn their livings and to compete for jobs.
Among the states where oil is extracted, 21 of them tax the oil companies. The only state that doesn't is California. Imposing such a tax seems an easy partial remedy to our budget shortfall, and a no-brainer but for the pressure of oil interests on legislators.
The state income tax rate for income exceeding $250,000 per year (only on the income that exceeds that amount) is currently 9.3%, which is very low. Increasing that tax to 10% would generate an additional $6 billion in revenue and would affect only 2% of the population. Another no-brainer were it not for political opposition.
California legislators are working on a domestic workers' bill of rights, guaranteeing minimum wage and other benefits commonly extended to wage-earners (as distinct from salaried employees). This can only be a good thing.
Eliminating the death penalty would save the state $125 million annually.
Nonprofits are the second largest employer in the state.

Among the questions she posed, one was, "What did you learn in your home about taxes?" I didn't hear anyone say s/he had learned anything at all about taxes. (Americans are so uptight about money. They would rather reveal intimate facts about their sex lives than speak about their earnings or their personal wealth, not to mention the same if they were to admit to being overextended and/or impoverished.)

One of the Jewish members explained their attitude towards charity, saying that they contribute to organizations in order to preserve the pride of the individual recipients of largesse.

I have known for many years that California has the eighth largest economy in the world. What clicked for me most strongly as a result of Anne's talk was that the money is here! It is in this state, and it just has to be channeled, by way of taxes, into schools, infrastructure, social services, and the many other needs of a large and diverse population.

As always, MIC has provided its membership with valuable knowledge to help us set priorities and work towards a more just world for all.

Other groups can avail themselves of Anne's presentation by contacting CompassPoint.

Yours in service to Coventina,
Macha NightMare

1. I enjoyed reading her first novel, The Writing on My Forehead, from which I got a better sense of the Pakistani American experience.
2. Bob and I first met in San Francisco in 1964, in what was a previous life for both of us.

Spiritual Activist Leadership Training for young adults aged 18-35

2011-05-27T08:04:00.000-07:00

This is a training program/internship for young adults taking place soon in California. It is centered around a Unitarian Universalist perspective. I hope that they would be open to non-UU applicants.

From the website:
"The ideal SALT Fellow will be involved in justice making – either through their work, their community, or through volunteer activities. This person is connected to Unitarian Universalist (UU) community and wants to develop and sustain further leadership skills and justice contacts in order to live their UU values and make their corner of the world a more equitable, compassionate, just place."

Go to: https://sites.google.com/a/uulmca.org/young-leaders-project/clients

Contact me at mmueller05@gmail.com if you hope to list me as a reference.

Michelle Mueller

Marin Interfaith Council 12th Annual Interfaith Prayer Breakfast

2011-05-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

Interfaith Day of Prayer, 2011

Carol Himaka, Stacy Friedman, Don Frew

Every May my local Marin Interfaith Council, of which I am the sole Pagan member (and an active one), presents an interfaith prayer breakfast.[1] The date corresponds with the National Day of Prayer (36 U.S.C. § 119) breakfast in Washington, DC, held on the first Thursday in May, beginning in 1952 in the Truman administration. The fact that the National Day of Prayer is exclusively Christian rather than being inclusive of other religions and yet presumes to call itself national offends me, as it does not reflect the religious diversity of our nation.

We have three speakers from three different religions; each tells us a bit about her or his religion, and then shares a prayer, song, chant, meditation, or some other experience. In the past we've had a Sufi, another kind of Muslim, Rabbis from different branches of Judaism, a Pentacostal, a Brahma Kumari (a type of Hinduism), Roman Catholic, Vedanta Society (also Hindu), Religious Science, ministers of other Protestant denominations, Eastern Orthodox, Zen and other branches of Buddhism; you name it, we have it here in Marin.

This year the Rev. Carol Myokai Himaka, a teacher Jodo Shinshu Buddhism from Enmanji Buddhist Temple in Sebastopol, and Rabbi Stacy Friedman from Congregation Rodef Shalom in San Rafael, were joined by the first representative from an Earth-based spirituality ever to speak at this annual event, Gardnerian Wiccan Don Frew, one of CoG's interfaith representatives, from Berkeley. I'm given to understand that our Interfaith Celebrations Team made this choice, and I'm grateful to them for having done so.

In 1997, when Starhawk's and my book, The Pagan Book of Living and Dying, was launched under the sponsorship of the late Shambala Bookstore in Berkeley, Don Frew introduced me. Now, in 2011, I had the pleasure of introducing Don to my friends and colleagues in MIC. What a treat!

Carol spoke about the founding of Buddhism in the 6th Century BCE by Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha, as well as about some of the different schools of Buddhism. This being a rather complicated matter, and time being limited, she went over time and had to conclude rather abruptly.

Since we were behind schedule by now, Don spoke succinctly about the revival of Witchcraft and Pagan religions in the mid-20th Century CE. Then he had everyone stand at their round tables and hold hands while he led us in a tree of life meditation. This is such a perfect contribution to this kind of event: everyone loves trees and can relate to feeling the sun on her leaves and the solidity of the Earth beneath. They loved it! They applauded. They wanted more. And I was so proud and pleased.

Stacy's presentation was also shorter than it might have been. She passed out sheets containing some Jewish prayers, printed in Hebrew, transliterated, and translated, so we could see each prayer in three forms. We recited them together.

We who work in the field of interfaith encourage all interested people to come to our events, especially the annual interfaith prayer breakfast. Often the presenters have co-religionists who come to support their representatives. But we have few.

Unfortunately, events of this nature that take place in the daytime, when most people work, preclude much in the way of Pagan participation. I saturated the local Pagan networks with the announcement of this event (as I do for most MIC events) in an effort to solicite Pagan participation. For all of that, I'm grateful that Hawk and Thermal from North Bay Reclaiming were able to come, because the four of us (Hawk, Thermal, Don and me) were the only Pagans in the room. Why is this? It's because most other religions, mainstream or not, have people whose job it is to participate in interfaith and other activities. They have paid clergy. I'm not making an argument one way or another for our creating a clergy class within Paganism, at least not here and now. What I am saying is that this is a difference that distinguishes us, and one that makes Pagan participation in such activities minimal. In order to do so, one needs either money (sponsorship of an organization, employment by an organization, or independent funds) or to be retired. I am happy to be able to participate because I'm past retirement age and have no job (although I welcome opportunities to earn income).[2] For interfaith representation that involves greater expenditures, I gratefully receive stipend support from CoG. So do other CoG interfaith representatives at times, but it seems that most Pagan organizations don't give interfaith involvement a very high priority. I am happy to be disproven of that assertion.

In any case, I expect to return to the next meeting of MIC's Justice Advocacy Team, the group in which I participate the most, to colleagues who now have a clearer and richer understanding of my religion. I tip my pointy black hat to Don, and the Interfaith Celebrations Team, for this valuable contribution -- to MIC and to the world.

[1] Reports from previous MIC interfaith prayer breakfasts here.

[2] As my friend Victoria says, "lettuce pray" that Social Security holds out. I sing the praises of FDR for the many implementations of the New Deal.

CoG Interfaith Rep. at Marin Interfaith Council Prayer Breakfast

2011-05-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I was asked by Rev. Carol Hovis to be a speaker at the Marin Interfaith Council’s 2011 Interfaith Prayer Breakfast on May 5th. Carol and I have served together on the Board of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio and we had spoken many times about doing some sort Wiccan programming at the MIC. I would be speaking with Rev. Carol Himaka of the Jodo Shinshu sect of Buddhism and Reform Jewish Rabbi Stacy Friedman. We would each have 18 minutes to address “Prayer & Meditation” in our traditions and then lead the attendees in a prayer or meditation from our tradition.

I thought this sounded perfect. I would have plenty of time to address “prayer” in a Wiccan context as communion with the Divine (much like prayer in a late Classical context), as opposed to prayer as an act of submission or supplication, and still explain and lead a fairly elaborate version of the “roots & branches – 4 Elements / Directions” visualization so common among Wiccan trads.

Then, two days before the event, Carol called to tell me that over 180 people had registered for the Prayer Breakfast and, by the way… Carol explained that unlike many interfaith councils in the San Francisco Bay Area, in which the most liberal religious groups tend to predominate, the council in Marin had been around a long time and was made up mostly of the more established (i.e. more “conventional”) churches and synagogues. As such, the council in Marin, as a whole, was less informed about modern Witchcraft than one might expect, especially since I would be the first Earth Religionist to speak at one of their Prayer Breakfasts. Because of this, she asked, could I give a basic introduction to Wicca as part of my talk? Suddenly 18 minutes didn’t sound that long.

I struggled with this for a while and I confess that “the muse” didn’t strike me until I was driving across the San Rafael Bridge to Marin to Congregation Kol Shofar on the morning of the prayer breakfast. I spent the breakfast part of the event scribbling two pages of notes.

After breakfast, Carol welcomed everyone and told them about the story of Kol Shofar and its new building. There had been some local opposition to the arrival of the synagogue and the Marin Interfaith Council had helped work things out. She introduced Rabbi Chai Levy of Congregation Kol Shofar who led an opening prayer. Carol then introduced the MIC Board and members of various committees. The MIC Board President Nafisa Haji of the International Association of Sufism called forward a woman named Alison Hendley to thank her for many years of valued work on behalf of the MIC. The whole vibe was much more like a single, tight-knit congregation than an interfaith council.

Carol gave a history of the Prayer Breakfasts in Marin and the good work that the MIC had done. She talked about their many social service projects. I recommend checking out their website for details (www.marinifc.org). She advised the audience that “When listening to the speakers, notice when your heart begins to close.” Apparently she anticipated some resistance to what we represent.

Rev. Joanne Mied introduced Rev. Carol Himaka. Rev. Himaka told the story of the life of the Buddha and the origins of Buddhist thought. She closed with a reading from Shinran, the founder of her sect. At Carol Hovis’ request, she added some information about relief efforts in Japan.

M. Macha NightMare, a CoG National Interfaith Representative and a member of the MIC, introduced me. I thanked Macha and the MIC and began my talk (having finished it in between taking notes on Rev. Himaka’s talk):

* * * * *
For hundreds of years, people who believed in and practiced many of the same things that Macha and I share lived lives in the shadows, in fear of being tortured and killed by the authorities and others.

In the 1950s, everything changed. The few surviving covens in England took a new look at the Old Laws, which enjoined secrecy at almost all costs… “for the Craft must ever survive”, as the Laws say.

In the 20th century, the survival of the Craft meant networking, organizing on a scale never seen before, coming out of the closet… or as we sometimes say, “coming out of the broom closet.” [expected chuckles] Witches published books, went on television, and created national organizations. In 1975, the largest of these – the Covenant of the Goddess – joined the Berkeley Area Interfaith Council, and we have been active in interfaith ever since at the local, regional, national, and global levels.

Even so, almost 60 years into a concerted effort at public education and with Neopaganism becoming the fourth largest religion in the United States, many people still know very little about us or even that we exist at all. Perhaps we wove our secrecy spells too well! [more chuckles] And so, Carol has asked me to cover some of the basics before addressing today’s topic of prayer & meditation.

The easiest way to understand modern Neopaganism is to think of something like Nataive American spirituality or Japanese Shinto, but coming out of pre-Christian European and Mediterranean cultural settings. There are Druids, reviving the religion of the ancient Celts. There are Heathens, taking their inspiration from the religions of the Norse and Germanic peoples. But by far the largest branch of Neopaganism is the Witches, coming out of the fusion of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Graeco-Roman spiritualities that occurred in the British Isles. This led many modern Witches to use Anglo-Saxon word – “Wicca” - instead “Witchcraft”. Some found it easier to avoid one “w-word” by replacing it with another, especially when explaining things to their parents. [chuckles]

So what defines modern Witchcraft or Wicca? This can get complicated sometimes; and you’ll notice that I almost always say that “most Witches” or “many Witches” believe such-and-such a thing or that something is a “common belief” precisely because of this ambiguity.

In terms of theology… most Witches focus on the immanence of the Divine, manifest as the natural world, but also as each other and as inanimate objects like this podium, while some Witches also acknowledge and relate to a transcendent aspect to the Divine. Almost all Witches relate to the Divine as the Goddess, the Great Mother, but there are also many who focus on a duality of God & Goddess. There are Witches who believe in reincarnation (in various forms) and those who don’t. There are those who assert the reality of the Gods while others see them as convenient symbols or archetypes of the unconscious. One could hardly talk about Witch beliefs in terms of “orthodoxy”.

In terms of practice… almost all of us meet in circles, but a few meet in squares. Most Witches celebrate on the night of the Full Moon, but many are forced to wait for the nearest convenient weekend. We use different tools in our ceremonies, ‘though some use no tools at all. We use different words – some using liturgies that have been passed from teacher to student for generations, while others create spontaneous liturgical poetry as the Spirit moves them. We even address our rites to different Gods, with each coven having their own favored patron or tutelary deities. And we create our rituals around different myth-cycles – some favoring the Celtic cycle of the Kings of the Waxing & Waning Year, some the cycle of Persephone’s descent to and return from the Underworld, and other myths as well. So it would seem that “orthopraxy” doesn’t describe us either.

With such variety in beliefs and practice, what holds us together as a faith tradition? If you’ll allow me a neologism, I believe that modern Witches are “orthognostic”, in that we share a common gnosis: the direct experience of the Divine manifesting as and through the Natural World. Such direct experience can result in different beliefs & practices, but always leaves a sign that we can recognize in each other. This was incorporated into the membership requirements for the Covenant of the Goddess when we said that prospective members must identify themselves as Witches and be recognized as such by other Witches known to us. “Takes one to know one…”, as they say.

Not only are our experiences of the Divine similar enough to hold us together as a faith tradition, they are also similar enough in particulars to result in us grouping together into what we call “Traditions”, but a Christian might call “denominations”. Macha comes out of a tradition called “Reclaiming” which might be likened to a liberal Protestant denomination, while I work primarily in the Gardnerian Tradition which might be more similar to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Turning to today’s topic… Prayer does not figure largely in the spiritual lives of most Witches. To the extent that prayer is present, it is in the form of communion with the deities (much like prayer in late Classical paganism*), rather than of submission or supplication as is often found in the prayers of many other faiths. In contrast, most Witches make use of meditation – especially in the form of guided meditation or visualization – on a regular basis. It is through a guided meditation that I might be able to share some of the Wiccan gnosis with you here today. Please stand, if you can. If you can’t, it’s fine to remain sitting.

[I led a standard “roots & branches” meditation – grounding, centering, connecting with the loving energy upwelling from Mother Earth and with the light streaming from the Sun, Moon, and Stars above – throwing in, since they were standing around tables, the idea of seeing themselves as groves of trees. When I finished the meditation and told them to open their eyes, they burst into spontaneous applause! That’s the first time that’s happened for me.]

As you go forward through the day, try to notice if you feel this connection with the Earth fading or slipping away. If so, take a moment, remember what it felt like, and re-establish that connection.

It can be difficult to connect with a coven to attend a ceremony, but there will be a very public Pagan event next weekend in Berkeley – the annual Pagan Festival, from 10:30am to 5:30pm. – so if you would like to learn more about the local Pagan community, please come join us.

Thank you and Blessed Be. [more applause]
* * * * *

I got another round of applause. Suzan Berns then introduced Rabbi Stacy Friedman. She addressed “why, when, how, and what we pray” in the Jewish tradition and then led us in a sung prayer about the Creation.

Carol had intended to have a Q & A period after the speakers, but we were running late, so she just thanked everyone, especially Green Gulch Farm for supplying the many loaves of wonderful bread.

This was a really fun event and, judging from the feedback I received afterwards, was really appreciated for its educational content. I was told that even more conservative groups which had been somewhat skeptical of my invitation were pleased with the outcome. I look forward to further participation with the Marin Interfaith Council and I hope that it will open the door for more Wiccan programming at the MIC.

Blessed Be,
Don Frew
National Public Information Officer

* Ordinarily, I would capitalize “Pagan” and be annoyed when others do not, but in the case of Classical “paganism” we are talking about people who never used this term to describe either themselves or their religious practice. As a result, I am more inclined to side with the anthropologists and historians who warn about the interpretive dangers of projecting backwards our own religious sensibilities.

Visiting with a Mayan Elder

2011-04-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

[Rachael]

My week started with taking my son to shoot the Long Beach Grand Prix. Now there are many who might say that this is a truly an interfaith experience as everyone there from many different ethnic backgrounds and spiritual beliefs were all praying together for the safety of the drivers and a winning car, but I did not attend that event.

I was there at the invitation of Yoland Travino, of whom you have heard Don and I talk before. This time she asked Don and me to come down to meet with “Tata” (Apolinario Chile Pixtun), an elder of the Mayan Confederation, healer and shaman. She wanted Don to receive a healing from him and to have us participate in a Mayan Fire ceremony.

As I had come down the week before for the Grand Prix, I stayed on in order to meet with Don at the Burbank airport, pick him up and head for the healing.Don was scheduled to come in at 12 PM originally but was held up for about twenty minutes due to the fact that Jerry Brown (yes the Jerry Brown) was on his small flight. The people hosting Tata had scheduled us for 1 PM, and I told Don that we would not make that appointment. Informed of the change in schedule they insisted that we should be able to make it with no problem. They seemed to think that it was only a fifteen minute drive despite the fact that they lived in the area and should have known better. As I spent many years there working for SCE there I did know better. They finally settled on telling us that if we did not make it at that time they would assume that we would be late. It took us 40 minutes and the traffic was not even particularly heavy.

[Don:]

I recognized Tata as soon as a saw him, but couldn’t figure out from where. He felt the same way. As we talked (through a translator), it turned out that we had both been at the United Religions Initiative’s Charter signing in Pittsburgh PA in 2000 and in fact had done ceremony together. If you remember a previous post on this blog about Gary Smith and his appeal that the indigenous people and the Wiccans work together to protect the URI, Tata was also one of the people Gary had encouraged in that effort.

The healing consisted of several parts:

1) Tata washed my hands with scented water.

2) He did a divination involving a large stack of colored beans with several small objects of stone and metal mixed in. He mixed them all together and then asked me to grab as large a handful as I could with my damaged hand. He swept away the others and then examined those I had grabbed, sorting them into stacks of four. The numbers thus generated and the specific beans and other items were the basis of his divination concerning my health. Without going into personal details, he said that there was a karmic component to my problem, that he would have to consult with the other Elders back in Guatemala, and that we should stay in touch about this.

3) He asked my birthdate and did a complicated reading based on the Mayan calendar. This related back to the divination and included a story about our mutual friend Gary (now deceased).

4) He explained a ceremony that I should do every sunrise for 80 days. He said that the concepts were Mayan, but that I could use Wiccan ritual forms to do the ceremony since he knew about “the Wicca and it is a very sacred path”.

5) He told me to strip down to underwear and proceeded to do some of the most strenuous bodywork I’ve ever experienced (Mayapracty?).

6) He gave me a complex recipe for a fruit drink and for a “cleansing” drink that that I should drink once a day for 90 days.

By this time, we were almost an hour into the time scheduled for his next appointment, so we parted with plans to meet the next day. I left the session with my hand not shaking for the first time in three years!]

[Rachael]

On Friday, faced with an entire day to kill we decided to go to a museum where, fortuitously a display of both Panamanian Kuna art and Mayan art were featured. I hope that Tata will have an opportunity to see this fine display of several rooms of ceremonial and daily life artifacts.

By the time that we were finished Don was feeling poorly and so, after lunch, we rented a room and decided to take a nap prior to the event. When the time came to prepare for the ceremony, it became clear that Don would not be able to go and so he sent me, along with his initiate’s cord, to the ceremony without him.

[Don:]

Between feeling so good from Tata’s healing work and taking an early morning conference call with the URI, I had forgotten to take my morning meds and by early afternoon I was in withdrawal! Nothing to do but get back on track with the meds and sleep.

[Rachael]

I had been told to arrive early in order to help Tata and have an opportunity to speak with him as I had not had the time the day before. That was not to be however, as both Yoland and Tata, arriving in separate cars, were very late. I was immediately put to work handling the flowers and quarter altar arrangements.

The Acjachemen people present a gift.

Just as I was about to sit down and get out of the way a familiar voice said at my back, “excuse me but I have a gift for Tata from the people of this land. Could you tell me when would be a good time to present it?” I turned around and was delighted to find Adelia standing behind me with her partner. Adelia is a member of the Acjachemen or Juaneño mission people of San Diego, the First Nation People of the area. You will remember her as having invited Rosalia and myself to attend the Bear Dance of her people while Rosalia stayed with me about six years ago. As I was not certain of how the ceremony would proceed, I went to Tata immediately to ask whether he had a moment to meet with Adelia. He did, and so I introduced him. At that point Adelia, also uncertain of ceremonial procedure, decided to present the gift she had brought. It was a lovely, very large scallop shell necklace, sacred to her people.

The fire ceremony has several important functions. The first is to feed the elemental , fire; the second is to ask the blessing of the Gods , and the third is to ask a blessing or boon of the elements, and the Gods. I have been fortunate to attend three other such rituals done by priests and priestesses of the Mayan people. This one was, for the most part, the same ritual. It was not well explained and so many there were left rather more in the dark than might be considered strictly polite. I found myself in the uncomfortable position of explaining why the fire was laid as it was and some of the broader points of the ritual though I was hardly qualified to do so. He presented the entire ritual in Mayan and so no one there was able to translate it, though all explanations of what we were to do were in Spanish and translated into English. I was able to recognize some of the names of the God forms when they were called upon from previous experience, but must wonder whether many of the people there would have been so willing to participate if they had been more fully aware of the deities asked to be present.

The atmosphere was a divided one. While everyone was very respectful, many there were just excited to be witness to an “authentic” native ritual, while others of us were preparing for sacred space. It was interesting.

The fire circle was laid out in brown sugar. A circle divided once for the separation of the heavens and earth. It was then divided in the other direction to represent the division of night and day.


The base of the fire is laid w/ balls of Copal and rounds of cocoa are just visible beneath the greenery.

Softball sized balls of copal resin were laid at the four quarters and in the middle. Over this pattern large rounds of chocolate were laid in rows. Green boughs were laid in the same pattern over the original sugar and then utility candles were laid in bunches in the same pattern as the copal. In other rituals that I had observed the four quarters were then filled with offerings to the twenty or so Gods of the Maya, each God fitting into one of the quarters depending upon its relationship to light and dark, heaven and earth.

The quarters of the working circle were delineated by color, with bouquets of flowers to indicate the direction. Red was for the East, black for the West, yellow for South and white for North. I could not believe it when I saw one woman using the altar in front of her to set her coffee cup and plate on.

Tata "stirs" the fire with a sacred staff

Though Tata had given me full permission to take pictures, I did not feel right taking flash shots during ritual and as a result the after dark pictures lend a feeling of other worldliness to the ritual. As people arrived they passed through a “door” of ribbons and were smudged. As I had arrived too early for this service I left through the front door and walked around the side, through the gate and received a smudging. I held out Don’s cord, which I had tied around my neck, in order that it receive a separate cleansing because it represented Don’s presence at the ritual and deserved the same treatment as any other participant. After much talk the fire was then lit and the God and elemental forms called to be present. Then Tata blessed the space with the smoke of the fire using a special stick (way too big for a wand and way too short for a staff) to wave in circles in the fire and then outward into the space.

Women circle the fire adding
Mesquite in offering

Once this had been accomplished at all four quarters, each of the women was handed a piece of Mesquite by a male volunteer and each of the men a piece of Pine by a female volunteer. Tata explained that the women would go first, each asking or giving forgiveness as appropriate, making a full circle of the fire then offering her wood before returning to her seat. Any woman in the blood of her cycle was asked to give her wood to Yoland to place in the fire. The explanation was that this part of a woman’s cycle was one of great energy that would conflict with the fire and offer potential harm to both while disrespecting the fire. This seems to be a common theme in most indigenous rituals throughout the world. Adalia whispered to me that she doubted many of us need worry about that any longer looking around the circle and I agreed. After the women the men followed.

Seed whispering.

Next, while candles were passed out, again men to women and women to men, Tata took a basket full of seeds and other natural elements and speaking to a handful at a time cast them into the fire to carry his words to the elements at each quarter. It is truly unfortunate that we do not know what he spoke to them as it was in Mayan and no translation was offered.

We were told to repeat the process of offering this time asking for the strength and guidance to do what needed to be done which depended greatly on each of us as individuals. Tata then repeated the offerings of seeds while we were each handed a handful of spices, bits of bark, seeds and leaves. Adalia had brought rose petals and passed me a bit to add to my offering as well. For a third time then the offerings were repeated, this time asking a boon for ourselves.

Each time offerings were made a conch was blown long and repeatedly until all offerings were completed.

At the last offering, one more pass of the basket and seeds took place and one more pass of the stick swirling through the fire. Then Tata picked up a large copper bowl, and cedar bough with which he liberally doused the fire and then sprinkled each of us. Its worth noting that he repeated several times that it was only water and would do no damage. I must wonder how often he was asked what was in that bowl. I can tell you for a fact that it was not just water as it was as white as milk, though I believe that it was nothing harmful and I have no idea what had made it so white; I strongly suspect essential oils since it was quite fragrant. As he passed around the circle I held out Don’s cord and he gave it its own blessing, just as I had had it smudged separately.

When that was complete Tata announced that this was our time to sing, present a poem, declare, etc. The first to stand was a woman who stated that she had been deeply moved by the ritual and felt a new connection to everyone in the circle. The second was Adalia who offered a blessing to everyone present from her people and then sang a song of blessing for Tata. The third was the young man who blew the conch. He offered a poem in Spanish which he promised to send to me, in Spanish. He offered also to translate it but I told him I really wished to see it in its original language as poetry often doesn’t translate well. I will post that in good time. No one else rose though several who knew me asked if I would not sing something. I did not. I really could not think of anything appropriate. Tata laughed at the group in general and said “yes I know you are cold, I know you are hungry, I know you need to get home, I know that you have to work…so do I. A ritual takes as long as it takes” and though by this time my teeth were chattering, and my legs had become stiff and unresponsive, I was so delighted to hear him say that!

Shortly and with scant ceremony he thanked us for coming, announced that he felt our offerings and requests had been well received and ended the rite. I went over to him to ask at what time he wished to see us the next morning and ended up staying a bit to translate for him as Yoland was busy fielding her own questions. As soon as was politely possible I left.

I returned to the hotel to see how Don was fairing and discovered that he was better. Like school kids at a pajama party we stayed up much later than necessary or prudent discussing the ritual and telling jokes until late in the evening, finally falling asleep about six hours before we had to be up to see Tata for another healing session and divination for me.

[Don:]


Tata and Don. Note the large bundle of herbs in Don's left hand.

The second healing started with me stripping down again and Tata cleaning my aura, first with a cloth soaked in Florida Water, orange essential oil, and eucalyptus essential oil, and then with a bird’s wing. He didn’t use the wing like a strigil. Instead, he flapped it like a bird was swooping down at me from the sky and buffeting its wings against me. Then he asked me to hold the cloth over my face, breath in deeply through my nose, hold it as long as I could, and then out through my mouth & out the window – three times. The essential oils burned going in, making this an interesting experience! Tata then did more bodywork -- tougher than the day before! The session ended with him prescribing and providing three naturopathic/herbal medicines for me to take. Since my hand was still not shaking, I plan to give his recommendations a serious try!

Tata also said that it was important that he see me again before he leaves the country, so I’ll be flying down to L.A. again right after Beltane. (BTW, it’s now Tuesday and my hand is STILL not shaking. This is the most significant improvement I’ve had in three years!)

[Rachael]

Once Don’s healing was completed Tata asked me to have a seat and cleansed my hands with scented water. He then chose one of two bags, (there was a green one and a red one, of which he chose the red one) and setting the other aside dumped the contents on the table. Among the items he separated the small seeds from a group of larger talismans. These consisted of rough cast medallions, larger seeds and seed pods, shells, and various other items that I did not have time to study deeply. He placed them in front of me in a crescent with the horns of that crescent facing inward toward the table and delineating an area in the middle of the table. He then gathered up the remaining smaller seeds and putting them together in the middle of the table asked me to say my name clearly five times. Now I have many different names which have different associations with the different compartments of my life, and I had to think a moment as to who I was and what name I would use. Having chosen and spoken, he asked me, as he had Don, to gather up a handful of the beans instructing me to use my dominant hand, which is my left. I did so and he swept the remaining seeds aside and had me put the seeds in my hand in the middle of the table between the horns of the talismans.

Once this was done he formed two rows of piles of four seeds each. Both rows had exactly the same number of piles and there were no seeds left over. From this he deduced that I was very healthy, my life was very balanced and in harmony with the earth and world, and that I was happy and content with how my life was proceeding. He said that he saw only one issue, which might or might not be a problem. I had a head and body always in motion, never still. One could look for Rachael in one place but she would be in another, and by the time you got there, in another still. So far this was ok, but I must remember to focus and not forget to remain spiritually grounded.

Next he asked my birth date and from that determined that my totem animal was an owl, that birds were drawn to me in general, and that my purpose in life was to care for seeds. He said that I should sleep with feathers, and in particular owl feathers if possible, near my head. He then instructed me to collect seeds and keep them in a basket on my altar and meditate over them for twenty days after which I should offer them to the water, the ocean, a river, or a lake in that order of preference, and continue these practices for the remainder of my life. This was the message that the Gods had for me.

When this process was complete he cleansed my aura, first with a kerchief soaked in Florida water. He breathed in deeply then waved the kerchief at me snapping it sharply pushing out the air in his lungs hard and fast with his diaphragm in bursts, one with each flap, snap. Then he picked up the eagle wing and used the same technique that Don described slapping my cheeks and head all around as I turned in a circle. He even lifted my hair to get to my scalp.

Normally, I would not think further on this except that I have a pentacle that I have had for many years which has an owl with outstretched wings on it. He did not see that symbol as I wore it under my clothes. I belonged to three covens during my training which were all named after owls, and have been visited on more than one occasion while camping by great horned owls in the night. When I was a child I had two crows who stayed with me for three years before moving on. They would ride on my shoulder and follow me to school causing havoc when they would fly into the classroom occasionally. I don’t think the principal ever believed me when I told him that they were not “my” crows.

By Rachael Watcher & Don Frew

San Jose Sikh Gurdwara celebrates with Interfaith inclusion

2011-04-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hundreds (or maybe thousands) of people showed up Sunday, April 11th, to celebrate the Grand Opening of the second phase of building at the San Jose Gurdwara Sahib. Members of the Board of the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council (SiVIC) were on hand for the dedication to offering their support and blessings.

The series of programs began very early in the morning and really special events are planned by the Sikh community for the next several weeks. There will be special prayers, displays and musical events. Sunday at 10am there was a parade with a float in which they carried the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh Holy Scripture) around the bounds of the Temple. Young people showed off their skill at Gatka (martial arts) for an admiring crowd. I spoke to one teacher who said that their Sunday school has 600 students who come to learn Punjabi and Sikhism each week.

After the parade and the offering of Langar in the South Hall and outside everyone tried to gather in the Main Hall. As large as it is, there were many, many people who could not be in the standing room only space. Much ceremony (all in Punjabi) went on for quite some time.

Despite the crowd of people the ceremony required sitting and getting up again repeatedly from the floor. Alas, I was not able to stay for the blessings offered by the SiVIC board. My back was killing me from the getting up and down and I was just exhausted (I am recovering from pneumonia). I suppose I should have come at 11:30 when the visiting dignitaries were to speak, but I would have missed the parade and the Gatka and I am kind of glad that I made the choice I did. I ran into Sam as I was leaving and so was, at least, able to say I had been there. (I never did find Sukhdev, our contact.)

This is a truly beautiful temple with a large and supportive community. It was a pleasure to share their day of celebration.

reported by Rowan Fairgrove

Catherine Star- CoG's National Interfaith Rep in Canada

2011-04-08T11:54:00.000-07:00

Here is a message from Catherine Star - who is CoG's National Interfaith Representative in Canada:

Hello,

It has been a while since I let people know what I was doing in regards to Interfaith work. Here are three highlights:

1. I was asked to continue as the Coordinator for the Campus Chaplains Association at the University of Toronto for the 2011/2012 school year. This will be my fourth year in this position. I was pleasantly surprised this year when there was no discussion at all and was acclaimed in unanimously by the group of 20 chaplains who were able to attend the meeting. Currently, we have over 30 chaplains representing various religious, spiritual, and ethical backgrounds -- including our first Humanist chaplains. Here is a link to our website (which I noticed needs updating as we are missing a couple people and my name is misspelled!): http://www.multifaith.utoronto.ca/Campus-Chaplains-Association.htm.

I will start working on the annual report of the CCA and make it available to CoG once it is completed. It will list all the things the CCA has done over the past school year.

2. I will do a talk on representing Pagan traditions in interfaith settings at the Mystic Roots conference in London, Ontario this weekend.

3. I have been asked to co-moderate a discussion on spirituality and ecology at the People's Assembly on Climate Justice. Here is a link to the event: http://torontopeoplesassembly.wordpress.com/.

Anyway, I am happy to share these events and look forward to participating in more. If you have any questions about the work I have been doing here in Toronto, please let me know!

Blessings,

Catherine

Cherry Hill Seminary graduation ceremony - M. Mueller

2011-03-05T07:46:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I participated in a very important moment for Pagan Studies history: a graduation ceremony for students who had completed Cherry Hill Seminary certificates. View coverage on The Wild Hunt:

http://wildhunt.org/blog/2011/03/quick-note-more-on-cherry-hill-seminary-graduation-ceremony.html

It was an honor to be a part of the ceremony as faculty. I very much enjoyed meeting our students and their families in person during the reception following the ceremony.

Other than that, my Intro to Interfaith course at Cherry Hill Seminary continues to go well. I have talked recently with other Directors of Religious Education at Unitarian Universalist congregations interested in incorporating Paganism more into their religious education curricula.

Hindu-Pagan Interfaith Devotional to Our Great Mother

2011-03-05T02:00:00.000-08:00

Since deep in my Witch's heart I feel much sympatico with Hindu beliefs and practices, I consider myself fortunate to have been invited to to assist in the performance of the ritual referred to in this press release. Amadae, a Dianic priestess, coordinated the ritual with people from the Hindu American Foundation. Its purpose was devotion (bhakti) to the Great Mother.

There was a two-sided round altar, with Hindu altar objects on one side and Pagan ones on the other. Reclaiming priestess Kala created the Pagan half of the altar. After the puja mentioned below, flowers and petals adorned both altars.

The ritual opened with the beautiful singing of Sangeetha Venkataraman; Corby and I had the pleasure of hearing her at the HAF Annual Dinner last September.

The sitar player, recently moved to the SF Bay Area from Ann Arbor, is a student at the Ali Akbar College of Music about a mile from our home, where he works with Arjun Verma. Arjun was one of four performers atMarin Interfaith Council's Annual Music of the Beloved sacred music concert last month. I invited my new friend to let me know when we might find a chance to visit when he's in San Rafael. I hope he does.

Cosette Paneque, of Beachfyre Coven, EMLC-CoG and Social Networking Coordinator of Cherry Hill Seminary, called upon the spirits of Air;Christine Kraemer, Department Chair at CHS, called Fire; I called Water;Wendy Griffin, CHS Academic Dean and frame drummer, called Earth; and Amadae called Spirit.

The pujari who led the Devi Ma puja and the men who sang with him had strong voices, made louder by the unnecessary use of a mike. This was unfortunate because we were performing in a hotel ballroom, separated by not-very-soundproof, floor-to-ceiling movable partitions from adjacent hotel ballrooms where other PantheaCon events were taking place: Yes They Are! queer gods ritual on the West side and Tarotist Mary Greer on the East. Having been in rituals in these ballrooms when another, sometimes louder event is taking place right next door, I know from past experience that it's a challenging situation for all. In any case, the men chanted for about 20 minutes. I was pleased to find that I was able to understand some of the words they chanted from having gone to many Kali pujas in my town and from kirtan singing.

After that, six lovely temple dancers, with bells on their ankles, exquisite gestures, and smiling faces, arrived to perform a dance to Lord Ganesha so that he may remove all obstacles to the worship of the Great Mother. This dance made me misty, for some reason. I later learned that none of the dancers was over 18 years old, and they had to perform these prescribed dances perfectly for years before they can perform alone.

The dance concluded with a spiral dance led by Amadae, to the chant "We all come from the Goddess..."

As a ritualist, I felt that we Pagans had more flexibility to adapt our ritual to age-old Hindu practices than the other way round, and we did. The fact that the participants wore big smiles at the conclusion convinces me of its effectiveness for each individual participant and as an interfaith collaboration. Those I spoke with expressed pleasure in the working.

As far as I know, this is the first anyone has blended traditional Hindu practices done by traditional Hindu practitioners (as opposed to Western attempts verging on cultural appropriation) with contemporary American Pagan practices. I was pleased and honored to be a part of it, and I was proud of my Pagan colleagues. I hope other opportunities to share sacred space with our Hindu friends present themselves. I will be ready.

Teenage Interfaith Diversity Education Conference" (TIDE) in Boston, MA - May 27-29, 2011

2011-02-04T05:54:00.000-08:00

I got this info from Macha, who received it from the Pluralism Project at Harvard. -Michelle

Dear friends,

Please see the message below from Interfaith Action’s Youth Leadership Program regarding the upcoming “Teenage Interfaith Diversity Education Conference” to be held at Northeastern University in Boston, MA on May 27-29, 2011. Please contact Jason Smith, Youth Program Director, at Jason@ifaction.org with any further questions or requests for additional information.

********************************

Teenage Interfaith Diversity Education Conference -- Boston, Massachusetts

Interfaith Action's Youth Leadership Program presents the fifth annual Teenage Interfaith Diversity Education (TIDE) Conference. The TIDE Conference is organized and led by teens who wish to spread pluralism, increase the impact of teenage voices, and have their presence felt as a positive force in the global community. The three-day conference is planned by fifty high school students of diverse religious and cultural backgrounds, and held at Northeastern University over Memorial Day Weekend, May 27-29, 2011. The goals of the conference are to train teens to communicate respectfully and use their skills in discussions about highly charged issues; develop leadership and facilitation skills; and foster bonds and lasting friendships among the youth in attendance. Conference attendees will participate in workshops, dialogues, and other activities throughout the weekend that allow them to discover more about themselves and their understanding of personal identity; learn about the beliefs and identities of others; and make their voices heard. By the end of the weekend, teens will gain the skills needed to break down religious and ethnic barriers while becoming leaders in their communities. Adults working with teens have the opportunity to attend a parallel but separate adult track at the conference.

Many of the conflicts that occur across the world are a result of cultural misunderstandings and a lack of tolerance and leadership. Participation in the TIDE Conference is one leap towards a more harmonious and peaceful world, led by strong individuals who have fostered their skills as teens!

The TIDE Conference has been officially designated as a Post-Parliament Event by the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions (CPWR). The conference is sponsored by Interfaith Action, Inc. in collaboration with the Brudnick Center for the Study of Violence and Conflict at Northeastern University.

More information about the conference and how you can register is available at www.ifaction.org . Outside groups and individuals may submit workshop proposals to showcase their work during the Sunday track of the conference. All proposals are due by April 1, 2011. More information about this opportunity may also be found on Interfaith Action's website.

Please contact Jason Smith, Youth Program Director, at Jason@ifaction.org with any further questions or requests for additional information.

--
The Pluralism Project
Harvard University
2 Arrow Street, 4th floor
Cambridge, MA 02138

617-496-2481
www.pluralism.org

Our Last Day of Multiregion Meetings in Mexico

2011-02-03T23:20:00.000-08:00

Thursday, February 3^rd. Our 4^th day, but only a morning work session. The quiet was amazing. I think I only heard three explosions all day! We started the day, as always, with our 7:30 silent meditation in the tea-house. Over breakfast, we talked about travel and immigration and the remarkable and often absurd problems Mexicans have with visiting or immigrating to the US. Margarita left right after breakfast for an annual birthday meeting with high-school friends in Mexico City. She would be back late.

With only a short time to meet before Yoland had to leave, we sat in the courtyard after breakfast to talk about “next steps”. First, we identified “pending issues” that will require future conference calls to work on. These include:

* finding a new webmaster after Lance’s contract ends in mid-March.

* reviewing the Minutes from our March 2010 Regional Assembly.

* reviewing & revamping the Seed Grant process.

* exploring outreach to CCs in other Regions sharing themes with Multiregion MCCs.

* fundraising.

We spent quite a bit of time going through all of the notes from the last three days and listing who was charged with who what tasks when we went home.

We started the discussion around finding a new webmaster. Some candidates were identified and specific plans for the website laid out. For one thing, we want to be sure that all of the Regional Team can post to the Multiregion blog and that the public can comment on the posts. We all committed ourselves both to finding material for the blog and to policing the comments to remove the ubiquitous, intrusive Viagra ads, etc.

At this point, Jonathan had to take Yoland to Cuernavaca to catch a bus for the airport in Mexico City.

Linda checked her email and discovered that her flight home on Continental Airlines had been canceled! There wasn’t much she could do without knowing Spanish as all the folks she called spoke no English. When Jonathan returned, he spent an hour and a half on the phone working things out. Ultimately, Continental switched her to flight tomorrow that will require and overnight in Houston before she gets home, but we’ll leave at the same time tomorrow.

When things had been worked out, Jonathan drove me to the trailhead to begin my hike to the pyramid of Tepozteco. The plan was to approach the pyramid by a shorter route from the town of San Juan on the other side of the mountains above Tepoztlan and then return via the much longer trail from the pyramid down a half-mile in altitude to Tepoztlan. Linda came along for the ride. At the recommendation of a friend of Jonathan’s, we went out of town and into the hills along roads that Jonathan had not traveled before. As we neared the village of San Juan, we stopped to ask villagers the way to the trail. They directed us back down the way we had come, “past the two trees painted blue”. I had a feeling from studying the diorama in the Museum yesterday that this was not correct, but who’s going to argue with locals? With some difficulty, we found the trailhead. Armed with water bottle, flashlight, and cell phone, I set off to find the pyramid while Jonathan and Linda drove back to the Rose hacienda.

Contrary to Jonathan’s friend’s directions, the trail, once found, was not well-marked or easy to follow. (The reason would later become apparent.) The way split often with no clear indication of the correct route. One woman I encountered gave me some directions, but my level of proficiency in Spanish meant that I was relying more on her hand-gestures than her words. The dirt road became a trail. The trail became a path. The path became often indistinguishable from a dry-streambed, as indeed it often was. I started using the arrows-made-out-of-broken-twigs tricks that I learned in Cub Scouts to mark the trail back, should it become necessary. I was now about two miles in from the trailhead, and two miles up and the air was noticeably thinner.

Finally, I got my first view of the white pyramid of Tepozteco...

The pyramid is on the peak to the left of center.

With a shock, I realized that I was on the ridge of mountains behind and ABOVE the pyramid, and that a half-mile deep canyon lay between me and it! I had been right and the directions from the locals had been wrong. Had we gone just beyond San Juan there would have been a route following the ridge down to the pyramid and I wouldn’t be in this predicament. I tried to scope a way further up and around to connect to the correct ridge and set off.

The trail got rougher and steeper. Rocks started sliding beneath my feet. I started following a sheer cliff face and it looked like the only way up was via a rock chimney. At that point, just as I realized that if I went much further it would be much harder to be sure of finding the correct route back if I need to, I rounded a boulder and found the fresh grave of a hiker who had fallen to his death...

I took this as a sign and decided to turn back. I called Jonathan, explained my situation and asked him to come pick me up. I’d call when I knew that I was close to the paved road. I went to a point on the rocks with a commanding view. I poured out some my water to the Four Directions and thanked the Spirits of the Elements and of the Place in the best Spanish I could muster. I then made my way back the way I had come, vowing to return and visit the pyramid. (We have been talking about having a Multiregion Regional Assembly here in 2012, so maybe then…)

I found my way out without too much trouble and met Jonathan… just as rain clouds started to gather – another reason it was probably wise to stop when I did. On the way back into town, we passed what appeared to be an occult supply shop. Jonathan said that it would probably be open until 6 pm. We got back to the hacienda at 5 pm. I grabbed a quick shower and change of clothes and headed out to visit and ATM, find the shop to see what they had, and do a little gift-shopping before 6. The shop turned out to be a mix of exotic Hindu stuff imported from India and candles and such for Christian candle magic. I found a shop with some cool items for my wife Anna.

Returning by way of the restaurant “El Brujo”, I stopped and called Jonathan to have him and Linda come join me for a last dinner and drink. It featured a fusion of local Mexican and Italian cuisine, and pastries baked on-site. Jonathan had not yet eaten at this place, but it was great! Worthy of at least the 4.5 stars in the online reviews. The owner / master chef was very pleased when Jonathan explained that I am a “brujo” from America!

We made our way back to finish up with items on the computer, pack our bags, and write this, the last report on this trip. And so, the first face-to-face meeting of the Regional Leadership Team of the URI’s Multiregion came to a close. We leave at 8 am tomorrow for the drive to Cuernavaca and the bus-trip to Mexico City. But we won’t have much time to rest… There’s a teleconference of the URI’s Global Council on the 9^th.

Interfaith marches onwards!

Blessed Be,

National Interfaith Representative

3rd workday at Interfaith meeting in Tepoztlan, Mexico

2011-02-02T22:58:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, February 2nd. Our 3^rd full day of meetings. Candlemas for me, and for the inhabitants of Tepoztlan, who celebrate it as “Candelaria” I can tell that it’s a holy day dedicated to the baby Jesus by the rounds of cannon-fire that wake me from a sound sleep, wondering if the protests in Cairo have spread to this small Mexican hill-town. Of course, it’s not cannon-fire, but rather the largest yield fireworks I have ever encountered, made to explode just above the roof-tops and set off all over the town at random intervals not to exceed a minute and a half.

No one here can explain the connection between explosives and the baby Jesus, except to say that it is “costumbre” – custom.

We started the day, as always, with our 7:30 am silent (Hah!) meditation in the tea-house. Over breakfast, Margarita explained about the traditions associated with this celebration of the presentation of the baby Jesus in the temple 40 days after his birth. Almost every family has, in the past few days, acquired a doll of the baby Jesus and made elaborate baby clothes in which to dress him. Today, they will bring these dolls to the town’s main church (built in 1580) to have them blessed in a huge outdoor Mass. They will take these dolls home and seat them on little thrones in house-hold shrines for the next year. The whole process is accompanied by feasting, processions, music in the streets, and yes, explosions. Apparently, the bigger the bang, the greater the prestige.

We got down to business at about 8:30 am and started with what we thought would be quick items.

We discussed a proposal from the Global Healing CC regarding creating a closer relationship between the Multiregion and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). After much discussion of this and of the Multiregion’s URI-UN CC we decided to ask the Global Healing CC for more detailed information to circulate to our CCs. If there are CCs interested in pursuing the proposal, then the Multiregion Regional Leadership Team (the Trustees and Regional Coordinator) can consider endorsing it.

On a related note, we agreed that we need to arrange some communication with the URI-UN CC to talk about more productive collaboration between it and the Regional Support Team.

We talked about the thematic MCCs in the Multiregion, that is, CCs that have grouped together around a common concern to form what are called Multiple Cooperation Circles (MCCs). Currently, we have two MCCs: the Women’s Coalition MCC and the Indigenous MCC. We revisited the idea that while other Regions often have sub-Regional Coordinators, the Multiregion might end up needing thematic sub-Coordinators instead. We noted that the description of MCCs in the URI’s Bylaws would allow individuals to members and also other, non-URI groups as well. The promotional material we have talked about creating needs to explain this, and explain to CCs in the other Regions that they can be a CC within their geographic Region AND a member of a Multiregion MCC focused on a theme of common concern AT THE SAME TIME. We need to engage in outreach to CCs in the other Regions around this.

We discussed the Seed Grant program (which has provided small grants to Multiregion CCs to help jumpstart projects) and the need to review and revamp the process of application, selection, and evaluation of results. We agreed that we don’t have enough time to do this here, that we can do it in follow-up electronic communications, and that we wouldn’t award any new Grants until we can conduct a review in consultation with the Global Hub Staff. We agreed that we want this to be completed by June.

By this time it was 12:30 pm and time to take a break to go see the Candelaria service at the Church. We joined the throng of hundreds, perhaps over a thousand people converging on the church – some playing music, many carrying wrapped dolls.

Crowds at the Tepoztlan Church for Candelaria

As the service would go on for an hour, we had time to take a peek inside the attached Convento de la Natividad. The convent is no longer functioning as one, but its extensive wall-paintings have been restored and the huge building is a historic site, including a museum and bookstore.

Interior of Convent

The restored art was quite striking. The museum included a model of the area seen from high above. It showed the mountains behind Jonathan & Margarita’s house and the pyramid on top of the mountain. It also showed that the mountains are in th3e middle of a long slope, with Tepoztlan on the downhill side. The town of San Juan, on the uphill side of the mountain range, is closer to the summit. This will have bearing later on…

We went back outside just in time to hear the priest call forward everyone carrying a doll to be blessed. As the crowd surged forward, we slipped out the back. In the large market filling the town square outside the church precinct Jonathan helped Yoland and Linda look for fruits and sweets to buy, while Margarita took me to a book stall she had discovered that she thought would interest me.

The stall was small, but filled with the most amazing array of books (in Spanish) on esoteric subjects: the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Understanding Dream Symbols, the Dialogues of Plato, Legends of the Vampires, Feng Shui for Love, Astrology for Success, the Odyssey, Myths of the Greeks & Romans, Islam in Antiquity, Talismans of Black Magic… on and on. I purchased a dictionary of Nahuatl and a Mexican edition of the Necronomicon for my collection! Perhaps the former will help me decipher the latter. ;-) Actually, the Nahuatl / Spanish dictionary is fascinating. Between my basic ability to read simple Spanish and the many pictures, it’s quite easy to pick up Nahuatl words and phrases. A conversation with Margarita helped me understand how to properly accent the words. This will be fun.

Dodging mariachi bands and processions of doll-bearing women wreathed in the smoke of copal burning in swinging censors, we returned to the Rose hacienda for lunch. Afterwards, we reconvened in what has become the “Multiregion office” – the terrace outside Linda’s room overlooking the Rose’s gardens and under the watchful presence of the pyramid of Tepozteco on the mountain.

We reviewed the work we had done the day before on the description of the Regional Coordinator position in the Multiregion and the plan for finding a new one. After a few more tweaks of the language, we had completed something that could be submitted to the Hub for comment.

We had a lengthy discussion about the idea of tapping the musical performance potential of the members of the Multiregion as a means of raising funds, including the possibility of having a Performing Arts MCC. This led into a lengthier discussion of fundraising in general in the Multiregion. In addition to the possibility of income from music, as Linda had suggested, we talked about:

* cultivation of donors. (We already have an annual pledge of $2000!)

* the creation of a dedicated bank account for the Multiregion.

* the idea of a global e-marketplace, selling the crafts produced by many of the members of Multiregion CCs. This had been suggested before in the Global Council of the URI, but the scale of such a venture might be better suited to a Region.

* eco-tourism. Yoland brought up how many of the Indigenous in the URI are interested in exploring this. If it was done under the auspices of the Multiregion, both the Region and the Indigenous people would benefit.

Everyone on the Global Council has talked for years about the need for the Regions to be financially self-sufficient. We in the Regional Leadership Team had been talking for weeks about committing to moving the Multiregion in that direction. We agreed to start with generating 5% of our planned budget. This is a great place to start since we have already raised more than that. We agreed to commit to raising this percentage each year. We call this “incremental financial autonomy”.

Yoland suggest that we state our intention to have another Regional Assembly in March of 2012 (possibly here at Jonathan’s). We all agreed that we should work towards this. I suggested that we ask all of our CCs to consider, if they want to meet face-to-face again NEXT year, contributing some money THIS year to help raise money for such a meeting – perhaps some fraction of what they would have spent to go if the meeting had been this year.

We talked again about using the phrase “The Multiregion -- We are the World!” I said that I kept thinking of variations: “We are the World, and the World sings!” for music, “We are the World, and the World loves to eat!” for an interfaith cooking program, etc. I said that I would look into the possible legal ramifications of using the phrase.

Linda said that we definitely need to increase youth participation in the Multiregion, with which we all agreed. Linda said that she would ask former-Multiregion Trustee, now-URI-Youth-Coordinator Mathew Youde to consider young people in the URI who might be interested.

Reaching then end of another day spent in eight hours of meetings and of our time working together, we closed as we opened – by going through the list of CCs of the Multiregion and appreciating the gifts and skills that each of them brings to the Region.

This was a VERY positive experience! We got MUCH more done than we ever could have through phone calls and email, and we built the Multiregion Regional Leadership Team in the process. The Trustees are all VERY thankful to Jonathan and Margarita for opening their lovely home and gardens to us, and for showing us Tepoztlan. Yoland leaves tomorrow morning, while Linda and I both leave on Friday. That gives Linda and me one more day to try to see more of this amazing part of Mexico.

Tomorrow, Jonathan and Linda will drive Yoland to Cuernavaca to catch a bus to the airport in Mexico City. Then they will get lunch in and explore the city of Cuernavaca. I plan to be doing something very different.

Ever since we arrived, I have been fascinated by the white pyramid of Tepozteco shining on the mountain above us. I am planning to hike up to it tomorrow. Jonathan has called some friends who have confirmed that approaching the pyramid from San Juan will mean a much shorter climb – since the pyramid is almost half a mile higher than Tepoztlan, but San Juan is closer to the top. Also, approaching the pyramid from the San Juan side means that I’ll be in the shade cast by the mountain for the ascent. Then, the half-mile change in altitude will only be for the two-kilometer walk DOWN from the pyramid on the Tepoztlan side of the mountain. The only down-sides of this plan are that we are already at an altitude of 1.5 miles here in Tepoztlan and all of us visiting can feel the relative thinness of the air, and that the trail on the San Juan side is not as well marked and rather hard to find. Jonathan and his friends are trying to arrange for a local to accompany me. I REALLY hope that this works out, since, much to my surprise, when I Googled “Tepozteco” site after site talked about how the hike to this pyramid is one the most fulfilling experiences one can have while traveling in Mexico! Wow!

It’s been calling to me since we got here. If all goes well, I’ll celebrate my own Candlemas a day late at the pyramid.

It’s almost 1 am, so it’s time to post this and rest up for tomorrow.

Blessed Be,

Don Frew

National Interfaith Representative

URI Multiregion Leadership Team meeting continues

2011-02-01T23:03:00.000-08:00

Today, Tuesday, February 1st, was our second full day of meetings. We started again at 7:30am with meditation in Jonathan's tea-house. Over breakfast, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Jonathan's wife Margarita. Jonathan and Yoland also sang a Spanish birthday song. I didn't know the song but I caught a reference to King David in the lyrics. I asked about this and was told that the lyrics basically said: "King David greeted the morning with this song and since it's your birthday we sing it to you." "How interesting," I said, "a Pagan song masquerading as a Christian one through a Biblical reference." When they asked what I meant, I said that there wasn't anything obvious to connect the two parts of the song except that they were both addressing beginnings or times of "birth" -- of the person and of the day. King David's song was clearly a Pagan hymn of praise addressing the rebirth of the Sun every day, but since David had done it, that made it "kosher".

Margarita also sang the King David song in Nahuatl, the language of the local people. She mentioned that the suffix "-ita" or "-ito" in Nahuatl signified royalty. When she and Jonathan first met and all of his friends called him "Jon", she took to calling him "Athon" as a pet name. Over time, this became the more endearing"Athoncito", which we sometimes hear her call him. :-) We got into a discussion of how my name -- "Don" -- had been misunderstood in Latin American countries as being my title, and how this had led to assumptions about status that had interfered with building relationships. Several suggestions were made for alternatives. "Donquito", in imitation of Athoncito, was ruled out since it means "little donkey" in Spanish. Margarita suggested basing something on my middle name -- "Hudson" -- possibly "Sonso", which is fine in Nahuatl, but means "stupid" in Spanish. I wasn't having much luck until Jonathan pointed out that the longer form of my name in Spanish -- "Donaldo" -- is not as unusual as it used to be since there had recently been a Presidential candidate with that name (the only "Donaldo" he had ever heard of). "Donaldo" it shall be, then, in future introductions.

After breakfast, we gathered again ion the terrace outside Linda's room to continue our meetings. We started by reading aloud the Preamble, Purpose, and Principles of the URI -- a common practice at URI meetings. (They can be found online at www.uri.org/about_uri/charter/preamble_purpose_and_principles) We also read the description of the role of Trustees in the Charter:

"We use the term trustee in its truest sense: URI Trustees carry the trust of the entire global URI membership, charged with representing their interests in the larger body. The Trustees of URI are exemplary leaders who manifest the vision and values of the Preamble, Purpose and Principles through their actions, and have a deep commitment to serve the whole of the URI community."

Wow! That's a lot to try to live up to, and we all felt the weight of that responsibility in approaching our deliberations.

We reviewed the Narrative Report covering what had been accomplished in the Multiregion from mid-November 2010 to the end of December, prepared by Jonathan as Regional Coordinator (RC) and submitted to Charles as Executive Director. We also reviewed the Work Plan for the Multiregion for the first three months of 2011 in terms of Goals (Services provided to the CCs) and Intended Results (Intended Accomplishments by CCs) and worked out detailed steps to take to achieve the Goals. We looked at shared governance in the Multiregion, nurturing of CCs, and our Seed Grant program. We divided tasks into what could be accomplished in the three month period and what should be considered in terms of "deeper time" or more long-range goals of the Multiregion.

Highlights from the morning...
* The Trustees agreed to assist the RC and Webmaster in the collection of news and stories from the CCs for inclusion on the website (www.urimulti.org).
* We agreed that the Multiregion, more than any other Region, has an ethical obligation to be bilingual and that we commit to working towards all of our materials being available in both English and Spanish. The idea was floated of a "Translators CC" of folks who might be interested in providing translation assistance within the URI.
* We realized that the Multiregion doesn't have a representative on the CC Approval Committee and agreed that Linda would be our person on that Committee (which is supposed to include one Trustee from each Region).

Before lunch, we started working on the requirements for a new, permanent Regional Coordinator. We started by reviewing the input sent to us before this meeting from many of the Multiregion CCs with their thoughts on what qualities and skills were necessary in a Mutiregion RC. We took to heart the URI's Manual of Standard Policies and Practices for Regional Development and let it be our guide through this process as we worked out the steps through which the Regional Leadership Team and the Hub Staff could work together to create a new RC position, announce it, evaluate applicants, and make a decision.

For lunch, we went out to a local restaurant to celebrate Margarita's birthday. I had "cecina", a beef dish native to the area in which the beef is sliced very thin and cooked in a process resulting in something that tastes a bit like beef jerky, but is moist and tender. On the way back to the Rose hacienda, I noticed several palm and card readers, a store selling Tarot decks and crystals, and a restaurant called "El Brujo" that is a 4.5 star place! I'll try to stop in there before I leave on Friday. Jonathan said that "brujo" is not a derogatory or negative word locally and would be how they would translate "Witch" in the way WE mean it. Tepoztlan is an interesting town.

After lunch, Jonathan and Linda worked on incorporating the fruits of our discussion into the exiting URI document on identifying and selecting a Regional Coordinator. They focused on the qualities we would look for in applicants while I worked on another computer on revising the description of the Multiregion. Yoland took some time out from Multiregion work to catch up on other, pressing URI email.

We reconvened around 5:30 to compare notes and finalize our plans for tomorrow. By 8pm, we were getting a bit fuzzy in the head and joined Margarita in the kitchen for some coffee and "pan dulce". Today we worked about nine and a half hours and we were getting a bit fried. We called it a night and I came back to the room to get a shower, make some corrections to yesterday's post, and write tonight's report. While I worked, I turned on the TV in my room for the first time to find "Practical Magic" playing in Spanish!

Well, it's 1am. I seem to be getting back into me usual reporting pattern. Time to get some rest before morning meditations.

Good night and Blessed Be,
Don Frew
National Interfaith Representative

URI Multiregion Leadership Team meeting starts in Tepoztlan, Mexico

2011-01-31T21:58:00.000-08:00

I am in Tepoztlan, Mexico (about 2 hours south of Mexico city) for the first meeting of the Regional Leadership Team (RLT) of the Multiregion of the United Religions Initiative (URI) and this is my first chance to get online and post.

The URI now includes over 500 local Cooperation Circles (CCs) in 78 countries, involving about 2.5 million people (www.uri.org). The URI is governed by a Global Council of Trustees elected by the CCs. To ensure diversity in the Global Council, the CCs are arranged into eight Regions, which have become administrative entities kind of like the Local Councils in the Covenant of the Goddess. Seven of these Regions are subdivisions of the globe: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America & the Caribbean (LA&Car), the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), North America, Southeast Asia & the Pacific (SEAPac). The eighth Region is global and is called the Multiregion. The Multiregion includes all of those CCs who either have members in more than one Region or are focused on issues that are trans-Regional, like Women, the Environment, Youth, Peace, etc. (www.urimulti.org). Each Region is managed by a Regional Coordinator (RC) - sometimes more than one - who is part of the Global Support Staff.

Each Region elects three Trustees for a three-year term. This 2009-2012 term, the three Trustees elected for the Multiregion were Yoland Trevino (Indigenous Mayan / Guatemala), Mathew Youde (Catholic / Wales), and Linda Bennet Elder (Christian / US). One year into this term of the Global Council, the Multiregion found itself under some stress. One of it's Trustees, Yoland, was called on to help coordinate the Latin American Region, in addition to her ongoing responsibilities as Chair of the Global Council. Another Trustee, Mathew, resigned to take up a paid position as coordinator of the URI's youth efforts. It's Regional Coordinator, Lance Trumball, also resigned to pursue other career opportunities. The Region found itself short-handed. Under these circumstances, and with too little time left in the term to hold an election in the Region, the Global Council asked me to accept appointment as an At-Large Trustee with a mandate to assist in the Multiregion; an appointment I was honored to accept.

One of the CCs I coordinate - Spirituality & the Earth - is a Multiregion CC and was one of the founding CCs of the URI. I had also served two previous terms on the Global Council. Apparently they felt this gave me sufficient experience and ongoing connection to be able to jump right in and get to work. (And boy did they have work for me to do! In addition to helping revitalize the Multiregion, I was also asked to serve in the creation of and on the new External Affairs Committee, which will be responsible for crafting the URI's official response to world events like what's going on right now in Tunis and Egypt. But that's another story...)

While in many ways the Multiregion embodies the highest aspirations of the URI - people of all religions, spiritual expressions, and indigenous traditions working together around the world "to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence, and to create cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings" - it has always been sort-of the odd-man-out. It's been a lot easier to organize CCs who all live in one geographic area than it has been to organize something as far-flung as the Multiregion. We have been VERY reliant on modern technology to create and maintain our network. We had our very first face-to-face Regional Assembly only last March. (See the reports in this blog in March 2010.) That meeting generated a LOT of enthusiasm in the Multiregion and we really didn't want to see this dissipate.

The first thing Yoland, Linda and I did was to find an Interim Regional Coordinator to help keep things going while we did an evaluation of the Region's needs and came up with a plan for a new permanent RC. Fortunately, a previous Multiregion RC and former Global Council Trustee was willing and available: Jonathan Rose (Jewish / Mexico). Jonathan stepped in and the four of us became the Multiregion's new Regional Leadership Team.

We really felt the need to meet face-to-face to work on the Work Plan and Budget for the Multiregion, as well as develop the plan for finding a new Regional Coordinator, all while maintaining connections with the 25 CCs in the Multiregion and making sure that their input was part of our discussions. Accordingly, we are now at the home of Jonathan and his wife Margarita. They rent out their home for weddings and such and are well-equipped to handle us for the six days we'll be here (www.jardindelosrose.com.mx). The pictures on their website don't do the place justice! In addition to what you can see on the website, Jonathan has his own little Japanese tea-house tucked away in a secret part of the garden -- a perfect place for our morning meditations. Spectacular mountains loom over us, crowned by a white stone pyramid built by the Tlahuica c.1200 CE to honor their god of maguey and pulque, Tepoztecatl. I have never heard of a pyramid on top of a mountain before! I hope that there will be a chance to visit it before we go on Friday. Google "Tepoztlan" and "Tepozteco" and click on "images" for an eye-full!

Jonathan's & Margarita's website also doesn't convey the auditory ambiance of this place. There are birds singing all day long and the sound of running water from ponds and waterfalls in the gardens. The bells of stone church on the corner ring out the quarter-hours all day (and night) long. During the day, we can hear children singing in the nearby elementary school and bands playing in the nearby town square. Truly a remarkable place!

Jonathan & Yoland on the roof terrace

Even with the distractions and the fatigue from a day of travel to get here yesterday, we put in a good day today. Over all, we spent about eight hours in meetings -- going over the agenda for these four days of meetings, reviewing the status and activities of the 25 CCs in the Multiregion, listening to their input that they sent along to this meeting, discussing the most productive ways to promote a transparent and collaborative relationship between the Multiregion RLT and the central administration of the global URI, especially URI Exec. Director Charles Gibbs, Assoc. Exec. Director Debra Bernstein, and Director of Organizational & Regional Development Sally Mahe (www.uri.org/about_uri/staff), brainstorming promotional material to help explain the Multiregion to prospective CCs, ways to improve internal communications within the Multiregion, evaluating or Seed Grant program, and discussing how "shared governance" applies in the Multiregion.

We agreed that we need to develop promotional material to explain to prospective CCs and to other folks who might be interested in the URI just what the Muliregion is all about. We came up with the tag line "We are the World!" to describe the Multiregion. We also came up with the idea that while other Regions sometimes have "sub-Regional Coordinators" to help the Regional Coordinator relate to various parts of large Regions, it might be more appropriate in the Multiregion to consider "sub-Regional Directors" based on themes, when, say, there are large numbers of Multiregion CCs focused on particular topics.

Tomorrow we continue with reviewing our Work Plan, discussing a proposal for a collaborative relationship with a UN agency, elucidating what we need in a permanent Regional Coordinator and how we'll go about finding such a person (including looking at some applications we've already received), and looking at some of the administrative structures in the Multiregion and URI. It'll be a full day.

Well, it's not as late as some of the evenings when I've posted to this blog in the past, but it IS pushing midnight... when the church will ring the hour... twice. "Chimes", followed by 24 bells. Time to sleep. ;-)

Blessed Be,
Don Frew
Nat. Interfaith Representativ

Boston visit - M. Mueller

2011-01-27T08:24:00.000-08:00

I am in Boston this week, visiting Harvard Divinity School as a prospective student. I attended a couple classes...one on American Spirituality: From Transcendentalism to New Age and another on International Perspectives on Gender and Religion, the latter co-taught by Ann Braude and Leila Ahmed, all from professors I am interested in studying with.

My Intro to Interfaith class at Cherry Hill Seminary has begun and is going well. An upcoming project I assigned is to do a service project in a multifaith context and report about it. I have found so much meaning in doing service projects with people of other faiths, I wanted to share this experience with students.

Michelle Mueller

5 days left to register! Cherry Hill Seminary Interfaith Class - M. Mueller

2011-01-06T07:40:00.000-08:00

January 17 - April 25, Wednesdays 8:30 PM EST
A Cherry Hill Seminary Masters and Pagan Community Education course by Michelle Mueller, M.Div.
Sharing dreams and values with people of other faiths, and working towards peace while respecting differences...this is the practice of interfaith.

This course will introduce people to interfaith and help those with experience deepen their practice. Students will learn best practices and organizational structures of the interfaith movement and the steps for getting involved.

We will look at the local, national, and international levels of interfaith, the core values of each, and the steps for getting involved. This is the kind of course where students and instructor will all be teachers to each other, as you will find similar to the interfaith movement itself. Expect a cooperative classroom and an experience of diversity during the semester! Students should also expect to experience diversity during the semester.

REGISTER at www.cherryhillseminary.org !
5 days left to register!

Recommended texts:

Beyond the Burning Times: A Pagan and Christian in Dialogue by Gus diZerega and Philip Johnson.

Interactive Faith: The Essential Interreligious Community-Building Handbook by Bud Heckman, Dirk Ficca, and Rori Picker Neiss.

Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, in the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation by Eboo Patel.

Michelle Mueller, M.Div. converted to Wicca in 1996 and made it her goal to become a priestess. Since participating in the Parliament of the World's Religions 2004, on a scholarship from the Covenant of the Goddess, her pace towards the priestesshood has rapidly increased.

She attended seminary (Pacific School of Religion) from 2005-2008, has presented papers and led rituals at Pagan Spirit Gathering, Conference on Contemporary Pagan Studies, Sacred Space Conference, and PantheaCon. Michelle has two years experience as Acting Director of Religious Education for a Unitarian Universalist Church.

Michelle has acted as an Assistant Coordinator for Teen Programming at Pagan Spirit Gathering for three years and worked as a chaplain for Pagan students at UC Berkeley for a year. Her interests include feminist theory as it informs religious practice, campus ministry, interfaith, and Greece.

The visit of Alejandrino Quispe

2011-01-01T20:44:00.000-08:00

Well It’s January first and I am still trying to catch up with all of the obligations that the end of the year has most graciously placed at my feet. Peter sets such a fine example of correspondence that I felt that I had better follow suite or be trumped.

My “end of year” started in October. With the visit of Alejandrino Quispe ( an indigenous gentleman from Peru with whom Don and I had been working through the United Religions Initiative). Due to take place in November, We made the discovery that nothing had been done to assure his travel visa was approved. We began the rather arduous task of trying to alert the American Embassy in Lima Peru to look for him and put him on the fast track and get hold of him and get him into Lima to get his visa. With less than a week before his departure date we finally received word that did indeed have his visa in hand. As there was quite a bit of funding tied up in this process it was a huge relief to be assured that he would make his flight.

He arrived in good health at San Francisco International Airport with Don, Anna Korn, and myself to greet him. We took him to Saul’s, a Jewish soul food restaurant for his first taste of foreign food, and then home and to bed. The next three weeks was a constant mix and motion of sight-seeing and work.

The evening before his arrival we had been invited to dinner with Gede Parma, a young Australian pagan and writer whom we had met at the Parliament. He was on a book signing tour for his latest book, By Land, Sky and Sea. Over dinner I said that he could not leave the area without seeing our beautiful Sequoia Simpervirens. He said he only had the following day and we decided then and there to take him and Alejandrino to the Redwoods that following morning.

Greg took them to a huge hollowed out tree (about ten feet around) that he knew of some ways off the path and Gede did a ritual for all. Though Alejandrino did not understand the words, (I could not walk that distance and so he had no translator, though Don does a fair to middlin job in my absence) he said that he truly felt that the gods had answered them. Needless to say neither of them had ever seen such trees and were profoundly moved by the experience.

Though technically Don and I sponsored him privately, our mutual membership in the United Religions Initiative and the work that Don and I have been doing with the South American Region, was the focus of a great deal of our time together. We traveled to the San Francisco Hub of the organization one day to meet with all of the folks there and have lunch.

Then Don took us to the Interfaith Chapel to show him around and we drove out to the Marin Headlands where he could get a sense of the topography of the land and sea.

I took every opportunity to show him how the indigenous peoples of the region lived and Don bought him a really nice fold out of many of the animals native to this area which he referred to constantly during his stay. We talked a lot about the native plants of the region and their uses and I showed him the acorns, grinding stones and process used to make the staple of the native diet here in California, acorn mush. He was amazed to see a Sparrow Hawk on display in one of the nature museums and told us that it is a very sacred bird to his people and practically extinct in his land. The curator was nice enough to let us handle the stuffed model and Alejandrino had his picture taken with the bird.

Of all this the things that impressed him most were the areas that have been set aside as natural parks, the endless vistas of pine and mixed hardwood forest viewed from the crest of the Sierras, and the care that we give to setting aside natural places for posterity. There are no forests in the Andes and few trees anywhere. Every square inch that can be cultivated or used for grazing is.

During this time we bought him a small video camera for his work in recording the remaining rituals of his people and encouraged him to use it. I worked with him extensively on expanding his use of the computer with Google, Google Earth, and Wikipedia. He could not believe what can be learned from just “Googling” a bit of information. Not long after that he brought me the computer with something he had found on You Tube and wanted me to watch it.

It seems there is a village in the Peruvian Andes with a rather unique custom. No one in the village is allowed to fight at any time during the year. It seems that two guys trashed a church once and the local priest set up this custom in order to prevent it from ever happening again. On Christmas day the entire village goes to the bull ring, the police act as referees, and anyone with a gripe against anyone else may call them out one at a time, at that time. Men and women both do this and it seems that at least 80% of the arguments for both men and women are over who got the lover. It has now become the standing joke between Don, Anna, Greg and me. “Why no I’m not angry, I will see you at Christmas.”

Alejandrino was our guest speaker at the “People of the Earth” conference held this year on November 20th at the Interfaith Chapel of the Presidio, in San Francisco. I did the set up and food prep and service and Don handled the programing, and hosting. Greg taped his talk but, unfortunately Alejandrino took both the CD and chip with him in error leaving us no copy.

During this time the Chair of the Global council of the URI asked Alejandrino to write a report on his experience with the Indigenous Global Initiative, an organization that the URI was trying to establish starting with the South American Indigenous to eventually include indigenous people from all over the world. It would have taken any one of us a couple of hours to do so but it took three days of solid hard work for Alejandrino to write that report. The trouble is that he simply did not understand what information was required or how to present it in a corporate, professional manner. He kept trying to start by giving an entire history of each person’s actions from the beginning of the organization’s founding and working his way slowly up to the current situation and the status of the membership (the traditional indigenous method of explanation). We had to examine each part and slowly work “our” way toward what was important information that affected the future of the group and what was unnecessary to any decision that the Chair might wish to consider. Then we began to examine his recommendations. Heavy sigh. We finished it just in time to turn it in and have a telephone conference with the First Chair before he left for home. During this entire time he was hard at work studying English at least two hours in the morning and evening.

He left on November 25th at three in the morning. I dropped Don off at his house, got home, went to bed and slept for 24 hours straight waking up with a bad chest cold. Better now.

In putting all of the footage that he shot onto CDs I was astounded to discover that 4 of the five segments he shot were from the back seat of my car giving a running dialogue on the fact that there were five lanes to the road one way, all the cars were relatively new, none of them smoked, they are remained discreetly separated no matter how fast or slow they were going, a woman, a woman, was driving, and look, she was going 100 kilometers per hour. He had never seen such roads. Even the fast roads are one way each way in most of Peru. He had also never in his life seen a woman driver.

Other things that absolutely amazed him were that I had a machine that only made popcorn, a machine with a window in it that washed my clothes, (he pulled up a chair and watched the entire process; it was a front loader.) He discovered that I had a can crusher early on and carefully recycled every soda can in the house the moment it came empty.

We had a long talk about recycling and I took him to the local recycling center. He now wants to start one down in his home town. He loved to go shopping and missed no opportunity to go into Safeway. He had me take his picture in every isle. Once we stopped on the way home to pick up a couple of things and Greg went in and left us in the car. Alejandrino hopped out and went in after him. Later Greg told me that all he needed to feel like an overseer was a floppy hat and cane. He is so much taller than Alejandrino and Alejandrino absolutely insisted on carrying everything. Greg said he all but fought him for control of the basket but gave up and Alejandrino followed him around the store carrying the basket, then insisted on carrying all the bags out to the car. Greg couldn’t wait to get out of there.

I learned many things while he was here. I discovered just how large is the gap between the modern corporate world that we are used to doing business in and his indigenous, one village one family, world. Communication is incredibly difficult. Even face to face communication where one can pull him back into the topic at hand is a challenge. At times I had to ask a question two or three times in two or three different ways in order to get him to address it directly without a major preamble. E mail communication is all but impossibly frustrating. He has no internet and the likelihood that he soon will have is slim. When he does it will be the most jury rigged set up you can possibly imagine with friends stringing the line from whatever they can find for some distance. Even the connection will be made by “a friend who knows how to do these things” rather than the supplier. This is of course if they can raise the funds for the cable. He has no understanding of how the system works and did not understand that any computer can be connected. He thought that the entire system had to be hard wired to a single computer.

Without even this system he is forced to come into town at a cost of two Solis each way, (an equivalent of about $4 for us) and deal with a computer that cost only one Solis per hour but that is so slow you will spend the entire hour just downloading your email. This means that I hear from him with little frequency. When he is tending his crops or doing the government work he is sometimes paid to do I may not hear from him for months literally. Once he focuses on a topic he does not respond to anything else in the email. I have asked him for his physical address three times and each time I get a totally different response to something we were working on when he left and no address.

Still I continue to move, I think, forward. Our next plan is to get him a set of by-laws that they can use to model a set for their organization. CoG’s are the best suited but that means translating them into Spanish. OMG!!! As if they were not complicated enough in English.

The last words that he left both Don and me with were that there is a ritual in December that is as ancient as his people and very secret as they do not want the Government or the Church to know about it. He wants us all to attend this ritual next December. It is a several mile hike into the mountains from the last point at which you can drive a car. “But don’t worry,” he says to me “I will get you a horse to ride”.

Rachael Watcher

Bishop William Swing

2010-12-29T16:33:00.000-08:00

Here's an article from Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle about Bishop William Swing, one of the founders of the United Religions Initiative, of which CoG is a member. Bishop Swing has long been a friend to CoG and to Pagans. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a celebration of Deborah Ann Light's 75th birthday last June, where we discovered that we're both really big fans of Rachel Maddow.

In service to Coventina,
M. Macha NightMare (Aline O'Brien)

Midwinter Reflections: Light in the Dark

2010-12-21T22:36:00.000-08:00

Here's a meditation I created for a Winter Interfaith celebration:

My local interfaith group, Marin Interfaith Council, created a Winter Interfaith Service to share the celebrations of various member organizations that take place in the winter months. When the director asked me to share a ‘teaching’ from my religious tradition, I had to really think about what a teaching would be like from a Pagan perspective. It got me to thinking about light, which, after all, is what this season is all about – the waning and return of the light.

In our modern world, we tend to take light for granted. We’re used to living constantly amidst all manner of human-made lights. We seldom reflect on the fact that for most of human history our only sources of light came from the sky and from fire. We easily forget that there was a time when torches were a new invention, oil lamps were valued possessions, and chandlers toiled so people could see in the night by candlelight.

Our ancestors bedded down at nightfall, for the most part. Of necessity they lived their lives finely attuned to Nature’s cycles – of light and dark, then later the cycles of sowing and reaping. They knew that their lives depended upon the Sun, so they created rituals to ensure its annual return.

In fact, marking the return of the light was so important to them that at least 5,000 years ago some of our Western European ancestors built megaliths such as Brugh na Bóinne in Ireland and Maes Howe in Scotland. Brugh na Boinne, or Newgrange, is a mound near the Boinne River (named for Boann, a cow goddess) comprised of a passage leading to inner chambers carved with spiral designs. The builders constructed the mound so that the light of the rising Sun on Midwinter morning shines a shaft of sunlight deep inside to illuminate the innermost chambers. Although only a limited number of people can experience this remarkable occurrence from within the mound, today, in the cyber age, millions of viewers can see this phenomenon live on Solstice morn from anywhere in the world via webcams placed inside the mounds.*

Some ancestors decorated their dwellings with evergreens; they cut a tree and decorated its branches with twinkling little candles. Today, if we’re ecologically minded as we should be, we use strings of LED lights. This tree represented the World Tree that unites the Underworld, the Middle World, and the Upper World, and it never dies.

I think humans are hard-wired to gather around fires, especially during the long nights of Winter. Other ancestors gathered round a Yule log -- Yule is a Scandinavian word usually taken to mean “wheel” -- to keep warm through the cold longest night of the year as they sat together, while bards and elders told stories, musicians played and people sang and danced, ate and drank.

Somewhat like the Salvation Army and other charities do today for those with fewer means, the poorer folk trekked from household to household, singing wassail songs in exchange for hot wassail and bread or other food.

We Pagans, at least the majority of us, view the Winter Solstice as the night when our Great Mother labors to bring forth the reborn Sun God. We see in images of Mary and the baby Jesus something ancient and primal, an icon that speaks to us.

In my tradition, we gather on the beach at sunset on the longest night of the year, and as the Sun goes down over the waves, we all plunge into the ocean as a ritual purification; then return to warm up at the big waiting bonfire in the sand.

Later we return to homes, often lots of us in one home, where we sing Yule carols, light candles, drink hot brews. We feast and eat Sun cookies the children have baked. We gather near the fireplace telling and listening to stories, playing games, perhaps doing divination.

As dawn approaches, we go outside and gather in the high places around the Bay Area and sing and sing and sing up the Sun – often in the rain, but always we can see the lightening skies.

When we perform these acts – when we sing the carols, trim our trees, light candles – we reenact the things our ancestors did, we reconnect with them, and we honor our heritage. Celebrating Midwinter together allows us to reaffirm the continuance of life.

In the spirit of the season, I’d like to teach you a little chant as a Yule gift from Pagans to the interfaith community. The words are by American poete.e. cummings. I don’t know who made a chant of those words, but we have been using them for the past 30-plus years and it seems to be working fine.

i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth**

* Webcams have been mounted in these megaliths in years past. People are chosen by lottery to have the privilege of being inside the mound at sunrise.
** Unfortunately, I don't have the expertise yet to record this chant to share it here.

I wish all a joyous Solstice, warmed by the loving hearts of friends and family and a toasty fire.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Last night's lunar eclipse shown orangish through a gap in a cloudy, rainy Midwinter sky in Berkeley, California.

Yours in service to Coventina,
Macha / Aline O'Brien

Intro to Interfaith CHS course - M. Mueller

2010-12-04T12:02:00.000-08:00

I'm really pleased to see the list posts from COG members about interfaith events. So many people from the Covenant are getting involved in local interfaith! It shows our collective commitment to social engagement and peacebuilding.

For anyone who wants to learn more about interfaith or who wants to develop skills in a group context, I recommend my course, Intro to Interfaith, through Cherry Hill Seminary. Semester starts in January.

Click here for a list of Spring 2011 Cherry Hill Seminary courses.

Intro to Interfaith is down the list. Besides my own course, I recommend all Cherry Hill Seminary courses.

Interfaith Thanksgiving in NJ - M.Mueller

2010-11-23T12:44:00.000-08:00

The UU minister and I led an avant-garde service for Thanksgiving on Sunday, addressing its history. You can listen to the minister's sermon here.

There is an annual Interfaith event Wednesday evening, hosted by local Southern NJ religious leaders. They rotate responsibility for leading each year.

More about AAR - M. Mueller

2010-11-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

Oct. 31 morning I put on my good witch costume and took the elevator down for the "Celebration & Cerebration of Mary Daly." I showed up in a black dress, conical hat, and red cord. Going to a memorial for one of my witch-heroes was definitely a good way to observe the special day of Samhain. Those who appreciated Mary Daly also appreciated my special way to honor her. There were feminist women and men of all faiths and spiritualities, and atheists, ready to toast to the memory of Mary Daly.

I wore my costume the rest of the day, as an invitation for conversation. So many people thanked me for bringing the playfulness of Halloween to our conference. It's interesting the many ways we can priestess.

The Dogwood Local Council of COG and Cherry Hill Seminary co-hosted a Samhain ritual at night. I like that the officiants collected names of the Beloved Dead in advance so that one leader, Holli Emore, could read them. It brought focus to a large ritual. Well done, and thank you!

J.Z. Smith gave a plenary address, which I missed because I was meeting with Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza at the time. (This is no small matter. Schussler-Fiorenza is a pioneer feminist theologian in Biblical Studies. I am a lucky duck to have had any time with her.) J.Z. Smith has written academically about magic and Greco-Roman religion. I believe Smith has a lot to offer Pagan Studies. I recommend his work. His speech may be available on the AAR website later.

Elaine Pagels received the Marty Award from the American Academy of Religion and was interviewed by Karen King, again in a plenary session. Many Pagans are familiar with Elaine Pagels' work on The Gnostic Gospels and other projects including The Origin of Satan.

Pagans at AAR - M. Mueller

2010-10-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

I am at the annual American Academy of Religion meeting in Atlanta, GA. There are representations from COG and Cherry Hill Seminary here. Pagan attendants include M. Macha Nightmare, Holli Emore, Michael York, Maggie Beaumont, Patrick McCollum, Wendy Griffin, Marion Mason, Sarah Pike, Grant Potts, Chas Clifton, Doug Ezzy, and others. Many of these Pagans have presented papers, moderated, or responded.

Sarah Pike presided at and Wendy Griffin and Jone Salmonsen gave papers at the Ritual Studies Group and Body and Religion Consultation. Helen Berger, Marion Mason, and Christopher Chase gave papers in a joint session of Contemporary Pagan Studies Group and Men, Masculinities, and Religions Group. Chas Clifton presided; Douglas Ezzy and Mark Justad responded. I believe Mark Justad plays a role in the Men, Masculinities, and Religions Group.

I went to the annual Feminist Liberation Theologians’ Network meeting, where it’s tradition for everyone in the room to introduce her or himself, a less common practice for big sessions here. My former supervisor Mary Hunt convenes this meeting. It’s so important for Witches to participate in this network. Feminist Witches have been leading pioneers in spiritual liberation. I want for our voices to continue to be in the conversation. Grove Harris attended. I’m glad to have been part of a Pagan presence there.

I attended a lunch for queer scholars. I got to sit with Rebecca Alpert, a leading Jewish feminist scholar. I love her stuff! Rebecca was very friendly and approachable and is open to continuing correspondence with me….which is great because she’s in my area, Philadelphia! I have an appointment with Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza tomorrow, another one of my “intellectual heartthrobs” (I’ve been using that term a lot this weekend).

Last night Kitty Sarkozy led “A Chants Encounter: A Pagan Gospel/Jam Session,” a night of singing and socializing.

Sunday night most Pagans will be meeting in the evening for ritual. The “Samhain Ritual Honoring the Dead” is open to guests and is listed in the program!

I caught up with Patrick McCollum firsthand about his experience in Kazakhstan. At this important international meeting, Patrick developed intimate professional relationships with global political and religious leaders. He is doing the relationship building that I find so fundamentally important in interfaith. The convening organization’s objectives are for ecological health. Look for other press releases, the Wild Hunt, or ask Patrick for more information.

As always, there is tons happening around here and many Pagans! This entry is a sampling of what’s happening and what I’ve been doing. It is by no means exhaustive.

update from New Orleans - M. Mueller

2010-10-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

"If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." --From an Aboriginal Activists Group, wisdom delivered at the Liberal Religious Educators' Association Fall Conference this weekend in New Orleans.

Thoughts on Eight Verses of Training the Mind

2010-10-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

On October 12th, I was privileged to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama give a teaching on Geshe Langri Thangpa's Eight Verses of Training the Mind (lojong tsik gyema), sponsored by the Gyuto Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhist Center in San Jose. There were about 12,000 people there but I got a good seat in the interfaith section right up front since I was there as Wiccan clergy. It was an interesting teaching, the verse is part of the "lojong" section of Buddhist verses about Mind Training. This isn't the exact translation he used, but it will give you an idea of the theme.

The verse about "To think of myself as the lowest among all" didn't appeal to me when I read it beforehand but his explanation is that it means you come from a place of respecting every being rather than from a superior place of pity it is better.

As a Wiccan this bothered me and I spent several days figuring out why. I think what bothers me is how hierarchical the thinking is... make yourself the lowest so you are giving everyone respect rather than feeling superior and offering pity. I want to engage the world looking for equals and team mates. A circle rather than a ladder. I do agree that respect and compassion are a good place to come from when dealing with others. I guess I just don't see the need for that stance to come out of a place of relative dominance. And I'm not saying that I don't struggle or that I am free of judgements! But I try to come from a place of connection and a heart opening posture.

An interesting note was that his Holiness' translator was on the interfaith panel and he talked a bit about the history of the Eight Verses. One of the huge beneficiaries of its popularity was a colony of lepers because of the verse about caring for the afflicted. That, at least, seems an excellent outcome.

After the teaching there was an interfaith gathering of about 800-1000 people with speakers ranging from Huston Smith (age 91) to a young man who wrote "Dharma Punx" and works with troubled youth. Unfortunately the teaching had run long so that about half the people left about 2/3 of the way through the planned interfaith program. Our new Silicon Valley Interreligious Council was scheduled to be part of the announcements and hoped that good connections would be made, but the lateness meant very few people heard about us.

Bright blessings,
Rowan Fairgrove

CoG Interfaith Rep elected Trustee of international interfaith organization

2010-10-15T03:01:00.000-07:00

I have just been informed that, in its October conference call, the Global Council of the United Religions Initiative voted to invite me become an At-Large Trustee. This is a great honor, which I have accepted.

The URI is the world’s largest, grassroots interfaith organization, with 496 local branches (“Cooperation Circles”) in 77 countries, involving millions of people in interfaith programs around the world (www.uri.org).
The purpose of the URI is “to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation; to end religiously motivated violence; and o ctraete cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings.” I worked with many others – including CoG’s Deborah Ann Light - in the writing of the URI’s Charter in conferences in 1998-2000.

This is my third term on the URI’s Global Council. In 2002, I was elected to be one of three Trustees from the North American Region on the URI’s first elected Global Council. In 2006, I was asked to be one of two At-Large Trustees on the URI’s second elected Global Council. This time, on the third elected Global Council, I am again one of two At-Large Trustees, the other being Swami Agnivesh of New Delhi, India.

The current Global Council is made up of 30 individuals from 19 countries. The Global Council includes Christians, Muslims, Jews, representatives of Indigenous traditions, Hindus, Sikhs, a Buddhist, and now a Witch. Many of the Trustees are clergypersons, monastics, and elders of various sorts.

While most of the Trustees come from and represent geographic Regions in the URI (Latin America & the Carribean, Middle East & North Africa, Europe, etc.), my efforts in the URI have been focused on what is called the “Multiregion” (www.urimulti.org). This is the Region for Cooperation Circles (“CCs”) whose members are in more than one geographic Region or whose focus spans more than one Region.

I serve as coordinator for two Multiregional CCs: Expressing the URI in Music & the Arts (EURIMA) and the Spirituality & the Earth CC. EURIMA created and published the first Intefaith Songbook (www.interfaith-presidio.org/store/songbook.html) and hosted the first Interfaith Sacred Space Design Competition in 2004, inviting participants to imagine what genuinely interfaith sacred space would look like. The competition resulted in 160 designs from 17 countries (www.interfaithdesign.org), which were published in the book Sacred Spaces.

The Spirituality & the Earth CC is a network of various Earth Religionists (Heathen, Hindu, Indigenous, Shinto, Taoist, Wiccan, etc.) on four continents. Our cooperative efforts have included arranging computers and English lessons for Indigenous interfaith representatives in Latin America and hosting an annual People of the Earth conference in San Francisco, bringing together Neopagans, immigrant Pagans, and Indigenous practitioners around issues of common concern (www.ancientways.com/Earth.html).

I look forward to once again serving the URI on its Global Council for as long as they need me.

Don Frew
National Interfaith Representative

Carry the Vision conference 2010

2010-10-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

On October 2nd, I went to the annual Carry the Vision conference at Santa Clara University. NCLC CoG had decided not to be a Participating Organization this year but I was in the clergy procession and welcomed people on behalf of the Wiccan community and Covenant of the Goddess. There is always someone who seeks me out to say how wonderful it is that the Wiccan community is present in this interfaith gathering which brings together faith and civic organizations with the aim of making a positive difference in our community and our world.

At the vip/clergy breakfast I had lots of good conversations with folks. I met Jim Beall, Assemblyman from the 24th Dist. When he found out I was Wiccan he told me he is descended from Scottish Druids and his name is related to Beltaine. I was charmed. The level of acceptance that our community has earned with our interfaith presence is heartening.

After the blessing and various welcomes, Fr. John Dear gave the keynote talking about his work in anti-war and peace movements. He was quite an engaging speaker.

In the afternoon I went to a session on Modern-day Satyagraha Gandhi Jayanti given by Nipun Mehta, founder of CharityFocus and his colleague, Pancho. They showed the Power of One video and talked about making a difference. Their model for organizations was (1) Be volunteer run. (2) Don't fundraise and (3) Think small - assume value in every part of the process. Their philosophy is that "Wealth lies in contributions, not possessions. Reward lies in density of interconnections via circulation of gifts." The four shifts that have to be made are (1) Consumption to contribution, (2) Transaction to trust, (3) Isolation to community and (4) Scarcity to abundance. They have restaurants called Karma Kitchen where people pay what they feel it is worth... and whether there is a meal the next week depends on whether this weeks folks pay. Another project is Daily Good, a newsletter that gives a quote, a related story and an action every day.

The ending keynote was by Rev. Dr. Bernard Lafayette, a a longtime civil rights activist.

This conference is a wonderful cross-section of the many faith and civic organizations in the South Bay community. I hope that next year NCLC will consider participating in a deeper way again even though our general focus is more in the North and East Bay.

Bright blessings,
Rowan Fairgrove

New Silicon Valley Interfaith organization in the works

2010-10-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

For years interfaith in the Santa Clara Valley has been fragmented with an ecumenical Council of Churches and various groups focused on peace, labor issues, feeding the hungry, etc. Since the early 1970s there was also been a clergy dialog group, most recently sponsored by Silicon Valley Faces. As SVFaces is now bowing out, the Interfaith Steering Committee that grew out of the dialog group and which spearheaded the efforts to become a Partner City of the Parliament of the World's Religions, felt the time was ripe for a new organization to emerge.

On September 28, 2010 at Temple Emanu-El in San Jose, a meeting of about 50 interfaith reps from all over the Santa Clara Valley got together and voted that we would create SiVIC, the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council to be a new networking hub for engaging all local faith communities, civic organizations, nonprofits, and educational institutions of the Silicon Valley, California.

Our work is cut out for us! There are about six committees roughing out bylaws and incorporation, outreach and advertising, fundraising and infrastructure. An inaugural board will be nominated and take office at the first Assembly to be held in February 2011.

Rowan Fairgrove, of Covenant of the Goddess, has been a member of the Steering Committee for several years and is now on the infrastructure committee helping with social networking and web outreach.

Information on SiVIC can be found at http://www.sivicouncil.org/ and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/South-Bay-Interfaith/

Bright blessings,

Rowan Fairgrove

International Day of Peace Celebration, and Then Some

2010-09-22T18:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I set out to attend the re-dedication of the peace pole on the campus of Dominican University. Our local Dominican Sisters, colleagues in Marin Interfaith Council, do this each year. In the past, when my friend Sister Marion headed the order's Social Justice Committee, I have been an active participant. This year, when the event was announced at an MIC clergy luncheon, I spoke with Sister Marion, who's now retired, about participating; she said that whoever was in charge had already formulated all their plans and that I should just show up. Well, I did, but, I'm embarrassed to say, I had written the event in my calendar as taking place at noon when in fact it began at 11 am. So I arrived just as they were concluding.

In 1981, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution declaring an International Day of Peace, and in 2001, it adopted the resolution declaring September 21 of each year International Day of Peace. This year's theme is "Youth for Peace and Development."

Since its inception, Peace Day has marked our personal and planetary progress towards peace. It has grown to include millions of people in all parts of the world, and each year events are organized to commemorate and celebrate this day. Events range in scale from private gatherings to public concerts and forums [sic] where hundreds of thousands of people participate. Anyone, anywhere, can celebrate Peace Day.

International Day of Peace is also a Day of Ceasefire -- a day in which armed conflict is meant to be stilled; a day on which we appeal to combatants to observe a ceasefire; a day on which we reaffirm a commitment to non-violence and the peaceful resolution of disputes.

Last night I missed most of the nightly news I usually watch, but I suspect there were hostile engagements taking place yesterday in spite of the best intentions of those of us who seek to promote peaceful resolutions to conflict.

What was extra special about this year's ceremony was that the words that roughly translate to "May peace prevail on Earth" in the local Coast Miwok** language were to be added. "Hiya aa puli suta weyyatto."* The pole was blessed by the Coast Miwok and all others who were there. Until yesterday, the pole bore those words in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic.***

The assembled people exchanged peace greetings in Arabic: As-salaam aleikhum, Wa-Leikhum As-salaam; Hebrew: Shalom aleichem, Alechem shalom; Serbo-Croatian: Mir nek bude tebi, Nek tebi bud emir; Chinese:Hun pink ban sway nee, Ban sway nee huh ping; Masai/African: Wenna kanta laf-fi, Laf-fi la Bumbu ("God gives peace. Peace is something special."); German: Frie de sei mit Dir, Und mit Dir sei Frie-de; and Coast Miwok: Puli sutammi mikkoni.

In addition to offering prayers for peace from different religious traditions, people sang several songs from song sheets provided by the Sisters. There were the usual, such as "Let There Be Peace on Earth,"to the Pagan-ish "Circle Round," by Linda Hirschhorn, to the utterly wonderful John Lennon song, "Imagine." This last included an additional verse written by fifth grade students at Cornell School in Albany, California.

Imagine that our leaders
Would listen to our voices
And instead of riches
They cared about our choices
Imagine all the people
Caring for the earth...

There is good news in that even though I was late arriving I did meet someone I had hoped to meet there. She is Joanne Campbell, a Tribal Council Elder with the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. Graton Rancheria is comprised of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo peoples. I invited her to participate in the third annual People of the Earthconference at the Interfaith Center at the Presidio of San Francisco in November.**** As soon as I have more concrete information to give her, I'll follow up on this invitation.

The Dominican Sisters of San Rafael's report on this event, with lots of photos, is here.

* * * * * * * * * *

During the afternoon I attended Marin Interfaith Council's Annual Meeting, where we did a lot of thanking of various individuals for their work,reviewed the budget, and officially installed Fu Schroeder of Green Gulch Zen Center as MIC's representative to the Marin Community Foundation.

* The "s" in the word "suta" should be underlined, not an option in this blog program.

** Coast Miwok people greeted Francis Drake when he first landed on the shores of Marin County in 1579 and other Europeans who entered what it now San Francisco Bay. See "Big Time."

*** While we American Pagans all speak English, and most perform their rites in that language, given the spirit of the annual re-dedication, I would imagine the sisters might consider adding these words of peace in Gaelic, assuming some Druid group involved in interfaith activities were to propose it.

**** Unfortunately, there is no announcement on the ICP website nor any flier for this yet. Watch my FaceBook page for updates.

Lutheran ordination, from Michelle

2010-09-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

I called a former Sunday school teacher (from the Lutheran church, my parents' tradition) for professional advice. She is a pastor now with a social justice ministry in Camden. As many of you know, I work in youth ministry. I thought she might have suggestions for service projects.

The NJ Synod of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) will ordain three women on Sunday, and one of them is out as living in a same-sex committed relationship. My contact told me this is a first...I do not know if it is the first for NJ Synod or ELCA. I'll post a link to an article if I come across one. I might go to this ordination myself, depends on how much time I have on Sunday after work at the Unitarian Universalist church.

Strange Conversations

2010-09-13T10:22:00.001-07:00

As some of you may already know, I am a founding member of one of the newest Cooperation Circles of the Multi Region of the United Religions Initiative. Our goal is to tell the "grass roots" stories of Peace, what it looks like, how it happens and what results it can have.

As a start in that direction we have begun a series of dialogues called "The Witch and the Preacher's Kid". Each month we will be having a half hour dialogue loosely based on a particular topic. This month we kicked off our program with the topic of Evil and what it looks like from a Christian and from a Wiccan perspective. This program does not suppose to speak for every Christian nor every Pagan but really is only a dialogue between two friends who have found deep kinship despite our different religions.

This dialogue is available for listening at our web site at Think Peace Media and Communications Network. Here we invite comments from the listeners in the form of arguments and agreements which we will then discuss on the following months' shows.

I highly encourage participation in this dialogue from everyone interested in exploring religious concepts and having fun while they are at it.
In Her service
Rachael Watcher, National Interfaith Officer, Covenant of the Goddess

Circle of Hands: A Multifaith Celebration of Diversity and Friendship

2010-09-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

On Friday, September 10, 2010 between 5:00 - 6:30 pm, people from religious communities from around the Silicon Valley gathered at the Jim McEntee Plaza at the Santa Clara County office building, 70 W. Hedding, San Jose, CA, to demonstrate our support of religious freedom and to celebrate the relationships we have built with one another.

My estimate is about 200 peopled joined us as a variety of faith leaders spoke prayers and exortations to peace and compassion and respect. A priest I spoke to thought it more like 400 people. It was a good turn-out in either case.

The space where we met is at a lovely circular dove mosaic created just this year as a "Gathering Place for Peace" in honor of the late Jim McEntee. McEntee was Director of Human Relations for the County of Santa Clara for 27 years and did much to develop the relationships between different religious and ethnic communities that allowed us to meet in friendship today. McEntee's widow, Ann, was among the celebrants.

We opened with a "Blessing Bell Chant" from Shifu Jian Di of the Chung Tai Zen Center of Sunnyvale. He had along a young monk with a stunning voice who carried us all to a place of peace and blessing for all beings in all worlds.

The Rev. Rebecca Kuiken, the Director of the Interfaith Council on Economics and Justice (WPUSA) was the MC for the event.

Opening remarks were offered by Rev. Chuck Rawlings, the Executive Director of the Santa Clara Council of Churches and by Supervisor Dave Cortese of the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Cortese mentioned that he has kept the Ramadan fast in solidarity with the Muslim community for the past four years.

Multifaith prayers were then offered by Rabbi Melanie Aron of Congregation Shir Hadash in Los Gatos; Girish Shah, Interfaith Coordinator of the Jain Center of Northern California; Rev. Alan Jones of the Campbell United Methodist Church; Fr. Francisco Rios of St John Vianney Catholic Church of San Jose; and Shifu Jian Di, Abbot of the Chung Tai Zen Center of Sunnyvale.

The next section were leaders speaking of their hopes - Imam Zaid Shakir, co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley; Ben Field of the South Bay Labor Council; Shafath Syed of the South Bay Islamic Association; and Delorme McKee-Stovall, Manager of the Office of Human Relations of Santa Clara County.

I admit I was particularly moved by Ben Field's hopes for a world where Walter Reuther's fight for social change for the downtrodden is realized.

Then Samina Sundas, Founding Executive of American Muslim Voice, got us all into a concentric circles whilst Andrew Kille, of Interfaith Space; Ann McEntee and Rowan Fairgrove, of Covenant of the Goddess led a litany Rev. Kille had written.

I wanted to share this line:

We bring the wisdom of our religious heritage -- our scriptures, our traditions, our teachers and sages, our ancestors, our devotion, our faithfulness and prayers. (Response: We are all one family)

I thought he did a lovey job of capturing many different traditions with that collection of heritages.

Another particularly lovely line:

We bring a hospitality that opens space in our hearts, giving us a willingness to welcome the "other" to make the strangers a guest, and to turn the guest into a friend. (Response: We are all one family)

Then Imam Alauddin El Bakri offered Asr (late afternoon prayer) and Shifu Jian Di led a Dedication of Merits Chant and Rev. Rebecca Kuiken offered us Deep Peace. The Muslims then put out mats and shared afternoon prayer, folks visited and accepted the lovely scarves that the Muslim community had brought as Eid gifts for us all.

I chatted with Samina who said that she thought that the media was responsible for giving this little guy in Florida, Terry Jones, too much attention... just like they gave this little guy Osama ben Ladin too much attention and a megaphone to spew hate. She didn't think either was a good representative of their respective faiths. I thought that was a brilliant analysis.

If you want to follow Andrew Kille at Examiner.com he blogs about San Jose Interfaith matters. He will probably have something to say about today's gathering too.

Bright blessings,

Rowan Fairgrove

Contact With the Condor

2010-08-31T12:27:00.000-07:00

For some time I have been in casual contact with the gentleman who writes below. We have been sharing our cultural wisdom, traditions and ritual, he of his people and I of the Wicca. In response to a request for stories from the URI which I have posted elsewhere, He writes his story below. I share it because it is one which we can all relate to, I think. In his own words:

"THE YOUNG INDIGENOUS AND THE ANCESTRAL LEGEND OF THE UNITED BETWEEN THE CONDOR AND THE EAGLE. "LAS AMÉRICAS LAS TIERRAS DEL SOL Y LA LUNA."

Many centurys ago about 5 centurys the europen man get arrived to the Abia-Yala and introduced some diferents things, for example the another kind of thinking and living.
All the people and indigenous nations looked for in the teaching of the old people the news way for to live in this situation.
The "ancestral circle of elders" , which was the principal place for the comunity said an important mesagge for the young people, " this times are the moment for to change our look and is the moment when the natural life and the comunity life are going to sleep under one dream which is goinig to preserv for a lot centurys, but in one moment when our Mather Earth wake up us again it will be the new PACHAKUTY( The new time for us).
The meeting of the Condor and the Eagle is going to give the sign of this moment.
When the Condor and the Eagle are flying again we are living free again too."

This story or legend was told for the olders to the young people in this olds times.
But in this contmporary times in the divers countrys in latin America there are many young indigenous who are working for the new"Pachakuty" the new change. It is the moment for all the people in the World for building one new style of life. The dialogue between the young people and the elders is the natural way. The Mather Earth teached us it.

Cosmic Comunity is our style of life and it is our way. We believe in it.

                                         Por arriva corre el agua
                                         por abajo la piedrita,
                                         y yo solamente quiero
                                         s eguir tu curso de color y mirar al Sol.

Francisco"Inty"Morales.
Ambassador from Latin America.
URIGlobalyouth
Cosmic Comunity CC
Espacio de Estudios y Recuperación de la Cosmovisión Indígena
E.E.R.C.I "

This poem translates as      Above the Eagle soars
                                              The stone beneath
                                              And all I wish
                                              Is to follow your colorful path and see
                                                      the Sun.

This is a poetic rather than literal translation and I would welcome other thoughts and words.
Respectfully submitted,
R Watcher

"Rich Kids, Poor Kids: Same Stress, Different Packages"

2010-08-27T04:10:00.000-07:00

Today I attended an MIC clergy luncheon at which the speaker, Don Carney, addressed the problems of Marin County teens, rich and poor. (Contrary to the impression some readers may have that Marin, because it is one of the wealthiest counties in the U.S., has no poor people, it does. And just like in other regions, the ranks of the less privileged are expanding while the middle class is shrinking.)

The speaker shows an obvious passion about the work he does with youth. He spoke mainly about youth courts in the U.S. today, and more specifically about the Marin County Youth Court, run by the YMCA and the Marin County Superior Court and the California Administrative Office of the Courts. Only a few years ago there were about 70 youth courts in the country and now there are 1,350.

Youth who have admitted guilt to a misdemeanor are eligible for this program, which focuses on the principle of restorative justice. In adversarial cases, the offender is prosecuted and defended by youth attorneys, before a youth jury. An adult judge presides and a youth bailiff supervises the process, with adult caseworker support for the youth and his or her family. If the offender completes the program within three months, he or she leaves with no juvenile record. The focus is on healing the harm done to the victim, the community, and the perpetrator.

Mandatory aspects include serving two to five times as a juror, providing 10 to 80 hours of community service, and taking a prevention class. Discretionary sentences imposed by the youth jury include restitution to the victim, letters of apology, reflective essays, anger management class, theft awareness class, drug education class, prevention class, additional counseling, and mentoring.

Seventy percent of the kids in youth court are from white, upper middle class families, and 90% of the offenses involve substance abuse. The pressures on kids to achieve often unrealistic goals contribute to their stress levels. Family dynamics add to the pressure and confusion. Marin has the high rate of binge drinking for both teens and adult, and pot smoking is twice the national average. The good news is that youth involvement in AA is enormous, some arising from sentences imposed in youth court.

Kids with what are known as "surplus assets" do not present like less privileged kids do. High achievers can be as drugged and drunk as lower achievers. Underneath are substance and family issues. He cited Madeline Levine's book, The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids. Dr. Levine is a clinical psychologist here in Marin.

Mr. Carney also showed a TV news feature about the Marin Youth Court and recommended a documentary film called "Race to Nowhere: The Dark Side of American's Achievement Culture," made by Vicki Abeles.

A third resource he recommended was Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers, by Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., and Gabor Maté, M.D.

The emphasis on cooperative education rather than competitive education that the youth court espouses can lead to lowered stress for teens. Mr. Carney said that we need alternatives to suspension for students who violate school rules. He said this leads to dropping out of school, when in fact the practice really pushes the kids out of the system. He believes the system should bear the onus, not the kid. As an example, he cited a good student found carrying a Swiss Army knife in his pack. With a zero tolerance policy in effect, this student was sent to a program with chronic offenders. He also said it's not helpful to mix middle school offenders with high school offenders. Whether an offender is put with peers or peers and older teens, the fact that he or she is in any kind of punitive environment leads to more alienation and the potential for greater offenses.

The irrefutable value of youth courts shows in the recidivism rate of kids who've gone through this process: 13% nationally and only 5% in Marin.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Among the more compelling upcoming events announced at this luncheon:

International Day of Peace on September 21, 2010, celebrated at Peace Pole at Dominican University, sponsored by the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael. This year they will be adding a fifth plaque in the language of the Coast Miwok, the original human inhabitants of this area (see Big Time). I'm hoping to participate in this, as I did in 2007 when my friend Sister Marion chaired the Sisters' Social Justice Committee.

Ceremony on August 27, 2010 marking the return of the Torah belonging to Congregation Kol Shofar in Tiburon back to the synagogue from its temporary home at Westminster Presbyterian Church, where it was kept during construction of a new building housing the former.

Community dinner on October 16, 2010 at Pickleweed Park Community Center in the Canal District of San Rafael, a neighborhood where many immigrants live, featuring Mayan food and entertainment.

Respectfully submitted,

M. Macha NightMare

Interfaith Representative

CoG Interfaith Rep elected Officer of regional interfaith organization

2010-08-19T18:49:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday, at a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio (www.interfaith-presidio.org), we elected Board Officers. I was elected Secretary of the Board. This will be my 11th term as Secretary, so I guess I'm doing something right. ;-)

Serving as Secretary has so far included serving on the Program Committee, on the Transition Committee (overseeing our search for a new Director), on the Community Initiatives Advisory Committee (overseeing the management of the funds we have already raised in our $7 million renovation campaign), and ongoing meetings with our architects (Page & Turnbull - www.page-turnbull.com) and with the Presidio Trust (www.presidio.gov/trust). The ICP is committee-rich and somehow I seem to end up on almost all of them! This is why I have at least one meeting a week with the ICP. Interfaith can certainly keep you busy.

The ICP is one of only a handful of regional interfaith organizations (made up of local interfaith councils et al.), and the only one with a Pagan on its Board. It has always welcomed Pagan participation, hosts the annual "People of the Earth" event for Neopagans, immigrant Pagans and Indigenous practitioners, and is even redesigning its landscaping to be more welcoming and useful for the needs of Earth Religions. As always, I highly recommend checking out the ICP's Bay Area Interfaith Connect calendar, with interfaith events happening all over the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area (www.interfaithpresidio.org/icpnewsevents.cfm).

Blessed Be,
Don Frew
National Interfaith Representative

Parliament of the World's Religions accepting interns - posted by Michelle

2010-08-03T11:15:00.000-07:00

The Council is currently seeking individuals with a passion for the interfaith movement for a Fall 2010 semester internship. Click here to learn more about this exciting opportunity.