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2 weeks ago

Today is Morwen Two Feathers' birthday. Just 2 weeks ago she left this world and we deeply miss her. In her memory, we want to share with you the Eulogy that Deirdre Pulgram Arthen wrote and delivered at her funeral. Much love and many blessings on her passage,

"We are gathered here today to honor Morwen Two Feathers and celebrate what she has meant to us. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Deirdre Pulgram Arthen, the director of The EarthSpirit Community, which Morwen was an important part of for the last 33 years. She was my peer, my sometimes advisor, and my good friend

Thank you all for being here today to share in this moment. Members of so many communities have come together for this. It shows a great deal of love and respect for Morwen that you have travelled from as far as California to be here.

I met Morwen many years ago, before she was a drummer, before she met Jimi, before she was even called Morwen. She found us and EarthSpirit in 1985 after Kathleen - then Chapin - suggested that she take one of my husband Andras’ classes in Cambridge. Once she was here, it was as if she’d found a home. She loved being a part of and helping to build the community as she jumped right in with her beautiful flute music, her graceful dancing, and a bright, quick, creative mind full of ideas and contributions. In the early days she was working at the non-profit center in Boston, and I remember that, at her initiative, we had many meetings to talk about how she could best help EarthSpirit live up to its potential, since we did not really look like any other non-profit she had ever worked with before.

At EarthSpirit’s biggest gathering, Rites of Spring, Morwen was a key contributor to the creation of a ritual shape for the Drumming Fire Circle that became the model for similar circles all across the country. She captured that process, along with her passion for cultural change and community building, in her book “The Universal Heartbeat,” which she published in 2012. Morwen always saw and felt drumming as a tool for healing and the building of connections. In more recent years, as her illness progressed, she persevered and deepened her drumming practice for her own healing, working more and more with the technique of TaKeTiNa, where movement and rhythm take hold of the whole person.

Morwen was committed to teaching others what she felt was important. She delighted in sharing her love of drumming, and also the council process that she and Jimi developed together to promote clear and open communication in community building. At Twilight Covening, EarthSpirit’s autumn retreat, she led a Clan almost every year - most recently a series of Monkey Clans with Mark Girard, helping people entrain with each other and learn to understand the power of rhythm and drumming as a tool for building connection with each other and with the sacred, and as a strong way to create and hold a container for others in ritual.

Morwen and I worked closely together many times over the years. She was a good listener, an out-of-the box thinker and a wonderful collaborator. She consistently wanted the best for everyone individually, and also for our community as a whole. By questioning assumptions and the status quo, she pushed me to be my best as I know she did with numerous others.

Over the course of her long illness, new sides of Morwen emerged and she continued to teach us. When her words would not come, she turned to her art, and in the process published her second book, a collection of mandalas for us to color for pleasure or meditation. She taught us of patience and perseverance; of how we can ask for what we need, and of how we can continue to grow even through significant limitations. Despite her illness, she still got to Rites of Spring and to the New York Fairy Fest this year, determined to live her life as fully as possible for as long as she could.

In the hospital last week, when it was clear that Morwen would not be with us for much longer, Andras and I formally recognized her as one of the Elders of the EarthSpirit Community --- a ceremony which was originally intended to take place at Rites of Spring next year, but which was no less real or heartfelt in a hospital room. We will honor her next spring as well, but it meant a lot to us to be able to make the presentation while she was still with us.

Morwen was a powerful, creative, passionate, caring and generous woman, but she would not want us to look at her as a figure for admiration. She would, instead, want us to take the best of what we saw in her, find it in ourselves, and incorporate it more fully into our own lives - working and living to change human consciousness, to build deep and vibrant community, to strive for social justice, and to cherish each other and the web of spirit that joins us together. Thank you, Morwen Two Feathers, for your beautiful life and your shining example --- you continue to live in our hearts and in our memories. As we say in our spiritual tradition: Now you are everywhere, Now you are everything."

(photo credit: Afon Art) ... See MoreSee Less

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Beautiful!

Thank you for posting this. ❤️

Thank you Deirdre Pulgram Arthen that was a moving tribute to a beautiful woman who touched so many of us. It reminded me of the influence she had on a teen aged me in really difficult times. She will be sorely missed but will live on in the lives and memories of all of us she inspired.

What a lovely tribute. Thank you for sharing this.

I couldn't be there but, this makes me feel as though I was. Thank you for sharing so eloquently. We will call her name at Samhain. ~Angie & the Earth Traditions Tribe.

So Beautiful, Deirdre <3

❤ So touching. Thank you for sharing

Thank you

Thank you.

Thank you, Deirdre Pulgram Arthen.

Thank you.

Lovely.

I'm reading this at my desk at work, trying not to cry. ♡♡♡

Beautiful ❤️

A beautiful tribute, Deirdre.

Beautiful Deirdre Pulgram Arthen

Well put

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The EarthSpirit Community

4 weeks ago

The Twilight Covening page is now live with new Clan descriptions for 2018!
Take a look. This a wonderful opportunity to turn inward with the autumn and these are some of the best teachers you will find anywhere
Registration opens August 1. ... See MoreSee Less

Twilight Covening - EarthSpirit

earthspirit.com

Twilight Covening is a 3-day ritual which holds and shapes an institute of Earth spirituality, exploring ways to deepen Earth-centered spiritual practice.

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Oooooohhh!

Too many choices... Can I turn into multiple people and experience it all??

Wonderful!

Hoping to be there this year!

I am agonizing over my decision! How will I ever choose

is registration open? I'm not getting anything when I click the link.

When I registered through PayPal and it sent me “back to complete” my order it took my to a strange page at rowantree with lots of political ads instead of a confirm screen. Did my registration go through?

Registered! Octopus, Ptarmigan, Wyrm, Luna Moth!

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The EarthSpirit Community

4 weeks ago

Morwen ... See MoreSee Less

Morwen

earthspiritvoices.wordpress.com

poem by Donovan Arthen; Snake Woman chant by Starhawk — Snake woman shedding her skin A teacher, a drummer, a flutist, a mother. A lover, a leader, a wise woman born. Snake woman shedding her…

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I didn't know her but I knew of her...she will be remembered, and honored. Peace to her bright spirit and her whole Family.

<3 In her own words... " I know that all too soon my human agenda will take me far from here, while you will remain, holding a piece of my heart here in this place." ...from "Gray Birch" Authored by MTF 2008

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