Singing the Goddess Workshop

bread & roses spiritual nurture

 
and 


Reclaiming Scotia 


invite you 
to

Sing the Goddess

Saturday, 10 November, 2-5 pm

The Hall at St. John’s Church

Princes Street & Lothian Road, Edinburgh

Singing the Goddess workshop will include songs from simple chants and rounds to more complicated pieces, drawn mostly from the Earth spirituality movement and the feminist spirituality movement.



Come as you are, whether or not you think of yourself as a singer.  No music-reading needed.  All genders welcome.



For more information, contact Staśa. 



Free; donations requested to cover hall hire. 

Please share widely!

Edinburgh Solstice Singers, and Singing the Goddess in Edinburgh

October or November: Singing the Goddess -- give date input now

bread & roses spiritual nurture and Reclaiming Scotia are co-sponsoring a singing workshop which I am facilitating in October or November.

I would like to schedule it for when the greatest number of people who are are interested can make it.  The proposed dates are Saturday afternoons in October or November, except for two dates where I have conflicts.

I need to make the booking for the hall by Monday at the latest.  So if you live within reach of Edinburgh for a Saturday and are interested, please let me know which dates will work for you, or are particularly good or bad for you.  

Thanks!

Workshop description draft:

bread & roses spiritual nurture and Reclaiming Scotia invite you to a 3-hour workshop with songs ranging from simple chants and rounds to more complicated pieces, drawn mostly from the Earth spirituality movement and the feminist spirituality movement.  Come as you are, whether or not you think of yourself as a singer!  No music-reading needed. All genders welcome.  [TIME, DATE, MORE INFO.]

Edinburgh Solstice Singers -- forming now

I am now forming the Edinburgh Solstice Singers, to sing in the December Winter Solstice Celebrations in Edinburgh.

We meet once a week for song-learning sessions / rehearsals.

• We are a non-audition ensemble.
• You do not need to read music, although if you do, that can be helpful.
• All genders and voice ranges are welcome.
• Our music is written for sopranos and altos; we can make adjustments for tenors and basses.  (I am willing to work with tenors and basses if you are willing to work with my inexperience with those voice ranges.)
• There are no dues, but there may be a small charge for room hire for rehearsals.

We have a few copies of the songbook available to borrow during sessions, but not to take home.  You may choose to purchase your own copy, which comes with a compact disc that includes recordings of all the songs in performance, as well as teaching tracks for songs with harmony parts.

If you are curious about or interested in joining, please contact me.  More information at http://stasa.net/winter-solstice -- particularly the links for Edinburgh 2012 and Edinburgh Solstice Singers. 

Come sing with us! 

What it feels like to be full, spiritually

From the final FLGBTQC (Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns) worship at FGC Gathering this summer:

I am so tired physically.  And yet I do not feel depleted.  I feel full. 

It has been so long since I felt full in this way.  I think that often I am reaching because my spiritual reserves or reservoirs feel empty.  And yet as exhausted as I am I do not feel depleted; I feel abundant.  I feel filled.  

I'm thinking about how wonderful working with [a particular group of people in Edinburgh] has felt.  And yet after, I feel in myself that reaching, because doing that work with those lovely people feels like a scarcity.  A wonderful drink of cold, clear water, leaving me wanting more, to drink until I am not thirsty.  

My spiritual hunger has been fed this week.  

In so many ways.  

And it is wonderful.  

2009 FGC Gathering Notes

--------------------------------
Monday
--------------------------------

Workshop

the phrase "not just god in a skirt" keeps coming to me --> part of why The Goddess and not just Goddess?
--> "Goddess" w/o "the" doesn't make enough difference in my head and in my thinking

women's community; women coming together
women's community that includes feminist men
--> the E of that community feels explicitly like the Goddess to me

Meeting for Worship

from songs my workshop participants who arrived early yesterday were singing while waiting:

i sat under an old oak tree
and asked the Goddess to carry me
She wrapped me up in ancient green
ancient green

all my fears
all my fears
all my fears
river gonna wash away

...which i learned from becky birtha during the first-ever singing the Goddess workshop i did, at qlc '98.

the river is flowing
flowing and growing
the river (she is) flowing
down to the sea

Mother, carry me
your child i will always be
Mother, carry me
down to the sea*

...which i know is in julie's book, b/c i learned it when a bunch of us got together and sang... a bunch of songs from sfe for julie...


* (c) Diana Hildebrand-Hull, "The River Is Flowing."

--------------------------------

Tuesday
--------------------------------

Meeting for Worship

step by step, the longest march
can be won, can be won
many stones to form an arch
singly none, singly none
and by union what we will
shall be accomplished still
drops of water turn a mill
singly none, singly none

"God is not moderate"

you shall indeed go out with joy
and be led forth in peace
you shall indeed go out with joy
and be led forth in peace
before you, mountains and hills
shall break into cries of joy
and all the trees of the wild shall clap
clap their hands*

*(c) music, Nancy Schimmel; words, Isaiah 55:12

--------------------------------

Wednesday
--------------------------------

Meeting for Worship

thought train: teach magic. time spent this week talking about the Goddess and magic.

the question about magic really is, what spiritual practices in your life are transformative? (rather than, what spiritual practices in your life are magical?)

[when talking about magic:] what spiritual practices in your life are transformative? when in your life have you experienced transformation and change?

--------------------------------

Thursday
--------------------------------

Workshop

social and sacred ritual as an E-saving device
--> don't have to decide together each time how to shake hands, etc.

[thoughts/notes from what folks are sharing, for our work tomorrow:]
new beginnings
community
direct experience
transformation
teaching magic

--------------------------------

[Bonnie Tinker died Thursday afternoon, and my emotional, mental, and spiritual state was such that I did not take any more notes Thursday or Friday. I am grateful that I was with Friends, in a community with no laity, while we ministered to and supported each other. I also had amazing and wonderful support from the members of my workshop, the other Healing Center co-Coordinators, and the Compassionate Listening team.]

--------------------------------

Writing from travels

Wow, yes, late June and all of July were really busy.

I traveled for most of that time: apartment-hunting, then FGC Gathering; home briefly, and hosted Full Moon Meeting for Worship and presented at ARE; then to North Pacific Yearly Meeting Annual Sessions; home briefly; then to the Unitarian Universalist Musicians Network Conference; then home and hosted Full Moon Meeting for Worship. Whew!

I have lots of notes from those experiences, and lots of thoughts, and, of course, a bunch of follow-up I need to do. So, I'm going to try to get some notes posted here.

I'm also preparing for a big move, and dealing with a couple of family near-crises, so I'm likely to be interrupted at any moment, and definitely appreciate being held in the Light.

Re-doing my website - input?

I have to re-do my web site. I had been using GooglePages, which has been discontinued in favor of GoogleSites. Everything was supposed to migrate over, but hasn't; besides, Sites is structured very differently from Pages -- which is good in the long run, because it'll let me do more what I want, but challenging in the short term.

All of this really does mean re-doing my web site.

So I'm wondering what folks would like to see. What works for you about my current website, what doesn't? What would you like to see stay the way it is on the new site, what would you like to see change, and how?

(Knowing that some of what you dislike may be chalked up to the limitations of GooglePages, and that GoogleSites will have its own limitations I may not be able to work around.)

Thanks!

Just back from Yearly Meeting

I just returned tonight from a trip to Missoula, MT for North Pacific Yearly Meeting's Annual Sessions. It was a really good experience; I'm so glad I went.

No liveblogging for me while there, although I know someone else who managed to... :)

Spiritual purposes of ordinary/everyday ritual and special/set-apart ritual

This is a paper I wrote for a class at Cherry Hill Seminary on Ritual Theory. In it, I explore some of the purposes of both ordinary/everyday ritual and special/set-apart ritual, with examples from unprogrammed Quakerism, feminist Witchcraft and Paganism, and Judaism. - sm

Is ritual – especially religious or spiritual ritual – something that is ordinary and everyday, or something that is set-apart and special? Or is it both?

When ritual is ordinary/everyday, what spiritual needs does it meet? When it is set-apart/special, what spiritual needs does it meet? What needs do we meet when we bring the ordinary/everyday and the set-apart together in a both/and space?

The place to start might be the question, What spiritual purpose does ritual serve? In an earlier paper, I identified ritual as an avenue for: magic (transformation and change); conservation and stability; expression; inquiry; and encountering Mystery. The next questions might be, How do ordinary/everyday ritual and set-apart/special ritual effect each of these?

Read more...

Ministry among Pagans

Thought from last month's OLOTEAS visit -- the workshop I did there, and the conversations I had with folks there:

For the last few years, I've really been focused on my ministry among Friends who are Pagan. I've felt shy about being too openly Quaker among Pagans, as if somehow I'd be "preaching Quakerism" to folks.

Part of my reluctance is because as Pagans, we've had way too much experience with people from organized religions preaching their versions of truth and reality and religion on us. Part of my reluctance is also because I've felt censure and judgement from some Friends for ministering to Pagans who aren't Friends - as if spiritual need, and what the Goddess asks of me, is limited to needs among Friends. (And thinking about it now, these are also Friends from whom I've heard big reservations about my ministry among Pagan Friends.)

But there are always a small handful of folks each year who find the QuakerPagans list, or find me at this blog or my website, or find Cat and Peter's blog, who are interested or drawn to Friends' testimonies, worship, and practices. Who are Pagans to whom Quakerism speaks - as Pagans. Hmmm.

And I haven't really thought much at all about Pagans who used to be more involved with Friends. I think this is an important need, an important ministry.

So this is something I also need to think about. And just see where the Goddess takes me.

Recent work (February con't: OLOTEAS)

Last Saturday, I presented a one-hour session of Singing the Goddess at Our Lady of the Earth and Sky's annual Community Festival.

Late in the week, I'd had a serious attack of introversion. I've been to several OLOTEAS events since moving to Seattle; a local F/friend of mine asked me to sing in the chorus for their August ritual before I even arrived. :) But all of a sudden, I was just certain I'd be spending the day with a bunch of people I barely know and would feel left out, lonely, and weird the whole time. So, I asked for help, and folks held me in the Light, held me in the Goddess, thought of me, and prayed for me. And it did help.

So by Saturday, I felt both well-prepared and back in my groove, if still a little shy.

I arrived and checked in, set up my stuff - crocheted items, books, and cds - and then went to a workshop.

It was a really neat workshop called "The Goddess Mama in YOU!," which has given me some neat stuff to work on personally. It'll be interesting to see how all that settles: my relationship with the Goddess as Mother; how I manifest the Mother; how I see the women who have mothered me - well or poorly - as the Goddess incarnate; how I see myself as the Mother incarnate; how I experience the Earth as Mother; how I experience the larger Goddess as Mother... and I can tell there's a lot that's not in words yet, but busily working away beneath the surface.

I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with folks... the dreaded introvert-among-people-I-barely-know-(all-of-whom-must-know-each-other-well) time. Which it was so not. I had a lovely conversation with someone there for the first time, another conversation getting to know someone else a little better, got cheerful suggestions from folks just hanging out about how to get people to respect my taped finger where I've strained a ligament. (This included a winning suggestion from a vet tech, who was musing about the brightly-colored wrap they use on injured animals. We still have some shockingly-bright wrap material from when one of our cats had a tail injury that had to be kept taped... That ought to help get people to stop squeezing!)

I also connected with a few other folks who'd grown up among Friends, which was both really neat and has gotten me thinking. More on that in a future post.

My workshop was the first after dinner. We had a larger group than I expected, mixed grown-ups and kids, women and men, with a wide range of comfort levels and musical abilities... who just jumped in and were willing to try whatever I thought might be fun. It was great! They also tackled some harder stuff, although I really wanted to make sure I provided them with some easy songs and chants they could use in their own rituals. And it was very cool having kids dancing during the workshop.

I also made some lovely connections with other folks in the area around song circles and Bardic circles and intervisitation. Excellent.

So, happy Stasa.

And then I went to a Discordian Ritual of Discord and Jelly Donuts. Hooray! It had been much too long. Besides being lots of fun, and a reminder of one of the core values of Roses! Too Tradition (and one of our occasional matron Goddesses), it was good to feel spiritually back in touch with dear friends back home like Fedor, The Mad One. And did I mention there were jelly donuts? Yes!

(Hmmm. I think there need to be jelly donuts at my Spring Equinox potluck.)

Hail Eris!

So it was a good experience and a good day.

Recent work (January and February)

Now that February is over, and given that I asked for spiritual help for one of my February events - and also given that I've done a terrible job of posting here about how events have gone - I thought I would do just that. :)

2009 started off much calmer than the end of 2008, thankfully. And then my ministry work got busy again quickly.

In January and February, I hosted my usual Full Moon Meetings for Worship (followed by potluck tea). They've been smaller lately, and in some ways both more mellow and more intense. I'm hoping to get some community built up around these so that folks might continue to meet even after I move in August, if that's still a need in the community.

January also saw the start of my second semester at Cherry Hill Seminary. This term I'm taking two more very cool classes - Understanding the Ritual Experience, and the Psychology of Gender. Both are very interesting given my academic, cultural, professional, ministerial, and religious backgrounds in Catholicism, Judaism, Quakerism, feminist Witchcraft, psychology, women's studies, trauma theory, trauma recovery, and pastoral counseling. Yet again, Pagan geek heaven. There's also another Quaker in one of my classes, which is great, because then I'm not the only one speaking from a Quaker perspective or the only one trying to explain relevant Quaker things. And my instructors are wonderful, as are my classmates.

From one event in January, I then went to facilitating four in February: Full Moon Meeting for Worship; Brigid/Candlemas/Imbolc Celebration in the Roses, Too! Tradition; and two Singing the Goddess workshops.

The Brigid celebration was also small. The potluck was just really nice, and in particular gave me the opportunities to experiment with soup-making without following Mark Bittman's instructions to the letter, and to get to know a few people, whom I like but don't know well, a little better. This was neat.

And the magic in ritual was very powerful. (In typical Roses, Too! fashion, there were in fact lots and lots of tealights; it was amazing to see my living room lit up in a physical manifestation of the spiritual work and the magic we were doing together.) It's been quite a while since I've done Roses, Too!-style Brigid, and it felt really good. I've missed structuring my personal spiritual work around the cycle of the seasons in this particular way; it's good for me.

Beloved Wife and I went to Camp Adams in Mollala, OR, for the Mid-Winter Gathering of Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns.

(I'd had a crazy week before - shorting myself on sleep to get everything done for school, budget reports (I'm currently serving as FLGBTQC's treasurer), and workshop prep. This turned out to be a mistake, because of course I got sick. I knew this when I was an undergrad lo these many years ago. What, I forgot or something?)

Mid-Winter Gathering was good. FLGBTQC is one of the places I feel completely loved and honored for all of me; our worship is deep and rich; and our Meetings for Worship with Attention to Business are amazing. (I'll post our Epistle once it's available; you can see past Epistles here.) Our Talent-less Show was also a great deal of fun. My special thanks go to all who serve our community; to our Planning Committee; to our plenary speakers, for sharing their experience of faith calling for justice on the same terms; and to Friend Peterson Toscano, for his work, deep sharing, and vulnerability in presenting his piece Transfigurations - Trangressing Gender in the Bible.

At Mid-Winter, I taught a 90-minute session of Singing the Goddess. It was a small but fabulous group that cheerfully tackled some more challenging pieces. I wished we could have spent more time together. When I was called on rather last-minute for the Talent-less Show, several of these Friends stood up with me and helped teach, then lead, the room in singing Ursula LeGuin and Benjamin Newman's "The Creation of Ea" (from A Wizard of Earthsea). And the room sang it in round. Awesome!

Last Saturday, I presented a one-hour session of Singing the Goddess at Our Lady of the Earth and Sky's annual Community Festival. More on that in my next post.

Elder for Saturday

I am teaching a Singing the Goddess Workshop Saturday at Our Lady of the Earth and Sky's Community Festival. (I also hope to exhibit and sell some of my crocheted pieces, some copies of A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual, and some copies of The Earth Will Turn Over.)

And I am having an attack of introversion.

So I am looking for some folks to act as elders/companions in the ministry/spiritual support persons.

What does such a person do?

• Hold me in the Light/in spiritual care, any of the following times: between now and the workshop; during the day Saturday while I'm at OLOTEAS; and from 7-8 Pacific Time Saturday while I'm actually in the workshop. You could be anywhere and help me this way. :) I am hoping several people will agree to do this.

• If you're in the Puget Sound area, come with me to OLOTEAS on Saturday, spend the day with me there, and be present during my workshop while holding me in the Light/in spiritual care.

In the past, I've had the experience where knowing that folks were holding me in their spiritual care/in the Light/in the care of That-Which-Is-Sacred has made a huge difference for me when doing something challenging.

I'm not sure why Saturday feels like something challenging, but it does; it could simply be the prospect of spending the day with a bunch of people I don't know very well!

So if you can help me out, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks.

Upcoming events

I've just posted a handful of new events to the bread and roses spiritual nurture web page. They're a mix of things I'm hosting and things I'm traveling to.

I think these might be of interest to different folks:

• In the Pacific Northwest, since the local events I'm hosting might be within traveling distance for you.

• In the Delaware Valley, since I'm going to be back in that area for two years at least, starting this August. Are there things that I do that you might be interested, either in attending, or in having me facilitate for your group?
  

• In other areas. Are you interested in having me travel to come work with your group or spiritual community?
  

I'm particularly excited about some new things.

This fall, I developed two new workshops/retreats: The Goddess Is Alive & Magic Is Afoot, which I'll be facilitating at Friends General Conference Gathering this summer; and Working with Dying and Death: a Day of Comfort and Healing, which is explicitly interfaith.

I'm also spending time today putting together a workshop proposal for Our Lady of the Earth and Sky's Community Festival at the end of February.

For the Upcoming Events page, please click here.
For the bread and roses spiritual nurture main page, please click here.

I hope that folks in the northern hemisphere are enjoying the return of the light. It's amazing to me the difference it makes for me already, since Winter Solstice.

A bit of a limb

I'm going to go out on a bit of a limb, and share with you more of what I've been up to since moving to Seattle. Which, come to think of it, is spending a lot of time out on a limb.

Starting this fall, I've been making ministry the focus of my life.

That's such a simple statement. But there are so many things it doesn't say -- about faith and faithfulness, anxiety and fear, joy and peace and simplicity, and more.

This leading has been building for a while, and came to something of a crescendo almost a year ago, when Beloved Wife and I were struggling to discern our next steps.

She was completing her PhD in math, and had started to hear back from post-doctoral jobs she'd applied for. We were trying to figure things out -- not only what to do next, but how on earth to decide. None of what looked best for her was compatible with what I'd thought I was led to do next. We twisted ourselves into some pretty interesting and awkward pretzels trying to make it all work. (The pretzel-twisting didn't work.)

A couple of things helped. One was deciding we trusted that this leading to be in a marriage with each other would not be mutually-exclusive with our other leadings. Three other things that helped were my being willing to listen deeply, even daringly, to myself; my asking for a clearness committee; and Beloved Wife's willingness to trust this before I had good words to explain it.

Beloved Wife was in England for the semester, writing her dissertation in reach of her advisor, who was there on a visiting professorship. I was in Ann Arbor, working, taking a class, and doing intensive physical therapy for an old injury.

I had a series of experiences where discernment came in bright, heart-pounding flashes. Exam questions in my music theory class ("Describe your ideal lifestyle"). An email exchange with a dear friend/former professor and mentor ("I know exactly what kind of 'shop' you should set up!"). A clearness committee meeting with me at Mid-Winter Gathering, with deep worship, deep love, laughter, and tears ("No, you can't hide").

So, I gradually came to understand that my next step was to answer a leading to make ministry the main focus of my life, of my time and energy.

That didn't mean I knew what it would look like.

And I still don't!

I know some of what it looks like, or at least what it's looked like this fall: taking some classes, hosting events for building spiritual community, being available for counseling and spiritual direction, submitting a workshop proposal for FGC Gathering, participating in the life of the Meeting I'm attending here in Seattle, getting to know the local Pagan community a little, making sure I take time for things like dance (my version of "going to the gym") and for teaching dance... But sometimes I think I'm still figuring it out every day.

That's okay with me, for the most part. I don't need to have it all figured out. I don't necessarily need to know where I'm going to end up, just where the next few steps are.

A lot of this last year has felt like this song-and-picture combination:

I feel like I'm crossing a stream in the woods: I can see the rock I'm stepping on, and I can see the next; I can tell there's a mossy bank on the far side, but I can't see all the stepping stones in between. (Or the places where my feet will get wet.) But the woods are green and beautiful; the birds are calling; the sun is shining down through the trees; the breeze is dancing; the brook is singing.

Imani, faith, can come like a spirit
Spirit come like walking on air
Take a step, and trust in the path, and
Mother Imani meet you there.

- from "Imani," by Rachael AK Hazen