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!

A Split in the Feri Tradition? In recent weeks there’s been quite a bit of activity online regarding a split within the Victor and Cora Anderson-founded Feri tradition, with several new web sites emerging that detail a separation on private/public lines. Author and teacher T. Thorn Coyle, perhaps one of the best-known modern Feri initiates, writes an essay for Patheos that explores her own thoughts and feelings on this developing situation.

“It is said of late that the Feri Tradition has been broken in two, being named by folks on one side of the divide as a split between the “Mystery tradition” (taking on the old spelling of Faery) and “public religion” (Feri). While there have been splits and factions for almost as long as the tradition has been active, while the spelling of the name changed over time, and scapegoating, shouting, and long silences have abounded, I never before felt such an energetic sundering. As I write this, I can feel the mighty gates closing on what was. What will emerge, I do not know. Perhaps nothing will change, and perhaps everything will. Such are the times we live in, and various are the pronouncements of our egos trying to figure things out.”

Coyle, who no longer publicly teaches Feri to students, feels that this split is “a reflection of the tension seen all over the world right now, which is the tension felt in ages of transition.” Faery/Feri has been a very influential tradition in the history of modern Paganism in the United States, and currently counts many charismatic and influential teachers among its initiates. I feel this split is an important moment in our shared history, and I am currently putting together a longer article exploring this split, interviewing several individuals from both sides of this seemingly widening gulf. Expect the hear more on this very soon, if not this week, then most certainly next.

D.C. Commits To Opening a Community Center: David Salisbury from the Washington D.C. PNC bureau reports on a historic meeting of regional leaders and organizers to finalize plans for a joint community center.

“Yesterday I was invited to attend the Open Hearth Foundation’s Pagan Leadership Summit which met to discuss and finalize plans for the upcoming Pagan Community Center, an 11 year goal for the organization and the DC Pagan community in general. This day-long summit of leaders from around the metropolitan area shared views on details such as the centers location, size, programming, funding and when it actually plans to open the doors.

It’s a rare occasion when this many Pagan leaders from our area can gather. Rarer still is the fact that the leaders met to give input on this area’s most important Pagan land space project ever, a Pagan Community Center. Becoming, Reflections Mystery School, Ecumenicon, Firefly, Spiral Grove, covens and more spent 5 hours in a thrilling high-energy debate.”

A seeming consensus has been formed to achieve this in one year, by Imbolc 2012. If they manage to achieve this, it could set a new standard for cooperation towards building communal infrastructure among different Pagan groups within a community. The Washington DC-PNC will no doubt keep up updated and informed as this process goes forward.

Pagans and the Health Care Reforms: Masery at the Patheos-hosted Staff of Asclepius blog examines the religious breakdown of a recent Associated Press/GfK poll regarding health care reform and decides to drill down into that pesky “other” category by creating a nearly identical survey aimed at the Pagan community.

The health care poll was conducted by the Associated Press and Gfk Roper Public Affairs Corporate Communications from January 5 – 10, 2011. By telephone they spoke to 1001 Americans ages 18+  Religious affiliation: Protestant 25%, Catholic 25%, Mormon 1%, Jewish 1%, Muslim 1%, Other 26%, No religious denomination 19%. Of the “Other” religion 87% were Christian and 13% were not. What do Pagans think? You can answer the same questions as the AP poll at www.surveymonkey.com/s/CZFX8TR

If you’d like to see what the Pagan community thinks about current health care reform laws, please spread the word to your own blogs and social networking sites, so that a significant sample size can be reached. I’ll be sure to share the results once they are available. Once again, the survey can be found, here. Also, while you’re there, do check out her interview with Kimberly Hedrick, PhD about the recent groundbreaking Pagan Health Survey (which I covered here at The Wild Hunt).

6th Annual Brigid Poetry Festival: An Internet tradition that began in the early days of the Pagan blogosphere continues!

It is that time of year again, when bloggers around the world post a favorite poem in honor of Brigid, the Irish goddess and patron saint of smithcraft, poetry, and healing. Brigid’s feast day is February 1st, so between now and then is the perfect time to publish a poem to celebrate. Last year many great poems were published all over the web. This year, I have set up a Community Facebook Page to help people easily view each other’s poems and to share them around as much as possible. If you post a poem on your blog, please share the link on the community page so we can all go there and read it. If you don’t have a blog or website of your own, go ahead and post your poem in its entirety to the community page.

I look forward to yet another year of poetry in honor of the goddess!

Final Note: If you haven’t been following along, do check out the Patheos Wicca series running through January. It features some interesting perspectives on what Wicca is, and where different individuals think its going.

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

Well-known Pagan author and lecturer Isaac Bonewits, who was hospitalized on October 21st, has apparently been diagnosed with a rare form of colon cancer.

Isaac and Phaedra Bonewits

“Isaac is doing much better with his white cell count still going down. However, they have confirmed that one of the three tumors is cancerous; there will be more biopsies on Monday as they want to make sure all three have been biopsied individually. …Good news, it’s a rarer form of cancer that responds well to chemo and radiation. No surgery!”

In addition to sending healing energies and prayers, they will no doubt end up needing help with their medical bills (not to mention lost income). If you wish to make a contribution to the couple to help defray the costs of this hospitalization, there is donation information here. For up-to-date news and information, you can follow their Facebook fan-page. We here at The Wild Hunt wish Isaac a full and speedy recovery.

Word has been buzzing around the Internet that popular Pagan musician SJ Tucker (aka Sooj, aka “skinny white chick”) has been hospitalized with what appears to be appendicitis. Like many independent musicians and artists, she doesn’t have any health insurance and is facing a massive medical bill of $25,000 dollars or more. Friends, fans, and loved ones are now rallying to raise money through donations, charity auctions, and special sales of Tucker’s work.

SJ Tucker

I know that some of you have already heard about SJ’s recent emergency and hospital stay. It looks likely that it may actually be appendicitis, although the doctors want to confirm this with another CT scan before they do any surgery. We -do- know that the hospital bills are going to be significant, since this first trip to the hospital involved two emergency rooms, four doctors, a 45 minute ambulance transfer between the two hospitals, a CT scan AND an X-ray, multiple IV antibiotics, nearly daily bloodwork tests, and five and a half nights in the hospital … Please help us raise money to pay for these medical bills. Buy CDs. Spread the word. Share links and diggs and do all that interweb magic. What we need is 1000 people with $25. Do you have $25? Do you know someone who does? If you can’t give us money, please tell people who might.

I think it is safe to say that some of the things close to my heart  are Pagan music, and the awful state of health care in America. Living in fear of getting sick or having an accident is stressful, and when it happens, devastating. While we wait for our politicians to reform medicine in America, we have to do our best to take care of our own. I know for a fact that I have way more than a thousand readers, and while many of us have been hard-hit by the recent economic troubles, surely a percentage of us can spare a few bucks? Let’s unleash The Wild Hunt here, and help out in this effort. Make a donation, or purchase a CD (I bought a digital download of her album “Blessings”), and when you do, tell them you came from here.

ADDENDUM: Over $14,000 dollars was raised in the first week! Congratualations to SJ Tucker’s supporters on this amazing start, and thanks to all my readers who went out of their way to give to this cause, you helped make this happen.