Pagan Community Notes is a companion to my usual Pagan News of Note series, more focused on news originating from within the Pagan community. I want to reinforce the idea that what happens to and within our organizations, groups, and events is news, and news-worthy. My hope is that more individuals, especially those working within Pagan organizations, get into the habit of sharing their news with the world. So lets get started!

Vivianne Crowley joins Cherry Hill Seminary: Pagan author, former Pagan Federation secretary, and Jungian psychologist Vivianne Crowley has joined the faculty of Cherry Hill Seminary, a distance education institution for professional Pagan ministry. In a recent news update sent to supporters of Cherry Hill, Crowley, the author of works like “Wicca: A Comprehensive Guide to the Old Religion in the Modern World,” expressed excitement at joining CHS.

“I am excited about teaching for the first time Master’s level programmes with groups of Pagan students. I hope that the programmes that I teach at Cherry Hill will help students to deepen their understanding of religious practice and the dynamics that influence Pagan groups. Psychology of Religion is an important discipline for religious leaders and clergy of all faiths in understanding their own spiritual journey and that of those whom they serve, and the issues of Death and Dying are some of the most sensitive and important that we care called upon to deal with in our ministry.”

You can read more from Crowley about joining CHS, here. Vivianne Crowley will be teaching the class “Call of the Dark Mother” with Jennifer Bennett for the Fall semester. Congratulations to both Crowley and CHS!

The Rise of Óðrœrir: A new journal of interest to Pagans, particularly Heathen reconstructionists, has just launched. “Óðrœrir” is “a fully downloadable journal dedicated to developing, fostering, and distributing scholastic literature solely regarding the reconstruction of the various pre-Christian religious traditions and cultures of Northern Europe.”

“It is our firm belief that while much of these traditions are completely viable in a modern setting, understanding and implementing them must be achieved through a thorough understanding of their original context.  We also believe that there is too much literature available that falls very short of this mark.  Thus,Óðrœrir is intended to serve as a bastion of literature that is evidence based and consistent with modern standards of academic accuracy and quality.  Articles are peer reviewed by a board ranging of individuals with over forty years of experience in reconstructing “heathen” traditions, to scholars who are currently leaders in the fields of Old Nordic Religion, and Old Nordic Culture.  It is our hope that with these high standards, and with the range of experience that exists on our board, that Óðrœrir will be able to bridge the gap between scholastic wisdom of ancient heathen traditions and the implementation and practice of ongoing ones today.”

The first issue is available for download now, featuring articles on the state of modern Heathenry, reconstructionism in modern Heathenry, Frankish Heathenry and more. You can also network with the creators at the journal’s Facebook page.

PNC-Minnesota Rolls Out Sacred Harvest Festival Coverage: The week-long Sacred Harvest Festival in Minnesota has just wrapped up, and PNC-Minnesota has begun posting personal reflections and reactions from attendees. However, my favorite thing so far from them is this picture of the founding coordinators of PNC-Minnesota: Heather Biedermann, Nels Linde, and Cara Schulz.

As a co-founder of the Pagan Newswire Collective, just knowing that there are a mixture of citizen and professional Pagan journalists starting to take an active interest in covering what happens in our community gives me hope for our collective future. Good job folks, this is only the beginning! Keep an eye on PNC-Minnesota for more Sacred Harvest Festival coverage rolling out this week.

Spirit of Albion Update: The upcoming independent film The Spirit of Albion, a story inspired by the music of Damh the Bard, has just posted its latest production diary.

You can follow Damh’s Bardic blog for updates, as well as the movie’s Facebook page.

Brendan Myers on Pagan Existentialism: Here at Patheos, Star Foster interviews author Brendan Myers about his most recent book “Loneliness and Revelation: A Study of the Sacred,” existentialism, and the value of suffering within modern Paganism.

“I think that any worldview that might deny, or ignore, the suffering and oppression in the world is profoundly immature and unrealistic. Thus if the pagan movement is a mature one, its question is not whether the acknowledgement of human suffering has value, but rather the question concerns what that value is. In the Christian worldview, the notion of Original Sin, and the crucifixion of Christ, put suffering at the very center of the Christian story. Christians, I am sure, would add that the resurrection is equally important. To this I would only comment that Pagans have a fine collection of dying and resurrecting gods who can act as our role models in our own struggles with the “negative.” Mithras, Osiris, Adonis, come to mind as examples, as well as any number of heroes who made an underworld journey, such as Inanna, Persephone, and Orpheus.”

For more on Myers’ work, check out the guest-post he did for this blog last year that touches on some of the same themes.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

Today is Easter/Pasha/Resurrection Sunday, when it is said that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. Rather than give a barrage of “how pagan is Easter” type stories, I thought I’d leave you with a few non-Easter related links to look over today when you’re not busy finding eggs, eating candy, or dressing up like a witch.

Easter Witches in Sweden.

The Ganges in New York: The New York Times reports on how Hindus near Jamaica Bay in Queens, New York have turned the body of water into a local Ganges, a place to leave offerings for a variety of rituals. The problem is that the large number of offerings are disturbing the local habitat and creating an eyesore for park officials.

“We call it the Ganges,” one pilgrim, Madan Padarat, said as he finished his prayers. “She takes away your sickness, your pain, your suffering.” But to the park rangers who patrol the beach, the holy waters are a fragile habitat, the offerings are trash and the littered shores are a federal preserve that must be kept clean for picnickers, fishermen and kayakers. Unlike the Ganges, they say, the enclosed bay does not sweep the refuse away. The result is a standoff between two camps that regard the site as sacrosanct for very different reasons, and have spent years in a quiet tug of war between ancient traditions and modern regulations. Strenuous diplomacy on both sides has helped, but only to a point. “I can’t stop the people and say, ‘You can’t come to the water and make offerings,’ ” said Pandit Chunelall Narine, the priest at a thriving Ozone Park temple, Shri Trimurti Bhavan, who sometimes performs services by the bay. “We are at a dead end right now.”

The article does a good job of capturing the tensions as both sides try to find a workable compromise. I feel that as religions that engage directly with nature grow these tensions will continue. I anticipate that this will not be the last story I read about religious groups and law enforcement confronting how offerings impact a particular area.

A Queer Theology: In his latest Patheos.com column, P. Sufenas Virius Lupus confronts the “queerness” of theology within modern Paganism.

“I mentioned in an earlier article in this column that some modern Pagans have suggested that theology doesn’t really have a place in modern Paganism, and that Paganism as a religion isn’t really appropriate to the concerns of theology.  It was mentioned on that earlier occasion, though, that ancient Pagans in Greece and Rome invented most of the vocabulary of theology—including the term itself. The reservations of some modern Pagans on theology are understandable, and the ways in which Christianity has dominated the discourse on theology for the past several millennia are certainly a concern and something of which any Pagans actively engaged in theological work should be aware. Nonetheless, it is an area that is not only historically relevant to Paganism and polytheism, but one that is quite necessary to confront for modern Pagans.”

As always, Lupus is thoughtful an well-worth reading. Be sure to also check out his wonderful personal blog.

Who Gets Their Religious Freedom Protected: There’s a general election being held in Canada on May 2nd after the conservative government collapsed in a no confidence vote. It is in this context that Canadian Pagan and philosopher Brendan Myers looks at Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s plan to create an Office of Religious Freedom, and wonders whose freedoms it will work to protect.

“…given the Christian fundamentalism that dwells in the Reform Party’s agenda (pardon me, the Conservative Party’s agenda), therefore you can bet that this office will almost certainly not be used to help voudouisants in Africa, Tibetan Buddhists in China, Jews in Palestine or Muslims in Israel, or for that matter any religion at all which is not Christian. The only exceptions, the only non-Christian religions which this office might support in other countries, would be religious communities that are wealthy and well-organized enough in Canada to pressure the government to help their co-religionists in other countries.”

It seems that conservative Christian outlook in Canada isn’t too dissimilar from their brethren in the United States.

That’s all I have for now, have a happy Sunday, no matter what your activities or beliefs.

There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.

• The New York Times looks at Vodou, noting how recent negative news portrayals have “shaken the tight-knit and largely secretive” community. The piece also interviews academic and progressive activist Dowoti Desir, founder of Ogun’s Task Force for Haiti, a member of the Haitian Diaspora Coalition. There’s also a photo slideshow and video to check out.
• Speaking of Vodou, Foreign Policy Magazine looks at the recent election of Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly as Haiti’s next president. They note that Martelly’s extensive involvement in rara music and culture, “often affiliated with Vodou congregations and believed to be under the patronage of a spirit in the unseen realm,” was a key element in his campaigning. More on Martelly, here.
• Stephen Hodgson, a Wiccan in Minnesota’s prison system, has “filed a federal lawsuit against the state alleging his religious rights have been violated.” Nor is this some unfounded jailhouse complaint, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights says that “probable cause exists to believe that an unfair discriminatory practice was committed.” According to Hodgson, prison officials have “decided Christianity is the way to go and everybody else should fall in line.” Which reiterates the opinion and experience of activists like Rev. Patrick McCollum in his testimony to the US Commission on Civil Rights. I’m in contact with the PNC-Minnesota bureau now about following up on this story in the near future.
• Has the Supreme Court undermined the Establishment Clause? That’s the opinion of the Interfaith Alliance and Justice Elena Kagan, who says that the 5-4 ruling on Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn “threatens to eliminate all occasions for a taxpayer to contest the government’s monetary support of religion.” SCOTUSblog notes that the decision “came very close on Monday to taking away altogether the right of taxpayers to go to court to challenge government programs that provide financial aid to religion.” Potentially scary stuff for minority faiths in the United States.
• Erynn Rowan Laurie notes that launch of three new reconstructionist Pagan blogs, The Presence of the Past by Disirdottir, A Wolf-Man, Not a Wolf in Man’s Clothing by Faoladh, and Finnchuill’s Mast by Finnchuill. Be sure to also check out the essay concerning “Aisling, Ársaíocht, agus Agallamh” that follows the news of that link.
• A Murray State University college paper profiles Wiccan Kyra Ledbetter, a senior who notes that the religion helped her transform “from that terrifying girl in middle school to a member of volunteer programs.”
• Have you been missing 70s-era occult-influenced metal? Meet Blood Ceremony, whose latest album ‘Living With The Ancients’ was released by Rise Above on March 7th 2011. Check out their track “The Great God Pan.”
• Over at Patheos.com columnist P. Sufenas Virius Lupus examines “coming out theology” and whether it’s necessary for modern Pagans.  This is an excellent examination, and I urge everyone to head over and read this.
• Speaking of Patheos.com, Brendan Myers responds to criticisms of his recent piece “Thinking Shall Replace Killing.”
• What happens when you expose monotheists to polytheistic festival culture? They love it.
• Immortals director Tarsem Singh wants to fight the “idea that all gods that were wise had to be old.”

That’s it for now! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.

Pagan Community Notes is a companion to my usual Pagan News of Note, a series more focused on news originating from within the Pagan community. I want to reinforce the idea that what happens to and within our organizations, groups, and events is news, and news-worthy. My hope is that more individuals, especially those working within Pagan organizations, get into the habit of sharing their news with the world. So lets get started!

Creating a Coalition: Peter Dybing, National First Officer, Covenant of the Goddess, who recently led a successful effort to raise 30,000 dollars for Doctors Without Borders, proposes the formation of a ”Pagan Relief Services Coalition” that would respond to the needs of Pagans in times of disaster.

“Is our Pagan community prepared to respond in centralized haste when Pagans face disaster? Should the worst happen and an American city is crippled are we able to come together and sustain meaningful relief for our Pagan sisters and brothers? In short, the answer is No! Responding to disaster requires pre planning in funding, logistics and operations. Waiting for the disaster to strike to take action ensures that any effort will be short on success and long on confusion and debate.”

Dybing does not endorse simply starting a new organization, since “such an approach will lead to another ‘new’ organization competing for support of its efforts.” He instead proposes something more like, well, a coalition. An agreement by various Pagan organizations to coordinate and work together in times of crisis, to pool fundraising resources, along with a “committee made up of representatives of the involved organizations” to determine when a disaster threshold has been reached that would activate funding commitments. For those interested in engaging in such a project, or discussing it, I’d recommend heading over to Peter’s blog.

Kondratiev’s Lorekeeper’s Course: Celtic Nation has unveiled a course of study created by Celtic scholar, linguist, and author Alexei Kondratiev, who passed away last year. The Lorekeeper’s Course was originally created for the now-defunct Celtic Reconstructionist group IMBAS, and was intended for a predominately CR audience. Kondratiev died before he could oversee a test-run of the course, and two different versions of the course needed to be merged. Celtic Nation has undertaken the task of recovering, preserving, and presenting this “lost” course to the world.

“In June 2010, Luder and fellow members of the Celtic Nation Yahoo Group made appeals to former members of original volunteers for help in recovering any of the pieces of the  course outline to compare to the new material.  Graciously, DubhTine, a longtime member of the IMBAS council in its heyday, volunteered his time and efforts to discover and forward a  significant portion of the languishing course outline.  His efforts were instrumental in formatting the new outline and all those who enjoy the course going forward owe him a debt of gratitude.  Pech Raithbheartiagh, also a former volunteer on the original project, recovered several important pieces from an old hard drive to help round out the outline.  Cuardai Eolais provided continuing compilation assistance as well.  With their invaluable help and generosity,  Luder was able to begin matching the sections of the original course outline to the new work started just prior to Kondratiev’s death.   As time progresses, additional material of Alexei’s will be made available and noted as it is added.  For referencing purposes, this is “Alexei Kondratiev’s Lorekeepers Course 1.0″.”

This is an exciting development, one that should help enrich the CR community, and anyone interested in the lucid, learned, and passionate work of Alexei Kondratiev. I would love to see this material, and future additions, released as an ebook of some kind. Perhaps sold to raise funds for the continued preservation of Alexei’s work?

Myers on Pagan Ethics: Philosopher and author Brendan Myers has an essay up at Patheos.com about how thinking replaced killing as social force in the ancient world, and how the “goddess” model of civilization is ultimately superior to the Judeo-Christian model of ethics.

“What I’d like to suggest is that a society that affords real priority to the goddess, and to her way of presenting the revelation of her divine presence, is likely to be a society where the values are cast not as rules or laws. It is likely to be a society in which the values are cast in the form of character-virtues. I think this is so because her message is not a commandment to be obeyed: her message is a presence to be experienced. Her message tells us who she is, not what to do. This means that following orders and rules and laws will not be what matters. What will matter instead, is finding all the places where her presence can be experienced. I think it will also matter that we live our lives in a way that embodies the presence of the goddess.

What matters is being a particular kind of person. At the most basic level, it matters that you are the kind of person who resolves problems with force of thought and feeling instead of with the force of arms. Such a person becomes able to find the goddess within her relationships, and within herself. In the culture of the goddess, there are no rules and commandments, but there still is an ethical understanding, in which some character-values reveal the goddess within, and others do not; some kinds of habits and choices are exemplary of the goddess, and others are not. Except for a few things, like gratuitous murder, there will be little need for absolute categorical distinctions. The ethical understanding can be a matter of degree. Furthermore, since the goddess reveals herself in many different masks and disguises, there can be more than one ethically significant way to embody her presence. There doesn’t have to be only one true way; there can be many true ways. The goddess doesn’t tell you what to do; but rather she shows you different possibilities for what kind of a person you can be.”

Myers is one of modern Paganism’s sharpest thinkers, I highly recommend reading the entire essay where he brings forth examples from Greek, Celtic, and Native American cultures to make his point.

Spirit of Albion Starts Production: The upcoming independent film The Spirit of Albion, a story inspired by the music of Damh the Bard, started production this past weekend. A video production diary has been started to allow people an inside look at the process.

Sunday was the first official production day of the Spirit of Albion movie. The entire cast gathered at the director’s house to record their performances for the film. Here is the first in what will be a series of video diaries of the making of the film. It was a great day, and the cast not look the part, but they all had great voices too! Enjoy the film, and why not subscribe to the channel?

I’ll be sure to continue checking in on The Spirit of Albion, and keep you posted on its progress.

Accessibility and Events: The Staff of Asclepius blog at Patheos.com is seeking the accessibility experiences of Pagans at festivals and events.

“This festival season, the Staff of Asclepius is seeking guest authors to write about their accessibility experiences at any event large or small. Writers will have the opportunity to share with the community how volunteers accommodated them and offer advice on what could be improved for next time. From the registration process to camping and attending workshops or rituals, what was the experience like? Was staff receptive to your needs and advice for improvement? Email masery@rocketmail.com“

The issue of accessibility at Pagan events recently came up in the Wild Hunt’s comments section, so this may be a good opportunity to broaden the discussion. You may also want to see a recent post from Ocean at Deaf Pagan Crossroads about this issue.

Final Notes: Before I go, I’d like to quickly mention that the Pagan Newswire Collective’s main site just got a swanky new redesign, the great alternative culture magazine Coilhouse is now offering its back-issues in a digital format (see also this recent io9 interview), and Grant Morrison’s book “Supergods” has a release date.

That’s all I have for now, have a great day!

[The following is guest post from Brendan Myers. Brendan Myers, Ph.D., is a Canadian philosophy professor, a winner of OBOD’s Mount Haemus award for research in Druidry, and the author of “The Other Side of Virtue”, “Loneliness and Revelation”, and other titles. Find him (and his books) on the web at brendanmyers.net.]

The recent interruption to Jason’s blog service, and the generosity of the movement which raised for him the money to pay his increased costs within a single day, got me thinking about volunteerism and community building in the pagan movement.

What does it mean to ‘build’ community? Probably the simplest and broadest answer is this: to build a community is to create and sustain relationships between people. Some are the relations of teachers to students, doctors and nurses to patients, and parents to children. Some are the relations of storytellers (that includes journalists!) and their audiences. Human relationships inform the way that food lands on our table, the way books are published and distributed, the way musicians and poets and artists create things of beauty for everyone to share. The basic relationship, perhaps underlying all others, is the relation between friends: and in ancient European pagan culture, friendship seems to have been at least as important as tribal solidarity, and sometimes more so. Indeed I will argue that the sacred itself, whatever else it may be, is a function of our human relationships. But I would like to make a different point today.

All our relationships are person-to-person. They involve people seeing, hearing, touching, and speaking to each other; they involve sharing goods; and they involve moral values like generosity and compassion.

But they are also mediated and assisted by the material infrastructure: town squares, telephone networks, internet servers, farmer’s markets, schools, libraries, concert halls, and private homes. Relationships do not happen in abstraction. They need a place; they need a centre, even a home.

And infrastructure, as you know, costs money. That’s probably why there are donation drives on the Wild Hunt from time to time. A local community wants to rent a hall for regular public rituals, or rent a campground for an annual outdoor festival. An organization wants to publish a newsletter. An elderly teachers wants to talk to her geographically-distant students on the phone, or drive to visit them once in a while. These things do not come free.

I have decided, therefore, that I will donate 50% of all my book royalties, from January to June 2011, to pagan community infrastructure projects. I also invite other pagan writers to do the same.

Most people can do more than they think they can. Indeed most people can do more than they are already doing. As for myself, I volunteer my labour and sometimes donate money for various local causes, and I also write books which (I hope!) contribute usefully to the movement’s intellectual life. But it occurred to me that, like most people, I can probably do much more than I’m already doing. I would like to encourage more volunteerism. But at least some of the volunteerism has to be in the form of cash donations, for the sake of maintaining the infrastructure. This is, I think, an indirect but very important way to support the human relationships in our community, and the values which animate them.

This may not be much money. In the last six months of last year, my royalty income was less than one month of my rent. Other pagan writers are in a similar position: we write for a niche market, after all. But if people are willing to support me as a writer by purchasing my books, then I will be very willing to support the movement in return by sharing some of my royalties with projects that will benefit many others.

Some such projects are internet-based, such as the Pagan Newswire Collective. Some are pagan owned and operated campgrounds that operate year-round, such as Raven’s Knoll. Some are annual conferences that have rental costs to pay, such as the Gaia Gathering. I invite comments and suggestions from everyone about where people think I should donate the money. I wouldn’t want people to believe that by buying one of my books, they might support a project they don’t believe in. But I do hope that my position in the movement as a writer, small though it may be, can benefit more than just myself.

Communities simply cannot be built unless its members see beyond their own immediate wants and needs, and start to take care of each other in an organized way. I can do that with my book royalties. Communities simply don’t survive unless people are ready to do something selfless for others, which will benefit everyone (and yes, including themselves) in the long run. I can donate some of my money. What more, and what else, can you do? I’m curious to find out.

[The following is a guest post from Brendan Myers, Ph.D. Brendan is a professor of philosophy at Heritage College CÉGEP in Gatineau, Quebec, and sometimes an instructor at the Cherry Hill Seminary. He is a winner of OBOD’s prestigious Mount Haemus Award for professional research in Druidry, a founder of the Order of the White Oak, and the author of five books including “The Other Side of Virtue” and “A Pagan Testament”. I've invited him to write a bit about the themes in his latest book: “Loneliness and Revelation: A Study of the Sacred”.]

Paganism can be described as a religion of relationships. We speak of magical correspondences, apprenticeships with teachers and mentors, therapy work with counselors or magical healers, initiatory group membership, relations with a totem or a patron deity, and ecological relations from local landscapes to the global biosphere. Some of our best known writers and leaders also emphasize relationships in their metaphysics: Starhawk, for instance, wrote that “the primary principle of magic is connection”.

With that in mind, consider how many people in our world are severely socially isolated, and profoundly alone. A recent study found that half of all Americans have only one close friend in the world, and one quarter have no friends at all. The last United States census found that 27.2 million households, one-fourth of the total, consisted in just one person. Half a century ago, that was the case for only one-tenth of all households. A British study found that one out of every ten adults in England sought professional help for loneliness at least once in their lives.

It seems that loneliness is everywhere. Indeed I think it likely that just about everyone feels it at some point in their lives. Yet facts like these are not spoken of very often, perhaps because loneliness is a taboo topic. No one likes to admit to feeling lonely. It’s embarrassing, and sometimes humiliating. But loneliness is painful for many people. We should ask what, if anything, a spiritual point of view can offer to people who find themselves painfully lonely, and what it can offer to the counselors and therapists who assist such people.

This month, I have published a book which attempts to do exactly that: “Loneliness and Revelation: A Study of the Sacred”. This book does not describe any spells, rituals, invocations, or magic: I think there are probably too many books already on the market which address such themes. But if you are looking for a book by a pagan author which goes well above and beyond the “101” level, and which addresses a serious social and psychological problem from a spiritual point of view, then please read on.

The first thing I discovered about loneliness was that that it has nothing to do with how physically or geographically close you are to other people. You can feel terribly isolated from others, anytime and anywhere, even while hundreds of other people rub shoulders with you in the busy shopping mall. When you go to parties, or nightclubs, or other places where people gather, you get to see all the relationships people have with each other that you are not part of, and are not invited to join. We are also individuals at heart, taught to be self-reliant. But that very self-reliance can create distance between people. You might want to reach out to others, but then you would have to admit that you need others. So loneliness is not just a social problem; it also has the character of an existential crisis.

Some people try to fill the emptiness within them with food, alcohol, gambling, video games, or shopping sprees. But the relief that such things provide is always superficial, and always temporary. When it wears off, as it inevitably does, feelings of disappointment can set in. You might go back to them anyway, to try and regain the pleasure and distraction that they can create. But this creates a vicious circle of stimulus and withdrawal which strongly resembles drug addiction. So the problem is not just isolation. The problem is that people do self-destructive things to avoid isolation.

Religion promises you that you need not ever be alone, because the gods will always be there for you. But there are reasons why the gods, themselves, feels lonely, and probably feel it worst of all. Think of the distance between where you are sitting and the nearest star beyond our solar system: Barnard’s Star, approximately five light years away. We can understand that distance mathematically, using spectroscope analysis and stellar parallax measurements. The gods, if they exist, and if they inform the universe with their presence (as we often say they do), probably feel that distance right in their bones. A Hindu holy scripture, the Bhradaranyaka Upanisad, claims that God created the universe precisely to fill his own need for companionship.

But my study of loneliness also showed me reasons to have hope. Some of the world’s best known religious heroes achieved their spiritual victories in solitude: and examples are not hard to find. Siddartha Gautama achieved his Buddha-hood alone, beneath a tree, in a deep forest, far from others. Jesus defeated the devil in the desert, with help from no one else; he also took on the despair of the world while alone in the garden of Gethsemene. The founder of Bahá’í, a mystic who took the name of Bahá’u’lláh, withdrew from his family and community to live as a hermit in the mountains of Kurdistan, in northern Iraq, for two years. Odin hung himself from the World Tree alone for nine days, and at the end of his time he discovered the runes. Because of examples like these, and perhaps also because of the prevalence of individualism in our culture, most people “on a spiritual path” believe that enlightenment can only be accomplished on one’s own. Only by looking within, and attending directly to one’s own inner self, can one accomplish enlightenment. Or so the popular wisdom goes.

But how can one gather the spiritual benefits of solitude without incurring the suffering of loneliness? My suggestion is to look to the idea of revelation: this is the experience someone has when something of existential significance appears in his life. You find it in a stone dolmen, in a windy fenland in the west of Ireland, or in an Inuit cairn in the high arctic of Canada. You find it in lighthouses, clock towers, church steeples, symphony performances, rock concerts, and holiday fireworks. It’s in your voice when you say the words ‘I love you’. It appears in any activity which reveals presence, identity, and the goodness of life, and in anything which invites others to share that life. I believe this understanding of revelation is the solution to the problem of loneliness. But more than that, I believe it is the foundation of the good and worthwhile life.

My sincere thanks to Jason for allowing me to describe my book on his blog.
___

Everyone is welcome to attend the launch event at The Clocktower Brew Pub, 575 Bank St. Ottawa, Ontario Canada, on Sunday 7th November. Starting at 1pm, Brendan will read from the text, sign copies, and answer questions. He’ll also stay to share a drink or two for the rest of the afternoon.

Almost exactly a month ago, I proposed that the Pagan community create a voluntary opt-in statement of sexual ethics that individuals, organizations, and event organizers could use to educate both newcomers and outsiders as to a baseline of principles shared across our many diverse faiths and traditions. That recent high-profile cases concerning sexual abuse tied to our community, and the many unreported cases of sexual predation that have taken place over the years, were not tolerated or condoned. To educate, and hopefully also empower, abuse victims who might be fooled into thinking what was happening to them was/is “normal” or correct within a Pagan context.

This project was blessed to have Pagan author and philosophy professor Brendan Myers take the lead in coordinating the effort to produce the final draft of the statement that you are about to read. He, along with a dedicated and talented open group of collaborators, did the hard work of engaging the feedback from various parts of our community, and responsively moving forward with a document that we think a large plurality of our community could sign in good faith.

“This text came about after a vigorous, productive, and at times intense three-week process. Passing through four “cycles” in which a draft of the text was subject to the criticisms and revisions of all the volunteers, we think we have achieved about as much of a consensus on this text as we are likely to get. Integrating various important considerations, such as the variety and multiplicity of moral views within Paganism’s many communities, the need for grammatical and stylistic correctness, the need for moral decisiveness, and for rhetorical and exhortative strength, has not been an easy task. But together we have produced a statement of moral agreement which we are prepared to sign our names to, and stand by. We hope that you agree.”

You can follow the entire open process to this final draft at Brendan’s web forum.

From this point in the process, we are opening the final draft to a two-week public comment period. At the end of which we will consider any reasonable suggested additions or changes before we move forward with attaching signatories and starting our outreach campaign. Because I don’t want to simply publish a few excerpts, I will point you to a page featuring the entire statement, here. There is also a nicely-formatted PDF version of the text provided by David Shorey of the Sacramento Grove of the Oak. I strongly urge everyone to read and consider the entire document before making a comment.

Once the comment period is over, and any last-minute changes considered, the statement will be posted at its own web site. Pagans Against Sexual Abuse (PASA) www.pagansagainstsexualabuse.com, where we will begin accepting and listing signatories, offer the text in a variety of formats, and move forward with an outreach committee who will engage and dialog with various groups, events, and individuals in hopes of creating broad-based support for the statement. The site will also act as a clearing house for similar statements of ethics from other organizations, and provide tools so that the Pagan web can easily link, promote, and reference the statement.

I also want to reiterate that the ethics site will remain politically neutral, and will not advocate for or against any tradition, group, or individual in a conflict. Signing the statement will be opt-in and voluntary. No group, individual, or legal entity will be strong-armed into participating, or demonized if they feel they can’t sign on to the finished product. Coalitions that bring lasting change aren’t built by guilt or coercion, but by bridge-building and compromise. We will gladly stand by and partner with those who opt to develop alternate faith or group-specific ethics platforms, so long as they are created in the same spirit of protecting the innocent. Further, the finished statement will exist as its own entity beholding to no single faith, group or individual, and anyone will be able to “sign” or “opt-in” to it at any time so long as they support its tenets.

Update: A Note on Process and Consensus