Pagan Hangouts are weekly live (and recorded for later playback) panel discussions about topics relating to Paganism hosted by Star Foster of Patheos.com. This week’s Pagan Hangout featured Cara Schulz of PNC-News, Cathryn Orchard of the Tarot Art Project, and blogger Teo Bishop, who writes Bishop in the Grove.
This is the 10th video in the series. You can watch the hangout live, or join in to participate, each Wednesday at 10am central on G+.
PNC-Minnesota would like to express our profound condolences to the family and friends of Lonestar Pagan‘s, the Texas bureau of the PNC, David Grega.
Yesterday, word quickly spread that David Grega, perhaps best known for his prominent role on the Pagan Centered Podcast, passed away after a sudden cardiac arrest. In addition to co-founding PCP, an irreverent podcast that garnered a large and appreciative audience for its no-holds-barred style, Dave also helped in the running and development of the Proud Pagan Podcasters, was an important early voice in the formation of the Pagan Newswire Collective, and co-founded Lonestar Pagan, the Texas bureau of the PNC. Dave was a key figure in Pagan new media, constantly tinkering, trying out new ideas and technologies in order to more effectively do the work at hand. He had a personality and energy that was almost impossible to ignore, and we are all poorer for his absence. – Jason Pitzl-Waters, The Wild Hunt
It happens that last Friday I posed this question on G+, “If you knew this weekend was to be your last weekend, what would you do?” Little did any of know that last weekend, when Dave posted this answer, was his last weekend.
I already live every weekend like it’s my last. Being in a car accident in 2003 that should had been fatal taught me that… now living with 2 unrelated diseases known to make people keel over and die at some point (and just put me in the hospital for a bunch of weeks) just re-enforces my mortality.
It’s an interesting week when one is saved via surgery from a close brush with death and then a week later is given a confirmed diagnosis of a disease many take to be a death sentence… and realizing my emotional reaction is more about “okay, what’s the treatment going to involve” rather than “ZOMG, there’s so many things I should have done with my life.” Not because I’m an excessively results-oriented individual (which I admittedly am) but mostly because I manage to live without regrets, even if that means having a few bridge burning parties along the way.
If there’s something you’ve been meaning to do for a while, start planning to get it done. If there’s something you don’t want to do – find an honorable way to stop doing it. If someone needs something and you like them and you can more than afford it (and they’re not a needy do-nothing)… give it to them. And for gods’ sake – don’t forget to tell people how much you value them before they keel over and die. Funerals are not a particularly useful time to tell someone how much they meant to you.
I notice most people’s fears about death have more to do with regrets than anything else. – Dave Grega
You can read, and post, more tributes to Dave on his facebook wall or on The Wild Hunt. Dave was only 27 when he died. He is survived by his wife, Kat DuPasht, their baby daughter, Mallory, and his mother. Friends have informed us that they are hoping to raise funds so Dave’s mother can attend his funeral. Once we have more information on how to donate funds and when his memorial will be held, we will update this post.
May Hermes guide you gently and may the Dread Queen receive you with honor.
Cartoon by Shea Thomas at Noland-Comics
by Teri Parsley Starnes
Teri’s interest with astrology lies with helping people see how following a practice of intention and self-awareness leads to a fuller relationship with Mystery. Astrology is a wonderful tool for this. Her weekly column orients readers to the seasonal energy of
each month’s Sun sign in order to set magical/mindful intention for the lunar month beginning at the New Moon.
Each week Teri will write about the unfolding energies that support and challenge our intentions. The ebb and flow of the lunar cycle resides deep in our souls. Through following the phases of the Moon, we remember the natural cycles that guide us.
Columbia atop the US Capitol building
I love living in Washington, DC. Just ask anyone who knows me at all. The first time I visited DC was in 2007 and as soon as I entered the District I knew I would live in the area some day. The call from the land to connect was stronger anything any other land call I had ever felt before. Two years later my life somewhat imploded in a way that pushed me to peruse my dream of living in the capital area and working for the civil rights organization I work for now. It turns out the call to live here came for very specific reasons. I immediately immersed myself in the local community here with activism, leadership, and community service. I joined a coven I’m still happily with that I’d give my life for. I made friendships that will last until the day I die. I believe that all of this was a call from Columbia. She wanted me to come her and also to become her. Let me explain.
Whether you think of Columbia as a goddess, a land spirit, or an archetype, most people who work with her in some way will tell you that she is very real and very alive. Standing atop the dome of the Capitol Building, I pass by her many times in the week as I leave my office and make my way around town. Her posture is regal and protective, sovereign and welcoming. To me, she is a goddess of the area I live in as well as the United States itself. She is known also as Lady Liberty or Libertas, protecting the largest city in the country, New York City. In New York, she welcomed hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the shores of America in our early melting pot days. I wonder if those settlers felt the same type of call I do when I talk past her in DC?
Columbia is a featured goddess in my personal pantheon because of the spirit she embodies, justice and freedom. And no, I don’t mean the overused patriarchal use of “freedom” as in the colonization of other countries and the greed of war. When I speak of freedom, I mean our ability to live our own authentic lives while we co-create a better world with those around us. Freedom to me means that I rely on myself to create the changes I need to make myself happy and to assist my beloved community I’m a part of. Like Lady Liberty, I pick up the torch and light my own path because I’m confident in my power to do so. This is becoming Columbia. When aspecting Columbia, she doesn’t seem to respond to lengthy invocations or petitionary appeals. Instead, she looks to see how I carry myself, how I speak, and what I do for others. Her words of challenge are “what have you done for others today?” She does not help those who do not try to first help themselves. She teaches me personal responsibility every single day.
Columbia with petition for the rights of women – artist David Savage
If Columbia is a patron goddess of DC and the US, then surely the Fourth of July would be among the most sacred of her feast days. Today I will make donations to social service programs that help the poor in DC. I will direct energy from my home to Columbia’s statue atop the Capitol dome and ask for her continued blessing. Most importantly, I will rededicate myself to a continued life of activism and service. In doing so, I become Columbia. I become the spirit of Liberty and Justice for all.
[For more information about Columbia and defending the rights of Pagan in the US, visit HailColumbia.us.]
O Liberty–the dearest word
A bleeding country ever heard,–
We lay our hopes upon thy shrine
And offer up our lives for thine.
You gave us many happy years
Of peace and plenty ere the tears
A mourning country wept were dried
Above the graves of those who died
Upon thy threshold. And again
When newer wars were bred, and men
Went marching in the cannon’s breath
And died for thee and loved the death,
While, high above them, gleaming bright,
The dear old flag remained in sight,
And lighted up their dying eyes
With smiles that brightened paradise.
O Liberty, it is thy power
To gladden us in every hour
Of gloom, and lead us by thy hand
As little children through a land
Of bud and blossom; while the days
Are filled with sunshine, and thy praise
Is warbled in the roundelays
Of joyous birds, and in the song
Of waters, murmuring along
The paths of peace, whose flowery fringe
Has roses finding deeper tinge
Of crimson, looking on themselves
Reflected–leaning from the shelves
Of cliff and crag and mossy mound
Of emerald splendor shadow-drowned.–
We hail thy presence, as you come
With bugle blast and rolling drum
James Whitcomb Riley – Liberty, 1878
Pagan Newswire Collective - Minnesota Bureau 