Pagan Community Notes

Pagan Community Notes: Covenant of the Goddess, Green Religions Symposium, YSEE and more!

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Over the past weekend, Covenant of the Goddess held its 40 year anniversary MerryMeet event in Ontario, California. The weekend included its annual two-day Grand Council, during which the consensus-based organization conducted its internal business including the election of officers. After a tumultuous and uncomfortable beginning to 2015, the organization did come back to internally address what had happened. A break-out group was asked to review and present the organization’s revised social justice statement and make further recommendations. The result of the meeting was the creation of a permanent internal Social Justice committee to address the problems of racial inequity and systemic racism.

Pagan Community Notes

Pagan Community Notes: Samuel Wagar, HAXAN Film Festival, Jeff Rosenbaum and more

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Samuel Wagar, a Wiccan Priest with the Congregationalist Wiccan Assembly of Alberta, begins his second year as a Wiccan Chaplain at the University of Alberta. He selection last summer marked the first time that the University has appointed a Pagan to serve its student population. Wager, who is a Britsh Trad Wiccan and an active participant in the local Pagan community, said, “I had wanted to go back to school, because I love the academic environment, like to work with young adults, and I had thought that outreach for our Temple to the University would be a really good idea.” He prepared his CV with the support of his community and was then interviewed by the University’s interfaith chaplaincy group and was eventually selected. In his first year, Wager’s presence was minimal and limited. However, he says that now that will be changing as the new school year begins.

Pagan Community Notes

Pagan Community Notes: Pagans attend Vigil, James Bianchi, Kindred Irminsul and much more!

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On Sunday, April 12, nearly 100 people gathered together to honor the life of Yuvette Henderson, a 38-year old woman who was killed in Oakland in February. The vigil and march, organized by the Anti Police-Terror Project, is one of the many recent Bay Area social justice actions that have been supported by local area Pagans. In this case, there were at least nine Pagans in attendance. T. Thorn Coyle was one of them and said, “[We] gathered on the corner where Yuvette was killed by Emeryville PD, in Oakland. We then caravaned to deliver letters to Home Depot and the Oakland Police department (who are overseeing the investigation) asking for security tapes.”