Rowan's Round of Days

This morning I was quite tired after our Colonial Tramcar dinner. Anna & I went together and we ran into Tim Miner and his wife from Washington DC. Tim is the fellow to whose organization I donated the interfaithtoday.com domain. We had a lovely dinner but there wasn't a tour aspect. By the end of three hours I was a bit motion sick. What is the point of a moving dinner, however yummy, if there isn't a tour?!

I skipped doing a devotional and went to a 9:30 session - Understanding Vodun: a West African Spirituality by Robert Houndohome Hounon of Benin. Also known as His Majesty Daagbo Hounion Houna II, Robert Houndohome Hounon is the Supreme Spiritual Leader of the Great Council of the Vodun Hwendo tradition. He was speaking in French with a translator. I understand that the East Coast Pagan community had contributed money to get him to the Parliament.

His basic message seems to be that the diaspora is doing it all wrong and should come back to Africa to get the pure religion from one of the countries of the Gulf of Guinea. He doesn't have a website yet. There was the inevitable "animal sacrifice" question, twice. He said yes, they do animal sacrifice but if the animal screams it gets a reprieve. Someone asked him about Vodun's views on modern issues like abortion, vegetarianism and euthanasia. He said that Vodun condemned abortion because all life is sacred, vegetarianism is an individual choice because one's food taboos are determined by the sign one is born under and he didn't respond about euthanasia.

January 10th is a national Vodun holiday in Benin however and they have gotten some recognition there. There are monuments to the gate of departure (leaving for slavery) and the gate of return (slaves descendants returning). It was never discussed whether non-Africans could practice Vodun but His Magesty seemed to be talking only to the black members of the audience.

At the end of his presentation Angie Buchanan presented him with one of the beautiful shakers made by Julee Higgenbotham. Hmm, have I mentioned those? There are four symbolic ceramic shakers that the Pagans were giving to various groups and elders - the Parliament committee in Chicago, the committee in Melbourne, this guy and hopefully the Dalai Lama. I took pictures of the presentation which are stuck in my camera. *sigh* Here is an article on them from her local paper, St. Louis Today.

This presentation really made me glad that the Orixa have reached out to me with the new religious movement of Umbanda. I feel no need to go back to Africa for some kind of authenticity. I love the syncretic nature of Umbanda and I don't need some Africa "King" telling me what is truth. Heh, I have always had trouble with the religious titles of Lord & Lady, His Magesty is pretty much right out for me. And his anti-abortion stance also put me off considerably as you might imagine.

I started the morning by stopping in Second Life and going to my photo club. How nice that the time was one I could make. :-) Today's theme was Fire & Ice.

I started my morning with a devotional called Living in Peace not Pieces: How to Find and Remain Anchored in Joy, Peace, and Bliss amidst the Waves and Storms of Daily Life by HH Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswati. He is a great storyteller and his voice for matras is amazing. We began with him singing mantras and then Sadhvi Bhagwati did a guided medition.

He said people often come to him and say "I want peace". He says to get rid of "I want" and what is left? Ego and desire block our peace. Daily prayer and meditation are cleansing. Prayer, in any language, to any divine form, is the practitioner is fully engaged in devotion. Meditation is when God talks back. By humbly offering all of ourself to the divine we are cleaned and become anchored in the divine which will bring us peace.

They gave all of the participants a copy of his book, Peace: For Us, For our Families, For our Communities and for the World. I have read a couple of passages and I must say his stories come right through the printed page. I am so glad to have been introduced to his work! And having quickly googled him, I find his site at http://www.parmarth.com/ and he has audio at http://www.parmarth.com/audio/audio.html. I'm off to download some inspirational mantras.


Then I went off to Australian Pagans Speak: a Community Forum featuring Fabienne Morgana, Glenys Livingstone, She' D'Montford, Gede Parma and Linda Ward. Their presentation was especially wonderful because they represented so many different facets of Australian Paganism from solitaries to members and founders of traditions to Pagans doing interfaith work. So many were informed by the environment of their land and by the many cultures who meet here.

She' D'Montford had a power point on the myths about Pagans. She came into the session wearing a black robe and ugly green mask and then stripped down to her slim and lovely self to symbolize stripping away the myths. Her presentation isn't available anywhere but she says there is a book on the way.

Ms. Livingstone, who attended Berkeley's GTU, wrote 'PaGaian Cosmology' which brings together a religious practice of seasonal ritual based in a contemporary scientific sense of the cosmos and female imagery for the Sacred. It is available in print or can be read online at http://pagaian.org/.

I had met Gede Parma the other day at Magick Happens and leafed through his Llewellyn book Spirited: Taking Paganism Beyond the Circle which looked quite interesting. I was glad to see the presence of a young queer voice amongst the panelists.

Fabienne Morgana talked about her upbringing on a ranch only slightly smaller than Rhode Island. She makes "focus beads" for many occasions and has made them for specific occasions. She said she had made some for the Parliament but I didn't manage to get information about them.

Linda Ward, the Interfaith Representative for the Pagan Awareness Network, then spoke about their process of engaging in interfaith dialogue here in Australia. She said they first time they approached an inter-religious meeting they were told, "Oh no, there is an international protocol that says Pagans can't be included." They have come a long way since then! By continuing engagement they have become partners in the local and now global interfaith movement.

It was very interesting to hear the stories of our co-religionists and I hope that the sharing and fellowship we have here at the Parliament will enrich both the Australian and non-Australian Pagans and Wiccans.

Afterward we gathered all of the Australian Pagans there and the various other folks from the USA and elsewhere and took a group photo. If I can ever find a card reader, I'll try to post mine.

So after almost getting a nap (but the URI Wiccan Indigenous folks decided to have a meeting in our room 20 minutes in), I headed back to the Arts House venue for the Magick Happens Cirque Noir Masquerade Ball. When I arrived burlesque dancers were putting on a lovely show. Then the Stiletto Sisters, a band containing a fiddle, accordian and bass, wandered around playing Gypsy/Eastern European music for small audiences. The level of entertainment at this event was truly stellar.

The lovely burlesque ladies soon began circulating through the crowd with trays of appetizers. I got myself a glass of spiced mead at the bar and tucked into the food - shooter sized hamburgers but on lovely crunchy rolls rather than insipid white bread, spring rolls, prawn dumplings and an array of puff pastries filled with cheese, cheese & spinach, bacon & cheese and mystery vegatables. There was also chicken satay and desserts but I skipped the chicken and was way to full for desert!

At 10pm Spiral Dance started their set (they were supposed to get a break but they played straight for an hour!). Those who know me know that I am a hopeless fan girl for Spiral Dance and their live performance did not disappoint. Such great performers!!!! I had heard most of the tunes they did but there were perhaps three that were new to me. I hope there is a new album in the offing! They taught a Breton dance for power raising and got people up and dancing (not me - I could tell my shoulder wouldn't like it). [For my own memory since it is on the back of an envelope the steps went right, left, right kick; left, right, left kick with the hands down on the first set and up on the second. It did look very good for power raising.] There was also a spiral dance danced (which again I sat out *sigh*).

After their set I chatted with Adrienne and the other band members. They suggested hotels for our Adelaide stay when we go there next weekend to see their show and said they'd take us out for Sunday brunch the next day. *bounce*

I listened to about half an hour of Wendy Rule (playing with her guitar, a fiddler and a bass) before realizing I was nodding off and it was after midnight. I love Wendy's amazing voice but I was worried about getting a taxi. Nick from Spiral Dance came outside to help me find a taxi and was so lovely and gracious. He said that on their tours of the USA (East Coast only, I've been watching for them) people had been so nice to them that he was paying it forward by helping me. I said they should do a West Coast tour and come to PantheaCon.

I got back to the hotel about 1:30am and fell over. But what a fabulous night! The local community is really nice, their costumes for the masquerade were amazing, the music was beyond fabulous and the food was fine and served by beautiful women. I mean, what's not to like!

Just what the world needs (not), another social networking site. This one created by the Parliament.



Visit PeaceNext

I find myself thinking about the words of Baba Wande Abimbola of Ifa School in Nigeria during the Yoruba religious observance yesterday. He said several times things like "You don't understand what we mean by sacrifice", "Sacrifice is very important in Ifa", "Sacrifice is the language through which we speak to the Orisha". He then talked about wearing yellow-orange clothes and giving yellow-orange fruit to Oshun. It made me want to look up sacrifice and see what it really means because I admit that what I am hearing I would call sacra (permanent things dedicated to the Gods such as special clothing) and offerings (ephemeral things given for the use of the Gods such a food). [Though I see the dictionary doesn't have sacra in it at all.]

For me sacrifice would mean giving something very precious to me to the Gods, rather than just a normal offering, which is indeed "the language" for speaking to the Gods. Merriam Webster says that the word Sacrifice comes from Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin sacrificium, from sacr-, sacer + facere to make. So sacrifice is literally to make sacred, but the first definition is 1 : an act of offering to a deity something precious; especially : the killing of a victim on an altar. So the Baba has probably run into people who hear the word sacrifice and think of human or animal sacrifice. Going to the definition of Offerings 1 a : the act of one who offers b : something offered; especially : a sacrifice ceremonially offered as a part of worship c : a contribution to the support of a church. So really sacrifice/offering are quite interchangeable it seems.

In interfaith I am always torn between moderating my language to something palatable to my hearer and using the terms of art or religious phrases that I actually use. So sometimes I have said "We are all children of one Mother" instead of "We all come from the Goddess". But sometimes I have said Goddess. It reall depends on my audience. I think that Don's stages of interfaith dialogue are very true. I don't remember them exactly but in early stages we look for commonalities and in later stages we honour each others differences. And we have to be very clear about the language we are using too it seems.

We checking into our hotel and left our bags with the concierge since it was only 10am and headed over to the Parliament registration only to find it didn't open until 11am. Rachael & Raul and I sat in Caffe Cino in the Hilton and had refreshments. I had no idea there was Blood Orange Pellegrino, but it is very yummy. I don't believe Diet Dr. Pepper exists here but I have had a very nice Solo lemonade and now the Pellegrino. It works for me. :-) Don & Anna joined us and we headed over to register, running into many friends as we walked the length of the convention centre.

The lines were a bit chaotic but we eventually got ourselves all signed up. And our hotel room was ready. But by now it was only half an hour until the Indigenous Speakers Reception which Don, Rachael & Raul were attending and the Pagans at the Parliament reception that Anna & I were headed for. We all decided not to change clothes. Rachael and I are fairly low on spoons and she arranged through the hotel to rent a motorized wheelchair. It is only $14/day plus some delivery fees. I admit to a temptation to get one too.

The Pagan reception was in the Hilton in a suite that Angie & Drake and some other folks are sharing. There were probably 60 people attending including 8-10 local folks. It was very much a meet-and-greet with loud, interesting conversations on all sides. I talked to several people, including a few I was meeting for the very first time but to whom had spoken over the years. And I saw many old friends.

Afterward I went back to our room to find that the hotel had given us the "amenity" of a fruit basic and some fresh squeeze blood orange juice! So by the time Don called it see if I wanted to join them for dinner I really didn't feel like I needed more food. Huzzah for fresh fruit and being in the Hilton.

The first Parliament event, the opening Plenary started at 7:30 with a symphony accompanied by a digeridoo. Prof. Joy Murphy Wandin welcomed us to her land by offering virtual gum leaves which signify we are welcome from the tops of the trees to their roots. Then we were welcomed by Prof. David de Kretser, the governor of Victoria, Bill Lesher of the Parliament and the Hon. Laurie Ferguson, MP, and Jennifer Kanis a Melbourne City Councillor. The Australians all thanked and praised the Aboriginal Australians in their remarks which I thought was interesting. The Rabbi David Sapperstein gave the first keynote. He said some things about the environment and re-sacralizing the earth... but I was nodding off. I left as the first blessing, from the Zoroastrians was beginning. Many more blessings and performances and speeches were scheduled but I am just exhausted.

Off to bed now.