Pagan Community Notes: Darrin Barnett, Piedmont Pagan Pride, Gaea Goddess Gathering, and more

OAKLAND, Calif. — The Bay Area Pagan community lost one of its beloved members over the weekend. Darrin Barnett was rushed to the hospital Thursday, June 7 for “exacerbated asthma,” as explained by his wife, Kaerla. While this became routine since his heart attack in July 2017 as she goes on, this recent event was not ordinary. Barnett’s heart stopped several times on the way to the hospital and he had suffered damage to his brain. The emergency room doctors reportedly told his wife that, while he could come back from his condition but “the chances are better of him not coming back than they are that he will.”

Pagan Community Notes: Masterpiece Cake ruling, Phyllis Curott honored, OBOD changes hands, and more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court of the United States delivered their opinion Monday, June 4 on the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. Justice Kennedy delivered that opinion, which holds that the “Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s actions in assessing a cake shop owner’s reasons for declining to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding celebration violated the free exercise clause.” This overturned previous court rulings. The vote was seven to two, with justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor filing a dissenting opinion. The ruling suggests that the commission did not uphold neutrality when dealing with the baker’s conscious-based objections, stating there was a notable bias expressed against the baker’s religious beliefs.

Activities for minors at Pagan Spirit Gathering

VIENNA, Ill. — Circle Sanctuary’s 38th annual Pagan Spirit Gathering will be held June 17 – 24 at Tall Tree Lake campground. Volunteer Florence Edwards-Miller is organizing youth activities for the event, and provided details about what to expect. Edwards-Miller said, “Bringing a child of any age on a week-long camping trip to a primitive camping ground is not easy. Keeping your kids fed, hydrated, dry, protected from heat, bug-bite free, and entertained is a parenting challenge.”

Pagan Community Notes: PSG Moon Lodge, Terra Mysterium, Trillium Gathering, and more.

BARNEVELD, Wis. — Pagan Spirit Gathering, a week-long Pagan summer festival hosted by Circle Sanctuary, will have a new addition this year called Women’s Hearth, a space dedicated specifically to women of all kinds. PSG hosted its first dedicated space for women at its inception in 1980. That space was eventually named Moon Lodge, and was a fixture at PSG for over 20 years. “Even after announcement were made.

Writer, Welsh Bardic Tradition priestess Kathryn Hinds passes

DAHLONEGA, Ga. — Pagan musician Arthur Hinds remembers the time four years ago when he and his late wife, Kathryn, were “honored-slash-condemned” – he said with a soft laugh — to lead the main ritual at Pagan Spirit Gathering. “That is a huge thing,” Hinds said from the couple’s home in Dahlonega, Georgia., where they led a circle in the Welsh Bardic Tradition they founded. “We prepared, we rehearsed, we got everybody together. There are hundreds of people in the circle, and you look back and there are hundreds more in a line still coming in.