Westboro protests gay marriage in MN, counter-protest planned

July 31, 2013July 31, 20139 Comments

Members of the Westboro Church protest in Kansas. photo credit AFP Photo/Nicholas Kamm

The Westboro Baptist Church, known for protesting at soldier’s funerals, will be in Minnesota on Thursday to protest the legalization of same sex marriage in the state. A counter-protest is being planned by local Pagan Jay Linnel of the Blue Star tradition. His coven members are joining in the counter-protest and invite others to join them. Other non-Pagan groups are also planning peaceful counter-protests.

Counter-protests of Westboro Baptist Church members have often included humor to mock the group and lessen their impact.

Westboro will be at 555 Cedar St / St Paul at 11:00am. The counter-protesters are meeting at the same location at 9am.

July 30, 20131 Comment

I hope people will learn that they don’t have to be limited by their disabilities, and I hope the sighted community will learn to look beyond those challenges that we face. I hope people will discover that a little creativity and a willingness to experiment can go a long way toward enriching their experience with the craft, and enriching their lives overall. – Lady Cedar Nightsong

by Tara “Masery” Miller

Lady Cedar Nightsong is the author of “Tangible Magick” in the upcoming anthology Rooted in the Body, Seeking the Soul: Magic Practitioners Living with Disabilities, Addiction, and Illness. Other authors in the anthoology include local author and PNC editorial contributer Lisa “Spiral” Besnett, Lydia Crabtree, Eric Dupree, Literata Hurley, P. Sufenas Virius Lupu, and Breyonne Blackthorne. You an read an interview with Mr. Dupree on PNC here: http://www.capitalwitch.com/2013/07/interview-with-erick-dupree-of-healing.html

Lady Cedar Nightsong: Thanks for the opportunity to reach out to readers. I love writing, and am just amazed that you liked “Tangible Magick” well enough to run it in your anthology.

Masery: Lady Cedar Nightsong, what is the story behind you choosing that name?

LCN: I honestly use Lady Cedar as a handle for Pagan writing and Internet work. It is not my true ritual name, however cedars are trees I have a deep connection with, and the song of the screech owl at night is unforgettable, once you hear it.

Masery: How long have you lived in Bloomington, Illinois and what is your favorite place to live?

LCN: I have been in Bloomington-Normal for four years, and recently chose to lease an apartment in town and become a permanent resident. I would say my favorites are a toss-up between Fusion Brew, a restaurant selling coffee and herbal tea with a quiet atmosphere, and the farmers’ market in downtown Bloomington on Saturday mornings.

Masery: You are attending Illinois State University to earn your major in journalism. What is it about journalism that interests you? What type of media do you hope to work in such as radio, TV, newspaper or Internet?

LCN: Honestly I have been deeply pondering the reason I got into journalism. At first I didn’t want the job of slogging around disaster areas asking people to think about how badly things are going at the moment. Then in high school I got some CD reviews published, which led to my working for femmemetal.net for about a year in college. While I loved the interviews, I wanted to do something meaningful. I am an activist at heart–Pagan rights, women’s rights, and animal rights are my three main causes. I want to work freelance, publishing articles for both Pagan and non-religious magazines. What I really want is my own online publication, for all things underground, but mainly focused on Paganism and the Craft and environmentalist pieces. I want to make a difference through my writing.

Masery: In your biography you mention that your faith continues to evolve from Wicca to eclectic Pagan. How long have you been Pagan? What is it about Wicca that appeals to you?

LCN: My foundations will probably always be Wiccan. It drew me in, when I discovered that I held a lot of Wiccan beliefs, and seemed to have a lot of craft knowledge from past lives. I love reading about other Pagan paths and adding things that speak to me to what I already believe and practice. I am a spiritual witch.

Masery: You are a member of the Circle of Spirit Tree. What kind of people are in the group? What has been one of your favorite activities with them? You like to work with herbs and stones and consider yourself a hedgewitch. How did you learn your craft?

LCN: The members of the COTST are incredible people. One of the elders is having a book on trees published, both a field guide and a magickal reference. Most members are well-versed in the craft, and many have their specialty, such as the runes, Druidic magick, or herbal remedies. We are a close-knit group with a variety of personalities blended into almost a family dynamic. The most meaningful moments have been the Yule gift exchanges, when we’re all so close and willing to share, and our camping trips, particularly the woodland rituals late at night. There’s a depth and power that is hard to express in words, save to say that it is rooted in the spiritual realm, and in our love for one another and the earth.

I guess you could call me a hedgewitch, although there is also a great deal of cottage craft as well. I call myself an Earthwitch. Either works. For some reason, stones come instinctively to me, though it took a long time to learn to communicate with them. My sister has told me that when I was really young i would bring home shiny stones, wash them, and leave them in the sun, which is a simple cleansing of sorts. Now I have had many years to develop the ability to work with stones. A few favorites are jade, Tibetan quartz, amethyst, smoky quartz, moonstone, and hematite, but I’ll work with anything except for tektite, which I get negative energy from anytime I handle a piece. I think herbal work was just a natural extension of the stone magick.

I’m learning to craft infused oils, incense, elixirs, and herbal teas. It is an ongoing learning process, like everything else is.

Masery: You have low vision. Has that been since birth?

LCN: I have had optic nerve damage since I was born. I have no vision in my right eye, about forty percent in my left.

Masery: For the anthology Rooted in the Body, Seeking the Soul: Magic Practitioners Living with Disabilities, Addiction and Illness you wrote “Tangible Magic”. What inspired you to submit the essay to the book for others to read? What do you hope low vision and sited people will learn from it?

LCN: I honestly did it on an impulse, thinking I got so much joy out of my practice; I wanted to share that joy with others, and I thought they might be able to learn something. I hope people will learn that they don’t have to be limited by their disabilities, and I hope the sighted community will learn to look beyond those challenges that we face. I hope people will discover that a little creativity and a willingness to experiment can go a long way toward enriching their experience with the craft, and enriching their lives overall.

I am teaching crystal workshops at Central Illinois and Chicago Pagan Pride Days. I am also offering divination at Central Illinois Pagan pride. I write Pagan poetry and dark fiction as well as journalistic pieces. If anyone is interested in getting an online publication going, here is where they can reach me. Please don’t spam me. It’s bad karma. paganrockchick (at) gmail.com

Lady Cedar Nightsong is a 23 years old senior journalism major at Illinois State University.She is also with the Circle of Spirit Tree. Bloomington, Illinois branch and gives crystal workshops at Central Illinois Pagan Pride and possibly at Chicago Pagan Pride in the future. She’s been a magick practitioner for a little over six years, but says it’s a natural ability. She says her faith continues to evolve from Wiccan to eclectic Pagan and hopes to create her own tradition.

PNC – Minnesota Sunday Cartoon

June 30, 2013June 30, 20131 Comment

Noland Comics by Shea Thomas

Pagan Spirit Gathering 2013

June 25, 2013June 28, 20131 Comment

Pagan Spirit Gathering (PSG), one of the oldest Pagan camping festivals in the US, may have surpassed last year’s record breaking attendance. Final numbers are not yet available, but preliminary figures set attendance at 1070 registered guests. The festival was a combination of old and new. Same location, Stonehouse Farm in Illinois, but with new owners. Many familiar faces, but unofficial estimates put first time attendees at 30% of total attendance. There are also some new trends that appear to be emerging within the Pagan community that are very old trends in mainstream society.

In the coming week, the Pagan Newswire Collective is covering the old and the new at PSG in our PSG Report series. Some of the upcoming articles include:

An interview with the new owners of Stonehouse Farm and what’s in store for the future.
How PSG is a tribe of tribes.
Marty the Drama Llama and how Psyche’s Grotto helps PSG attendees deal with life and festival drama.
Looking for love (and marriage) at Pagan festivals.
A warrior blessing ritual.
An exploration of how it may be Pagans, and not conservative Christians, who are the banner bearers for traditional family values.

PSG 2013 – an overview in short takes

Photo by Edmund Zebrowski

The weather was almost the reverse of 2011. This year we had sunny, 80 degree days at the start of the festival and rain, flooding, and muck at the end. Both years were an improvement on 2012 where the extreme heat caused many campers to seek medical attention and made sleep difficult. However, just like in 2011, there were problems caused by the Friday afternoon and Saturday morning storms. Tents collapsed or were flooded. Some not only made the most of it, they turned it into a party, complete with floating through flooded areas of camp and mud wrestling.

To counter the sadness of familiar and long time PSG attendees not able to make the festival this year, there were many new faces at PSG this year. The virgin bell,which is rung when a first time attendee enters the gate to the campground, seemed to never stop ringing. It’s not unusual to have over 25% of attendees be PSG virgins, but this year the number appeared higher than normal. Conversely, the informal camps that spring up at PSG, with people camping as a group and coming up with names (and even t-shirts) for their group also appeared to be more numerous.

First time PSG Attendee Jimmy rings the virgin ball. Photo by Starr.

First time PSG Attendee Jimmy rings the virgin bell. Photo by Starr.

While you can always count on gnomes and fairies to adorn Pagan campsites, this year the gnomes took over. I blame a tenor named Chris. There was Gnome Camp, where people devoted to gnomes pitched their tents. There were more gnome decorations. There was a gnome contest to be played amongst the merchant booths. And there were roaming gnomes which would randomly show up in your camp. One even made it into Media Camp on morning.

A roaming gnome sits among PNC’s important reporting tools.

Food and drink have always had a place at Pagan events, but this year was up a notch. Filet mignon with demi glaze and infused simple syrups were on the menu at several campsites. Not only was the food more upscale, the campsites themselves were all about glamping (glamorous camping). A Pagan ethic of being extremely eco-conscious and simply was still evident, but the trend towards providing more elegant and comfortable hospitality was more prominent. This mirrors the trend in the mainstream, but perhaps this is also a sign of greater religious diversity in the Pagan community as hospitality ethics become as important as eco and feminism ethics and influences.

The theme of this year’s PSG was Connections, but the organizers may not have had social media in mind when they came up with it. PSGers were online more this year than previous years. They posted photos, videos, updated their statuses, and made plans to meet for lunch or arrange to pass of child care duties while enjoying the festival. Workshop handouts were made available electronically and there was even a workshop for technomages called “There’s an app for that.” Use of technology was, for the most part, very unobtrusive out of respect for those trying to unplug, but expect the use of social media during festivals to increase, not decrease.

Rainbow Camp, a group comprised of GLBT Pagans and their straight allies, brought back the Rainbow Ritual. The ritual was attended by over 30 Pagans and one attendee said it was “The most powerful and moving ritual I’ve ever attended. I don’t often get to interact with gay Pagans as I live in a rural area. I was just touched.” The ritual, which was done in drag, and the very visible and active presence of Rainbow Camp was welcome after several years of gender controversy at festivals and conferences.

Not only was PSG celebrating the summer solstice, but a super moon also made a magical appearance. A super moon is a full moon which occurs with the moon at or near (perigee) its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit. The main ritual, hosted on the last Saturday evening of the festival, was graced by the light of the super moon.

This year’s PSG had many of the things you expect from a Pagan festival. There was all night drumming around the bonfire, rituals, musical performances, and more workshops than a person could ever hope to attend – even if they cloned themselves 7 times over. Hugs, cries of “welcome home” as people entered, and lots of really well made mead. Pagan festivals are an important part of the Pagan experience and they allow you to not only come together to worship communally and to enjoy being fully Pagan for a few days, they allow you to see where Paganism is heading and what challenges we face and offer an opportunity to be part of guiding and shaping the future of our diverse communities. PNC would like to thank all those at this year’s Pagan Spirit Gathering who allowed us to interview and photograph them so our history in the making can be recorded and not lost.