Category: Festivals

Jultide Celebration

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For Pagans and Heathens looking to celebrate Jule according to Old Norse traditions the options can be limited, even in Minnesota where cultural diversity means you’re of German descent instead of Norwegian or Swedish.

If a Juletide celebration is something you crave, mark December 18th on your calendar.  Guests pick a rune as they come through the door, listen to the stories of the season, dance in a circle of community, and feast and toast to one another in the Old Norse way.  You’ll also be treated to performances by Kari Tauring and Carol Sersland.

Kari Tauring says dance parties are an ancient way for a community to affirm and build their relationships with one another. “Dancing in a circle, arms linked and singing together is a way to share the mott and meign, physical space and energy,” says Tauring.  She notes that circle dances are intergenerational and much more ancient than couples dances and are important to the celebration, along with other activities you’ll experience that night, ” These celebrations have formal and formulaic rituals that bind the community together through gift-giving, food-sharing, making toasts, and singing and dancing together.”

Juletide Celebration
Sunday, December 18, 6-8 pm
Tapestry Folkdance Center
3748 Minnehaha Ave, Minneapolis, MN
Admission $10 for individuals $15 for groups of up to 5
For questions call 612.722.2914

Jultide Program Includes:

  • Each attendee receives a rune on a string jule gift at the door of the Hall.
  • Opening Toast and Special Program by Kari Tauring, Carol Sersland, Stavers in the House, and recent workshop attendees.
  • Integrative Ring Dances
  • Ritual “Vaes du Hael” (Old Norse for “To Your Health”): a three-part toast to the yard (outside the building/house), the doors of the house (Tapestry Folk Dance Center), and then finally the Hall (the doors of the large studio space).
  • Grand Entrance – a longdans that leads us back onto the dance floor.
  • Lighting the rune tree and calling with runes and stavs
  • Children’s Circle Dances
  • Community Circle Dance and Farewell Song
  • Guests may bring treats to share

Organizers say that everyone is welcome and ask attendees to bring their dancing shoes as the shoes you wear to the Hall cannot be worn inside.

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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Update: Harmony Park permit approved

Last night  the Freeborn County Commissioners held a public hearing to determine if Harmony Park, the privately owned location for Sacred Harvest Festival, would be allowed to renew its  Conditional Use permit.   The board voted unanimously to recommendation for a permanent permit of operation.

The final hearing for the permanent permit is scheduled for next week and is expected to be a formality.   Members of Harmony Tribe spoke at the meeting and HT board member Bress Nicnevin sent out an update to Tribe members last night, “…myself, Nels [Linde] and Aurora [Albright] all spoke on behalf of Harmony Tribe, Jay and Harmony Park…we were heard…along with many others who came in support of this permanent permit.

With this hurdle out of the way, Jay will be speaking to the Zoning Administrator today about revisiting and setting a time and date to revise our noise ordinance restrictions for Sacred Harvest Festival. We have a plan, and we are confident in its timely resolve. Thank you everyone for your support! The Zoning Administrator’s office was inundated with phone calls and emails from Our Tribe! I would also like to thank Rachel Goodman for being there, though she didn’t get a chance to speak…she helped us be heard by adding to our strength in numbers. Thank you Rachel!

Again, thank you everyone! We will keep you posted of new information as we receive it.”

Harmony Park Permit up for Renewal: Faces Possible New Restrictions

Harmony Park, the privately owned location for Sacred Harvest Festival, has its Conditional Use permit up for renewal with Freeborn County, Minnesota on November 7 – today- at 7 pm.  According to the renewal hearing notice Resolution #11-014 puts forth a series of possible new restrictions that include:

  • Noise limits at a maximum of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agencies Rule #7030 with a baseline decibel level between 70db and 80db.
  • Employment of a security firm at events.
  • Use of directional speakers.
  • Bands, electronic equipment or drum circles will have to be silent at 1am on weekends and holidays and at 10 pm on weeknights.
  • Payment by the property owner for one Freeborn County Sheriff’s Deputy 10 hours per day at overtime rate.

Two members of Harmony Tribe intend to appear at the hearing and speak in support of Harmony Park.

Anyone who wishes to appear and support Harmony Park and its permit renewal are also invited to appear at the Freeborn County Commissioner’s office: 411 South Broadway
Albert Lea, Minnesota 56007.

Those who wish to send an email regarding resolution #011-014 can send an email to Freeborn County Commissioners.

Freeborn County Commissioners
Glen Mathiason
glenmath@frontiernet.net

Dan Belshan
dbelshan@clear.lakes.com

Jim Nelson
507-383-2605

Christopher Shoff
christopher.shoff@co.freeborn.mn.us

Mike Lee
ccmikelee@yahoo.com

For more information on Harmony Park go to http://www.harmonypark.com

For more information on Harmony Tribe go to http://www.harmonytribe.org To send an email in opposition of Resolution #011-014 go to http://www.co.freeborn.mn.us/commissioners/default.aspx and email the county commissioners. Those wishing to attend the hearing can go to the Freeborn County Commissioner’s office, located at 411 South Broadway Albert Lea, Minnesota 56007.

Kari’s Thingtide Travels – Lightning Across the Plains/Midwest Thing

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By Kari Tauring

This is the fourth, and final, installment of my vandrestav journey this summer, 2011. The first two events, Trothmoot and Northern Folk Gathering, were specifically designed for practitioners of the spirituality of the Northern European folk tradition.  The Midwest Viking Festival was a celebration of specifically Viking era traditions, attracting Scandinavians as well as the general public looking for deeper root connections. 

ThirdRaven Kindred with Kari Tauring and Babette Sicard - photo credit: Third Raven Kindred

My final event this season was Lightning Across the Plains (LATP)/Midwest Thing. The event takes place at the Camp Gaea compound in McLouth, Kansas. It draws 200 plus Heathens, (70 of whom are children) from Michigan to Texas. This year we even had visitors from the coasts, Rhode Island and Los Angeles!

Many of you readers will know of Camp Gaea already. I first visited this sacred space in 2000 and again in 2001 when I played music for the Goddess Festival, an all women’s event. I was wholly impressed by the care taken in assuring that men did not enter the camp areas (even to suck out the toilets!), respect for multiple pathways, and sense of safety spiritually and physically. It was my deep wish and prayer of mine that the Northern/Heathen tradition could be represented at this amazing site. I was simply overjoyed to hear that JBK had begun to tend a Heathen Ve (worship space) on the grounds there. Through conversations and meetings we got to know one another and they asked me to be their honored guest at the first LATP in 2009. In 2010 they added the “Midwest Thing.” A Thing is where tribes/clans/families/kindreds who live far apart to meet in person and conduct business pertaining to the region. The parliament in Iceland and Norway is called the Thing (Ting).

Thing - photo credit Mark Stinson

While Jotun’s Bane Kindred (JBK) hosts LATP, attending kindreds share in leading ceremonies, providing work shops, and food preparation which creates the sense of regional partnership, community and belonging. This event serves to bring together the Midwest regions varied Heathen kindreds, tribes, families and individuals. It fills a need for a central gathering where all Heathen-identified persons and groups can come and meet one another, share knowledge and experiences, and begin to create the bonds of community that are so important in spiritual and religious development.

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