Month: July 2011

Community Notes; July 25-31

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Dr. Murphy Pizza, our local Pagan anthropologist, has been offered a contract from Ashgate Publishing to turn her dissertation into a book. So once again she’ll be collecting data on the local community. Please, if you see her, either help her or run and hide.

Sacred Paths Center spokesperson CJ Stone was interviewed on Pagans Tonight. You can listen here.

No matter where you are, you can still donate to the Sacred Paths Center to keep them open:

Next Saturday, July 30, Shadow Lights Minnesota in Prior Lake will be having a bake sale from 11-2 to raise money for the Sacred Paths Center.

This weekend, Eye of Horus had a sale to benefit the Sacred Paths Center.

Next Friday at the SPC, there will be A Very Potter Birthday Party celebration:

The Earth House Project of MN donated $978.62 to the SPC

Rev. Jack Green wrote about his experiences at the Earth House Midsummer gather

Sacred Harvest Festival’s early sign-up rate ends August 1. So if you want to go and don’t want to spend $30 extra at the gate, sign up here

Also on that site, the songs from the recent Northern Dawn CoG Lammas ritual are available.

The Eye of Horus will be bringing John Michael Greer back to town, January 27-29, 2012

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For more detailed information (addresses, descriptions, etc.) or further updates, check out the much ballyhooed Twin Cities Pagans Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TwinCitiesPagans/

Community Notes is reprinted courtesy of Twin City Pagans

NorDCOG Lammas Ritual – Editorial and Interviews

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I attended the Northern Dawn Covenant of the Goddess (NorDCOG) Lammas Ritual with about 45 other people on Saturday July 23rd in Hidden Falls Park in St Paul, MN.  The ritual was written by  Veronica Cummer and presented by Veronica and Janus, with a cast assembled from the community. Titled “LAMASU: SACRIFICE AND BLISS” , the ritual was concise and powerfully presented. A variation of classic Lammas stories, this ritual was described as invoking, “the age-old themes of Life, Death and Rebirth, and will contain both Wiccan elements and elements of the Sorgitzak Path. Sorgitzak is based on interaction with and the teachings of a pantheon of Gods from the Old Forest.” The ritual told the story easily, and seemed to translate clearly to those present.

I remembered back to a time when, to many folks, public events like this might be their only Sabbat ritual experience. I wondered whether that has changed. I asked two questions:

Why was it important to come to a public (open to all) ritual?

Do you also celebrate Sabbats in private?

The Dark Lady of Mercy photo:Paul Rucker

Rachael Goodman,

Personally I think it is important for the community to come together publicly in a situation where maybe some people don’t understand exactly what we are doing in a ritual, but to let them experience it.

In private? I do.

Janus,

To build and share community and get to know each other. To know and worship together with those of like minds.

In private? Yes.

Jack Green,

To serve the community. To help present this sequence of Sabbats that are important to us, That help us relate to the cycles of nature. I like ritual outdoors, and don’t mind Non-Pagans witnessing it. They need to know that we are out here.

In private? Oh yes. Continue reading →

Earth House Donates to Sacred Paths Center

Starting in 2009, Earth House Project pledged to donate 25% of the proceeds from their Midsummer Gather to the Sacred Paths Center. Last Saturday, Earth House Project presented Sacred Paths Center with $978.62 in fulfillment of that pledge.  This is in addition to the donation of $937.24 Earth House presented to Sacred Paths Center in 2010.

Earth House says they make donations of this type to support an organization whose mission parallels their own. “We are particularly pleased that this donation comes at a crucial time for SPC. Only by working together can we build and grow.  We hope other groups with the income to do so will also contribute to our community Center as we have.”

On July 7th, Sacred Paths Center announced they were in a financial crisis and needed immediate funding or they would close their doors.  CJ Stone, SPC Board member and Spokesperson, said they needed to raise $12,000 by July 30th.  That would allow the community center to pay the outstanding bills and make the changes needed to steer the center in a direction that is financially viable.  As of press time, the center has raised $9795 towards that goal.

Earth House Project is a tax-exempt, non-profit, volunteer community working to build a resource center in the Twin Cities area for people of all nature-reverent spiritual paths.  Their goal is to create a Pan-Pagan Community Center to allow all Pagans to have permanent sacred space for ritual, be a beacon for newcomers in the community to find others to worship with, and provide meeting rooms, office space, and other needed services. The group plans to donate profits from rental of halls and meeting rooms back into the Pagan community.

Editor’ note: the article has been updated to include the current amount raised by SPC.

Summerland Spirit Festival Arrives by Storm

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image use with permission/Todd Berntson

Summerland Spirit Festival (SSF) received its initiation by storm when a flash flood on the eigth day of the nine day festival washed out a footbridge and, for a short time, trapped ten attendees. The campers escaped by creating a rope system that allowed them to reach the rest of the camp safely. No one was injured. Festival president Todd Berntson commented, “It was like something from CNN. Quite literally, there was a river that was flowing through our campground. It was surreal. In some spots, it was five feet deep and rushing quickly. Very dangerous.”

Continue reading →

SPC Launches “Change and Grow Fundraiser”

The Sacred Path Center has raised $6275 of their $12,000 goal. They have instituted immediate plans to aid raising the remaining $5725 of their goal though a  “Change and Grow Fundraiser”.  This list from their website  includes;

  1. The gift shop will have a “Change and Grow Sale” to eliminate slow-moving stock and reduce overall stock for targeted re-stocking. The sale will be announced July 22 and run to July 29. On July 29, we will also have food available for sale as a whoop-te-do to end the sale.
  2. We will auction on EBay a very valuable personal item CJ Stone has donated from Loui Pieper’s estate. We hope not only to get a good price for the item but to garner national attention from many different kinds of people. Continue reading →