Samhain

I have been thinking a lot over the last few weeks about Samhain ("Saw-wen"), which is also known in different traditions as Hallowe'en or Hallowmas.

In my tradition of Feminist Witchcraft, Samhain is the Third Harvest, the Witches' New Year, and the Feast of the Beloved Dead.  This is the time when we honor those who have gone before, our literal ancestors and our spiritual ancestors, those whose names we know and those whose names are lost to us.  We mourn endings and losses of the past year.  And we welcome babies who were born this year and honor new beginnings from this last year. 

It can be a very tender time of year for many of us.  A time to gather together, grieve, and rejoice. 

For our potluck, my particular little group often sets our theme as "Remembrance Food: Food that honors your ancestors or cultures that have nurtured you."

The time between Samhain and Winter Solstice is the time between death and rebirth.  At Winter Solstice, the Sun is reborn -- on the shortest day, the Sun comes back to us; "life comes new from Death" [Schrag, "Kore, Evohe"]. 

In our culture, we're used to thinking of birth as the beginning of life, and death as the end.  But really, death and life are a circle, and we can't actually say what comes first: death paves the way for new life.  Without the death of the old year, the new year can't be born; without the death of the old leaves, new leaves can't be born; without time in the Darkness, seeds, ideas, and babies can't germinate; without the sacrifice of our food -- the grain and the animals, Lugh and the Horned One -- we wouldn't eat; all light casts a shadow. 

Every seed becomes a promise
Kore takes them in Her hands
Into the Earth, and into the Darkness
And into the quiet lands...
- John Schrag, "Kore, Evohe"

With every change comes some kind of end: without the "death" of an old way of being, the new way wouldn't be "born."  Loss is inherent in change. 

Witches have a saying:  All things must change, or die; and death is change. 

This Samhain, I am remembering my grandparents, their parents, and others who have died over the years and who will always be with me -- friends, loved ones, family members, former partners, teachers, mentors, spouses of friends, beloved pets... 

I'm also honoring people who have died this year, or whose deaths I've just learned of this year, several of whom I've mentioned on this blog under the tag "Samhain."  Christine Oliger, Father Emery Tang, George Willoughby, Morton Kravitz, Mabel Lang, Art Gish, Carolyn Diem, Sarah Leuze, Lynn Waddington, Gene Stotlzfus, Betty Nebel, and others.  And people I didn't know personally, but still honor, like Miep Gies, Dr. William Harrison, Daniel Schorr, and others. 

This Samhain, who are you honoring?  

• Who are your ancestors, literal, spiritual, metaphorical?  Known and unknown? 
• Who are your beloved dead you honor?  
• Who are your not-so-beloved dead you are glad to release?
• Who are you mourning?  
• What new beginnings do you honor from this last year? 
• What new babies did you welcome this last year? 

Who is remembered, lives.  

Blessed be. 

Open house week at many mosques and Islamic centers in US

I just found out that last week was a week of open houses at many mosques and Islamic centers in the US.  I wish I'd realized; I would have gladly visited our local Islamic center... 

Information on Fragrance-free Quaker Meetings, Churches, and Gatherings?

The Ministry and Counsel Committee at the Meeting where I am sojourning, New Brunswick, has brought forward a minute to Monthly Meeting for Business recommending that the Meeting become fragrance-free, as a matter of accessibility.

Meeting for Worship for Business is not yet in unity with the principle of becoming a fragrance-free Meeting.  The matter has been referred back to Ministry and Counsel, which would like to find out about other Quaker organizations which are fragrance-free, and if possible, see some of the policies of those organizations. 

So I am working with Ministry and Counsel to collect some of that information, and I was wondering if you all might be able to help me.

• Do you know of any Quaker Meetings, Quaker Churches, or Quaker Gatherings which are fragrance-free?  Which ones?  

• Can you email me any specific policies, or any language in announcements (stasa dot website at gmail dot com)?  (Or post a comment with links to any on-line policies?)

New Brunswick Friends Meeting, and I, would be immensely grateful. :)

Thank you, Friends!

Writing my principal

I am beginning to write on this blog about my experiences in high school.  I've received some gentle, powerful, thoughtful responses, both in comments and privately.  Thank you.  It's helping me do more work on this. 

Before reading this post, I invite you to read the two I've written so far.  While you can absolutely read this one free-standing, the prior two provide some good background:

• Another cost of bigotry, classism, bullying, homophobia, and heterosexism
• Reactions to "The Prep School Negro"

Today's post is a letter, one that was surprisingly scary to write.  Some part of me still feels like that scared high school froshling or sophomore who's being blamed for being bullied.  (And I was blamed for being bullied.)  Some part of me almost expects them to say, "Well, what do you expect?  You did
turn out to be a lesbian."  To which my grown-up self says, "That attitude is exactly why LGBTQ teens have an even-higher risk of being bullied and of committing suicide than their straight and cisgender peers.  That needs to stop." 

Why this post, now? http://www.writeyourprincipal.com/, and the encouragement of my Garrison friends on Facebook and of Andre Robert Lee.  Thank you.

October 12, 2010

Melinda Bihn

Head of the Upper School

G. Peter O’Neill, Jr.

Head of School

Garrison Forest School

300 Garrison Forest Road

Owings Mills, MD  21117

Dear Ms. Bihn and Mr. O’Neill,

            I’m a 1986 alumna of Garrison Forest School.  Several things are prompting me to write to you today: the Write Your Principal Project (www.writeyourprincipal.com); conversations I had during this year’s National Coming Out Day; the increased attention currently being paid to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer teenagers who have recently committed suicide; and the heartbreaking fact that even after those deaths, more LGBTQ teenagers are committing suicide every day. 

But what’s prompting me most of all to write are the conversations I am starting to have with other Garrison alumnae about our experiences of bullying when we were at Garrison – and in particular, the pain from anti-lesbian bullying I experienced when I was a Garrison girl.  That pain remains with me to this day, poisoning the legacy of what was in so many other ways a wonderful education, and poisoning my present-day relationship with GFS. 

            When I was at Garrison, great care was paid to the issue of teen suicide.  However, no care at all was paid to the fact that LGBTQ teens were at a much higher risk of suicide than their straight and cisgender peers. 

What’s more, bullying against perceived lesbians and against girls and women who didn’t conform to gender stereotypes was rampant during my four years in Garrison’s Upper School.  Both students and adults were targets, and both students and faculty perpetrated this kind of bullying.  This created an unsafe climate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students, faculty, and staff, as well as for members of the Garrison community who were straight and cisgender allies. 

            Nationally, LGBTQ teens are still at a higher risk of suicide and at a higher risk of experiencing bullying than are their straight and cisgender peers. 

·       According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, LGBTQ youth are 3-4 times as likely to attempt suicide as straight and cisgender youth – not as a result of being LGBTQ, but as a result of bullying and harassment. 

·       The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network’s 2009 National School Climate Survey found that, due to perceived sexual orientation or to gender expression:

o      85% of LGBT students experienced school harassment within the last year

o      61% felt unsafe at school

o      30% had stayed away from school for at least a day within the last month due to safety concerns

o      LGBT students who experienced increased rates of harassment and victimization experienced increased levels of depression

o      GLSEN also reported on positive steps schools can take to enhance students’ safety. 

            I graduated in 1986; it’s now 2010.  So I ask you:

1)    What has changed in the nearly 25 years since I graduated from Garrison? 

2)    How is Garrison safer now for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and ally students, faculty, and staff? 

3)    How does Garrison prevent – and when prevention fails, how does it stop – bullying against LGBTQ and ally members of the Garrison community? 

4)    How does Garrison support LGBTQ and ally students, faculty, and staff? 

I very much look forward to hearing from you. 

Yours truly,

Staśa Morgan-Appel

Class of 1986

Columbus Day; Indigenous Peoples' Day

Two good videos, with some thought-provoking perspective on Columbus Day.

"Happy Columbus Day"
(via Native Appropriations)



And "Reconsider Columbus Day"



Enjoy... both the funny bits, and the uncomfortable, thought-provoking bits.

Reprise: "Not the National Coming Out Day conversation I expected"

I wanted to share again my post from last year for National Coming Out Day.

...I'm always surprised when people who know me at all well are surprised to find out I'm a lesbian. It's less startling, but still frustrating, when people are surprised I'm bi, because there's still an assumption of monosexuality in this culture: either you're homosexual or you're heterosexual. Folks who are startled to learn I'm bi either know I've had successful romantic relationships with men and assume those are invalid now (because I must be monosexual), or assume that because I have been involved only with women since they've known me and am not that interested in men, I must be monosexual.

But those are still the conversations I more or less expect to have. The kind where I refer to my partner or spouse in conversation at an event, the other person asks what my husband does, and I say, "My wife is a mathematician," and they blink. The kind where someone I've known for a long time says in shock, "You had a husband!?," and I say, "Yes, my first partner was male, and yes, I was out before we got together. He took me to my first Pride event."

But these conversations have progressed and changed over time. For example, more and more over the last few years, the conversations I've been having around the fact that I'm a lesbian center around civil rights, and especially marriage equality.

And while there's one little thread on my Facebook Wall about National Coming Out Day and how people identify and what labels mean (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer), there's another, completely different, conversation I've ended up having about the reality of my life as a lesbian in today's society.

And it really does feel like a coming-out conversation: Here is my reality. Here is the truth of my experience.

And as with many other such conversations over the years, I'm finding someone I'm talking with disbelieves the uncomfortable truth...

Click here for more.

What about National Coming Out Day?

So, today's National Coming Out Day. 

What does that mean? 

For me, that meaning has evolved over the years.  I wrote a little last year about how that's changed -- how my conversations have changed from stark conversations about existence ("I didn't know you're bisexual/a lesbian") to more nuanced conversations about the day-to-day reality of my life and the legal realities of second-class citizenship ("For $100 you can get the same benefits as legal marriage!") (Yeah, right...). 

But I'm curious.  What does National Coming Out Day mean to you?  If you're a lesbian woman, a gay man, a bisexual woman or man, a transgender woman or man, a queer woman or man, a cis ally, a straight ally, someone who's none of those things, someone who's confused about it all -- what does National Coming Out Day mean to you? 

Added "I'm a Witch - I'm You" video

More "I'm a Witch - I'm You" response videos

The Pagan Newswire Collective is, well, collecting "I'm a Witch - I'm You" response videos (like the one I posted here yesterday) on their You Tube Channel.

Thanks, PNC!

Check out the playlist here (especially as new ones may have been uploaded since I posted this)!

In the meantime, here are some more:

Holding Patrick McCollum in the Light today

Even though all US citizens, regardless of religion or lack of religion, are supposedly equal under US law, non-Christians face several interesting forms of discrimination. 

I wrote about some of the specifics in my post Difference and Discrimination in the US and the Religious Society of Friends.  One of the situations I wrote about was not being allowed to work as a chaplain in the prison system. 

Rev. Patrick McCollum filed suit in CA over being barred from being allowed to work as a paid chaplain in the CA prison system.  He's in court today for one of the hearings pertaining to his case -- click here to read details over at the Wild Hunt. 

Patrick's friends and supporters, including folks at Cherry Hill Seminary, are asking people to send Patrick and his legal team spiritual support today especially. 

I know I am holding Patrick and everyone involved in the Light today, and I invite you to do so as well. 

Recommended video: "I'm a Witch - I'm you"

What a lovely response, not only to a certain DE political candidate, but to the media coverage surrounding the whole thing. 

Star Foster, this rocks. 

Pagan bloggers, beware: intellectual property theft in progress

Earlier this week, Jason Pitzl-Waters posted a warning to Facebook about a Facebook group called Blackraven Coven, whose creator and main author/poster, Bram Darkraven, who says she's from Wiltshire, UK, was stealing Pagan authors' copyrighted material and posting it as her own, with her own copyright and copyright date.  T. Thorn Coyle soon followed with a similar warning. 

In case you've ever been scathed by me for passing stuff on without verification, I verified with Jason, Thorn, M. Macha NightMare/Aline O'Brien... and by going to the group itself.  (That was an education.) 

A couple folks in the group asked her to  explain herself.  At first it looked like she might be compiling things from different sources without proper citation.  Then her posts to the discussion forum of the group became wholesale cut-and-pastes of other people's blog posts and web pages, but again with her own copyright and copyright date. 

The she lifted "Ruminations on Pagan 'Clergy'" from the Broomstick Chronicles by Aline O'Brien / M. Macha NightMare -- with certain very notable exceptions that obviously were made to take the original author out of it:

• she changed the date she said she originally wrote it to an earlier date than the date Aline said she originally wrote it; 
• she removed the middle sentences of the first paragraph about being the Chair of the Public Ministry Department at Cherry Hill Seminary; 
• she added her own copyright date again.  

Those changes were no accidents of sloppy scholarship.

More people in the group asked her to explain herself.  She deleted their posts and blocked them from the group.  

But wait, there's more: when confronted by Aline Macha about stealing the work, she insisted again that she wrote it, not Aline Macha. 

Folks continue to monitor to see if she continues to steal other authors' work.  Some of them have been well-known, like Aline Macha; some have been more obscure webspinners and bloggers; one was even Edgar Allen Poe (!). 

There's a process to report theft of intellectual property to Facebook.  The only person who can make the report is the owner of the intellectual property. 

However, if the offender removes the violation, Facebook considers the matter resolved. 

So if someone steals your intellectual property and you complain, and the thief takes it down but then re-posts it... or keeps someone else's stolen property up... the owners of the intellectual property are stuck. 

As you can see, Facebook's response has been lukewarm at best. 

No matter what excuses people come up with for stealing other people's work, doing so is a violation of international copyright law and of Craft law.  There's no way around that.  The Craft teaches co-operation; it also teaches, through the Law of Threefold Return, what happens to thieves (and to everyone, actually). 

Variations I've heard on the Law of Threefold Return include: Your actions will come back to you threefold; at least threefold; or three times three.  

Either way, you'll get what's coming to you.  Natural law does that. 

Intellectual property theft is ethically wrong, legally criminal, and a violation of Craft Law (and Testimony of Integrity)

Don't do it.  

And if it happens to you, talk about it.  

Recommended post: "She Geek: Women and Self-Labeling in Online Geek Communities"

Victoria Janssen pointed this out to me, and I was impressed by both the research and the analysis. 

My intent in this project was to examine the labeling of female-oriented geek spaces on the internet. What I found was that self-labeling of geek women often defeats the potentially subversive act of creating a female-oriented geek community.

I would argue that the mere creation or and participation in geek communities labeled “for women” are aggressive acts towards male-dominated geek culture. One of the reasons we can see these communities as a challenge to mainstream geek culture is the still-prevailing myth of internet neutrality.

Read more...

Enjoy...

Happy Fall Equinox and Witches' Thanksgiving

Day and night are in balance; Fall Equinox is the door to the dark time of the year.

This is the second harvest festival. What are we storing away for the winter? What foods don’t store well, and so we eat them now?

Some trees are already beginning to shed their leaves. What do we shed with the coming of winter, so that we don’t waste energy bringing it through the cold, and so we have energy and room for new gifts?

In many traditions, the Goddess, or one of Her faces, begins a journey into the Underworld at Fall Equinox. What will we lose in our journeys? What will we find? What abundant gifts of Mother Earth, tangible and not-so-tangible, carry us through the coming dark and cold time of the year?

What gifts do fall and winter bring?

What should I talk about in my talk about Feminist Witchcraft?

I've agreed to give a talk and discussion on Feminist Witchcraft at an upcoming Pagan Pride Day. 

So, what should I talk about? 

Pagan Pride Day events tend to draw people from different traditions with Paganism, and non-Pagans as well. 

What would you want to know if you went to a Pagan Pride Day event, saw someone was doing a talk and discussion on Feminist Witchcraft, and went to it? 

Paganism in the news: Satanism isn't Witchcraft, and recommended post: "Pagan Reactions to O’Donnell’s “Dabble-Gate”" at the Wild Hunt

When the video first broke of a certain DE Senate candidate supposedly admitting back in the 90s that she'd "dabbled into Witchcraft" (yes, ladies and gentlemen, those were her exact words), I admit I went and watched it, and even shared it in a certain social networking forum... because at the time, I thought it was ridiculous, and even a little funny.  

I also made comments about how in talking about a "Satanic altar" she clearly hadn't a clue, because any self-respecting Witch or Satanist will tell you that Witches don't have Satanic altars, because Witchcraft and Satanism are not the same thing. 

Conclusion, somebody was trying to impress her, thrill her, be a jerk, get her to sleep with him, etc, and took her on this midnight picnic.

I put it out of my mind, went to visit family out of state, and focused on my Tradition's Fall Equinox celebration.

While I wasn't paying attention, the media got all over it, and that hasn't been all good for Real-Life Pagans.   On the other hand, times have changed enough that representatives of several Pagan organizations have been contacted, and have been quoted in the news. 

Jason Pitzl-Waters over at the Wild Hunt has some good analysis of the news coverage; check it out here: 

"Pagan Reactions to O’Donnell’s “Dabble-Gate”" at the Wild Hunt

On the whole, I wish the mainstream coverage had been a bit more nuanced. I think there are larger issues to confront than “Witches don’t worship Satan” involved here, and I’m disappointed that we may have lost our chance to raise them before the media machine moves on to the next controversy. Still, I suppose it’s a mark of how far we’ve come that representatives from several organizations and traditions were contacted by the mainstream media for our thoughts.

Well-said.

Update: 

But wait, there's more!  Now even Democrats seem to agree that being Pagan means not being electable.  Gah!  

"The O'Donnell "Dabble-Gate" Feeding Frenzy" at the Wild Hunt

While we stick to the “it’s not Satanism” talking points of old, a larger narrative, and one harder to easily refute is taking shape before our eyes. That any taint of Paganism, of Witchcraft, of the occult, is political suicide.

Recommended article: "Commitment, the Best a Lesbian Couple Could Do"

A friend of mine passed this article on to me:

City Critic - Commitment, the Best a Lesbian Couple Could Do - NYTimes.com

It hit home, kind of hard.  

Six months after Beloved Wife and I started dating, we got hit with heavy-duty medical shit.  We waited four years to get married (religiously, not civilly).  Then last fall, when one of us was getting ready for major surgery, we did the civil union thing in NJ.  We feel like the mayor and everyone involved at City Hall is invested in our marriage now.  But we knew that NJ hospitals don't always respect civil unions "because they're not marriages," even though the NJ Supreme Court says they're supposed to. 

This story brought tears to my eyes...

A little more on interfaith, Muslim, and evangelical outreach

From the Washington Post, "Jim Wallis on the story behind pastor Terry Jones' change of heart" is an informative and inspirational article in both a practical and heart-warming way. 

A few days ago, Stone told me, he got a call from a group of Muslims in a small town in Kashmir, Pakistan. They said they had been watching CNN when the segment on Heartsong Church aired. Afterward, one of the community's leaders said to those who were gathered: "God just spoke to us through this man." Another said: "How can we kill these people?" A third man went straight to the local Christian church and proceeded to clean it, inside and out.

Lately, we have heard much about hostility toward Muslims in America. We have heard an awful lot about Jones's threats and about arson at the site of another Tennessee mosque project, in Murfreesboro. But we have heard little about people like Tunnicliffe and Stone and Stone's admirers in Pakistan.

And that is everyone's loss.

Blessed be.

from/about the Pagan Newswire Collective

There's been some buzz recently about the Pagan Newswire Collective.  What is that, you ask?

The Pagan Newswire Collective is an open collective of Pagan journalists, newsmakers, media liaisons, and writers who are interested in sharing and promoting primary-source reporting from within our interconnected communities. The idea is simple: a pool of journalists and writers within the collective share sources and collaborate on dynamic and timely stories of interest to the Pagan community; media liaisons from various Pagan organizations pass along news and current events for possible coverage; editors, bloggers, podcasters, and other media outlets can call for submissions, collaborate with the collective, and negotiate with individual writer(s) to distribute finished product. All work created from within the collective remains the property of those who produced it, and it can be distributed in any number of ways, from Creative Commons to more traditional arrangements with various periodicals.  

The PNC is looking for writers, bloggers, and more, with experience in several specific content areas.  For details, read on. 

If you like to write, or have a leading to write, and you have a specific area, this could be a good fit for you.  

Thank you for your ongoing interest and support of the Pagan Newswire Collective. As we enter Fall, our organization is busier than ever. I have some news and announcements to share, so let's get to it!

PNC Bureau Project:

Our new initiative to build a true Pagan news organization though the nurturing of local bureaus has been making great strides. First, let me welcome our newest bureau, PNC-Sacramento (http://pncsacramento.wordpress.com/)! Co-coordinated by David R. Shorey and Isabella Wolfe, their team will be covering the Sacramento and Northern San Joaquin Valleys and the Northern Sierra Nevada in California. PNC-Sacramento joins already established bureaus in Minnesota, Florida, Washington DC, Georgia, Maine, and Iowa. Links to our bureaus can be found at the main PNC site (http://www.pagannewswirecollective.com/).

PNC Bureaus Coordinator Danielle LeBrun has also had contact with several other people who are looking to start a bureau in their area and are looking for others. If you are in any of the follwing areas and would like to be part of bureau, e-mail Danielle (danielle at pagannewswirecollective dot com) and she can pass your info along to the appropriate person: Kansas City, Cincinnati, Salem MA, North Texas, Chicago and/or Illinois, or Michigan. If you don't see you're area but are interested in starting a bureau, please e-mail Danielle!

You can also download our bureau starter kit:
http://www.pagannewswirecollective.com/bureau_starter_kit.pdf

These bureaus will provide the backbone for the PNC's national/international coverage, empower local communities to engage in creating their own journalism, and ultimately influence mainstream media narratives concerning modern Pagan faiths. Already, bureaus like PNC-Minnesota are getting noticed by local reporters, and are being cited in places like the Minn Post.

CALL FOR WRITERS:

Want to write for the PNC? There are a number of opportunities currently available! First, almost all of our bureaus are looking for writers; if you live in one of the states with an established bureau, please head to their site and contact them. Reporting on your own backyard is an excellent way to build experience and get to know your community better.

PNC-Blogs: Interested in becoming a PNC blogger? We have a number of topic-focused sites that are in development or need an infusion of new blood!

Pagan+Politics: http://politics.pagannewswirecollective.com/

Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians (and libertarians), moderates, conservatives, progressives, Anarchists, and Pagans of all political stripes are being sought out for the PNC's political commentary site. Be a part of the next wave of recruits for this site and make your voice heard! Perhaps the PNC's most popular (and infamous) project, it's a great way to hold forth (in a civil manner) on politics from a Pagan point-of-view.

Warriors & Kin: http://military.pagannewswirecollective.com/

Are you a military Pagan? Veteran? Part of a military family? We are seeking writers to help reinvigorate our military-focused blog Warriors & Kin. Pagans in the military is an increasingly important topic, and the PNC wants to ensure that Pagan voices from within the military are heard by the wider community. Writers who can post at least once per week are ideal, but we'll consider anyone with the proper background and experience who is interested in participating.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

We have a few projects that are nearly ready to be launched, are in active development, or are in the planning stages. We are seeking out writers who have a special interest in following topics/areas.

Ecology/Nature/Environmentalism, Chaplaincy (hospital, prison, military, etc), and Pagan Music.

When a project is in development we prefer applicants who have experience with, or have written extensively concerning, the topics. Please include writing samples and any applicable history with the topic.

To apply for a position with any PNC blog, whether existing or in development, please send the Projects Coordinator (Jason Pitzl-Waters) an e-mail (jason@pagannewswirecollective.com).

PNC WEB SITE & PANTHEACON:

The PNC's main site is currently under active development and will be launched this Fall. Our Tech Group coordinators David Dashifen Kees & Scott Reimers are hard at work and when we launch you'll have a better idea of how all the PNC projects and initiatives will be integrated towards our goal of creating a Pagan newswire.

The PNC is also planning an official "coming out" meet-and-greet at the 2011 Pantheacon in San Jose, California (to be held at the COG/NROOGD suite). We're also proposing an introductory talk to be held before the meet-and-greet. Details to come as we know more. What I do know is that several PNC coordinators and writers will be in attendance, and you'll be able to meet them and talk about the work we are doing. I can't wait!

Thank you for your support,

Jason Pitzl-Waters
Projects Coordinator
The Pagan Newswire Collective
http://www.pagannewswirecollective.com/

You can also find the Pagan Newswire Collective on Facebook -- click here.