Category: Editorial

Editorial: I Pledge 10%

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I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I am making a public pledge and I invite others join me.  During 2012, I’m donating 10% of my income (net) to charities, individuals in need, and artistic endeavors. At least half of the funds are earmarked for groups, organizations, and individuals in my religious community. I don’t make a ton of money. Most of you don’t make a ton of money. I’ll definitely feel the pinch.  I also pledge to volunteer 10% of my time, 4 hours a week, to groups and organizations that need another pair of hands.

I’m doing this out of need.

The world is in desperate need of help and while I can’t help the world, I can donate to a food shelf and feed one person for a week.  I can donate supplies to artists so they can make a living and create beauty and truth.  I can spend a few hours editing a website for an understaffed non-profit or planting seeds in a community garden.  I can’t help everyone, but I can wash sheets in a homeless shelter.  So can you.

Our religious communities need us to step up and demonstrate our support.  My mother advised me to judge what people hold dear by what they do, not by what they say.  My religious community is important to me which is why I specify half of the money and time I donate goes to Heathen, Pagan, and polytheist groups, projects, and individuals.  According to the book Voices from the Pagan Census 67% of Pagans give less than $250per year to their religion – 28% give nothing.  The median income for Pagans is between 30,000 and 40,000, which is on par with the general population.  Most of us have funds to donate and if we don’t, we have time and talent.  The question is if our religious community is a priority for us, and if so, will our actions reflect that.

I am in dire spiritual need for the opportunity to act on my values. “We give that You may give” is an ancient saying which sums up the relationship between man and the divine.  It isn’t a bribe, but a spiraling relationship built on mutual respect and love.  Donating my energy, either directly through my actions or indirectly through money, is an opportunity for me to share, rather than an obligation to give.  What the Gods have given me, I give to others.  What I give to others, the Gods give to me.  The great cycle I refuse pretend I’m not a part of.  Giving is good for my heart as it thrives on daily acts of generosity.  I crave more generosity in my life, don’t you?  Donating my time helping my neighbors is a reminder that money is not the only way to happiness. It keeps me sane to embody an ethos very different from our very dominant monetary economy. The gently subversive quality of working in a soup kitchen or mending clothes at  a shelter helps me keep my values straight. Isn’t that what you deeply desire in your life, too?

Not everyone can give 10% of their income or spend 10% of their time (0f a 40 hour work week).  Please take care of your own families first.  I’m also not advocating people give everything away and live in sackcloth and ashes – that’s not from our mythos!  I don’t see wealth as something evil, but our wealth has outpaced our generosity.  We live in a world that says too much is never enough. Instead of We give that You may give – we want that we may want still more.  Enough really is enough.  Unless we learn that, we will never be satisfied ourselves.  And we will never know the joy that comes from letting go.  We let go so others may have.

If you can, consider giving what you can, when and wherever your heart feels inspired.  If you want to join me in pledging 10% of your income and 10% of your time, great!  Just want to do one or the other?  Perfect.  Can’t do a specific percentage?  Not a problem.  Do what you can, when you can.  That’s all any of us can do.

I hope your Solstice was bright, the omens for your year propitious, and that 2012 brings us joy.

Tips For Helping Your Heathen Child Deal With Prejudice

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Article by K.M. Spires, Lady of the Hall, of Hridgar Folk – reprinted with permission. Although written for a Heathen audience, PNC believes this article to be of value to Pagan and other polytheist parents.


Very few modern Heathens can honestly claim they were born and raised in the religion. At some point, the majority of us made the conscious decision to become Heathen, even though we knew how we would be viewed by the general population. We didn’t care, we were following our hearts and doing what we knew was right. Most of us would do the same all over again.

The same can’t be said for our children. They’ve grown up praying to the gods, their ancestors, and gifting the spirits of the land. They take it for granted. They’ve probably never set foot in a church, barring the occasional wedding or funeral. They eagerly await Yule and Ostara every year. They are clueless when someone mentions Noah’s ark, but yell, “Hail Thor!” every time they hear thunder.

As much as it warms our hearts that our kids have the opportunity to grow up in our folkway, we can’t forget that they live in a far different world than we do. They have some very perilous territory to navigate, and holding beliefs that are different from the majority make it that much harder.

I’m referring, of course, to grade school.

Most of us remember all too well what it was like to be a kid. How was ‘the fat kid’ in class treated? How about the kid whose dad was in jail? What about the quiet, smart kid that liked to sit under a tree and read during recess rather than play on the swings? Perhaps you were one of the ‘different’ kids, and can remember firsthand how insecure classmates treated anyone that broke the mold.

If you’re raising your child Heathen, you’ve placed them in that group of children that stand apart. This is nothing to be ashamed of, but know going in that your kids are going to encounter problems. They’ll be called ‘weird,’ ‘freak,’ or the ever-popular ‘devil-worshipper.’

Then again, having an ‘alternative’ religion may not be a big deal where you live. Perhaps you’re from a place where many different cultures have settled close together, like a metropolitan area or a military base. These places, where children of varied religious backgrounds learn to play and get along together, aren’t common. Most of the country still holds Christian values.

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Empowerment Training Day for OccupyMPLS

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Tuesday, Dec 6th, OccupyMpls sponsored Empowerment Training Day at Walker Church in S. Mpls. It was a day to focus on skill sharing. training, and discussion around the core issues facing OccupyMpls. It was designed to build a respectful and empowering culture within the movement.

Afternoon round table discussions

I participated for a few hours in both the morning and the afternoon. The event had a full schedule from 8am – 5pm.  I arrived about 10am to a room of about 60 people. Starhawk was going over the principals of meeting facilitation and consensus process.  Many present had some experience with these subjects before, and so the depth of the discussion during the presentation was directed at the particular problems facilitating a ‘general assembly’ presented to occupy organizers.

About 10.25 am the meeting was interrupted by an announcement the Plaza security had ‘raided’ the camp earlier that morning as about 8.30am and had taken all unattended items from the Plaza. Several county commissioners phone numbers, who were reported to be meeting Tuesday, distributed and calls were made in rotation as the workshop training continued.

The importance of incorporating core values into the consensus, and general assembly processes was emphasized, as well as the need to select the best decision-making process for each issue the group faced. Consensus Process is not needed for many movement decisions, just the major ones where core values are being defined.

I returned after lunch when open group meetings, now about fifty with many new people, were in progress. Five topics were under discussion at smaller round tables :

  1. Direct Action Strategy
  2. Visioning
  3. General Assemblies
  4. Guideline for “New Norms”
  5. Diversity within the Movement

Each group kept notes on its discussion with the aim of discovering insights, and gleaning items for later general assembly proposal and consideration. Every fifteen minutes or so, the groups paused and people rotated among them as they felt called. I participated in the visioning, direct action, and diversity groups. At the end of the session, spokespersons from each group summarized the discussion and outlined items that deserved further work to integrate the ideas within OccupyMPLS.  A contact person and email  was established for each work group and a sign-up for messaging within each group was posted.

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This is what religious bigotry looks like

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Editorial by Cara Schulz

If I told you this was the illustration placed at the top of an article on a Heathen politician in a Pulitzer prize winning news publication, would you believe me?  What about if I told you the article was titled America’s Top Heathen?

The target of the article is Dan Halloran, elected to 19th City Council District in Queens in November of 2009.  The election was hotly contested and towards the end of the campaign things got ugly when Halloran’s religion, Theodism (a branch of Heathenry) was used to smear the candidate.  Disparaging articles appeared in the press and jokes were make.  Yet Halloran was still able to win the election by a narrow margin.

Now this article comes out which shows that religious bigotry is still alive and well in the New York press.  Oh good.  I had thought for a moment that NY journalists had come to their senses and realized that ridiculing a minority religion is against journalistic ethics.

The lengthy editorial appears to have been written to highlight what it perceives as Councilman Dan Halloran’s political failings while weaving in his alleged religious shortcomings.  Because of the prominent and vile cartoon and the mocking of his religion it also paints Heathenry as a joke.

Byron Ballard, who commented on the article, says it best, “But this piece takes pot shots at an elected official through the lens of his religion–mocking both interchangeably. And if that wasn’t enough, the author also takes a cheap shot at Wicca. This is a nasty piece, illustrated as offensively as possible, Sure it’s about Halloran, but the title of the piece leaves no doubt about what makes him so preposterous (and somehow amusing)–his religion.” 

 

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Starhawk to support Occupy Minnesota Dec 5-6th – Interview

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Starhawk

Starhawk,  Pagan author, Reclaiming Tradition co-founder, and social justice activist will be visiting the Twin Cities in support of the Occupy Minnesota movement next Monday and Tuesday, December 5-6th. Starhawk will be appearing Monday, December 5th at Mayday Books, 301 Cedar Ave S, on the West Bank, Minneapolis from 5-7pm offering a meeting facilitation training session. The Occupy General Assembly begins after  at 7pm at the Occupy Minneapolis site, 300 S. 6th St, Mpls, MN.   This is a fairly spontaneous trip and further details of Tuesday’s schedule and further training opportunities will be updated.

I interviewed Starhawk by phone this morning about Pagans and the Occupy movement.

What do you see as your role for the Occupy movement in Minnesota?

My role with the Occupy groups has been trying to plug-in around training and meeting facilitation. That is where I have the greatest contribution to make, and I have seen the biggest need. Everyone suddenly decided to go out for large consensus in the park, but most people don’t have any training or experience with meeting facilitation. General Assemblies are not the easiest place to start in facilitating a meeting! I have many years of experience with consensus and with different forms of meetings and group process and with democratic and horizontally structured group organizing. I think this type of group is very familiar to us in the Pagan community.

What particular experiences and perspectives might Pagans bring to the Occupy Movement?

What Pagans bring is first, most of us have experience working collaboratively in circles or small groups. That is a form of organizing. We have a basic approach to life, spirituality, to the world, that doesn’t depend on an external authority, No, we are our own authority. Secondly most Pagans learn about energy and awareness, and that is really key in preparing for action and holding and maintaining non-violence in the face of violence. Facilitating a meeting is a lot of watching the energy and moving with the energy. Thirdly, I think we bring an ethic that we are supposed to take care of the Earth, and take care of our people. We are all interconnected. We have to live our lives and shape our society based on those values. That is why the Occupy movement is really exciting.

Occupy Minnesota March

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