Category: Festivals

Pagan Spirit Gathering Report

PNC-Minnesota Co-Editors Cara Schulz and Nels Linde are in the lovely, but very wet, Stonehouse Park near Earlville, Illinois for the Pagan Spirit Gathering. We are part of the brand new Media Camp that brings together podcasters, journalists, bloggers, and other Pagan Media into a centralized camp to better facilitate interviews.

Throughout this week we will updating you on what’s happening at the festival, working with the Proud Pagan Podcasters to podcast some of the musical acts, and giving you our impressions of this festival. We are focusing on Minnesotans attending, performing, and presenting at the festival.

Star Foster of Patheos conducting an interview at Media Camp at PSG

Today, there are three Minnesotans scheduled to present workshops – Steven Posch, Nels Linde, and Judy Olson. Their workshops may be cancelled due to weather. It poured and stormed in the wee hours this morning and has rained most of the morning. We have a slight break in the rain, but we are unsure how long it will last.

Due to the storm, there are some challenges with the basics at the camp today – the food vendors can’t plug in everything they need to be able to cook, the potapottys and bathrooms are a bit interesting, and tents in lower laying areas have water in them. Yet – everyone is in great spirits enjoying the festival to the hilt. Pagan festival communities are awesome things to watch develop and the community is stepping in to help one another. This feeling, this sense of a true Pagan village pulling together, is the number one reason I attend festivals. A close second is how every person is open to wonder and joy. Festivals are very joyful experiences and it’s rare and precious to have joy in your life.

I’m going to get ready for the Media Camp presentation on journalistic ethics, which starts at 1pm. Hoping for a good crowd and perhaps we’ll find some more people who wish to join the PNC in an existing bureau or willing to help establish a new one.

Stay dry fellow PSGers and tarp your tent!

Kari’s Thingtide Travels – Northern Folk Gathering

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Kari Tauring is hitting the Heathen summer festivals and gatherings and is  reporting back on her experiences in this series. This festival is the Northern Folk Gathering, former known as the Midwest Thing.  The festival moved to a new location this year, St Croix State Park, and was held June 10-12.

This was the first annual gathering of Heathen kindreds and individuals representing the Northern half of the Midwest. Hosted by Volkshof Kindred (out of Minneapolis) at Norway Point State Park near Hinkley, Minnesota.

Photo credit: Chris Gunnar Miller

This three day event was attended by just over 100 people with about 30 children in tow. Though it was the first annual event by its name it was by no means the first event hosted by Volkshof Kindred and it showed in the organization, food, and fun that everyone enjoyed without a hitch. This mid-sommer festival was an opportunity for the kindred Chieftains (or leader representation) to meet and discuss issues within the Northern states and the region. The Gothis (god-persons or religious officials) of kindreds also met as well as the Valkyries (those women who serve the kindred as horn bearers, connecting the luck of the kindred to the wells of the world tree).

The cabin camping at Norway Point is quite nice. Everyone was settled in a little “village” with the main hall being the center of food and festivity. There is a lovely swimming beach and lots of woods to wander in.

Specific programming for the children was carried out through the event from workshops by Sara Axtel (Minneapolis, Powderhorn Cultural Wellness Center), members of Volkshof kindred and myself. I worked with the older kids teaching the Jim Johnston Norsery Rhyme “This is the world of Midgard” complete with dance steps, pantomimes, masks and a sun-disk parade.

It was different than Trothmoot because the intention of the event was to bring the regional Heathens together to form bonds and friendship. So the emphasis was on festive activity such as a Maypole and flower crowns, hall decorations and a whole lot of dancing. I presented a performance program especially written for the event, “The Transformation of Groa.” Drew Miller (Boiled in Lead) came up for the show to add his magical laptop sounds and there were six staving women who performed a stav dance leading the human Groa into the mound to become a mound-bride.

A special moment
The childrens performance was a moment that the entire hall found exceptional. Here we are, modern humans of Nordic ancestry watching our children re-create the story myth of our deepest root. It is this realization that our ancestors are alive in our children that made this moment of the event a sort of pinnacle. Listening to each person in the hall raise a horn to their parents, grand parents, great grands…by name and by deed really marks a huge difference between general pagan events and heathen events. There is a deep understanding that we are creating the world for our children based on how healthy our relationships with our ancestors are. There is a sense in each raised horn that deep healing is going on in the family of origin issues we all face and that there is a commitment to maintaining a high level of functioning for our children’s sake. I find this compelling whether at a small kindred meeting or a large regional gathering. This path is for our ancestors and our descendants, not just for us here and now.

Also, discussion was had on how this event could open up to individuals who, while not practicing Heathenry in a strict sense, are connected to heathenry through ancestry and interest. In Minnesota, our large Immigrant folksoul is beginning to seek their deeper roots and Heathenry is reaching towards the songs and dances of the Immigrant Era. A natural bridge is beginning to form and Volkshof Kindred is leading the way towards total folksoul healing.

Next year and other events
The site is already booked for the second annual Northern Folk Gathering and attendees said their fare well’s with “we will see you at LATP in September!” There is such a homecoming/family reunion feeling within these Heathen gatherings that growth is the natural outcome. I will be attending Lightning Across the Plains in Kansas this September for my third year. Last year I was recognized at the Midwest Thing held at LATP as volva (staff carrier) for the region. I look forward to reporting on it!

 

Editor’s note:  Interview  with Brody Derks of the Thule of  Volkshof  Kindred, about Heathenry and the Northern Folk Gatheringcan be found here.

Kari’s report on Trothmoot 2011 can be found here.

 

KC Drum Tribe – Build Community with the Drum – Editorial

Skewb, founder of the Drum Tribe

I had a chance to interview Skot ‘Skewb’ Person, and Leslie Ravenhair of the Kansas City Drum Tribe (Katumba) while at Heartland Spirit Festival this year. There was some challenging weather, but it was proved again that a day at festival is a better day than anywhere else! It was a festival with one of the best drum and dance grooves ever, and I’d give a lot of credit to the Kansas City Drum Tribe.

Skewb is considered one of the main forces behind the tribe’s development. The Kansas City drum circle started as a meet-up group started by Kim Ousler in Overland Park, at Wild Oats, an organic food store. For Skewb it felt weird because the location was in an upscale suburban location. As Kim became busier, she passed the organization on to Skewb who energized it and changed the name to Kansas City Drum Tribe.

Skewb:

I started posting that drummers would be in Loose Park on Monday nights, an inner city park in KC. (Kansas City). I started going with a couple of friends that I met through the KC witches meet up. I got more people interested through using the internet, and people started showing up. It evolved from maybe 4-5 people regularly a week, to 150 plus people over four years!

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New Pagan Festival Debuts

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The Summerlands draws up images of death and the afterlife, but organizers of a new area festival hope that Pagans attending the Summerland Spirit Festival remember it as a place to reconnect with nature and refresh their souls before heading back to the stress of daily modern life.

Summerland Spirit Festival
July 9th – 17th
Website and Registration here

Summerlands Spirit Festival (SSF) bills itself as a community retreat with a slower, more relaxed vibe than other festivals Pagans may be used to attending.   “You know that almost frantic energy that you feel at other festivals?  We wanted to create a festival that has intensity, yet the energy is much more soothing and calm,” says Todd Berntson, President of Summerland Spirit Festival.

Mr. Berntson says there will be workshops, merchants, and musical entertainment similar to other Pagan festivals, but SSF decided to have fewer of these activities so they don’t overlap and place stress on attendees trying to do everything at once. This also encourages attendees to explore and reconnect to the natural world.  “You can go up on this hill that is covered with apple trees and watch the sun rise.  Or sit on a large boulder placed in the middle of the creek and meditate while the water rushes by.  There are trails through the woods and I’ve seen herds of deer there,” says Berntson.  “This is a beautiful place.”

That place is a large tract of privately owned land in Wisconsin about 1.5 hours away from the Twin Cities.  The owner of the land is pleased to host this festival and is working with the board of SSF to get the land and facilities ready in time.  Berntson says the bathhouse and flush toilets are clean and plentiful.  The dining hall is a remodeled old stone barn that has a fireplace large enough for bench seats inside it.  There are intertubes available to ride down the creek on.  Meals are provided if you choose the meal plan.  “We wanted to provide the meals so that would be one less thing for people to worry about, one less chore that takes up their time.  We want people to come here and relax,” notes Berntson.  “This is more of a pampering spiritual retreat where you submerge yourself in nature.”

Heart Of The Beast, May Day Parade!

If you have never heard of the parade, first read about it. If you missed one of their donation buckets, you can also donate ! I asked some of the Free Speech Sections participants what group they were with, and why they were here?

Photos: M Bardon

Eric Angell – Our World in Depth, ” I’m here to be festive with friends and neighbors in Minneapolis.”

Erick Boustead – Line Break Media, ” I’m ‘shooting the parade,’ and to soak in the awesome mix of the art and theater. ”

Gary Lingen –  Upper Midwest Pagan Alliance, ” Over the 29 years I have lived here, I have only missed one May Day! I missed last year because of surgery, but I always come here in any type of weather to be part of the celebration today.

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