Meet Harmony Tribe

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A “Meet Harmony Tribe” (HT) event was held at Sacred Harvest Festival on Wednesday Aug. 11th.  Present for most of the meeting were the members of the HT board, referred to as the “council”, as well as several past and present members, and 3-5 folks interested in Harmony Tribe. Introductions were offered by the Board and those present. Elected chair, (now “president” in the new bylaws) Benjamin Davis summarized what he believes some of the accomplishments of Harmony Tribe were this year. He elaborated regarding the state non profit incorporation filing and new bylaws adoption, by amendment, by the HT board.  The sweeping and fundamental changes were made, Benjamin stated,  “to protect Harmony Tribe members from potential liability”. Other incorporation questions were deferred until the end of the presentation.

Each Board member reviewed their defined duties in turn, and prospective members asked about the process of getting involved.  Examples were given of individuals that contributed through committees or other methods to Harmony Tribe.  It was clarified that a person does not have to be a member to work on a committee. A prospective member asked about communication and response difficulties with Harmony Tribe over the past year.  Registration Director Sean Nilsen assured the meeting that, “All communication issues have been resolved and any information prospective members need to find is on the Harmony Tribe website. ” When asked how prospective new members find out about meetings, locations, times, etc.,  it was explained non-members must directly contact HT via the website, rely on posted past minutes ( May is the last meeting minutes currently posted online),  or join Harmony Tribe to receive current meeting minutes via the membership email list. Continue reading →

Paganism Featured on Prominent Religious Website

Via the Wild Hunt:

Patheos.com, a web site dedicated to religious and spiritual dialog, has been running a special series this Summer looking at the future of religion. Each week focuses on a different religious tradition or movement, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, and several others. This week the focus is on modern Paganism.

Jason Pitzl-Waters spoke with spoke with Star Foster, Patheos.com’s Pagan Portal Manager, who stressed to him how important it is for our communities to consider our collective future(s).

“The Future of Pagan religions is even more fascinating because we’ve never conformed to the future laid out for us. We were saying we would remain a fringe, occult community and now one of the cast members of the most popular cartoon show for the past 20 years has become Wiccan. We were insistent about transmitting information orally or by handcopying and now the internet has made Paganism an open-source community. You can find our classics at your local library. We’re growing and diversifying yet the concept of our future is very hazy to most of us. There are people who have been active in the community for decades who have no idea just how diverse we have become or how much we have grown. It’s safe to say that there are millions of us worldwide. Even if we only number 2 million, that’s still huge compared to 10 years ago. How many of us will there be 10 years from now? How will we respond to and accommodate that growth? How do we enter the mainstream without out losing our dynamic, autonomous qualities?”

Star Foster and Patheos.com have assembled an impressive line-up of modern Pagans from a wide array of faiths, traditions, and perspectives to give their input on the subject. This week will see contributions from scholars like Helen Berger and Sarah Pike, renowned Pagan journalist Margot Adler (check out The Wild Hunt interview), author Christopher Knowles, mystic and ritualist T. Thorn Coyle, and several prominent clergy and leaders, including M. Horatius Picinus, Pontifex Maximus of Nova Roma.

Ms Foster noted that being granted equal standing with the other major world religions on such a well-respected and high traffic website doesn’t happen every day.

For an entire week, the focus of a major religion website will be on US. Wow. I don’t think this has happened before. It’s really kind of mind-blowing when I think about it. We’re being given equal time with Catholics, Mormons, Buddhists and Evangelicals.

Along with reading these extremely interesting and thought-provoking articles, Star Foster invites you to get involved in this special week:

I’m only one person though, and I could really use your help. If you like what we are doing here and you’d like to see us continue to promote thoughtful writers from diverse Pagan backgrounds I’d love it if you would make a small donation of time.

All this week I will be posting links to Facebook and Twitter, and towards the middle of the week I’ll be sending out a new newsletter for the Pagan portal. If you could share my Facebook posts, retweet my tweets and encourage people to sign up for the newsletter this week it would really help to make this series a smashing success, and ensure more interesting Pagan series to come!

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Cherie Sampson – International Artist at SHF

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Cherie Sampson is a visual artist working in environmental sculpture, performance and video, exhibiting her work in the US and abroad.  She currently resides

Cherie Sampson

in Columbia, Missouri and is an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Missouri where she coordinates the Foundations program and teaches Foundations and Video Art. She contributed as a national guest at Sacred Harvest Festival and offered a series of workshops on “Embodying Sacred Space”, and a Thursday night performance piece multimedia premier, entitled “One of Many Limbs”. This interview is in its entirety, but somewhat edited for flow. You can listen to the whole interview here.

What was your experience like this year, coming to Sacred Harvest Festival and presenting to a bunch of Pagans camping out?

It has been really good, really great, and I haven’t been to this festival. This is the first time.  I am familiar with many people who have been really close for a long time, Alvin and Lila, and I’ve known you for probably twenty years. I still remember many of the songs from the ritual you did years ago, so I feel certainly a part of this community, although there are many people I don’t know.

Set Created for Cherie's performance

Set Created for Cherie's performance photo: jtouchette

Well, when Judy emailed me in February, I just felt really honored to be asked to come as guest artist.  I have been kind of reflecting on how in some ways in my work, career, especially in an academic environment at a research university, there are certain expectations to be showing your work, and doing your research. It becomes very externalized, the work becomes part of this career chase. I knew this would give an opportunity to connect with a community that understands the deeper spiritual dimensions of my work. Also for me to reconnect with those dimensions as well, which are always present. When I am seeking the gallery venues and that art world sort of channel,  it (spiritual dimensions) becomes quieter. Continue reading →

SHF Workshops – Inspired by the Muses

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Seducing the Muse was the theme of this year’s Sacred Harvest Festival and many of the workshops were true to that theme.  There were workshops on opening up your inner self to divine inspiration, lace making, writing, leather working, and achieving ecstasy through chanting, just to name a few.  Temple Arts by Gypsy Nilsen and Color Texture Therapy by Judy Olson were two workshops that involved a high degree of hands-on participation by attendees.

Continue reading →