EarthSpirit Newsletter
MotherTongue at the Parliament October 93
MotherTongue in concert
MotherTongue, EarthSpirit’s performance troupe, had a busy and exciting time representing EarthSpirit and Pagan spirituality at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago August 28 – Sept. 5 1993. After busking in Harvard Square, helping with the EarthSpirit garage sale, and giving two concerts in Salem and Turner’s Falls in order to help pay the way, the group gave four official performances and one impromptu surprise appearance during a week full of opportunities to present Earth-centered spirituality to a mostly receptive audience drawn from all of the world’s faith traditions.
EarthSpirit Newsletter October 93
EarthSpirit at the Parliament of the World’s Religions by Andras Corban Arthen
We have just returned from attending the second Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, an event which originated a century ago as the first major interfaith conference in recorded history.
The EarthSpirit Community expresses its solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Nation as its people who defend and protect their sacred lands and water. The current desecration and violence taking place in North Dakota is one more episode in a long and ongoing history of abuses by both commercial entities and by the United States government toward the original inhabitants of this land, all for the sake of power and monetary gain. It is abhorrent and it needs to end.
We know that all of our Earth is sacred. We know that the stones and the trees, the rivers and the oceans, the thunder and the mountains are filled with spirit along with all living species who share this planet. We honor the ancestors and know that their burial places deserve honor and respect. We share this understanding with the Water Protectors and we defend their right to preserve what is sacred.
The Dakota Access Pipeline has no right to encroach on the land of the Sioux Nation without invitation. Nor should the water or important cultural sites on that land be endangered by a fossil fuel pipeline that does not serve them in any way. We ask for a halt to construction, for the demilitarization of the police force in the area and for a peaceful solution that respects both the Sioux Nation and our mother the Earth.
To support Director, Andras Corban Arthen’s travel to Standing Rock and any further EarthSpirit participation in the efforts there, you may contribute through paypal at: donations@earthspirit.com
Visit: http://www.nodaplarchive.com
Sign: the ACLUs petition to demilitarize police at Standing Rock: https://action.aclu.org/secure/Standing-Rock…
Contact: North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple at 701-328-2200 and leave a message stating your opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Call the White House: at 202-456-1111 or 202-456-1414 to ask President Obama to rescind the Army Corps of Engineers permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Call the Army Corps of Engineers: at (202) 761-0011 and demand that they rescind the permit for the pipeline and reject the current permit request from DAPL to bore under the river.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Headquarters
441 G St NW
Washington, DC 20314 http://www.usace.army.mil/
Public comment line for those interested in voicing their thoughts and concerns on the Dakota Access Pipeline project: (202) 761-8700.
Donovan Arthen sharing Holy Water chant at Standing Rock
Remembering the Earth as Sacred by Deirdre Pulgram Arthen
December 2016
WickerMan Rites of Spring 2016
Dear friends,
As we move into the winter and toward the end of the tax year, we again invite all of our members to contribute to EarthSpirit’s annual fund to support the work it does all year.
[The following is a panel discussion in four rounds on the topic of “Pagan Clergy,” which was published in our magazine, FireHeart, between 1988 and 1993. More than twenty years later, many people throughout the U.S. pagan movement continue to refer to it as a source of stimulating, provocative, and even prescient ideas which remain relevant for our community today. Since we still get requests asking for reprints of the panel, we are making it available here; please keep in mind that this piece — as is true of all the reprints from our publications — remains under copyright protection, and that all pertinent limitations still apply. The panelists’ bios have not been updated, and as a result some of them may no longer be accurate; we chose to retain their original texts because they are germane to the contents of the discussions.]
A long, long time ago, the Earth belonged to the creatures of the wood. By creatures of the wood I mean gnomes, elves, faeries, etc. They tended it and took care of it, played in it, danced and sang in it, cared for wounded animals, worked out disputes between species, sat on mushrooms discussing matters of importance and drinking Labrador tea, rode down streams on leaves and bark, parachuted from trees on dandelion seeds. This was the world into which mankind was born. These early days, when man was but a newly arrived dinner guest who hadn’t yet taken over the house, are fairly well documented in the literature and folklore of the world, so there’s no need to go into it here. What I am interested in, and what I am asking you to be interested in, is the question, “Where did all the gnomes, elves, faeries, etc. go?”
THIS TALE CAME TO ME one night as I sat in a rocking chair cradling my son in my arms, vainly trying to help him fall asleep. I thought to tell him a story, but could think of none that might be interesting to one so very young. A sudden gust of wind intruded itself upon my musings. The wind had a voice, and the voice said, “Listen … I shall tell you the story of the Boy Who Longed to Fly.”
A shaman walks for days through the forest, emerging at last to greet the sunrise from a craggy mountainside. A ceremonial magician works by candlelight in his library, spending day after day without speaking to another being. A priestess secludes herself in silence during the dark of the moon to await a vision from the Goddess. A Witch lives, in a smile hut on the edge of the woods, tending her garden and weaving her Earth magick in the sole company of her animals.
These words open the book of Genesis, but they also find their echo in every great system of myth. Traditionally, myth has told us about origins, about how things began, and in doing so, it orients us. It tells us where we are from, and, therefore, who and what we are and how we should live. What happens in principio is creation: of the world itself, its physical features, and the realms of beings within it. For the traditional myth teller, to know how a thing came to be is to know something of what it is, and not to know the origin of a thing is not to understand it truly.1 So, in the first place, creation myths have always been myths of origin.
Doreen Valiente is considered by many to be the “mother” of the contemporary pagan movement. She was an early initiate of Gerald Gardner’s in the 1950’s, and made many significant contributions as a writer and ritualist. Her books include “Natural Magic”, “An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present”, “Witchcraft for Tomorrow”, and “The Rebirth of Witchcraft”. This Fireheart interview was conducted by Michael Thorn in 1991.
EarthSpirit Newsletter
An Historical Overview of the Whereabounts of Gnomes and Elves, Fauns and Faeries, Goblins, Ogres, Trolls and Bogies, Nymphs, Sprites and Dryads, Past and Present