Tag: Pagan Festivals

Crystal Blanton – National Guest at Sacred Harvest Festival – Interview

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Author Crystal Blanton

I had the opportunity to interview Crystal Blanton about her appearance as featured guest at this years Sacred Harvest Festival presented by Harmony Tribe, inc.  Blanton’s first book, Bridging the Gap, was published in 2010 with Megalithic/ Immanion Press. Her new work, ” Shades of Faith; Minority Voices in Paganism”  is forthcoming. Included at bottom is the content of her main workshop offerings at Sacred Harvest Festival.

What do you hope to offer our community at SHF?

The scope of the work that I do is centered around group dynamics and learning how to navigate some of these dynamics in our community. To help with promoting healthier spiritual experiences for people. I take a lot of that material from being a counselor in my day life.  I take the skill I use in my everyday job and bring them over to our spiritual community. Many spiritual communities have already done this, it is just we haven’t gotten to that place yet in the Pagan community.  I will bring a lot of tools and skills around how to navigate certain group dynamics, how to create more communicative communities, how to navigate conflict and disruptions that can happen in any community dynamic. We’ll cover how to learn and pass on these concepts and tools after the workshops. To create a general sense of optimism in adding these tools that can help to enhance our community at large. That is what I hope to bring to the festival. Continue reading →

PSG Report: Pan’s got some serious Balls

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Pagan Spirit Gathering is known for many things – the fantastic musicians who perform, the variety of workshops, the fulfilling group rituals, and the (in)famous Pan’s Ball.  Pan is so popular at PSG that he doesn’t have just one Ball, he has two.  The other Pan’s Ball is logically named Pan’s Other Ball.  The two Balls have an intertwined history, but are very different in purpose and feel.  Both are held on Friday night, along with separate parties for teens and tweens, and both have a long tradition, but that’s about all they have in common.

Pan's Ball attendee using body stickers to invoke lust

One of the organizers for Pan's Ball shows off her costume for the revel

Pan’s Ball
Pan’s Ball is strictly for those 21 years of age and older.  Pan’s Ball is dismissed by some as a drunken college frat party or an excuse for an orgy.  Organizers say it is a revel, in the sacred sense of the word, and a time to burn off the energy that has built over the past week.   Dancing and drinking are used as a gateway to a state of sensual abandon.  This view of revels, both positive and negative, is nothing new.  The worship of Dionysos, with its accompanying revels, was opposed where ever it was first introduced.  And it was also enthusiastically embraced by a segment of the population.  Usually those who were oppressed by cultural norms and had limited avenues of expression.  In ancient Greece it was women who sought out the Liberator in the wild countryside.  In the modern world, it doesn’t surprise me that Rainbow camp, a group of GLBT campers, are the ones reviving this way of worshiping Dionysos.

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KC Drum Tribe – Build Community with the Drum – Editorial

Skewb, founder of the Drum Tribe

I had a chance to interview Skot ‘Skewb’ Person, and Leslie Ravenhair of the Kansas City Drum Tribe (Katumba) while at Heartland Spirit Festival this year. There was some challenging weather, but it was proved again that a day at festival is a better day than anywhere else! It was a festival with one of the best drum and dance grooves ever, and I’d give a lot of credit to the Kansas City Drum Tribe.

Skewb is considered one of the main forces behind the tribe’s development. The Kansas City drum circle started as a meet-up group started by Kim Ousler in Overland Park, at Wild Oats, an organic food store. For Skewb it felt weird because the location was in an upscale suburban location. As Kim became busier, she passed the organization on to Skewb who energized it and changed the name to Kansas City Drum Tribe.

Skewb:

I started posting that drummers would be in Loose Park on Monday nights, an inner city park in KC. (Kansas City). I started going with a couple of friends that I met through the KC witches meet up. I got more people interested through using the internet, and people started showing up. It evolved from maybe 4-5 people regularly a week, to 150 plus people over four years!

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PSG – New Home, Same Spirit

The Pagan Spirit Gathering, one of the largest and oldest Pagan camping festivals, has changed location this year. The former site, Camp Zoe near Salem, Missouri, has come under federal investigation. This prompted Circle Sanctuary, hosts of Pagan Spirit Gathering, to move the festival to Stonehouse Park near Earlville, Illinois.  It is a venue change that many past attendees are applauding.

Pagan Spirit Gathering
Summer Solstice, June 19-26
Stonehouse Park near Earlville, Illinois
Registration closes June 4th

“I love going to PSG, but it was so hot and humid at Camp Zoe that I wasn’t going to attend this year.  All I did was lay in the creek and I missed most of the workshops because it was so hot.  But now that it has moved to the much cooler and less humid Illinois, I’m going!” said past attendee Eisling, “Just think, it should be nice enough we can even have camp fires at night.”

PNC-Minnesota talked with Ghetto Shaman Billy Crow Staver about the move to Stonehouse Park and what PSG will be like this year.  The Ghetto Shamans are a camping group that attends PSG each year and helps Circle Sanctuary with marketing the event.

“The PSG experience is something really special.  It’s a place where people can come together and let their guard down.  Magically things happen there.  It’s where I met my wife, I met her at PSG.  I’ve met some of my best friends through PSG,” Mr. Staver said of his years of attendance.  ” The people who attend PSG seek new connections to the Divine and form a new tribe.  It’s an experience that is hard to explain and shouldn’t be missed.”

Organizers say Stonehouse Park offers many more amenities than they have had at other PSG camps.  “There are more electrical hook ups throughout the camp.   There’s a larger shower house and a community store.  People will be able to keep their camp site cleaner since they have community sinks available for dishes and washing your clothes,” says Mr. Staver.  He notes the best change will be in how the camp feels to attendees, ” We’ll be able to camp closer together and be able to see one another and this creates more of a family community type feeling and that’s one of the biggest benefits to camping at Stonehouse park this year, we’ll get that feeling of a close family again.  We kind of lost that at Camp Zoe.”

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Pagan Spirit Gathering Returns to the Upper Midwest

After an absence from the Midwest for over ten years, PSG, is back! At about a 7 hour drive from the Twin Cities, it will likely tempt those who have attended local festivals that have sprung up since previous site moves. The SE Ohio Wisteria, and Southern Missouri Camp Zoe locations represented about 730, and 850 mile drives, from Minneapolis.

In difficult economic times, festival attendance around the country was generally down in 2010. PSG has long had a loyal following wherever it has moved, and the new site will certainly draw more from the Chicago area. Confronting the classic dilemma, Pagans with either a shortage of time, or funds, will have a more difficult choice in the Midwest this year!

From Circle’s Press Release:

Pagan Spirit Gathering (PSG), a week-long national celebration of Summer Solstice & Community, has a new site.

PSG 2011 will be held June 19-26 at Stonehouse Park, a beautiful, rural historical re-enactment campground near Earlville in Northern Illinois, about 80 miles west of downtown Chicago.
Continue reading →