I just posted a bit about Pagan environmentalism and the connection to Pagan leadership. It was a bit philosophical, so I thought I'd follow up with a more concrete post on specific things you can do as a Pagan leader and event organizer to reduce your use of resources and reduce environmental destruction.
Have you ever been to a Pagan festival or other event where there was a ton of trash left behind at the end? Have you ever been to a Pagan ritual where people were using styrofoam cups, or using plastic plates that just got thrown out? Have you ever been to a Pagan event where the land was left in a far worse condition than when you arrived? Or where there weren't recycling options, or where, despite there being a recycling dumpster, Pagans failed to sort their trash?
It seems that festival season is upon us once again, and lots of other folks are listing Pagan festivals you can go to (thanks Jason Mankey and Heather Greene)! Both of them mentioned some of the stuff going on up here north of the 49th Parallel, and I would like to thank them for that! But this blog is about Canadian Paganism, so I'm giving you a list of ALL the Canadian Pagan festivals I know about, whether I've been there or not. Contrary to popular belief there's lots going on and not all of it is in Ontario or Alberta! If you know of a Canadian Pagan festival I'm missing, please let me know in the comments and I'll be happy to add it to the list, no matter how small. Share the list around!
As you can see, I'm not committed to anything this year except Gaia Gathering, which is already passed. So if anyone wanted me to come . . . Just sayin'. ;)
Today was laundry day. And unpacking day. And grocery-shopping day. I returned late yesterday from Festival of Souls near Memphis and it was my second festival in as many weeks. I am grateful to be home to settle into Samhain and wash my socks.
Two weeks ago, I was teaching at the Southeast Wise Women's Conference, which used to be called the Southeast Women's Herbal Conference. It is exactly what it sounds like. In a gorgeous mountain setting--that was the site of the old Black Mountain College.
Lugnasadh, or Lammas, marks the end of the grain harvest, the time for celebration as all the crops are in. Yesterday, I walked in the Cotswolds, and I saw a great many ripe but un-harvested fields. In other years, I’ve seen it all come in well before Lugnasadh, and I’ve also seen the harvest fall much later. In wet summers, the crops can fail, and there is nothing of the grain to celebrate.
For me, this highlights an issue of Pagan disconnection from the Wheel of the Year. We celebrate the grain harvest at Lammas (the name means ‘loaf mass’) but most of us will not have been involved with the harvest, or even have an inkling as to when it happened in our locality. Not all areas are grain growing either. Does it even make sense to celebrate this festival if you live in an upland area that grows sheep, not corn?
I was just in a rather dispiriting discussion of sexual predation in the Pagan community, sparked by an interesting piece in the Wild Hunt. The article was good. which is more than I can say for some of the discussion that followed.
The piece was about the decline of nudity at Pagan events and the reasons for it. But much of the discussion shifted to the related but different issue of why many women felt uneasy or defensive when sky clad at such events. Despite all the energy and more than a little venom that accompanied that discussion, one important issue remained unaddressed.
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...
Victoria
I would say as neopagans we are constructing our futures rather than reconstructing THE future. I'm not sure if we are in the process of becoming a tr...
Steven Posch
Not so sure about "culty," though.Many--if not most--peoples with a collective sense of identity have a term for the "not-us people": barbaroi (non-He...
Mark Green
OK, this is funny.But could we [i]please[i] stop using that word (or, worse, "Muggles")?Having a down-putting term for people who aren't a part of you...
Each one of us is renting space here on earth. We are responsible for carrying our load while we are here...should not expect othe
Thanks for bringing this important subject up again, Shauna. From my own experiences and others I have spoken with, I've come to b
ty!
