The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/pagan-community)
In this week’s Pagan Community Notes: We begin by remembering the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. And there’s more. Much more. Got a stick? Go get it, because there’s more than you can shake one at: EarthSpirit events, a Voodoo Spiritual Temple announcement, Susan Levitt’s New Moon astrology, Pharo-Nox, Spiral Moon Media, and, as always, Star’s Tarot of the Week.
Weekend Editor Eric O. Scott considers the history of Pagan communication, from chain letters in the 1970s to the demise of WitchVox last year.
[Columns are a regular weekend feature at The Wild Hunt. Each Friday and Saturday columnists from various backgrounds and traditions share their perspectives and add their insights to the larger conversation in the community. If you like this feature, consider making a small monthly donation or make a one-time donation toward this vital global community venture. Either way, it is your help and your support that keeps daily and dependable news coming to your doorstep each day from wherever its origin.]
In the Northern Hemisphere, the start of May is a time when each of us, nature included, breaks free from winter’s restrictions to indulge in the tentative unfurling of spring. We dance, we play, we sing, we gather, we celebrate, and we create. For many, the lengthening days with more sunlight are an invitation to enjoy the increase in energy.
Almost a year ago, I organized and led a panel at Paganicon called “Pagan Clergy: How to Welcome Sex Offenders and Ex-Felons into Our Communities.” The overall convention theme was Through the Looking Glass: a Journey to the Underworld, so shedding light on marginalized communities within the larger Pagan community seemed appropriate. We do not always see what is beneath in the underworld until we begin looking. As a religious group leader and prison minister, I wanted to see how the larger community would respond to the most frequent question posed by the incarcerated: where can I go to ritual, or where can I find a group once I get out? The panel was a rudimentary attempt to bring together in an unofficial capacity representatives from the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP), clergy who serve in prison ministry, and the larger community at Paganicon for a long-overdue discussion on what the reception of formerly incarcerated would be in our community.
TWH – A new website devoted solely to Pagan bloggers is set to open its doors Mar. 21. After a successful crowdfunding campaign, founder Jamie Morgan was able to begin the project. Since that time PaganBloggers.com has attracted the attention of over 60 writers, musicians, and artists, all of who will begin sharing their work on the new site designed by Pagans for Pagans. Morgan said in an interview with The Wild Hunt, “I hope that [Pagan Bloggers] becomes another destination for readers, because we are all readers, in the pagan community to hear our voices, debate questions, think and learn.”