Pagans in Prison – Inmates Comment

The inmates at various Department of Correction Facilities have been tracking this discussion of Pagans in Prison, and are aware of the civil rights issue in Stillwater Prison.  Nearly all Pagans in prison find that path in prison. They have no history with a ‘Pagan community’. They have the idea that we as Pagans have a spiritual community like many Christian groups do. Inmates, therefore, tend to have a real idealized vision of our ‘Pagan community’. We are presumed to have facilities, programs, ministers, outreach programs, and the dedication to help our ‘brethren’ in need, and they know they certainly need help. Maybe they suffer from the same attitude we hold, we want a lot from our community and don’t have the time or resources to put a lot into it.


Many of the facilities have functions, and  Faribault is considered an ‘exit’ facility. It houses over 2200 mainly low risk inmates, double bunked, with mainly shorter terms. They are preparing to leave incarceration in a few months to a few years, and will be approaching our community as they seek their Pagan paths.


What do you want from the Pagan community as Pagans in Prison?

 We want to be able to learn more, and to be able to meet people in a positive fashion. We want to start building  some positive relationships now, that will be available to us once we get on the outside. Ninety percent of us are here because of the people we hung around with. When we get out, if we hang with the same people, we will be back in here. We need Pagan people to hang with! Continue reading →

Pagans in Prison – Women Ministers in Prisons

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Emrys Anu is a Wiccan Minister volunteering for the last six years at Rush City Correctional Facility.  She has volunteered in the past at Red Wing (18 months) and Stillwater Correctional Facility (2 yrs.).

A Prison Beltane Altar

What is it like working with your “guys”?

They are funny, engaged, and interested. They are incredibly grateful for the time and interactions that any volunteers bring. Just to show up, look them in the eye and shake their hand and treat them like human beings. They don’t get that often enough except with the religious volunteers. I think that attitude sets the foundation for the engagement. We develop a give and take trust that makes education in this setting possible. The topics that we touch on are the difficult topics of life transformation. We don’t talk about their crimes, they all know that they are in their for a crime, we even joke about it. Once I mentioned, “Ya, well I get to go home after this”, and they replied, “Ya, they keep us here because we are criminals”. They know that they have made bad choices. In those moments when they are calm and grounded and connected, they want to be able to make better choices and know they don’t have the skills to do that. Continue reading →

Local Celebration of International Pagan Coming Out Day

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From a formal High Tea to a rally on the White House lawn, Pagans across the globe are celebrating Pagan Coming Out Day on May 2nd with local events and rituals.  The Twin Cities celebration includes cocktails, desserts, and the screening of American Mystic – a movie that the Wild Hunt called “the best documentary involving modern Pagans that this generation has seen.”

The event takes place May 2nd at the Sacred Paths Center and is open to all Pagans and Pagan allies, no matter if you have been ‘out’ for ages or are not yet able to be open about your Pagan spirituality.  It directly follows the usual Monday night Pagan Potluck and the event is offered as a free gift to the community.  An opening Hellenic-style libation to Hestia, a Goddess that strengthens the bonds of family and community,  kicks off the evening, with champagne cocktails, non-alcoholic drinks and desserts to follow.  Once everyone has their treats, the movie American Mystic will be screened for the first time in the Twin Cities area.  The documentary opened at Pantheacon to rave reviews. More about the movie below.

Pagan Coming Out Day Twin Cities
May 2nd – Sacred Paths Center
7pm to 9pm

Pagan Coming Out Day is an international movement created to be complimentary to Pagan Pride events. It’s a day when individuals, deciding on their own terms, stop actively hiding their religious identity to someone in their life. It’s also a day when our religious community comes together to support those coming out to a person or group and celebrates the more public emergence of their Pagan identity.   The not-for-profit organization behind Pagan Coming Out Day says they are “working to achieve greater acceptance and equity for Pagans at home, at work, and in every community.” To learn more about Pagan Coming Out Day you can go to their website or friend them on facebook.

Chuck, a Lakota sundancer in the badlands of South Dakota

Morpheus, a Pagan priestess in southern California

Kublai, a Spiritualist in upstate New York

AMERICAN MYSTIC is a documentary about three twenty-somethings, each a member of a fringe religious community, who have separated themselves from mainstream America in order to live immersed in their faiths. Kublai, a Spiritualist in the former revivalist district of upstate New York; Chuck, a Lakota sundancer in the badlands of South Dakota; and Morpheus, a Pagan priestess living off the grid in old mining country in southern California. Rather than an analytical, journalistic approach, AMERICAN MYSTIC takes a personal, visually lush approach, immersing the viewer in the subjects’ experience of their controversial faiths through their own words and worship.

Editor’s note:  Cara Schulz, editor at PNC-Minnesota, Chairs the Executive Committee of International Pagan Coming Out Day.  Jason Pitzl-Waters, Project Coordinator of PNC and author of the The Wild Hunt, also serves on the Executive Committee.

Community Notes; April 25-May 1

Paganistan now has its own Wikipedia entry. This is just the beginning. Please feel free to make it better. For instance, there are only 21 active groups listed, and we all know that there are far more than that. There is also a 22 year gap in the history section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganistan

For the sake of promoting Paganistan, we need a high resolution picture of a local Pagan potluck. If you have a photo that you’d be willing to share for a good cause, please email it to TwinCitiesPagans@yahoo.com. If you have an event coming up with a potluck, please take a picture, preferably staged with lots of Pagan stuff. Or maybe with out-of-the-closet local Pagans holding hot-dishes. This picture will be of historic importance to Paganistan.

It was four years ago that the Veterans Administration agreed to permit Wiccan service members to have pentagrams on their graves. Thank you to all who participated in the pentacle quest.

There’s now a Google map dedicated to the Asatru & Heathens.  You can find it here.

A great many local Pagans fell in love with John Michael Greer at Paganicon, and now there is a movement to bring him back to the Twin Cities for a weekend intensive. If this sounds like something you’d like to attend, please leave a favorable comment wherever you are reading Paganistan Weekly.

The Keys of Paradise grand opening went well with approximately 175 people touring the new space.

Angelina Rosenbush pointed out in the Examiner that local Pagans didn’t have a public Earth Day celebration this year.

Local Pagan JRob Zetelumen was a guest on Pagans Tonight last week, where he talked about Paganistan. You can listen to the show here.

Heart of the Beast May Day celebration is coming up, Sunday May 1 in Powderhorn Park. I’ve heard it argued that Mardi Gras is the largest Pagan celebration in the United States. In that sense, Heart of the Beast May Day is the largest Pagan celebration in the region. When the word Paganistan was originally coined, it referred to the area around Powderhorn Park because of all the Pagans who live there. After the parade, the event culminates with the ritual reenactment of the return of the sun. Usually at least a couple Pagan groups set up booths. Paul Eaves builds a labyrinth. There are food booths, and shopping booths. It’s a beautiful spring day out in a wonderful park. It’s a huge wonderful event.

There will be cocktails, movie, desserts & fun for Pagan Coming Out Day, 7pm May 2, at the Sacred Paths Center.  The award winning documentary American Mystic, which features Pagan, Spiritualist, and First Nations faiths, will be shown as part of the celebration.  http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=167230013331471 & http://pagancomingoutday.com/

Celia will be performing at the Sacred Paths Center, May 21 at 7pm. Celia’s performances are always a major draw. Tickets are available here.

T. Thorn Coyle will be coming to town to do a weekend intensive at the Eye of Horus, May 28 & 29. She had developed quite a following in the Twin Cities, and this promises to be a significant event.

Do you enjoy this newsletter? Chances are that you have a friend who would enjoy it also. Please mention it to them.

Pagans in Prison – Wiccan Minister in Minnesota

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George A Edgar, Wiccan Minister and Pagan Prison Religious Volunteer at three Minnesota Correctional Institutions;  Stillwater, Faribault, and Shakopee

How are these decisions about religious civil rights for Pagans in prison made ?

The important decisions about what inmates can have or do in their religious practice are made by those that are least qualified and educated to do so. If you are pulled over for speeding it is the police officer who decides if you get a ticket, not a judge, a specialist in the law. If you say, ” I am on my way to minister to inmates”, they might just say, “Have a nice day”, and let you go. That has happened to me!  It is the same in the prison system, it is the guards and the chaplains who decide what goes on. When you get to the upper echelon, the Warden or the Department of Corrections, and they get excited, you tend to see draconian measures because they don’t want any headaches. They see things very practically, and the Pagans represent a slippery slope. They had to cave into the Native Americans. They allow outdoor ritual, the sweat lodge, the use of tobacco, now what if the Druids want that too? If you can get three or four guys together and a religious volunteer, you become a legitimate religious group. All of a sudden you may have thirty outdoor rituals a week, with special guards and space requirements. Where is the funding, where are the extra staff? They just don’t want the headache. They want to stop this as best they can.

Continue reading →