TWH – Today marks the annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day (MLK) as a federal holiday. While MLK Day was formally signed into law in 1983 as a federal holiday, it was not actually observed until 1986. Some states were slow to adopt and recognize it as a state holiday, with New Hampshire being the last to do so when it replaced its “Civil Rights Day” with MLK Day in 1999 and observed it as such in 2000. Several states combine MLK Day with recognizing other people and events.
King was an outspoken civil rights activist advocating for nonviolence and acts of civil disobedience. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee at the Lorraine Motel by a fatal gunshot wound to his head.
King was in Memphis to support Black sanitation workers who had been on strike since February 11, 1968, in protest of unequal pay and working conditions–lack of a grievance policy, no union, no accessible restrooms, and no city-issued uniforms. King had previously been in Memphis on March 28 of that year for a march that had ended in violence.
Throughout his activism, King as a pastor drew heavily on his Christian roots and many of his speeches included biblical references. King remains one of the most iconic leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and inspired many others to pick up and carry forward the banner of equality, regardless of religious belief.
Circle Sanctuary will conduct a special ceremony this evening at 7:00 pm CST/8:00 pm EST as part of its monthly full moon event, “Full Moon & Martin Luther King Jr. Day.” Circle Sanctuary Minister Judith Seizys will facilitate the ritual that will include invocations, music, poetry, reading of MLK Jr. excerpts from his “I Have a Dream” speech, and guided meditation. The ritual will be live-streamed on the Circle Sanctuary YouTube channel.
Since 1994, MLK Day has also been recognized as a National Day of Service that is coordinated by federal agency AmeriCorps, which provides grants to organizations that coordinate service activities. The only other national day of service coordinated and recognized by the federal government is September 11.
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EDINBURGH, Scotland – As more attention is being focused on the proposed pardoning of the thousands of accused witches in Scotland in the 16th century, new support is coming from a variety of sources. Scottish author, Mary W. Craig who is based in Stow and wrote the book, Borders Witch Hunt: 17th Century Witchcraft Trials in the Scottish Borders has announced her support for the pardon.
“As a country we are rightly proud of Robert the Bruce and William Wallace so we should acknowledge the bad things we have done. I’m not a lawyer so there may be some legal arguments against a pardon, but I would support this bill,” Craig said.
She noted that “In the Scottish Borders alone there were around 350 women and men brought to trial resulting in around 220 being executed. Another 15 died of ill-treatment or just the poor conditions in prison so the numbers in the region were pretty high when you consider there wasn’t much of a population at that time.”
“And It wasn’t all that long ago, in fact there was a woman from Selkirk executed in 1700. If it happened today there would be demonstrations outside the High Court and the Parliament but in those days the church was so powerful,” she continued, “So I think there should also be an apology and in my opinion a national monument, not just for the women and men accused but also for their families.”
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A new exhibition titled, “I am a Witch ~ Tales from the Roundhouse” opened at The Storey in Lancaster, England. The focus of the exhibit is to show many of the traumas that women have now were inherited from the witch hunts.
Cali White, the lead curator of the exhibit said in an interview, “The Burning Times divided our communities, taught us to play small in order to survive and broke our trust in the people closest to us.”
“The scars we still carry show up in many ways – fears of being seen or heard, experiences of betrayal, mistrust of other women, feelings of disconnection to nature, irrational fears, and struggles to feel at home in ourselves,” she continued, “Twenty five generations on we are left feeling powerless, isolated, stuck, divided, unsafe and unsupported.”
White is also a part of The Silver Spoons Collective that describes itself as, “a sisterhood on a mission to heal the collective wounds of the Burning Times through education, inner journey work, ancestral trauma clearing, creative expression, ceremony and ritual.”
The exhibit at The Story runs through January 29 with a special closing day event.
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TWH – In order to be more responsive to community needs and announcements, The Wild Hunt will be changing some of the aspects of the Pagan Community Notes feature as of Imbolc, 2022.
Pagan Community Notes is published on Mondays of every week and includes a round-up of important news and announcements specifically from and for the Pagan, Witchcraft, Heathen, and polytheists community.
We invite news from the community about our community including press releases, announcements, activities, ordinations, elevations, crossings, and changes. We also invite news about events especially if they are being conducted as outreach by your group, coven, grove, or organization.
We will continue to cover important news to our community in this feature as well as the occasional smaller stories that are of interest to our community and others adjacent to us.
If you have a press release, we invite you to send it to us at pcn@wildhunt.org.
Announcements
Earlier this month, Laura Tempest Zakroff announced that she would resume doing her “Witchual Workouts” a series of “ritually-inspired movement experience designed to get us moving a bit more on a daily basis.”
Zakroff began doing the workouts during the pandemic in the summer of 2020 but had halted videoing them in order to undertake other projects. Her latest series of workouts is focused on slow to medium movements and designed to help foster a connection with the principles outlined in her book, Anatomy of a Witch.
To date, Zakroff has published over 150 workouts on her YouTube channel. All of the videos are free to access.
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Circle Sanctuary announced that it is launching a new podcast, “Blue Marble” which will be hosted by Circle Sanctuary Minister, Environmental Activist, and EcoChaplain Char Bear.
In 2021, Circle Sanctuary formed a Circle that is part of the international interfaith GreenFaith network and was among the co-sponsors of Faiths for Climate Justice. In 2022, the Circle Sanctuary GreenFaith Circle will be expanding its EcoEducation and EcoActivist work for Climate Justice and Environmental Preservation through the monthly Blue Marble podcast and other endeavors.
“Blue Marble” is set to debut on Friday, January 21 at 8:00 pm EST/7:00 pm CST on Circle Sanctuary Network Podcasts (CSNP) on BlogTalk radio. The first episode, “Green Faith Powers Up,” will feature a conversation with Amy Brooks, US Organizer for GreenFaith International.
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Aquarian Tabernacle Church put out a call for a performer for a new fundraising drag show that will benefit Pagans In Need food pantry
In other news:
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- The Irish government is working on a proposal for implementing a new bank holiday that would combine celebrating St Brigid and St Patrick on February 1 each year. The St. Brigid’s Day campaign was originally started by Melanie Lynch, the head of Herstory, in 2019. Lynch wrote a letter to Micheál Martin the Taoiseach (prime minister and head of the Irish government) and told him that introducing a new public holiday on February 1 was an opportunity to celebrate “Mná na hÉireann” (women of Ireland). “Already Ireland has three bank holidays dedicated to men – Jesus, Stephen, and Patrick. In the 21st century, we still are waiting for a bank holiday to celebrate an Irish woman and Mná na hÉireann,” Lynch wrote. According to news reports, the Irish people broadly support the idea of a St. Brigid bank holiday, with many writing and sending in letters of support for the idea. Tanáiste (deputy head of the Irish government) Leo Varadkar confirmed the government was working on a proposal that would combine St. Brigid and St. Patrick to be celebrated on the same day, beginning February 1, 2023. The holiday would also recognize frontline workers and those who had died during the pandemic. Opposition to naming the bank holiday after St. Brigid was voiced by Michael Nugent, chairperson of Atheist Ireland, as he felt it sent the “wrong message” for a multi-cultural Ireland and instead offered that the name of the holiday should be the “Frontline Workers’ Public Holiday.”
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- In notable passings, Clyde Bellecourt who was one of the co-founders of the American Indian Movement (AIM) died last week at the age of 85. Bellecourt was an iconic figure and activist who started AIM in 1968. One of the original purposes of AIM was to help combat and monitor police violence toward Native people. As the organization grew it became a Native civil rights advocate nationally within the U.S. and Canada, and eventually in other parts of the globe representing 375 million Indigenous peoples worldwide. Bellecourt’s oldest son, Little Crow, told NPR in an interview, “His life’s work was always about his people … He really loved where he was from,” he continued, “As I was young boy, I used to have to wonder why my dad wasn’t around a lot. And as I got older, I learned to realize that his work and everything he did was for our family and extended family and our Native peoples across the U.S. and Canada.” Minnesota Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan tweeted, “Today, we lost a civil rights leader who fought for more than a half-century on behalf of Indigenous people in Minnesota and around the world. Indian Country benefited from Clyde Bellecourt’s activism – he cleared a path for so many of us. Journey well, Neegawnwaywidung.” which references Bellecourt’s Ojibwe name that means, “thunder before the storm.”
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On January 15 an undersea eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano created a shockwave that traveled around the entire planet twice. The sonic boom of the eruption was heard as far away as Alaska, and even Caribbean islands experienced a surge in tide waves due to shifts in atmospheric pressure. The eruption affected the entire Pacific rim with tsunami warnings from Australia to Japan to Canada to Chile.
The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano is part of the Polynesian country of Tonga which comprises more than 170 South Pacific islands, home to about 105,000 people. The remote archipelago is roughly about 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of Fiji and 1,500 miles (2,380 kilometers) from New Zealand.
The initial eruption severed the underwater fiberoptic cable that connects communications between Tonga the rest of the world. According to the limited news reports, the capital of Nuku’alofa is covered in ash and severely impacted access to safe drinking water and food.
Pita Taufatofua, who many may remember as the Tongan Flag Bearer of the 2018 and 2021 Olympics, started a GoFundMe to aid in the recovery of Tonga. Taufatofua is in Brisbane, Australia participating in training. He has competed in taekwondo and free-style cross-country skiing in previous Olympics.
Taufatofua has stressed in the many interviews he has done that while he has no news of his own family, the same is true for the many Tongans living outside of Tonga. None have been able to connect with their families due to communications being down. It could be weeks before the undersea cable is repaired.
Even assessments of the damage are largely unknown due to the inability of aircraft and ships to safely access the region. Heavy ash in the atmosphere prevented initial flyovers and the danger of yet another eruption forced ships to remain at a safe distance. Both New Zealand and Australia have sent military surveillance flights as of this morning.
Reports of damage have so far been limited but the Ha’atafu Beach Resort, on the Hihifo peninsula, 13 miles (21 km) west of the capital Nuku’alofa and the entire western coastline that includes Kanukupolu village have been completely destroyed.
Distress beacons had been activated from the low-lying and small islands of Fonoi and Mango that are part of the Ha’apai group of islands. The Tonga government lists the populations of the two islands as 69, and 36, respectively.
The COVID-19 pandemic is also further complicating relief efforts because of quarantine restrictions.
Tarot of the week by Star Bustamonte
Deck: Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas Tarot Deck, text by Minerva Siegal, illustrations by Abigail Larson, published by Insight Editions.Card: Knight of Needles (Swords)
This week is likely to call for endurance and commitment when it comes to advancing plans and projects. Staying focused and pushing forward are liable to be key in succeeding.
Conversely, the potential for distractions and a scattered thought process are unlikely to yield the sought-for outcome.
Decks generously provided by Asheville Pagan Supply.
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