Category: Editorial

Harmony Tribe Restorative Justice Circle Update – Editorial

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A Restorative Justice circle took place facilitated by Crystal Blanton,  guest at last summers  Sacred Harvest Festival (SHF) in August.  This Restorative Justice (RJ)  Circle was specifically to aid Harmony Tribe(HT) and its festivant community to move beyond the real ‘hurt and harm’ the individuals, organization, and festival had felt over the past year. When I wrote about it, I also committed to  updates  as the Harmony Tribe (RJ)  process evolved. I wrote then as a Harmony Tribe member, and as of this editorial, am now a member of the 2012 Harmony Tribe Council, as one of 15 Council Members at Large.

Please read that August editorial for a more complete back ground of RJ and this particular RJ Circle.

The purpose of this RJ Circle was:

“… to restore; to restore a sense of safety in a loving and empathetic community. We are not here to blame, or to cast judgment on who was right or wrong. It is a about how we can support our community together and heal the hurt and harm that has been caused by a series of events. “

And Crystal summarized the RJ Circle with:

“ What happens, Where do we go from here? We can not fix everything that has happened. We can not restore relationships without everyone present. We can restore what is here. We have not lost our community… what I have seen is that with time ,work, and a commitment to values, and the mirroring of those to each other, a community can be healed. “

The RJ Circle came forth with several Collective Agreements, promises each person present made to the Harmony Tribe community. These were jointly arrived at by consensus, and individually affirmed by those present as their own commitments. These were to facilitate this community to “move forward in the healing process with safety and trust”.

The agreements are:

  1. We will aid the process of developing commonly defined principles and values, and the primary purpose for our community (HT) so that the HT council can work for the whole of our community.
  2. Define how Harmony Tribe (and its community) can participate in the processes of community, beyond HT the organization.
  3. The HT Community commits to participate as they can – to show up.
  4. Find ways to solicit community support and input.
  5. Commit to developing a means for mentoring or transferring knowledge or roles within the organization.

How has Harmony Tribe and its community progressed toward meeting these commitments?

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GOP Presidential candidate impresses with pro-Pagan stance

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If you are a fiscal liberal and wish for more governmental intervention in your daily life, then GOP Presidential hopeful Johnson is not the candidate for you.  If, however, you are like most Americans and are looking for a President who leans more socially liberal/fiscally conservative you may want to give Johnson a further look.  Couple this view with an unabashed pro-Pagan, pro-human rights outlook and clear openness to alternative views on a whole host of issues and you may have as close to an ideal candidate for President as the Pagan community has yet seen.

Last night’s video conference between Gov. Johnson and Pagan and Hindu media was unusual and groundbreaking.  Unlike most every other candidate for political office at any level, Johnson not only agreed to speak publicly with Pagans, he promoted the event openly on his official Google+ page.   In talking with other Pagan media after the conference, many of us related personal experiences with politicians, even those sympathetic to us in private, who refuse to be seen speaking with us in public.   They don’t want an association with ‘people like us’ to damage their credibility and truth to tell, they don’t care enough about our concerns to address them.  This was not the case with Johnson.  During the interview he showed no discomfort addressing issues specific to our community and never flinched from saying the word Pagan.  An example of how supportive Gov. Johnson is to Pagan rights, and basic human rights, can be summed up in a message he had for Pagans and Wiccans serving in the US military,“It should be about equality, it’s not, and I appreciate their service  even though you are not being treated equally.”

It could be easy to dismiss Johnson’s decision in speaking with Pagans while seeking election as the actions of an unknown candidate low in the polls, but that would miss the mark.  Johnson is a successful two-term Governor of New Mexico and is the only GOP candidate who scores positive approval ratings in his home state.  He is not a ‘nothing’ candidate, but a qualified candidate with executive level experience.  What has hampered his candidacy is the mainstream medias’ inexplicable exclusion of Johnson from televised debates.  They have set up criteria that bars Johnson’s inclusion in the debates, a candidate must reach 2% in their polls, but ensures he can never meet that bar by excluding him as an option in their polls.  This sets up a scenario where Johnson is a longshot for the GOP nomination, unless people vote for him in the GOP primaries.  So while we finally have a Presidential candidate who is willing to listen to Pagans and supports us on many issues important to our community, we may never have the opportunity to vote for him.  What makes it even more bittersweet for some Pagans is that such an outspoken candidate for Pagan rights is running on the Republican ticket, not Democratic.

Click HERE to watch the video conference with Gov. Johnson courtesy of KeithBarrett.tv.

A full transcript is available at the Staff of Asclepius blog.

The hour and a half interview covered a wide range of questions about GLBT rights, Pagan military chaplains, raw milk, teaching yoga in schools, TSA and the Patriot Act, economic, and environmental concerns.  Many of the questions were submitted by Pagan community leaders like Rev. Selena Fox of Circle Sanctuary and by your average Pagan on the street.    Below are just a few of the highlights from the hour and half Q&A with Gov. Johnson, but I strongly encourage everyone to view the entire interview.

Cara Schulz, PMC-MN:  It is commonly thought in the Pagan community that Republican candidates are hostile to minority religions such as ours.  What message would you like to get across to Pagan voters about how you would represent them if elected president?

Johnson:  There should be a separation of church and state.  I happen to think the world looks down on Republicans for their social conservative views which include religion in government.

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DC Pagan Community Center Set For Year End Opening

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The Open Hearth Foundation has secured a space for the District of Columbia (DC) Pagan Community Center.  I interviewed Iris Firemoon, foundation board member, about the securing of a space and the Community Center launch planned for December 31st.

Are you excited at the prospect of the DC Community Center opening?

DC Community Center Space

DC Community Center Space photo: Capital Witch

We are very excited! We signed a lease at the end of September, and took possession of the space on October 3rd. We have been hitting the ground running since then. Our official launch will be December 31st of this year, and we will have a launch party.

 How did you put this all together?

photo: Capitol Witch

The Open Hearth Foundation was founded in 1999.  Several groups, area leaders , and individuals came together and decided that they needed a space that could accommodate the kind of work that a lot of Pagan groups do. We need a space where we can stay past midnight; where we aren’t worried about out drums being too loud; we are not worried about inviting strangers or the public to our home and to putting our address on the internet; where we can store the things that a group may need. They noted all these things and built a framework for what they wanted in a Pagan Community Center. Over the last 12 years we have been raising the money to get there. Continue reading →

The Occupation shows, doesn’t tell.

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Friday I spent most of my day at the OccupyMN protest in downtown Minneapolis.  My main goal was to get a feel for the movement so many Pagans are taking part in or at least sympathetic towards.  The movement tells us they are different than any previous protest and they are unhappy with how the media “just doesn’t get it.”  They can’t be classified, they explain.  They don’t have leaders and spokespersons, they have no firm goals as of yet, just a firm conviction that our country’s process is so broken it can no longer function.  They speak of suffering, feeling divorced from power, marginalized.  They are an experiential movement.  The magic is in being there and adding your essence to the mix.  As I’m  part of an experiential religion family, Paganism, I thought I’d look at what was happening through the lens of my religious background.

I can see why the mainstream media doesn’t “get it.”  From my observations, the Occupy movement isn’t about demands or slogans or political parties, it’s about manifesting the society they wish existed.  Similar to Pagan festivals, OccupyMN is creating a (temporary) healthy, functioning, caring community in Government Plaza.  The media has been asking them “What are your demands?  What are your solutions?”   The solutions they propose are being worked out in real time, right before our very eyes.  They aren’t writing them down on a website, or articulating it to the media in neat soundbites, they are demonstrating solutions by living them.  They aren’t protestors, they are demonstrators – those who present by experiments, examples, or practical application.  Also similar to Pagan festivals, the real question is, can such a community, and the solutions they demonstrate that  work so beautifully during a short period of time on a small scale, apply to large scale groups like an entire nation?

This demonstrator says real power is in the hands of a few.

Some of the attendees are protestors in the traditional sense of the word.  They are unhappy with specific policy areas and want to change them using established methods.  They want lower college tuition prices, or a reversal of a Supreme court decision, or for candidates to only use public financing.  These are small tweeks to the present system.   What the core of the Occupy movement, the ones who camp out and devote themselves wholeheartedly, seem to want is wholesale changes to the system itself.  Not the policies, but the process.  I’m not saying the movement wants to overthrow the government and turn us into Cuba or Canada.  But they want a revolution to take place.  A more open system, a less crushing process, for us all to live and resolve conflicts in.

When they speak about the 99% and the 1% it is tempting, for them and those of us trying to understand, to frame it in terms of  money.  Money often does equate to power, which generates more money, which helps concentrate power further.  I think it’s more accurate to think of the 1% as representing those who control our present system.  Which is exactly opposite of how this country was set up to operate, at least on paper.  I’m not sure if there was ever a golden age of the United States where the citizens held the reigns of power instead of  just the illusion of power, but it is a myth worth fighting for.

Now that we have that long intro out of the way, let me walk you through my day so you can get a feel for what I experienced during my time in Government Plaza.

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