Screenreader greenpane News and Extras
News (click)
House of Danu Lughnasadh Festival weekend (July 30 to August 2), Santa Cruz mountains north of Watsonville. 2nd Annual Gorsedd. All Bards, Ovates, Druids and Neopagans welcome!
In October 2009, Isaac Bonewits was diagnosed with cancer—he has a good prognosis but feels crappy due to treatments. Send Isaac and Fay prayers, healing vibes and cash.
from Storycatcher (click)
pages 18-19
written by Christina Baldwin
of Peerspirit, Washington,
reprinted here with author's permission
I have read a story of a tribe in southern Africa called the Babemba in which a person doing something wrong, something that destroys the delicate social net, brings all work in the village to a halt. The people gather around the "offender," and one by one they begin to recite every thing he has done right in his life: every good deed, thoughtful behavior, act of social responsibility. These things have to be true about the person, and spoken honestly, but the time-honored consequence of misbehavior is to appreciate that person back into their better part of himself. The person is given the chance to remember who he is and why his important to the life of the village.
I want to live under such a practice of compassion. When I forget my place, when I lash out with some private wounding in a public way, I want to be remembered back into alignment with my self and purpose. I want to live with the opportunity for reconciliation. When someone around me thoughtless or cruel, I want to be given the chance to respond with a ritual that created the possibility of reconnection. I want to live in a neighborhood where people don't shoot first, don't sue first, where people are Storycatchers willing to discover in strangers the mirror of themselves. I want to be surrounded by a story-based culture that itself remembers story is essential to human survival.
Screenreader About Larzean
About Larzean
founder of Ochre Hills Druid Grove
written by Larzean
2 January 2010
My name is Larzean. I live in Gilroy. I am counterculture, feminist, nature-honoring, eclectic hedge-witch Druid Crone—Celt, idolater, pantheist, heathen, animist, apostate, agnostic, barbarian warrior. I am pre-Christian, post-Christian, de-Christian and non-Christian; however, I am not un-Christian. I am infidel, shirk and kafir. I am friend to Wicca, witchen, Traditional Witchcraft, Goddess, magickian, Voodoo, Faerie/Feri, Kemet, Strega, Asatru, Gaia, shamanist, gay-lesbian-transgender, polytheist, panentheist, atheist, henotheist, monolatrist, gnostic, sceptic, deist, Jewitch, cavewoman, warlock, Merlin—and other Neopagans—and to environmentalist, ecologist and naturalist. I am not a country-bumpkin although I am descended from several Peasant lineages (Paysan in French; Bauer in German; Boer in Dutch) going back at least fourteen generations. I hold a B.S. from Rutgers University, New Jersey.
As for Myers Briggs personality type, I am probably INFP (Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, Perceptive).
Every person who has ever lived has Mesopagan ancestors. I hope this website facilitates global culture of Mesopagans (people born into a Pagan tradition which is of an "unbroken" ancestral line) who want to keep to the "Really Old Ways" as well as assist "adopted" Neopagans (those of "broken" ancestral lines). I am a non-believer of the various monotheistic, Abrahamic religions (Judaisms, Christianities and Islams). There is no way I could possibly believe in them. Christianities and Islams I call "the Big Two." As has been the case for hundreds of years, today's Mesopagans (indigenous) are being attacked by missionaries of the Big Two and forced to convert. Missionizing, proselytizing and converting living Mesopagans is immoral—leave Pagans in peace to worship the way THEY choose. I don't give a flying hoot what anyone thinks is "good for Pagans." Paganism is a perfectly respectable heritage, religion, faith, philosophy, lifestyle—whatever you call it. I advocate PAGAN PRIDE: Pagans have rights, including the right not to be treated as easy "marks" (targets) for monotheistic missionaries.
I grew up in upstate New York, having the immense good fortune of being raised Unitarian-Universalist. As a teen, I was in Liberal Religious Youth (LRY) and glad of it. In the 1970s, I was into women's lib (women's liberation). I became a Teacher of TM when Maharish Mahesh Yogi's goal was world peace, then unceremoniously dumped TM after MMY announced he was into levitation. (I'm stumped—which is more important, world peace or levitation?) I started the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids' (OBOD) Bardic distance-course in 2002, and am now studying Ovate. My Druid and Pagan studies continue.
I advocate "simple living." The Simple Living movement has been around for at least fifteen years but has gotten little press. In this down-economy, learning to live frugally and simply is more relevant than ever.
My main functions at Ochre Hills Druid Grove are creating and maintaining this website and its auxilliaries, organizing and helping build real-life Neopagan, Neodruid and witch community(ies) around Gilroy, and coordinating volunteers.
I put this site together on my own over several months, learning web design and development, XHTML, CSS, several Adobe softwares, a smidgen of Javascript, and other technical stuff. I addressed many challenges in trying to get this site up. My software studies continue.
I am not much of a writer. Neodruid and Neopagan writers wanted.