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Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone – Interview Part 2 Deity and Trance

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Part two of this interview series with Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone ,  guests at Heartland Spirit Festival , this continues from the first portion of our interview. This section of the interview focuses on the current practice of  Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone, what they have experienced with deity work and integrated.

Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone

Nels (N) :Is it easier to speak to the deities now?

Gavin (G) : Something interesting is going on, as Pagans we have been waking the gods since the 1950’s. Voudon and the Caribbean traditions has a few hundred years on us! When you go to a Voudon Bembe, with its ecstatic drumming and dancing,  they come through really strong, riding (possessing) the participants. We are now reaching the point where this beginning to happen now in modern neo-paganism, even though it has only been fifty years.  This is because we have been waking the gods up. We have noticed something interesting as we have done the work. We are forming a Neo-Pagan pantheon. We only have a finite amount of energy to give the gods as spirits as they wake up.  You see the same gods and goddess coming up all the time in our community. Hecate, Brid, Isis, Morrigan, Freja, Odin, Diana etc.  Because there is only this finite amount of energy for them, they are congregating and forming a  new pantheon.  All awakened gods from different cultures forming a pantheon, and redefining roles.

Hecate Photo: wikimedia

Over the years as we done trance possession we have kept having Hecate appearing, even though neither of us have felt inclined to work with her,  but now it seems we haven’t got much choice! As we did the trance prophesy she started coming through at almost every event and  public workshop. We had strange occurrences.  On one occasion we started  conversation wither her in Connecticut through a priestess in trance, and she finished with us, unprompted with a priestess in California.  Now it has reached a point where when she comes through somebody, I will know if it is Hecate, because she will burst into fits of laughter when she knows it is me!

Janet (J) :  The last time it happened in America she turned around and said to Gavin, “Oh God, it’s not you again”.

G:  She has been developing and evolving and  has taken on the role of teaching trance with in this new ‘pantheon’.

J:  She is taking on the role of a psychopomp for trance, quite fascinating.

G:  This does  mimic what happens in voudon. She is taking the same role as Elegba/Ellegua.  You also have other deities fulfilling other roles as well. That is what is starting to occur, as simple as that. You see it where Brid is taking over the healing role. Brid is forming into three Brid’s, the triple goddess Brid consisting of the original Celtic Brid, Saint Bridget, and Maman Bridget from Voudon. Every priestess we know who works with Brid has found that is what is occurring. Suddenly they get this dark aspect of Brid, this dark earth goddess, the Maman Bridget from Haiti. It is getting drawn to them to balance the other two aspects.

J:  There is the Brid of fire, who says right, you are going to be my priestess but I am going to put you through hell, put you on my anvil and beat the shit out of you! She is an initiatory type of goddess.

G:  The Morrigan is a protective type of goddess, the Macha.  We are also seeing that Freya, who is taking on a different type of role. She is a goddess of journeying.  Which is how this all started for us, by working Freya.

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Editorial: Event Coverage

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Since we are in the midst of all the summer events and festivals I thought I’d pull back the veil a bit on how Pagan media and bloggers cover events. Although I’ve chatted about this with many reporters and bloggers, inside PNC and outside the PNC family, take these words as only mine. Except they aren’t, if you know what I mean.

There are two main things for event organizers to know when interacting with Pagan, and non-Pagan media – we’re lazy and our mission is not to market your event. That sounds kind of harsh, doesn’t it?  It isn’t. Let me break it down.

We’re lazy Not really. What we are is busy. Most of us have full time jobs, families, and other obligations in addition to writing or blogging or podcasting. There are times when we simply don’t have time to pee, let alone write an article. Oh, and it’s never just the writing time. It’s gathering background information, finding people to interview (more than just the organizer), finding story angles (why is this of value to readers), attending the event, and then writing the article and formatting it. Having another person look at it and suggest changes or edits. And then it’s published.

There are all kinds of events I’d love to attend. Events I drool over attending, but time and money precludes me from going to even a small portion of the interesting events out there. I’ve been trying for four years to get to a Heathen festival and haven’t had luck yet. Same with three other festivals right in my local area, and that’s just festivals. This makes our coverage lopsided because what we attend, we cover. What we can’t attend, gets marginal coverage.

So what if I’m at an event? It gets covered, but even there people have different ideas over what I should be doing while at the event. If I’m at an event I’ve spent time and money to get there just like every other attendee. If it’s a festival or conference it’s my vacation and time to connect with friends. Also, between the hours of 2pm and 7pm I’m drunk. Perhaps not the most professional thing to admit, but there it is. Vacation and friends, remember? So if you see me spending the afternoon sitting in my lawn chair drinking and laughing with friends, you may think I’m a slacker not doing my job. But you also don’t see me up at 5am spending the next 3 hours writing an article. Or interviewing someone while you are in your camp kicking back with a drink after dinner. Or editing video at 1am while you’re at the drum circle.

So what can you do to get coverage if a reporter or blogger is unable to attend your event? Make it easy.  We’re lazy/busy/drunk, remember? Get all the event information to us early and offer up people to interview, at least one of whom should not be an organizer. Send us a photo from the event last year or photos of a special guest. Offer to guest write an article before, during, or after the event.  But contact us first because that will save you much time and effort as we get to the second tip…

Our mission is not to market your event Sure we like to keep readers informed of events that are coming up that they may want to attend. That’s a service to our readers and our community. And yes, we love to report on what happened at events and how awesome, or not-so-awesome, the event was. That may, or may not, create some buzz about your event and you may be able to use the article to market your event. However, that’s secondary to what our primary mission is: to provide primary source reporting for our community. I’ll include editorials in there.

When you approach us with your event and you’d like coverage, there is only one question we care about – why is this newsworthy? Phrased another way, what information are you offering that is of a benefit to our readers? If your only answer is, well, I’d like some marketing for my event, you have a low probability of coverage. I’ll give you some ideas of what we’re looking for. Is there anything new and awesome happening this year? Were there any issues or challenges that were resolved and will you talk frankly about them? If it’s a brand new event, tell me what need, that wasn’t being served before, your event is serving.

If your event isn’t being covered it could be due to many reasons. We don’t have the time or money to attend. You aren’t pitching a story angle we can use. You’ve made it too much of a pain in the ass to deal with you. It’s not because we hate you. Trust me, I’ve covered many stories where I sincerely disliked the person I was interacting with and I’ve not covered stories where the point of contact was a good friend.

Does that help? Run your ideas past us and listen to our suggestions. We’re always looking for ways to add additional content that is easy for us to create or is created by others, but we have to balance that against what is of value to our readers.  I hope this helps because there are a ton of really great events out there that aren’t getting coverage and we need to work together to change that. Documenting what happens in our community is not only our sacred task, it’s vitally important.

Memorial Day event honors Pagan Veterans

Area Pagans gather tomorrow at Ft. Snelling to honor Sgt. Jason Schumann and Specialist Daniel Schrankler as part of a Memorial Day observance.  Other fallen soldiers are also remembered and honored in a ceremony at their gravesites at Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Allecia Olson a veteran and student of Einherjar Kindred is conducting the ritual..
  • Monday, May 27 · 9:30am
  • Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • For more information about the ritual, contact Olson at  elversallecia at gmail dot com
Olson requests that people arrive at Sgt. Schumann’s grave by 9am. The ceremony includes the speaking of his name and the placing of flowers. Participants are invited to bring one or more fresh flowers to place at each soldier’s grave and Pentacle headstone.There is a potluck and a pool party at a private home following the ceremony. Pagans of all paths are invited to take part in the ritual.  To RSVP for the event, please go to the event’s page on facebook.