from Full Moon Worship

We hosted Full Moon Worship Monday night, and it was truly lovely.

Those who gather choose worship or worship-sharing, depending on their spiritual needs or simply what they want.  In recent months, worship-sharing has been popular, but on Monday, those gathered chose worship.  

Two cats chose to join us, and helped deepen our worship. 

There were a few vocal messages, and with a distinct theme.  It seemed to speak to those present, given the conversation afterwards. 

As is often the case, there was music with me in worship; in this case, "Shadow/Light." This is a piece written by Juliet Spitzer, adapting two poems of Rumi's, and recorded by SheWho.  (This is a piece which I love to teach.) 

Here are snippets of the two poems:

You must have shadow and light-source both
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe...

This door is not the door of hopelessness and frustration
This door is open...
Come, come as you are.

Northern Spirit Radio's Song of the Soul: Singing the Goddess

At FGC Gathering this summer, Mark Helpsmeet of Northern Spirit Radio interviewed me for the program Song of the Soul.  Three members of my Gathering workshop, Singing the Goddess -- Denise Madland, Peggy Bright, and Sandy Moon -- joined me.

Northern Spirit Radio

Click here for more information and to listen to the interview:

Singing the Goddess: Stasa Morgan-Appel 

The whole interview, including singing, is about an hour. 



Songs we performed:

• "We Are a Circle," by Rick Hamouris*
• "Tallis Canon"/"Full Moon Canon," by Thomas Tallis (1567) and Stasa Morgan-Appel
• "The River," by Diana Hildebrand-Hull
• "Sending You Light," by Melanie DeMore
• "Imani," by Rachael A. K. Hazen*
• "Meditation on Breathing," by Sarah Dan Jones

*recorded by SheWho on A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual CD

Notes:

• This interview took place on Friday afternoon.  I had horrible voice strain by the end of the week, and you can definitely hear that, both in my speaking voice and in my singing voice.  

• We had no rehearsal time, and we'd sung each song together once or twice during the course of the week.  I'm really grateful to Denise, Peggy, and Sandy for their courage and willingness to sing with me under these circumstances!  

• The song I'm talking about at the very beginning of the interview, from my workshop in 2009, is Juliet Spitzer's "Shadow/Light," recorded by SheWho on their album "The Earth Will Turn Over." 

• Here is the Pagan Pride Project's set of definitions of "What Is a Pagan?": 

A Pagan or NeoPagan is someone who self-identifies as a Pagan, and whose spiritual or religious practice or belief fits into one or more of the following categories:

• Honoring, revering, or worshipping a Deity or Deities found in pre-Christian, classical, aboriginal, or tribal mythology; and/or
• Practicing religion or spirituality based upon shamanism, shamanic, or magickal practices; and/or
• Creating new religion based on past Pagan religions and/or futuristic views of society, community, and/or ecology;
• Focusing religious or spiritual attention primarily on the Divine Feminine; and/or
• Practicing religion that focuses on earth based spirituality.

Links to a lot of the different things we talked about (and some links I failed to mention, but add now): 


Some of my favorite songbooks (more to be added!):

• http://stasa.net/resources/musical-resources#TOC-Songbooks 
• http://stasa.net/resources/musical-resources#TOC-Songbooks1  

Friends General Conference ("FGC is more than Gathering!"):

• http://fgcquaker.org/

FGC Gathering:

• http://www.fgcquaker.org/gathering

Winter Solstice Celebrations and A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual book and CD:

• on my website: http://stasa.net/winter-solstice

• at Emerald Earth Publishing: http://emeraldearth.net/winter__solstice.htm

The Pagan Pride Project:

• http://paganpride.org/

Threshold Choirs:

• http://www.thresholdchoir.org/  (Please note, there are restrictions as to who may join certain Threshold Choirs)

• The Eau Claire Threshold Singers' Song of the Soul interview: http://www.northernspiritradio.org/index.asp?command=ShowInfo&ID=557980107113

Melanie DeMore:

• http://www.melaniedemore.com

Betsy Rose:

• http://www.betsyrosemusic.org/

Pagan festivals, get-togethers, gatherings, etc.  Please note that I do not endorse any of these, or have experience with any of these, except for local Pagan Pride Day celebrations, unless noted with an asterisk. 

• Witchvox (The Witches' Voice), to find groups, festivals, etc, near you: http://witchvox.org/

• The Pagan Newswire Collective, for coverage of all sorts of festivals: http://pagannewswirecollective.com/

• Pagan Pride Day locations world-wide (in the fall of the year): http://paganpride.org/where/where.html

• Reclaiming Witchcamps: http://www.witchcamp.org/

• Pagan Spirit Gathering: http://www.circlesanctuary.org/psg/

• Pantheacon: http://pantheacon.com/wordpress/

• Free Spirit Gathering: http://www.freespiritgathering.org/

• Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPS):  http://www.cuups.org/

• Our Lady of the Earth and Sky (OLOTEAS)*, a non-denominational Pagan church in the Puget Sound area of Washington: http://www.oloteas.org/

• Winter Solstice Celebrations (based on A Winter Solstice Singing Ritual), http://stasa.net/winter-solstice

• http://www.meetup.com/

Cherry Hill Seminary:

• http://cherryhillseminary.org/

Unitarian Universalist Musicans Network (UUMN):

• http://www25.uua.org/uumn/

Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPS):

• http://www.cuups.org/

Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA):

• http://www.uua.org/

Quaker Pagan and Pagan Quaker resources:

• http://stasa.net/resources/by-for-and-about-pagan-quakers-friends-and-quaker-pagans

Quakers!!  Where?  

• To find a Meeting near you in the US or Canada: http://www.quakerfinder.org/
• To find a Meeting near you in Britain: http://www.quaker.org.uk/

I hope you enjoy!

 p.s.  Blogger allows only a certain amount of room for labels, and so I was unable to include labels for all the orgs I provided links for. 

Queries for the Full Moon

In 2008, I began developing queries for worship-sharing at the Full Moon. You are welcome to use these or discern your own.

Queries for Full Moon worship-sharing:

• What am I thankful for in the month since the last Full Moon? Or, since we met last? What do I wish to bring to fruition by the next Full Moon?

• The phases of the moon -- waxing, full, waning, and dark -- can be seen as the phases of a woman's life, and as the three faces of the Goddess: Maiden, Mother, and Crone, and the space between between death and life. How have I experienced the Goddess as Mother? How have I experienced another Deity, or another face of the Divine, as Mother?

Queries for Full Moon Worship-Sharing

First, I encourage folks to familiarize themselves with FGC's information on worship-sharing, available here (http://www.fgcquaker.org/ao/toolbox/worship-sharing).

These are some queries I've developed for the Full Moon. You, or your meeting for worship, may devise your own, or already have some of your own.

Queries for Full Moon worship

• What am I thankful for in my life in the month since the last Full Moon (or in my life since we met last)? What do I wish to bring to fruition in the next month, by the next Full Moon?

• The phases of the moon -- waxing, full, waning, and dark/new -- can be seen as the phases of a woman's life: Maiden, Mother, Crone, and the space between death and birth. How have I experienced the Goddess as Mother? (Or, how have I experienced another face of the Divine as Mother?)

Full Moon Meetings for Worship/Worship-Sharing

For the last year, I've been hosting Full Moon Meeting for Worship/Worship-Sharing each month. Usually I've done this at my home; last month, I knew I would not be that organized, less than a week after moving cross-country, but Emrys and Nimue in the Philly are organized a Meeting at a local Meetinghouse.

Something that was different, that time, was that since there was on-line discussion about our get-together, we knew there were people joining us from afar -- either at the same actual time we were meeting, or at the same hour in their local time, or just at another time that same day or evening.

This gave me a marvelous sense of connection, similar to the one many Witches have to everyone else who celebrates the Full Moon or the Sabbats, similar to the one many traveling Friends have to their home Meetings...

So this month, I am proposing both virtual and in-person Full Moon Meetings for Worship/Worship-Sharing.

We are meeting Monday night, 10/5/09:

• 6:45-7:00, gather; local groups decide on worship or worship-sharing
• 7:00-8:00, worship/worship-sharing
• 8:00-8:45, potluck tea (I was thinking this would be local groups, but I can imagine having tea in virtual community!)
• 8:45-9:00, clean up together (local groups)

For full details, please click here.

Local, in-person groups

You can host a get-together by inviting Friends and friends. If you let me know, either through comment or an email, then there's an increased sense of community. Also, with your permission, if I know of someone looking for a local gathering in your area, I can put you in touch with each other.

I am willing to host in central NJ, or someone else can host here or in the Philly area.

Please click here for important details for in-person groups.

What do I mean by "virtual"?

I was originally thinking of individuals and groups who would be meeting at either the same time, or the same hour local time, or some time the same day or evening. But in on-line conversation, I'm realizing there could also be on-line Meeting for Worship, perhaps through quakerworship.org, or using Skype's IM function (which I've used for large classes, small conversations, and small-group worship before).

I look forward to more discussion about this, seeing what other questions and ideas people come up with, and seeing what happens Monday night.

Blessed be!