Category: News

Call to Participate in Prayerful Silence – Sunday Feb 26th

A Global Call to Participate in Prayerful Silence on the Eve of United Nations- Commission on the Status of Women on Sunday, February 26, 2012 was announced by the www.womenofspiritandfaith.org
On the eve of the opening of the 56th Session of the UN-Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), women of all spiritual traditions are invited to join in prayer and silence for the good of the world’s women and girls -wherever they are and at any time that day.
Women of all spiritual traditions are invited to join in prayer and silence, to hold in their hearts the hopes of those who come to the CSW: for homes and a world without violence and fear, where there will be good food, air and water,
education and medical care, for women’s empowerment and gender equality, for consciousness, voice and choice,
for circles with a sacred center to support the wisdom and courage of women in them, and for there to be a UN 5th World Conference on Women.
Other sponsoring organizations include:
U.N. WOMEN’S CIRCLES
Anglican Women’s Empowerment www.anglicanwomensempowerment.org
Circle Connections www.circleconnections.com
Earth Child Institute www.earthchildinstitute.org
Gather The Women Global Matrixwww.gatherthewomen.org
Global Room for Women www.globalroomforwomen.org
Imagine The Good Foundationwww.imaginethegood.org
International Public Policy Institutewww.ippiun.org
Millionth Circle www.millionthcircle.org
One Voice Alliance of Women (OVA)    www.onevoicealliance.org
Pathways to Peace  www.pathwaystopeace.org
Peace X Peace www.peacexpeace.org
Ways Women Lead  www.wayswomenlead.org
Women’s Intercultural Network  www.win.org
Women of Spirit and Faithwww.womenofspiritandfaith.org
Women’s Perspective www.womensperspective.org
Women’s World Summit Foundation www.woman.ch

Quick response by local school over Pagan necklace

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A St. Paul Public School substitute teacher was disciplined after asking a Pagan elementary student to tuck her pentacle necklace into her shirt, a request not made to other students wearing religious necklaces.

Grace wearing her necklace

Tasha-Rose Mirick’s daughter, Grace, is a 4th grader at Galtier Magnet School in St. Paul.   Ms. Mirick says Grace proudly wears a pentacle necklace every day as a sign of her inner held beliefs, much like a Christian wears a cross or crucifix.  Grace says the necklace has a special meaning to her in addition to it being an outward sign of her faith, “I told my friends a story about a Goddess and my mom heard me thought I was ready for the necklace.  I was old enough to wear a sign of my faith.  I was so excited that I was jumping around.  It means a lot to me.”

She had worn the necklace to school everyday since the start of the school year.  It wasn’t until she had a substitute teacher that Grace  experienced any problems,  “After lunch we went back to our room and our substitute teacher said I needed to put my necklace in my shirt.” Grace says she complied, but asked the teacher why she needed to do this.  She says he told her, “because things like that should be kept to yourself.”  Other children in the class had necklaces on, some of them with religious symbols, yet no request was made of them that they hide their necklace.  Grace continued to keep her necklace hidden but was upset at being singled out.  When she got home, she talked to her mother.

Mirick says she contacted Deborah McCain, Principal of Galtier, and the Minnesota Dept of Human Rights.  Mirick said that Principal McCain took fast action, “She let me know that the substitute teacher will not be teaching at Galtier any longer and the likelihood exists that he will no longer be teaching in the St. Paul Public Schools.”   McCain also gave Grace’s mom the phone number for the districts ombudsman to contact for followup.  “This was same day action,” Mirick said, “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Grace and her mother feel good about the prompt action taken by the school to guarantee equal treatment of all students.  Mirick feels this could have been a misunderstanding or something that could have been corrected with education.  Likewise, Grace said, “I feel bad for him that he has a bad record, but I feel my principal did the right thing and showed that she really cares about us.”

Editor’s note:  Tasha-Rose Mirick is a contributor at PNC-Minnesota


Open Table UCC offers mental health support to GLBTQA of all faiths

Priscilla’s Place meets every Saturday from 1-2:30 pm at the Living Table United Church of Christ. 4001 38th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55406. All faiths and non-faiths welcome.

The GLBTQA (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Allied)  community has witnessed its share of devastation from suicides, with the organization Soul Force reporting that queer-identified youth are three times more likely to commit suicide than their peers. While the National Institute for Mental Health  collects no data on the specifics of GLBT and mental health as a population of study, the data published on suicide statistics states, “Homosexuality has also been shown to be correlated with suicide attempts among youth.” The Institute does not mention collection of data for older GLBT adults.

Last year, the Living Table United Church of Christ (formerly known as Spirit of the Lakes UCC) lost one of its own members to suicide. Kimberia Sherva, a peer counselor for the church’s mental health support group, says that in response to this loss, Pastor James Pennington enlisted the aid of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Minnesota (NAMI-MN)  to establish a peer support group at his church. With the help of two volunteer peer counselors, one of them the Pagan-identified Sherva, the group now runs every Saturday from 1-2:30 pm in the church basement.

The group, called “Priscilla’s Place,” has a small core membership, with occasional drop-in attendees. “They talk, we listen, offer support and suggestions, and try and let them know they’re not alone,” says Sherva.

Sherva elaborates on her role in the support group, “As a member of the GLBTQA community myself, and as someone who has a mental illness, I understand where our group members come from. I am going to school to be a therapist one day, and the training I’ve received from NAMI-MN and the ongoing group facilitating I do has been priceless. I am not a therapist for the group. This is a peer run group whose facilitators went through training through NAMI-MN.”

The group supports people of any religious identification. “The Living Table is a welcoming community and it is a non-denominational church. In its services, it often refers to God/Goddess. I have told Reverend [Pennington] that I am more comfortable with the mention of the Goddess and he has put it into his services more. I find that comforting and welcoming. People of all faiths (or even non-faiths) are welcome at the church. [Priscilla’s Place] itself is not based upon any religious credo. The members can range from Christian to Pagan to atheist to agnostic and anything in between. The most important thing is that we are here to support others who are living with a mental illness (or illnesses) and who are GLBTQA,” says Sherva.

Susu Jeffrey – Community Elder Marks Seventy Years at Coldwater Saturday

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Highway 55 encampment, Susu's birthday 1999

Susu Jeffrey is an elder in many spheres, and in our Pagan community. She is a visionary, writer, and poet. She is a percussionist, singer, and ritualist. A social activist and advocate for human, water, environmental, and Native American rights. Once a reporter for a major daily, she has contributed to PNC-Minnesota. This month Susu turns seventy and invites you to join her celebration!

Come to Susu’s 70th Birthday Party at the entrance to COLDWATER SPRING Sat., Dec. 10, 2011, from 2-4 PM.
Bring a biodegradable vision gift for the last natural spring in Hennepin County-to tie onto the 30-foot locked fence. Coffee, hot chocolate & ice- cream-cake: Full Moon-traditional group howl!

Coldwater is between Minnehaha Park & Fort Snelling, in Mpls. From Hwy 55/Hiawatha, turn East (toward the Mississippi) at 54th Street, take an immediate right, & drive South on the frontage road for a half a mile past the parking meters, to the cul-de-sac. Dress for the outdoors.
www.FriendsofColdwater.org  … BYO Chair !

I interviewed Susu today. Many know her, but many also don’t know much about her. Susu can be maddeningly irritating, persistent, loving, and deeply profound all in the same conversation. However she makes you feel, you know she has wisdom. I usually include my questions, but with Susu just state a subject, and she will share her thoughts!

Susu:

I have three degrees, five books, and thirty or forty non violence civil disobedience arrests. My first Pagan gathering was in 1979. It was a Pan Pagan gathering and it was like coming home, ya, this is what I believe. I asked my mom when a child, “What do you believe in?”, and she said, “I don’t know honey, I guess the sun”. My parents didn’t believe in a deity, you would call ‘god’, but they did believe in social justice. My father was in Congress, and I am very proud of what they both did, particularly my father. He was in Congress in 1942-44, one term, and he was one of the authors of the GI Bill of Rights. He was a poor kid, his parents were gypsies. They had no social standing at all. He put himself through school and became a lawyer who always remembered his roots. He always said, “You know honey, if you haven’t given away more money that you are allowed to on your income tax, you haven’t given away anything.” I grew up in the era of being part of a community, with the ethic of accepting obligations in being a part of a community.

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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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