Back to blogging? Back to blogging!

Hello, readers!  Yes, it's been a long time since I've actually written-written. 

I had a really interesting conversation recently about writing, and not-writing, with another member of QUIP (Quakers Uniting in Publications).  She's on the planning committee for our conference / program / annual meeting in early October, and we were talking about me maybe being on a panel there about blogging as a Friend. I am going to be on the panel! Yay!

First, about the QUIP gathering: 

• Theme:  Quaker Writing in these times of Crisis and Change
• Dates:  Thursday, October 2 thru Sunday October 5
• Location:  Residential at Pendle Hill Retreat Center, Wallingford PA USA and Online via Zoom
• More here: https://www.quakerquip.com/

Second: a couple of things that emerged from that conversation:

--

Reading -- and writing -- for fun a lot less

As some of you know, I started in a grad school / post-grad certificate programme in counselling and psychotherapy in 2015. I decided I wanted to continue on through the diploma level to become what in the UK is called a qualified counsellor and psychotherapist.  The only person in my life it seems like this was a surprise to was me, but, yes, I was surprised.  Go ahead and laugh. 

Anyway, after two training programmes that were kind of a brutal slog, three amazing placements, and several hundred additional hours volunteering at those same charities, I gt there.  In 2023, I started my private practice, and also came on as a contractor with one of the charities I'd been involved with as a trainee on placement and then as a volunteer. 

It turns out I really do love being a therapist.  Huge thank-yous to everyone, and I do mean everyone, who helped me along the way. 

I also trained in group work in 2024.  That part really was zero surprise to anyone, including me.  That was a wonderful experience, and it really helped heal some of the ick left from my core training.

Grad school, however, ate my life and my brain. 

My capacity to read non-fiction absolutely dwindled during my training, and it's still very much reduced several years after graduating from my second programme!  This is sad, because there are SO MANY cool non-fiction books I have in my To Be Read pile that I'm genuinely excited about, but have trouble sticking with.  And I keep adding more.  

Some of them are related to psychotherapy; one of them, by my friend, chemistry mentor, and fellow tea-lover Michelle Francl, is about the chemistry of tea; one of them is by fellow Baltimorean Ta-Nehisi Coates, whom I saw at the Book Festival recently and who greatly expanded my thinking about all sorts of things related to white supremacy and fascism and activism and more; etc, etc.  I seem to manage articles a little better.  

Wait, I did finish KC Davis's How to Keep House While Drowning.  Which, thankfully, she did a really good job of designing to be accessible to ADHDers, depressed and anxious people, other neurodivergent folks, and anybody with executive function challenges.  

(p.s. I clicked over to her website, and oooh, look at her more recent book!  I really want this for both personal and professional reasons.  I'm laughing: another one for the TBR pile!)  (Yes, while writing this, I have in fact ordered it from Bookshop.org.)

But until my conversation with Finola, I hadn't realised how much my capacity to write had taken a hit from grad school.  When I mentioned this to my partner, she seemed to think that was obvious.  I took a break between my two professional diploma programmes, which ended up coinciding with the beginning of the pandemic, but aside from that, well, it turns out that having to write thousands of words over and over, very regularly, for... eight?... years excluding that small break... makes it hard to have the brain space to write, even for myself, much less for sharing with other people.  

--

So, the conversation with Finola, and the prospect of attending QUIP again, prompted me to think again about writing.  A couple of things about this: 

So... why do I blog, anyway?

One was when Finola was sharing what different QUIP bloggers had said to her about why they started their blogs.  For some, blogging is all about drawing people to their books, for example.  For others, it's about some other aspect of their ministry or their business -- consulting, speaking, facilitating events, etc.  There are of course plenty of other reasons as well.  

I started my personal blog when my wife and I moved away from the town I'd lived for my entire adult life so that she could return to grad school and change careers.  Before other forms of social media, my personal blog and email were how I stayed in touch with folks from what was then home.  

A few years later, I started my public blog, in no small part because I was tired of other people, especially other Quakers, deciding they knew The Truth about me as a Quaker Witch, and using the things they'd often outright made up, but decided were captial-T Truth, to discriminate against me.  

I wanted my own voice to be out there with my own words, my own truth, my own experience.  

It is perhaps ironic in this context that one of the things people used as "evidence" that they knew all about me is, in fact, that I co-authored a specific book.  Which, to them, meant I was not a "real" Quaker, and it was somehow not discrimination... to discriminate... against me.

Sure, Jan.  

Anyway.

I also started my blog as part of my ministry amongst Quaker Friends -- in answer to the need amongst Pagan Friends to build community; as a response to my own and others' spiritual need to find and be in community with each other. 

At the time I started this blog, I'd had an active ministry amongst Pagan Friends for a little over a decade.  I'd coordinated local events for Pagan Friends for years and helped others do the same; I'd facilitated interest groups at FGC Gathering and FLGBTQC Mid-Winter Gathering. The same year I started blogging, I co-organised Great Waters Pagan Friends Gathering and also facilitated my first week-long workshop for Pagan Friends at FGC Gathering.  

(I just re-read the Great Waters epistle and found it, still, deeply powerful.)

So I started this blog as an extension of my ministry amongst Pagan Friends, and from my perspective as a Pagan Friend; but of course it also immediately reflected other aspects of my whole self, reflected other integral parts of my identity -- a Queer Friend, a disabled Friend, a Jewish Friend, and more.

So, this blog has always been primarily about my Integrity as a Friend.  

A lot of things have changed in my life over the last decade, and certainly since I started blogging 18 (18!) years ago.  

Perhaps of the biggest changes is a more recent one: I'm not trying to explain myself to other Friends any more.  I'm no longer trying to persuade other Friends to be accept me or other minority Friends, or not to discriminate against non-Christian Friends, or LGBTQIA+ Friends, or disabled Friends.  

These days, anti-Queer discrimination mostly comes out in discriminatory behaviours and attitudes towards trans Friends, since by and large most of the liberal unprogrammed Quaker communities I've been involved with in the US and the UK think they've overcome their homophobia, but there's a backlash allowing open transphobia.  

The political and societal currents that are encouraging that backlash are using all of the exact same arguments that were used against gay and lesbian people in the 20th century, including earlier in my lifetime.  (Bi people weren't believed to exist, much less ace or other queer people...)  This is preparing the ground for backlash against the entirety of the LGBTQIA+ community as well.  Though for now, some people really do seem to think these issues are somehow separate.  

So, what does it mean to me to write now, as a queer, neuroqueer, part-Jewish, Quaker Witch? 

I don't entirely know.

But I realised, in my conversation with Finola, that I'm excited to find out.  I've got some real energy around this.

It's an unexpected and fun surprise.  

--

What do I, as a Quaker blogger and writer, have to say about what's happening in the world right now?

This year's theme is Quaker writing in these times of crisis and change.  What do we, as Friends, have to say about what's happening in the world right now?  

What do I have to say? 

Much of the work I have been doing since October 7th, 2023, has been around Palestinian liberation and peace in Israel-Palestine.  

In 2002, I served on two different peace witness delegations to Israel-Palestine, one explicitly Pagan, one explicitly Quaker.  I spent time both in Israel and in several parts of the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.  I would now say, Occupied Palestine.  

The current genocide in Gaza has prompted me to speak more, again, from that experience. 

Most people in the US and the UK have absolutely no idea about the reality on the ground.  That trip obligated me to share about what I experienced and what I witnessed, and I am able to speak from lived experience most people in the US and the UK don't have.  Combined with my white privilege, conditional as it is for white Jews, I can speak, and sometimes be heard, in ways a lot of Palestinian-Americans can't.

So I started out by talking a lot more, again, about the Occupation.  

But another thing the genocide has prompted me to do is to claim my Jewish identity in ways I have never felt able to before.  

I've joined Na'amod, "a movement of Jews in the UK seeking to end our community’s support for Israel's occupation and apartheid, and to mobilise it in the struggle for freedom, equality and justice for all Palestinians and Israelis".

This is hands-down one of the best things I have ever done for myself as a Jew.  It's one of the most important things I've done for my own integrity -- both in the sense of wholeness, and in the sense of truthfulness.  That's both very Quaker and very Jewish.

It's also really changed, and charged, my peace activism.  

And while it turns out many of our members struggle with not feeling "Jewish enough," and we regularly run sessions for members on this, I have also never felt as certain of my Jewish identity as I do amongst other Na'amodniks.  It's a home in a way that part of myself has never had before -- though I had a closely-related experience at Shabbat with other Jewish Friends at FGC Gathering.  

Initially in the conversation with Finola, I had been thinking that what I as a Friend have to say in this current time doesn't have nearly as much weight as what I as a Jew have to say in this time.

But the truth is they're not separable.  So we're coming back to that theme of Integrity.  

And we're coming back to my activism, but also to my writing here, in its wholeness. 

--

More blogging?

I've got at least one other piece, possibly two, brewing that might emerge before the conference.  We shall see.  

But I have to say, writing today has been not only deeply satisfying, but fun.

Meeting a spiritual need of my own, again.

I hadn't thought of that.  Maybe I hadn't recognised, before, my need to write as one of my spiritual needs. 

Now, as a therapist, I'm reminded of an extremely useful chapter, "The Counsellor's Use of Self", in Mearns and Thorne's foundational text Person-Centred Counselling in Action. I come back to this chapter every so often; I recommend it to other counsellors, including trainees.  

I'm used to the concept of journalling as part of this self-discipline and meeting one's inner needs.

Writing that other people might read -- free of the need for approval, but with the invitation to community if others are so led -- is not something that I'd thought of that way before today.

But I'm thinking of it that way now.  

I look forward to finding out what's next!

On-line Winter Solstice Singing starts in early October!

[image: candles in the dark]

On-line Winter Solstice Singing starts in early October!  

Sign up here: 
https://forms.gle/pi7i1GephusuArJh8  

Starting on the first Sunday in October, I'll be hosting on-line song-learning sessions / rehearsals for an on-line Winter Solstice Celebration (a presentation of A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual).

There will be regular sessions from October to December that build on each other, leading up to the Celebration on 18th December.

You are invited to participate in the Winter Solstice Celebration whether you sing or not -- but if you'd like to learn the songs in advance, including harmonies, please sign up!

You also do not need to commit to the Celebration to come learn songs. Maybe you just want to come learn songs and sing! (You can also decide later.)

We will meet once a week. If needed or preferred, I will record rehearsals for those who can't join us live and for anyone who wants to go back over the rehearsal during the week; these will be shared privately. There will also be a variety of learning resources available between sessions for your work on your own.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of experience singing or ability to read music. There are easier pieces and more challenging pieces -- a little something for everyone.

 == Song-learning sessions ==

...will run on Sundays from 3rd October through 12th December, each week building on the week before.

We'll cover the sing-along songs, of course, including harmonies, but also the "performance" songs as well. (If you'd like more information on the specific songs, please go to https://bit.ly/WinterSolsticeCelebrations and click on "Songs.")

* Song-learning sessions will run from 7-9 pm Edinburgh/UK time, and are open to anyone, regardless of geographic location.

* You can check what time that is for you here:https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html.

* You don't need a copy of the book or CD in order to participate, although they're helpful to have.  More on that below.  

== Schedule: ==

* Song-learning sessions/rehearsals Sundays, 3rd October - 5th December, 7-9 pm Edinburgh/UK time; not sure yet about 28th November

* Complete read-through and sing-through, Sunday, 12th December, 7-9 pm UK time

* Winter Solstice Celebration, Saturday, 18th December, 7-9 pm Edinburgh/UK time

== Copies of the book and CD ==

You do not need to own a copy of this in advance, but the book contains all the sheet music, and the CD contains full recordings of all 15 pieces, as well as teaching tracks for 8 (as well as the text for the full Celebration), so it's very, very useful.

If you live in Europe and would like a copy for £14 + postage, you can get one from me.

If you live in the US and want a copy, the person to contact is my co-author Julie Forest Middleton; I can put you in touch.

== How do I know without knowing more about the music itself? ==

The songs are a mix of rounds, well-known songs, spirituals, feminist spirituality chants and Pagan chants, and a couple of choral pieces.

There's detailed information about every song at https://bit.ly/WinterSolsticeCelebrations; click on "Songs."

I'm looking forward to singing with people from a wide range of places in the Northern Hemisphere!

== Open to people of all genders ==

Both the choir and the Celebration are open to people of all genders. Transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, and agender people are explicitly welcome.

* The music I have is written mostly in treble clef and is labeled for sopranos and altos, but I've worked with tenors and basses in addition for several years, and these pieces adapt well for lower voices as well.  I teach "Line 1," "Line 2," "Line 3," etc.

* Anyone can sing any part that works for their voice on any song. You might sing one line for one piece, and a different line on another. You can also choose to sing the same line on all the songs if that's what works for you. We have lots of flexibility.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

If you'd like to sign up for the song-learning sessions, please click here:
https://forms.gle/pi7i1GephusuArJh8  

Please share widely!

cover of A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual book

 

Upcoming events: Winter Solstice Celebration; Winter Solstice singing

I am excited to share a few bits of news!

• Winter Solstice Celebration (on-line): Save the date!
• Winter Solstice Singing (on-line song-learning sessions)

Winter Solstice Celebration (on-line): Save the date!  

This year I am hosting a presentation of A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual on-line again.  

Saturday, December 18th

11 am Pacific / 2 pm Eastern / 7 pm UT / 8 pm Central Europe

Presented by Stasa Morgan-Appel (bread and roses spiritual nurture) and friends

Live Narration, Readings, and Song-Leading; pre-recorded music; available in real-time only

Pre-registration required to obtain links

 

If you're already on the email list, you'll receive email updates (indeed, you should have received one already); if you'd like to receive updates, you should go to the website for more information and the link: https://bit.ly/WinterSolsticeCelebrations

Winter Solstice Singing (on-line song-learning sessions)

If there's enough interest, I will host on-line song-learning sessions again this year, starting in late September.

• Sessions will be on Sunday evenings from 7-9 British Time.  (You can check what time that usually is for you here: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html)
• If enough people are interested but can't attend live, I will make arrangements for video recordings to be available.
• Other song-learning resources will available outside live sessions (sheet music, audio teaching tracks, audio recordings).  
• Each week will build on the week before.
• To sign up or register your interest, please fill out this form:
  https://forms.gle/pi7i1GephusuArJh8  

These sessions are explicitly welcoming of all women and all other gender minorities, especially transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, and questioning people.

Websites

Just a reminder that the websites are: 

• bread and roses spiritual nurture: https://bit.ly/StasaMA
• Winter Solstice Celebrations: https://bit.ly/WinterSolsticeCelebrations

Winter Solstice and A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual on The VUU!

On Winter Solstice -- at the moment of the Solstice, too! -- I had the pleasure and privilege of spending an hour in the on-line living room of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Larger Fellowship, as a guest on The VUU. It was a lovely experience -- gift after gift during that hour.

Many thanks to everyone involved for our lovely conversation and experiential celebration of the Solstice, and especially to Lori Stone Sirtosky and Rina Jurceka, for much more than I can put into words in this space.

And just a reminder -- you don't have to have a group to do A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual.  You can do it by yourself in your living room, or with a small group of friends, or with 20 people in a friend's living room.   

Blessed Solstice and Happy 2018!

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

Watch the video on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iuGDm9Yr-c

Watch the video here:




Listen to the podcast/audio:

• https://www.questformeaning.org/vuu-latest/202-solstice-celebrating-dark/#comment-7378

Download podcast here:

• https://media.blubrry.com/clfvuu_latest/s/www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu202.mp3

More on A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual:

• tinyurl.com/WinterSolsticeSinging

A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual on Facebook:

• https://www.facebook.com/WinterSolsticeSingingRitual/

Erica Baron's wonderful Yule story, which she read on the program:

• http://www.patheos.com/blogs/naturespath/2016/12/yule-story/

Queries for Samhain

A blessed Samhain and New Year to you. 

Who are the ancestors you're honoring, physical and spiritual?
Who are the dead you are remembering?
What losses and endings are you marking?

Who are the new babies you are welcoming?
What people and new beginnings have been born in your life this year?

(c) Laura Treadway photography.  Used with permission.  http://lauratreadway.com/

Announcing "Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans"

I am excited to announce the release of the anthology "Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans," edited by John Halstead!

I have two pieces in this book, "The Theist/Non-Theist Continuum" and "Thanking the Goddess for Tea."  So do lots of other fabulous authors!

Available in paperback and e-book at
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/johnhalstead

More information at
http://humanisticpaganism.com/2016/04/02/godless-paganism-voices-of-non-theistic-pagans-is-available-for-sale/

Enjoy!!

Composting my tea bag as radical change

I was putting a tea bag into the compost bin on the kitchen counter this afternoon when I was suddenly struck by how much things have changed in 30 years.

In 1985 I was still living with my family of origin in a large East Coast city in the Mid-Atlantic US.  We didn't recycle.  We didn't compost.  The City picked up our trash once a week.  If we raked our leaves into the gutters in front of our house by the fall deadline, the City would pick up our leaves, too -- there was a large truck with huge, flexible tubes like vacuum cleaners.  I have no idea, now, what happened to those leaves -- were they landfilled?  I suspect so.  Perhaps they were shredded and used for mulch for City parks. 

I don't remember what happened to Christmas trees when we were done with them.  Unlike most of our neighbors, who were Orthodox Jews, we did have one every year.  Did we cut them up and put them with the trash?  Was there a special tree collection by the City?  (Would they even come down our block for that -- ?)  Some years, I know, my parents used Christmas tree limbs for mulch.

I remember being frustrated because I knew that recycling existed, but only elsewhere.  I don't think I'd ever heard of composting, except as something hard-core organic gardeners did (we had grown vegetables for many years, but never composted). I didn't know anything about composting as a way to keep things out of landfills or save the planet.

A few years later when I went away to college, I discovered a world where ordinary people recycled.  I was so excited!  It was mostly paper and cardboard.  There were plain old cardboard boxes in the dorms and the brand-spanking new computer center, signs blu-tacked above them on the walls, for white paper, colored paper, and cardboard.  The following year, we had fancier cardboard boxes, pre-printed even; taller, with slotted openings. No longer makeshift; Very Official. 

When I went back to my family's house during breaks, I saw with fresh eyes, disturbed and disappointed.  There was now a recycling center within an easy drive of my family's house, and my family was receptive, so we started collecting our easy recyclables -- at the time, probably only paper and cardboard, and plastic milk jugs -- and making a drive to the recycling center drop-off something like once a month.

I'd had my first paper route when I was 9, and our city still had a newspaper with home delivery well into my teens, which my family still got.  We kept our recycling in our garage, and went to the recycling center when it got too full of recycling for the cars.  I don't remember where the plastic was kept -- right front corner? -- but the newspapers got stacked up against the left-hand wall.  The garage itself was made of two-by-fours, plywood, and shingles; we'd rebuilt it ourselves some time in my late school-age years, and repaired again when I was in high school.  When I was 19 and living with my family again, our garage was firebombed in an anti-Semitic hate crime (along with others in the neighborhood), and it caught and burned very quickly with all that newspaper and dry timber.  We had two beat-up old cars at the time, and thankfully, neither was in the garage that weekday afternoon. 

Not long after that, we got curbside collection of paper and cardboard, but still had to haul plastics like milk jugs and yogurt containers.

I still remember how novel, exciting, and ground-breaking it was to have someplace we could take our recycling to, and then to have collection for just cardboard and paper.

In the early 90s I moved back to my college city, and what the recycling was like depended on which township or part of the City you were in.  But it was still better than where I'd lived before, and I was more passionate than ever about recycling.

It wasn't until the late 90s that I thought seriously about composting.  My best friend and co-Priestess, who lived in an apartment with a balcony, had been doing kitchen composting for a while, and had a worm bin on her balcony; she used her compost on her house plants and balcony garden, and gave it away to friends.  After my ex and I split up, I started gardening, and started a garden compost bin.  It wasn't very successful -- really, I didn't know what I was doing -- but it was a start.

When Beloved Wife and I moved in together, we rented a house with a garden.  With my encouragement, she, an experienced gardener *and* composter, built a wooden three-section compost bin in a sunny back corner.  It was a thing of beauty. 

Sometime in the early aughts, a non-profit partnered with the City to do a kitchen composting training and research project: they offered training at local libraries, supplied people with kitchen compost containers for free (with *strict* guidelines about what could and couldn't be put it the compost -- no meat or dairy products!), and in return asked us to track how many containers we put in our garden compost piles instead of the trash, for a year.  I went to the training, signed up for the program, and started to feel like I had a small clue.  Beloved Wife and I started composting our kitchen waste as well as our garden waste.

In the late aughts, we were living in a large city in the Pacific Northwest when they introduced kitchen compost waste collection.  You just put everything in the same bin as garden waste, which they already collected.  And because the City had a high-temperature cooker, you really could put *everything* in.  If your house or building's bin was big enough, my wife joked, you could put a whole side of beef in there.

It was amazing and liberating.

Now, every housewares store I go into carries kitchen compost caddies. The city where we live collects compostable waste.  Garden waste collection and kitchen waste collection are separate; you put your kitchen compost in a compostable plastic bag, and in our neighborhood, take your bag down to the bin at the end of the street.  The opening's too small to fit a whole side of beef, but still, we put pretty much everything in there.  For garden waste collection, you put your compostable waste directly into your brown bin, and it gets collected curbside.  We also have a compost bin of our own in the back garden. 

We have curbside collection of metal and glass; we take paper, cardboard, many plastics, and other packaging down to the bins at the end of the street, too.  And we recently got glass bins at the corner, as well.   We can take other plastics, batteries, paint, textiles, and a whole host of other things to a City recycling centre. 

At local institutions, from cafes to universities to hospitals to airports, there are separate bins in public spaces for dry recycling, compost, and landfill rubbish/trash. (But not at train stations. *sadface*)

So there I was, this afternoon, putting a tea bag into the compost bin on the kitchen counter, and suddenly thought of how that simple thing *wasn't an option* for me 30 years ago in the place where I lived.  30 years ago, it went into the trash.  I'm glad it doesn't any more. 

This planet is sacred.  This planet is Goddess.  The Earth's air, fire, water, and dirt are my breath, energy, tears, bones and food and drink; they are me; they are my sustenance.  Whether it saves the planet or not, I can't bring myself to landfill that teabag...

...and I'm glad it's so very easy now for me to compost it.

Save the date for FLGBTQC Mid-Winter Gathering 2016!

[image: vintage postcard displaying "Greetings from Texas, the Lone Star State"

with a cowboy hat hanging on the T and E]

​Spread the news! We're going big in 2016 with a fabulous Mid-Winter Gathering in central Texas! 

Our hosts this year are the Friends from South Central Yearly Meeting, who send the following minute from their annual sessions held in April of 2015: "South Central Yearly Meeting joyously invites Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns to hold its next Midwinter Gathering in our region. We look forward to supporting you spiritually and emotionally, and offering whatever logistical support we can."

The dates are January 15 to 18, 2016. Plan to arrive for dinner on the 15th. 

The location is at URJ Greene Family Camp in Bruceville, TX. (The closest major city is Waco, TX.) Check out Greene's website here: http://greene.urjcamps.org

The best airports will be Dallas/Fort Worth and Austin. Waco is a small regional airport, but there are deals to be had that could route y'all to Waco. We are hoping to have shuttles from both the Dallas/Fort Worth airport and the Austin airport, thanks to support from SCYM Friends. 

The theme is coming soon, but it will be fitting of this fabulous, expansive, wonderful location as well as the yearning of our community. With a theme announcement will also come a keynote speaker announcement! A call for workshops will also come quite soon! Huzzah! 

Questions, concerns, love, bubbles, and/or the location of a large stuffed unicorn should be sent to flgbtqcmidwinter at gmail dot com.

Feel free to share this little announcement with anyone that you think would be an awesome addition to our Gathering!

Summer Solstice with the Sisters: You are fabulous, and the Goddess adores You

Tomorrow (Saturday, 20 June, 2015) is Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere, and also Pride Edinburgh 2015.  Here is something I wrote after last Summer Solstice and 2014 Pride.  - sm

Saturday was Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year.  Summer Solstice is also connected for me, both in time and theme, with LGBTQ pride festivals.  And where I live, this Saturday was also the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Festival.

A friend of mine who's a Novice with the Order of Perpetual Indulgence had asked me if I'd hench (act as a henchperson) with the Sisters for Pride.  I said yes.

So I spent Summer Solstice with the Sisters at Pride.  It was pretty fabulous.  I carried bags, took pictures, helped herd people when instructed, danced in the parade (who knew this would be part of my job?), helped a Sister with a wardrobe problem, helped set up for tea, served food, welcomed people, had lovely conversation with other henches, and shared lots of smiles with everyone there from the Order and all sorts of random other people. At the end of the day, I was very tired and very content.

It was surprisingly simple and satisfying ministry.

It was also pretty close to exactly what my soul needed.  I came home very tired physically, and spiritually re-invigorated for everything on my plate these next few weeks, including my FLGBTQC co-clerks email (I'm about to start a term as Recording Clerk) and a Roses, Too! Tradition Summer Solstice Celebration on Sunday.

---------

In ecofeminist Witchcraft, a lot of what the Sabbats are about is what's happening in nature around us, where we are, right now. 

Some things to think about with Summer Soltice:

• What's happening with the light?  What time does the Sun rise?  What time does it set?  How many hours of daylight and of darkness are there right now, where you live or where you are? 
• What's happening with plants?  What plants are growing, have bloomed and are done, are blooming or fruiting now, are yet to bloom or fruit?  What foods are available that haven't been yet this year, that won't be again soon? 
• What's happening with the weather?  What are the temperatures like?  Has the pattern of rain (or snow!) changed since Beltane or Spring Equinox?  
• What's happening with animals?  Where are different animals where you live in their life cycles?  Who's migrating right now? 

There are other possibilities. 

One of the easiest ways to engage with what's happening in nature right now on this longest day is to track sunrise and sunset.  You can figure out ways to measure this yourself, especially if there are children in your life; you can look up when sunrise and sunset are where you live, or where you are. (You can do both!) 

The US Naval Observatory has several very useful data tools on their website, http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/index.php.  Here you can look up sun and moon data for one day or for the whole year. 

TimeAndDate.com also have all sorts of interesting astronomical data available, and on their web page, you can look up sun and moon data for a day, a month, a year, and more: http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/.

Have fun!

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How did you spend Summer Solstice?  How are you honoring it?  

As someone who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or an ally, how are you celebrating Pride? 

How are you celebrating and honoring social justice and work for social justice in your life right now?  

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Remember, you are fabulous, and the Goddess adores you.

Thou art Goddess. 

Beltane on Calton Hill with Beltane Fire Society

Note: This is my write-up from 2013.  - sm

I'm a Pagan and I live in Edinburgh: the big question many people are asking me is, "Did you go to Beltane Fire Society??" 

Yes, I did.  Beloved Wife insisted, of all things; I likely would have done the introvert hermit thing, otherwise.  (Big public ritual performance, eek!)  Instead, we went together, and had a blast. 

Yes, it was fabulous, amazing spectacle.  It wasn't the kind of focused ritual work or spiritual work that I would like to be my only celebration of the holiday, but I had a tremendous amount of fun, it was exhilarating, and I'm glad we went.  It was very well-run and well-organized.  We could tell the crowd was a mix of tourists (of both kinds -- spiritual and geographic) and people for whom this was serious business, and everyone was pretty respectful.

(With a few drunken, or just plain thoughtless, exceptions, but I only had to stifle the urge twice to stifle people I found obnoxious.  "This ought to be free.  It's on Calton Hill, so it ought to be free."  (*eyeroll*  Tickets were £8.50 at the door, and much less in advance; and even at the door, that was cheap for how much it costs to put this on, between security, pyrotechnics, police, etc...)  "Yeah, I went through a period where I was into witchcraft and all that, and my girlfriends and I even had this coven, but it's not like it's real religion or anything..."  (I'll spare you the rest of that overheard conversation.))

We didn't get to see a lot of detail, so for that, I'll refer you to BFS' Flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beltanefiresociety/.

But, yes, wow, the organization, the attention to detail, the thought that went into everything, the drama, the pageantry, the costuming, the use of massed drumming, torches, fire, pyrotechnics... 

Heh heh heh heh.  Big public dramatic ritual/ritual drama, all right. 

It occurs to me: some of my Cherry Hill colleagues are writing analytical critiques of Burning Man and such from Pagan/ritual theory/ritual studies/theaological perspectives.  I'd love to see such analyses of any of BFS' big public presentations.

Quakers Uniting in Publications (QUIP) 2015 Conference

After being part of Quakers Uniting in Publications (QUIP) for many years, I finally got to go to a QUIP conference! 

The location travels -- under the current schedule, the annual conference rotates between the US East Coast, Midwest, West/Pacific Northwest, and the UK.  So it comes to the UK every four years.  (The last year we lived in the US, the conference was in the UK.  Since then, it's been in the US.  Ah, timing.  And money.) 

This year, the conference was back at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham, England, and this year, things came together so that I was finally able to go.  

There were Friends there from the US, the UK, Germany, and Russia, with a wide range of involvement in different kinds of publications and parts of the publication process.  QUIP also includes Friends from a wide range of traditions within Quakerism. 

For me, it was an extra treat to be at Woodbrooke with a truly international group of Friends. 

Workshops, talks, and plenaries ranged from not-quite-my-cup-of-tea, to interesting, to fascinating.  Social media and internet work played a big part in many of the sessions.  Some sessions had interactive pieces built in, from going on-line, to breaking into small groups, to looking at blog posts pinned up on the walls.  In one workshop exercise, we'd worked on hypothetical book projects in small groups, and the presentations back to the main group had us all in stitches, we were laughing so hard. 

It was lovely to see old friends and meet new ones.  It was really good to have the chance to catch up in person with people I already know, and to get to know other people a bit.  It was also helpful being in a group where enough of us were introverts that nobody blinked when people disappeared for naps or quite solitary time. 

And being immersed in a publications-centered environment was very helpful.  I'm definitely feeling more creativity and inspiration flowing regarding not just my own writing, but creative work in general -- and especially where they intersect and interact.  I'm definitely more in touch again with the connections between printed words, books, social media, community, and Doing Things individually and together in the in-person world.  It'll be interesting to see what comes of it, projects-wise, for me...

A number of Friends who were there posted to Facebook and to Twitter over the weekend. 

For a much better sense of what took place, along with lots of wonderful pictures of people and scenery -- it was very definitely spring in Birmingham, and lovely! -- try these links:

* On Twitter at #QUIP2015
* On Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/QuakerQuip?fref=ts

Enjoy!

A Pagan Community Statement on the Environment

This is just beautiful -- and it calls us to action.

Please read it, and if it resonates for you, regardless of how you label yourself, please sign it.

You can read the whole thing, and sign as an individual and/or for an organization, at
http://www.ecopagan.com/. 

An excerpt:

Many of our ancestors realized what has now been supported by the scientific method and our expanding knowledge of the universe — that Earth’s biosphere may be understood as a single ecosystem and that all life on Earth is interconnected.

The very atoms of which we are composed connect us to the entire universe. Our hydrogen was produced in the Big Bang, and the other atoms essential for life were forged in the scorching furnaces of ancient stars. Beyond atoms, the molecules of life connect us to Earth, showing that we don’t live “on Earth” like some alien visitor, but rather that we are part of Earth, just as a volcano or river is part of Earth and its cycles.

We are earth, with carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus making up our bodies one day, and incorporated into mountains the next. We are air, giving food to the trees and grasses when we exhale, and breathing in their gift of free oxygen with each breath. We are fire, burning the energy of the Sun, captured and given to us by plants. We are water, with the oceans flowing in our veins and the same water that nourished the dinosaurs within our cells.

We are connected to our families, through links of love, to their relatives, and so on to the entire human species. Our family tree goes back further than the rise of humans, including all mammals, all animals, and all life on Earth. The entire Earth is our immense and joyous family reunion.

By NASA/Apollo 17 crew; taken by either Harrison Schmitt or Ron Evans [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Being in community when our Gods are different

This autumn, I had the privilege to attend Rhiannon Grant's workshop "Or Whatever You Call It" with F/friends from South East Scotland Area Meeting (Quakers).  It was an interesting and fun workshop, and I'm glad we brought it to SESAM.

Much of Grant's work with Quakers centres on how modern Friends use language to talk about That-Which-Is-Sacred, and is particularly informed by philosophy.  My work amongst Friends starts from experience, and then comes to language pretty quickly: we need language to reflect our experience, to be able to talk to each other about it, one way to be in spiritual community with each other.  And Quakers are very wordy, very language-oriented people.  So her approach was really interesting for me.  

After spending the day in different kinds of exercises, thinking and talking about different words, and what they mean, and why, and different names for Whatever You Call It, we settled into large-group worship-sharing with this query:

Does telling your truth require you to use any particular words? 

Quite a lot came bubbling up for me during this worship.

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

In order to be a faithful Friend, {my truth requires me to / Goddess requires me to / I must} use words some Friends often react to with hostility.  Goddess.  Witch.  Pagan.  Priestess.  Gods.  But other minority Friends, especially other Pagan and non-Christian Friends, are often very relieved to hear those words.

If I am speaking my own truth, in my own words, not translating into other people's words / language, then yes, it does require particular words.

To what extent are we obligated to translate as we speak?  As we listen?  Why am I so often, as a minority, the person expected to do both?

I, as a non-Christian Friend, am expected to be conversant about Jesus.  Why aren't other Friends expected to be conversant with other Gods?

Yes, well, Quakerism is also historically white and straight as well.

Gods, plural.  If you want me to take your relationship with Jesus, Spirit, God, Whatever You Call It, seriously, and I want you to take my relationship with the Goddess / the Gods seriously, we both have to allow as how they both might exist -- and are not the same.

---------------- 

Among Friends, I no longer have to pretend my wife is a man and I'm in a mixed-gender relationship.  I no longer have to translate into heterosexual marriage terms for other Friends.

I should not have to pretend I'm in relationship with a different Deity than the One(s) I am in relationship with, either.

If you want me to take your relationship with Jesus, Spirit, God, Whatever You Call It, seriously, then you need to take my relationship with the Goddess / the Gods seriously.  

Brigid is not Jesus in a skirt.  And the Cailleach is neither.

I am talking about radical equality.

Jesus is a privileged god in Quakerism.

Jesus cannot be a privileged god if we are all Friends and all Friends are equal.

What does radical equality ask of each of us when it comes to being present with, bearing witness to, each others' spiritual lives?  When it comes to being in spiritual community with one another?  

Winter Solstice 2014

I have just update the list of communities presenting A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual this year, including:

• Edinburgh, Scotland; 
• Costa Mesa, CA; 
• Indianapolis, IN; 
• Louisville, KY (new this year! w00t!); 
• Pomona/Galloway, NJ; 
• Dallas, TX;
• and hopefully Hamilton, NJ, Gettysburg, PA, Clemson, SC, Spokane, WA, and Madison, WI. (I'm still waiting to hear back from some folks.)

Details at
TinyURL.com/WinterSolsticeSinging/Participating-Communities

If your community is presenting this and you're not listed, please get in touch!

Survival and standing in our integrity, at Thanksgiving and every other day

There's an American holiday this month that is often associated with family.  I have been holding in my heart the too-many people I know and care about who are not welcome at their family Thanksgiving, or who are otherwise alienated or estranged from their families, born or chosen, for refusing to lie. For not pretending to be straight, for not pretending to be a gender they're not, for not tolerating abuse or harassment, for not pretending to be a religion they're not.

For living honestly and with integrity.

That integrity is often necessary for survival. Being alienated from our families may be the price we pay for our mental and physical health, but that alienation takes a toll in physical and mental health, too. The simple fact of that discrimination, that our families treat us that way, and the separation from our folks.

No one should ever have to choose between survival and our families. And too often, our families ask that of us. This shit is hard.

Our lives are worth that integrity.

Labyrinth pictures!

I realized I hadn't posted pictures of any of the labyrinths I'd built!

Enjoy!

2013 Gathering labyrinth

Click here for more pictures from the first labyrinth, at FGC Gathering 2013 in Colorado.

2104 Gathering labyrinth

Click here for more pictures from the labyrinth this last summer at FGC Gathering 2014 in Pennsylvania.

2014 Fall Equinox labyrinth

Click here for more pictures from the labyrinth we built for the Roses, Too! Tradition Fall Equinox ritual here in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Please see my past posts about labyrinths for the back story of how I came to build these labyrinths, and also for how-to help if you'd like to build a temporary labyrinth yourself:
http://aquakerwitch.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/labyrinths

Spiritual practice peer support group

Would you like support from other people in bringing a spiritual practice into your life, or in maintaining a practice you already have? 

We have one spot left in the 12-week spiritual practice peer support group that starts this week and runs through early December.

The group is on-line, virtual, text-based -- participants check in once a week, but there's no fixed meeting time.

Cost is $24 / £15 for the 12 weeks.

Please let me know asap if you're interested!

Brigid Poetry Festival: IMBOLC

Snow on trees and birdbath.  (c) 2014 Mari Elm

A belated post for the 2014 Brigid Poetry Festival.  - sm

IMBOLC

Stillness.
Once-sleeping seeds
Nourished
Under a blanket of snow
And hard, cold Earth
Now stir,
Sending tendrils yet unseen
Of fragile life
Upward, outward.
The Sun grows longer, stronger,
Fueling, coaxing
Potential withal warm light.
The Cycle begins again
And we rejoice,
Bless-ed.

(C) Rev. Mari Elm
February 2014
reprinted with permission

Winter Solstice

Today is the longest night and shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

What time did the sun rise where you are, and what time will it set?

(Bonus points for folks in the Southern Hemisphere...)

You can find your sunrise and sunset times at these links:
http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/
http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications

Happy Winter Solstice!

Spiritual practice peer support group invitation

Is there a spiritual practice you'd like to be doing regularly, but that you find you aren't quite managing to do?

I am putting together a free, 12-week virtual peer support group for people who want to engage in a regular spiritual practice and get support from other people.

- Free.
- On-line.
- Runs for 12 weeks.  

- You pick the spiritual practice you want to do.  It can be almost any spiritually-oriented practice or discipline.  It can be something you do by yourself or something you do in a group.  It can be mostly physical or mostly mental, or a mix.  Everyone in the group can have a different spiritual practice.  Since we're checking in weekly, it will be helpful if it's something you can do at least once a week. 

- Once every week, the group checks in about what happened in the past week and to get support from the others in the group.  Did I meet my goal this week?  What worked?  What didn't work?  If I didn't meet my goal, why not?  Was my goal realistic?  Too hard, too easy, just right?  Does my goal need to change?  How?

- Each group will have 13 people maximum. 

- We will do the check-ins on-line, in a locked blog, a private Facebook group, whatever fashion works best for the group.

- People are welcome from a wide range of spiritual traditions, including none at all. 

This 12-week cycle will start Sunday, 1 September and end Sunday, 1 December. 

If you're interested, let me know by leaving a comment or sending me an email at stasa dot website at gmail dot com.

(If you send email and don't hear back, the cyber-gremlins ate it; please try again.)