Calgary Pagan Pride Day

Calgary Pagan Pride Day
Saturday, September 22, 2007 - 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
http://community.livejournal/cppd

I've giving a presentation on Feminist Spirituality at 1 p.m.
Hope to see you there!

Congrunting: Living Green

• TV - always the idea that consumerism is exacerbated by TV/media - media based on consumer society - if you cannot consume or do not need to consume you are not a valuable member of society
• composting can be done in apartments
• issues of self-righteousness and self-depreciation - what can one really do?
• we need to change and to make change together - community
• always women are being asked to make the change (my mini internal rant re: diapers)
• recycling is the new opiate of the masses? recycling is a placebo (thanks, Lee)
• I can't go to my politician and yell at him until I do something myself
• only by addressing the profit line of companies will things change
• can you tell where your food comes from? - local food movement
• it really does become about reducing and changing behaviour - it's not just what we buy but how much and why

Congrunting: Teaching Paganism

• why teach? responsibility to train others to train others to train others...
• teach to make sure the tradition survives
• can only learn so much from books - looking for something more
• so many people struggling for what they cannot find
• number of different dimensions to teaching - introductory classes, initiation classes, advanced classes
• art of teaching: a way of thinking (theory/philosophy), a way of doing (ritual), a way of being (how you think/why you think like that, what you do/why you do it like that)
• understanding of who to teach is lacking within the craft
• it's about the way you live your whole life
• what is your objective?
• teaching is a relationship - you don't have to teach every person who comes to learn
• open circles model (Ottawa) - fostering, rotating leadership - everyone is able to improvise and get to the magic quickly - not tradition based but experienced based
• half the shortage is good students, not good teachers
• traditional witchcraft is a long process - minimum 7 years to obtain 3rd degree in most traditions
• training priesthood, how to be public "ministers"
• pagans as laity vs. wiccans as priests
• cannot be an effective wiccan/priest until you are a well-read/learned pagan
• are you serving the gods or your circle? objective leads to the method you use to get there
• Edmonton group does not do "Wicca 101" because most books do
• if what you teach has value to the community people will find you
• negative fee - not paying for teaching, but for holding a spot and for the teacher's time
• what is your student worth to you? what is your teacher worth to you?
• if you want someone to take it seriously, you have to charge for it

Congrunting: Academic Research

• 6 pagan PdD's in Ottawa, 3 faculty involvement in community vs. researcher of community - one researcher removed herself from the community 7 years prior to research and did no participant observation
• blending the priestess and the academic - take me for who I am
• potential consequences - coming out with less than you have going in
• straddling the worlds - insider/outsider- harder position to do research from outsider position?
• objectivity is an issue
• no research can be exhaustive
• we need to learn the theory so we can protect ourselves
• they need to learn how we do what we do and who we are

Book/Author Recommendations:

• Deborah Campbell - feminist research
• Ezzy/Blain, Researching Paganism
• Witch in Culture
• Coming to the Edge of the Circle
• Earthly Bodies, Magical Selves
• Hutton, Triumph of the Moon
• http://www.paganstudies.org/
• DISKUS
• Pomegranate Journal

Congrunting: Scholar Stream #3

The Soul of Soulless Conditions: Paganism, Goddess Religion and Witchcraft in Canada - Sian Read

• paper will be published in 9 months in book on women/religion/secularism
• religion is not an institution, it is a relationship
• www.canadianpagansurvey.ca

Exploring religious syncretism in Montreal's contemporary Pagan community - Rosemary Roberts

• even if I am wrong, at least I am doing something, and my spirtuality leads me on the right path

Institutionalisation and Contemporary Western Witchcraft: When binaries dance a tango - Jane Leverick

• pagan clergy - taking courses (independent organization) or getting group together to legitimize religion
• spoke of issues with organized, hierarchies - BC Witchcamp, teachers apart from students
• bonobos

Congrunting: Scholar Stream #1

The Portrayal of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca in Role Playing Games - Frances Bitney

• LARP: Apocalypse (White Wolf, Werewolf)
• character goals, character immersion
• online game: Atlanta Heroes
• does talk about Wicca/Druidism as a religion
• setting - magic as superhero ability
• tabletop: Call of Chutlhu
• secret cults - witch cults
• moving into dark arts as reaction to Spanish Inquisition
• author's intent not important - concern should be the usage of the witch stereotype in the game
• non-intended audience member (i.e. current practitioner) - witch stereotype is harmful
• when a real religion is portrayed in rpg it can lead to curtailment of fun = "more fun to think we are evil"

Quirky Neighbours: Pagans in Canadian Newspapers - Mandy Furney

• benign portrayal of Pagans/Wicca in Canada
• ideas of "do not worship Satan" and "harmless religion" in every article

Monster in the Margins - Katherine Bitney

• creation/development of primeval mother - patriarchy
• boundaries and feminism
• witch at the margins
• witch as spellspeaker
• speaker/listener in patriarchal texts - male
• nature/normal defended by patriarchy - witch dismissed, ignored, marginalized
• witch does not answer to the father, she answers to a much more old/natural existence
• if anyone knows the world is constructed though language, it is the witch
• women as first shamans - women from the outside, spacially and temporally
• if women is superfluous, then is body also superfluous?
• seizing/re-signifying words and concepts
• language is fluid - it does not sit still

Questions/Answers/Comments

• Red Moon Gaming System (1997)
• no answers on what we should do in regards to interviews (COGCOA had guidelines, didn't they?)
• K. Bitney will be publishing her presentation at a later date

Gaia Gathering 2007

I'll be at Gaia Gathering 2007 this weekend and hope to post some of my congrunting, but I'm not sure if they'll have internet access for attendees. (It's at the University of Winnipeg, so you may need a login.) If I can't post immediately, I'll do it when I can, and then I plan to go back and discuss some of the sessions in more detail.

I'm also hoping Pink Gecco does some posting as well so we can discuss perspectives.... hint.