Tag: Star Foster

Well Known Pagans Join in Japan Relief Effort

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Several well known Pagans have joined with Peter Dybing in his effort to raise $30,000 to assist victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  Selena Fox, Starhawk, Patrick McCullum, T. Thorn Coyle, Anna Rowe, M Macha Nightmare, Star Foster, Jason Pitzl-Waters, Morgana, Ivo Dominguez Jr, Holli S Emore, and Katrina Messenger have all made statements in support of this charity initiative.

Dybing has set up a fundraising page to gather donations from Pagans to send to Doctors Without Borders. This organization has teams on the ground in Japan and is setting up medical treatment centers.  Dybing chose Doctors Without Borders after seeing the great work they did in Haiti to assist earthquake survivors there.  ” I am recommending them due to their level of accomplishment in Haiti saving lives. Additionally, when this organization raised enough funds for its Haiti response it stopped accepting donations. It is important to recognize that organizations have a logistical limit as to how much they can accomplish. By suspending fundraising this organization demonstrated a commitment to spend funds wisely and not just take the opportunity to raise unlimited cash as other large NGO’s did.”

Not only is giving to a charity such as Doctors Without Borders in line with Pagan ethics, it’s a way for Pagans to donate as Pagans and be recognized as such.  If you would like to make a donation, please click this link.

As of press time, just over $14,000 has been raised in the 72 hours since the effort started.  There have been 212 donations with an average donation of just over $55.00. Donations have come primarily from individuals with about 5% coming from organizations.  Peter Dybing says he would like to “encourage people who may not have a lot of money to participate by giving smaller donations of $1.00 – $10.00” (Disclosure:  I have donated to the Japan Relief Effort and as Chair of International Pagan Coming Out Day I have publicized the effort on our facebook feed)

Below is a Press Release by Peter Dybing along with statements of support from Starhawk, Patrick McCullum, T. Thorn Coyle, Anna Rowe, M Macha Nightmare, Star Foster, Jason Pitzl-Waters, Morgana, Ivo Dominguez Jr, Holli S Emore, and Katrina Messenger

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Pagans Standing By Japan: How You Can Help

Reprinted from Patheos

On Friday, as I watched the news and saw the damage caused by the earthquake in Japan and tsunami that swept the Pacific, I began to reach out to Pagan charities and get as much information as possible on the best way to help the Japanese people rescue, heal and restore. I wish I could claim I was overwhelmed with responses.

Peter Dybing has been reaching out to his contacts to find the best way for folks to effectively aid in the disaster relief. He’s posted his recommendations on his blog. Here is his primary suggestion, and he’s asking folks to match his $54 contribution:

My primary suggestion for donations is ‘Doctors without Borders. This organization now has two teams on the ground in Japan setting up medical treatment centers. While this is a well-known NGO, I am recommending them due to their level of accomplishment in Haiti saving lives. Additionally, when this organization raised enough funds for its Haiti response it stopped accepting donations. It is important to recognize that organizations have a logistical limit as to how much they can accomplish. By suspending fundraising this organization demonstrated a commitment to spend funds wisely and not just take the opportunity to raise unlimited cash as other large NGO’s did. With this in mind, a Pagan Community donation Page has been set up to enable donations to this organization.

The Delaware Valley Pagan Network is also raising donations for disaster relief.

I’ll be contributing what I can and hope you will too. If you know of other ways to show support and solidarity with the Japanese people and the peoples of the Pacific Rim as they respond to this disaster please let us know in the comments.

Article by Star Foster, Pagan Portal Director

Addendum:  via The Wild Hunt

the Unitarian Universalist Association has set up a fund that sounds very promising.

“Following Friday’s devastating earthquake and resulting tsunamis, the UUA has been in contact with our religious partners in Japan to express our concern and our willingness to partner with them in recovery efforts.  Our partners, including Rissho Kosei-kai, Tsubaki Grand Shrine, the Konko Church of Izuo, the Tokyo Dojin Church, and the Japan Chapter of the International Association for Religious Freedom are all in discernment about the specific efforts they will be taking to support recovery work, and the UUA will walk with them in the directions that are ultimately chosen.  Please join with UUs throughout the United States by contributing to the UUA’s Japan Relief Fund which will support the work that our Japanese partners pursue.”

A partnership of UUA, Buddhist, Shinto, and Japanese religious freedom organizations would seem to help avoid the allegations and scandals that some international aid organizations are encountering, and work towards immediate and locally directed assistance.

Patheos Begins Series on Wicca

Patheos, whom Newsweek Magazine just listed as the website to read to be smarter about religion, is running a series on Wicca in the Pagan Portal during the month of January. This is part of a monthly focus on different Pagan traditions in 2011.

Every Monday and Friday in January Star Foster, Pagan Portal Manager, will ask a different question about Wicca. Responses to the first question – What makes someone Wiccan? – are already on the site.  Many well-known practitioners within Wicca are participating and readers are invited to send in their 250-500 word responses as well.  Below is a taste of what the series is like.

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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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