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Pagan Community Notes: Week of March 13, 2023

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REMUS, Mich. – In response to a number of people expressing interest in a Pagan summer camp experience, a new event will be held at the Wolf Run Wildlife and Spiritual Sanctuary this summer. According to a press release, the organizer is Rae Fia Brassell of Sacred Medicine Sisterhood, and “Camp Hekate is a three-day, immersive weekend experience to awaken the witch within, from the afternoon of Friday, July 7th to the afternoon of Sunday, July 9th, 2023.”

The press release outlined the objective and purpose of the event:

 

“The knowledge and worship of Hekate has grown in popularity as witchcraft has gained cultural prominence. The goddess Hekate is the main spiritual inspiration and divine patron for the event. She is well known as a deity of witchcraft, change, and spiritual guidance. She is a divine teacher and revealer of the Craft. Witchcraft is an occult art. As occult means “hidden” so too does Hekate guide us in the hidden and subtle arts of the Craft.

“The goal of Camp Hekate is to facilitate magickal education and fellowship as it relates to modern witchcraft. Witchcraft is a broad subject. It can include anything from the mystical usage of plants, spell work that allows the user to manifest their goals, astrology that helps explain our place in the cosmos and how it influences us, simple rituals to help cope with the stress of everyday existence, and much more.

“Witchcraft is essentially pantheistic- meaning that we and the Universe are One- and the connection it offers is an antidote to a world that we sometimes feel woefully separate from. Magickal education is important since there is more information, and accessibility of the subject, than ever before and it is a great benefit to learn from experienced teachers. Fellowship is something that is also needed. Many witches are solitary practitioners, and the ability to connect to others in a welcoming space helps foster support and connection.

“Many of us will never get to go to a magical school like in popular fiction, but we can build the witchy equivalent. The increasing popularity of witchcraft does not deter those of us that have studied the Craft for several years. Instead, it emboldens us to make the world better a place through the study of magick, the constant drive to learn how to be a better person through its use, and helping educate others that seek that knowledge and practice.

Cyndi Brannen, Ph.D. author of Entering Hekate’s Garden, Keeping Her Keys and True Magic, will be the main presenter of the first Camp Hekate.

Brannen is a noted expert when it comes to modern practices of working with the Goddess Hekate, and describes herself as “a seeker of the sacred within and the mysteries of the deeper world.” She is also the founder of The Covina Institute, which identifies itself as “a [online] community for those exploring the magic, medicine, and mystery of the ancient goddess Hekate through personal inquiry, transcendent experiences, and natural magick.”

In addition to the classes and rituals centered around Hekate, the three-day summer camp will also offer a variety of workshops on “subjects such as death, dying, and crossing the veil; uses of animal skulls in witchcraft and spiritual work; spell jars and magickal talismans; warding, banishment, and curse removal; classes on yoga and spiritual body movement; and much more.”


According to the press release all of the workshops will be “geared to various experience levels,” and the event will also have performances that will range from belly dancers and fire spinners to community and sacred fires and even a Hekatean dance party.

Organizers note that the “facilities for the event are rustic camping, with ample bathroom facilities. There is a potluck dinner on Friday night, a professionally catered dinner on Saturday, and a continental breakfast on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Saturday and Sunday lunch is up to the guests attending.”

More details on Camp Hekate are available on the Sacred Medicine Sisterhood website.

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Parthenon, Athenian Acropolis (internal view) – Athens, Greece. Image credit: Mstyslav Chernov – CC BY-SA 3.0

VATICAN CITY – Last week, Vatican officials signed an agreement to return to Greece three Parthenon sculpture fragments that it has held in the permanent collection of the Vatican Museums for 200 years. The three sculpture fragments, which are over 2,500 years old, depict the heads of a bearded man, a boy, and a horse. The artifacts will be returned to Greece on March 24 and a special ceremony to receive them has been planned.

This latest agreement to repatriate Greek Parthenon artifacts could increase the growing pressure on the British Museum to reach an agreement with Greece for the return of the Parthenon Marbles it currently has in its collection.

The Parthenon, which was built as a temple by Pericles between 447 and 432 BCE, originally featured a number of friezes and sculptures as part of the Athenian Acropolis. The majority of those art features were removed by various conquerors and even archaeologists and ended up in museums that included the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Last year, Italy set a precedent for repatriation when Antonino Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in Palermo decided to return to Athens a sculpture fragment that depicted the foot of a goddess peeking from the bottom of a tunic.

In other repatriation news, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) returned to Iraq an artifact that was believed to have been stolen from Bagdad in 2003.


The artifact named, “Furniture Fitting with Sphinx Trampling a Youth” was sold to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta in 2006 by a third party that used a fake record with the wrong date the artifact entered the country according to the FBI.

The artifact is believed to have been stolen during the looting of the Iraq Museum in 2003 and is one piece out of thousands that remain missing. Over 15,000 artifacts were stolen just from the Iraq museum, and tens of thousands more from other parts of the country. 17,000 artifacts were returned to Iraq in August of 2021 by the U.S. government. Last December, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office announced the return of seven Mesopotamian and Neo-Babylonian seals that were also looted from the Iraq Museum in 2003.

Announcements:

  • The Journal of Academic Freedom is seeking original articles that investigate the links between landscapes of social power and the historical development and contemporary status of academic freedom for its 2023 issue. From The Journal, “We invite consideration of how academic freedom serves as a touchstone for democracy and the ways that the death of academic freedom signals the atrophy of more inclusive and democratized landscapes of power. What is the relationship between democratic societies and the flourishing of academia and academic freedom within them? What kind of society would powerful forces working against academia and academic freedom usher forth if they had their way?” The deadline for submissions is March 20.

Upcoming Events:

  • Tomorrow, on Tuesday, March 14 at 7:00 – 8:30 pm (CDT) Circle Sanctuary will host Welsh Druid and author Kristoffer Hughes who will be presenting the workshop:

  • Twin Cities Pagan Pride announced in a press release that they will be hosting their 12th annual Paganicon Midwest Conference on March 17 through 19, 2023, at the Crowne Plaza Minneapolis West located at 3131 Campus Drive, Plymouth, Minnesota. The 2023 conference programming includes workshops, panels, discussions, social space, live music, a ball, and vendors. This year’s featured guests include Christopher Penczak, Andras Corban-Arthen, and Kristoffer Hughes; musical performances by Sharon Knight and Winter, The Mechanist & The Star Goddess, and Open Investigation. The conference will also host an Art Show by The Third Offering: A Sacred Gallery Space that will feature artists from all over the U.S., displaying all types of visual media, and is free and open to the public.

  • Circle Sanctuary will be hosting its Welcome Spring Festival on Saturday, March 25 from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm (CDT) at Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve near Barneveld, Wisconsin. The event will feature workshops and crafting, rituals, a nature walk, and an Ostara egg hunt. Selena Fox will offer a Spring Divination workshop that will also be accessible online. More details on the event and Fox’s divination workshop can be found on

  • Circle Sanctuary announced last week that registration for Pagan Spirit Gathering is now open. The annual event includes a variety of vendors, workshops, music, and rituals.

  • The Scottish Goddess Conference 2023 will be held online from September 13 – 17  as well as in person in Paisley, Scotland on September 16, 2023. This theme for 2023 is “Oracles of the Divine, and will be dedicated to all things related to communicating with the other realms and spirits. From oracle work to séance, spiritism, necromancy, omens, trance work, psychedelic plants, medium, divination methods, ancient oracles, and much more!” Speakers include Professor Daniel Ogden, Dr. Jeffrey S. Kupperman, Kristoffer Hughes, Caitlin Matthews, Ivo Dominguez, Jeff Cullen, Chris Allaun, Lucya Starza, Starr Ravenhawk, Susana Aguilar, Michael Mayo, and Cara Hamilton. Super Early Bird Tickets are currently available on the Scottish Goddess Conference Website. The Conference will also hold a Virtual Goddess Market till September and a live Goddess Market at the event venue at the Wynd Centre in Paisley, Scotland, to support the Goddess Temple Alba.

  • The Goddess Temple Alba, with its aim to open a Community Space for Pagans in Scotland, will be hosting several Charitable Goddess Markets this year. The first one was held on February 4, and the next is scheduled for April 29 and will celebrate Beltane, and the third market will be held during the Scottish Goddess Conference on September 16. According to the organizers, “All donations towards spaces for traders will go directly to the Goddess Temple Alba Fund towards a space. Ness Bosch, the Head of the Goddess Temple Alba, and some of the members of the Temple are working very hard to open this Temple space! Go and support the Goddess Community in Scotland by paying a visit to the forthcoming Goddess Markets!” Those interested can now also join the Goddess Community In Scotland Facebook Group to keep up with goddess happenings in Scotland.  Anyone interested in securing a space as a trader/vendor with the Goddess Markets can email the organizers.  All markets will take place at the Wynd Centre in Paisley, Scotland.

In other news:

  • Last week in Newark, New Jersey a monument to Harriet Tubman that replaced a statue of Christopher Columbus was unveiled to the public on Thursday, a day ahead of Harriet Tubman Day, March 10. The monument was designed by Nina Cooke John, a New Jersey native and architect, and is titled “Shadow of a Face” will be the centerpiece of a community gathering space in the recently renamed Harriet Tubman Square. Mayor Ras J. Baraka said during the unveiling,  “In a time when so many cities are choosing to topple statues that limit the scope of their people’s story, we have chosen to erect a monument that spurs us into our future story of exemplary strength and solidity. In a country where the overwhelming majority of monuments are testaments to white males, Newark has chosen to erect a monument to a Black woman who was barely five feet tall but had the visage and power of a giant. We have created a focal point in the heart of our city that expresses our participation in an ongoing living history of a people who have grappled through many conflicts to steadily lead our nation in its progress toward racial equality. Harriet Tubman Square and its interactive centerpiece sculpture, Shadow of a Face, represent our past, present, and future.”


Positively Noteworthy

HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. – As spring is just around the corner, the various animal inhabitants of the Appalachian Mountains are becoming more active. This week much colder temperatures are forecast and likely to send some of those animals back to their dens, as well as keep the black bear population snoozing for a bit longer.

Warmer temperatures over the past few weeks have resulted in a bit more wildlife activity. This bobcat and her three cubs were captured on camera bouncing about on a sunny day recently. Normally, the cubs would have already been off on their own but the litter was born late in the season last year, so are still with their mom.


Tarot of the week by Star Bustamonte

Deck: Tarot of the Sacred Feminine, by Floreana Nativo, artwork by Franco Rivolli, published by Lo Scarabeo.

Card: Nine (9) of Pentacles

The week ahead is likely to offer more energy for a balanced mental state mind and affirm a general sense of well-being, as it relates to finances and independence. There is also the potential for enjoying some leisure time and reaping the rewards of past efforts.

Conversely, all work and no play can result in losing sight of the purpose of all that hard work. It can also be a reminder to make time for the experiences in life that are priceless.

Editorial note: The incorrect image of the Two (2) Pentacles was originally published in the Tarot of the Week and is now corrected with the correct image of the Nine (9) of Pentacles. As a bonus, for those who may have felt a resonance for the incorrect image: the Two (2) of Pentacles indicates new life, new prosperity, and certain emphasis of joy and positive energy. Conversely, it may indicate the need to reorganize or rethink plans–if a project is pulling all of the joy from life, it is time to reassess. 

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