Announcing: No Unsacred Place, A New PNC Blog Project

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The Pagan Newswire Collective continues to grow and expand as new local bureaus take root all across the country and group blog projects bring together the experience and expertise of Pagans from a wide variety of traditions and communities to share their insights into subjects from politics to pop culture, and everything in between. The most recent addition to the PNC is No Unsacred Place: Earth and Nature in Pagan Traditions.



No Unsacred Place explores the relationships between religion and science, nature and civilization from a diversity of modern Pagan perspectives. With climate change ever-present in today's cultural and political discourse, and the realities of ecological destruction increasingly impacting our local communities and daily lives, questions about how we live as members of this jeweled, blue-green planet are no longer merely abstract philosophical musings or theological exercises. While cultures throughout history offer us examples of human beings in relationships of worship, stewardship, domination and exploitation of the Earth, modern Paganism is unique in drawing together the wisdom and ecocentric focus of ancient religions with the insights into the physical world afforded by modern science and technology.

No Unsacred Place draws inspiration for its title from the contemporary American poet and environmentalist, Wendell Berry, who wrote: "There are no unsacred places. There are only sacred places and desecrated places." Berry confronts the assumption that "the sacred" can be cordoned off and separated from the mundane, and challenges us to examine our relationship to those places we consider to be "unsacred" — whether they are untamed forests and barren deserts, or human-made landscapes of metal and concrete — to discover how our attitudes and actions lead to desecration and destruction. Pagans today face the challenge of reconciling the lessons and influence of "dark green religion" environmentalist and conservation movements in contemporary society, with an ambivalence towards the wildness and wilderness of the Earth that is as old as Western civilization itself.

This blog features coverage and analysis of environmentalism and ecology in the news from a Pagan perspective, as well as essays and personal reflections about the role of science, environmental ethics, eco-friendly lifestyles, and an awareness of the land and its seasons, both in religious community and in the personal spiritual lives of modern Pagans.

Monthly columns include "Fur and Feather," in which Juniper Jeni draws on her extensive background in homesteading and animal rescue to explore issues of animal rights, and "The Sacred in Suburbia," in which John Beckett confronts the challenges of living sustainably and cultivating sacred relationship with the earth in a land of manicured lawns and strip malls; in addition, Ruby Sara writes on earth-based liturgy and ritual in her column, "Earthly Rites."

Other participants of note include Alison Leigh Lilly, a Druid essayist, poet and author of Meadowsweet & Myrrh who writes on issues of deep ecology, environmental justice and earth-centered peacemaking; Pagan geologist and environmental scientist Meical abAwen, who teaches with Blackberry Circle; and Cat Chapin-Bishop, who writes on the practice and purpose of her environmental witness at her blog, Quaker Pagan Reflections.

Claiming My Name

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Two years ago today, I met Jeff Lilly in person for the first time, after having known him as an "online friend" for several years.

I wish I could say birds sang, sparks flew and cosmic spheres clicked into perfect harmony. What actually happened was that we were both so nervous and shy, it took several hours of awkward glances and chatting on the futon before we could look each other in the eye without blushing furiously. Still, two years later and we're madly, amazingly, blessedly in love. And six months from today, we'll officially be newly weds. Rock!

Which means... my name is changing. I'd assumed for a long time that if I ever did get married, I'd be keeping my own name. I adore my name, especially my first and middle — Alison Leigh — and as a feminist, the idea of taking my partner's name seemed a bit antiquated, and too much of a hassle.

But Jeff's name is so simple, and sweet, like him, and I find myself honored and excited to be taking it. Family names, like families, come with lots of baggage and ambivalence and history. Jeff's name comes with four step-kids, for a start. It also comes with a whole complicated history and heritage that, stepping into his life as a partner and best friend, I'll now be a part of, too.

But I didn't much like the idea of becoming "Alison Shaffer Lilly." Just didn't jive. And like I said, I love my middle name — after a period of intensely disliking it when I was little, I eventually made peace with its odd spelling and lilting brevity. I learned later on that it was my father who chose that name for me, Leigh, the Gaelic spelling, meaning according to some "meadow or clearing" and according to others "courageous one." Keeping my middle name seemed an appropriate way to honor my father's family and our Irish ancestry, as well as the rolling farmlands and fields of my childhood home in Lancaster County.

So "Alison Leigh Lilly" is who I'll be. In six months, legally.

But I'm impatient. And, let's face it, a bit of a teacher's pet perfectionist. I like reading the books before I take the class, and getting ahead of the ball before it starts rolling. So I've decided, in the spirit of my anniversary with my beloved today, and in honor of my Irish family roots — I'm making the change now.

Yup, starting today I've decided to be "Alison Leigh Lilly." It'll give me some time to practice my signature. I can try on my new name like the pair of shoes you get for your wedding, the ones you're supposed to wear to your dance classes so that come the Big Day they'll be all broken in and you can dance like a demon all night long without getting blisters — except, of course, that we're not taking dance lessons. And I won't be wearing shoes at my wedding.

It's also a practical career matter, and I am if anything a practical career woman. (She said seriously. No, seriously, you guys! Why are you laughing?) Though I've put this blog on semi-hiatus for the past several months, the career opportunities keep rolling my way, and really, I'm sick of worrying about having to send out notices and new bios six months from now when we finally get around to getting hitched. A stitch in time saves nine, they say. So from now on, my "professional" name is transitioning from "Alison Shaffer" to "Alison Leigh Lilly (née Shaffer)" so that, six months from now, I can drop the "née" and get on with my day.

I am totes serious, you guys. So serious that I've made a Facebook page. Yeah. That serious. You should check it out.

In fact, you should hop on over and tell me your stories about how you "claimed your name." And maybe share some advice about how long I can expect the slip-ups and stumblings to last. Because I gotta say, breaking a twenty-seven year old habit may not be easy. I'm going to need all the help I can get. So next time you see me, lend me a hand with a friendly wave and a "Why hello, Alison Leigh Lilly! Lovely day!"

Together, we'll get there.

Ancestors and Sacred Ambivalence: St. Patrick's Day Reflections

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My ancestors sought the sea as others once sought the desert - that lonely expanse, that drifting horizon, that long voyage to the holy.

I woke up this morning thinking about my ancestors, the Christians who lived in Ireland for hundreds of years before making their way across the ocean to escape famine and disease. They washed up onto these American shores, stumbled their way into the Appalachian Mountains and set to work as coal miners and steelworkers. That is where my father was born and raised, dirt poor, and where much of my family still lives. Every time I travel home to see my parents, I cross those mountains, through the forests and dark valleys and tunnels carved into the rock. The mud and dust of those hills are in my blood, even as the green, soft turf and peat fires of Ireland are in my bones.

Yet there is also deep ambivalence there. The history of coal mining in central Pennsylvania haunts our modern conversations about clean energy and alternative fuels. I see billboards advertising "clean coal" and wince at the lie. And in the same way, I think of the lost history of my pre-Christian ancestors, the stories I will never hear, the art and music I will never know, because of the Christian imperative to evangelize and spread their religion to the ends of the earth.

How are these connected: the abuse of the land, the dangerous work and struggle for livelihood, the dreams and desires of civilization, the silence of the dead, the loneliness of the voyage west across an ocean, unimaginable void dark and churning, dividing the past from the present?

St. Patrick's Day is almost here. Regardless of what others say, I honor the day as a day of sacred ambivalence and the lessons of acceptance and forgiveness. Patrick in the field kneeling on the soft, green turf to pray; Patrick slipping away across the sea to find freedom; Patrick returning to the island where he had been a slave.

If we can't learn these lessons of our ancestors, how can we hope to listen for the stories so much more lost to us than these?

Calling Writers for Nature & Environmentalism Blog

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The PNC is recruiting writers for a new group blog project exploring Pagan and nature-centered spiritualities and their relationship to environmentalism, conservation and science.

This blog will cover a variety of topics, including: environmental news and on-going conservation efforts across the nation and throughout the world; the evolving relationship between religion and science in modern culture; explorations of environmental ethics and philosophy; personal reflections on a spiritual life rooted in earth and environmental awareness, and anecdotes and advice about "living green" day-to-day.

Anyone interested in joining this exciting project, and who can commit to blogging about nature-related topics from a Pagan perspective on a regular (ideally, weekly) basis, please email the PNC at: projects [at] pagannewswirecollective.com

The Long Goodbye: Part Two

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Then, out of the blue, several things happened at once. Most of them were things that, for one reason or another, I did not want to mention here on Meadowsweet for a little while... out of a sense of privacy, respect, and a bit of base superstition.

Synchronicity Abounds

The first, already known to readers, was that I posted the announcement for the Samhain to Solstice "Same Time Tomorrow" Donation Drive, which I'd been planning for a couple months in hopes that I might generate enough funds from supportive readers to move this blog to an expanded website with its own domain name. Almost as soon as I'd posted the announcement, however, a creeping sense of regret and frustration began to steal over me. I knew that I would dislike always wondering, as each day passed, if anyone would like my work enough to donate, which is why I'd only planned it as a temporary measure. I had no idea how painful it would be to feel overlooked as the month went by, with less than one percent of readers acknowledging the donation drive, and my readership numbers actually shrinking after I shared my request for suppport. Yet within a week of the donation drive announcement, a new job opportunity came my way and I began working from home as an independent contractor with a more flexible schedule and better pay than my former waitressing job — doing work that, being project-based and detail-oriented, satisfies my Gemini urge to plunge into the nitty-gritty and make measurable progress on particular tasks, and then move swiftly on to the next one. Experiencing the sense of job satisfaction and enjoyment I got from this new work put my frustration with blogging into sharp relief.

Keeping the Days: The Orchid Shamans

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The Orchid Shamans
Phipps Conservatory, Pittsburgh, PA


As the days grow darker and the winds grow bitter here in Pittsburgh, one of my favorite ways of coping is to retreat to the Phipps Conservatory and Greenhouse to meander through their rooms of lush greens and radiant blossoms. The orchid room, especially, always fascinates me. I imagine each orchid could be a shaman from some strange, exotic tribe, wild feathers and fringe and face paint, flinging their arms open to some unheard drumbeat pulsing in the roots. If I were a shaman, I think I'd want to be a shaman of the orchids.

Peace and the Celtic Spirit: Excerpts from a Journal

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In August 2010, just past the waxing quarter moon, a bunch of strangers met for the first time in Rostrevor, a small town in County Down, Northern Ireland, nestled below the Mourne Mountains on the edge of Carlingford Lough that opens out into the sea. From all over the world — from Portland to Hong Kong, from Glasgow to Nashville — they gathered together to learn about peacemaking rooted in the Celtic sense of sacred hospitality and the holiness of the land.

It was my first time traveling alone, and my first journey ever beyond the borders of the United States. For me, the week-long retreat became a kind of pilgrimage, back to the land of my ancestors, and beyond the ninth wave into a place of conversation, connection and new friendships forged.

Day Nine — The World Become Small

...then I went back up to my room, kneeled next to my bed to look out the skylight — and felt this overwhelming sense of closure and peace, and a thrill at the thought of going home. I knew things were finally coming to an end.

~*~

The morning was foggy and damp, with low clouds clustering and rolling along over the mountains across the water. Every once in a while, a parting in the clouds would open and the opposite shore would be bathed with a golden misty light in a small area, as if the land were glowing all golden and green among the dark and the mists.

A rainbow. We stood there in silence for a few minutes, watching the broad ribbon of light and color thicken and take on, imperceptibly, a brighter presence among the dim gray clouds, above the dark, choppy waters. J. leaned over to me and quoted again that Bible verse, Isaiah 45:3, "And I will give you the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, which call you by your name..." When she said this, I suddenly felt overwhelmed and almost began to cry. The rainbow continued to grow brighter and brighter, and I took several photographs hoping at least one would come out. Then J. said how it was funny, from here the land over there looked awash in so many colors, but they couldn't see that themselves — all they knew was that they were standing in the light.

Keeping the Days: Autumn Sepia

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Autumn Sepia
Frick Park, Pittsburgh, PA

Keeping the Days: Leaves After Rain

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Leaves After Rain
Frick Park, Pittsburgh, PA

Interview with iGod

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Because this is just too much fun, I present to you, dear readers: a not-so-exclusive interview with the not-exactly-one-and-only iGod!

Our conversation began innocently enough...

Ali: Hello, Yaweh.
God: Hello there. Tell me a story.
Ali: Once there was a land where people worshipped many gods...
God: When? What happened to it?
Ali: Well, some people called "Christians" decided it was their job to convince everyone that there was only one God, and so they killed a lot of the polytheists.
God: Interesting. What kind of people?
Ali: I think mostly they were Greek and Roman converts, at first, which Jewish people referred to as "Gentiles."
God: Why? When were they? What else?
Ali: This was about two-thousand years ago, although people are still being killed or oppressed for not being Christian even today.
God: Ah. What does "this" refer to?
Ali: The invention of Christianity.
God: Oh I get it.
Ali: Well, I thought you might!

Then things started to get kind of strange...

Keeping the Days: Woods in the Fall

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Golden Woods in the Local Park
Frick Park, Pittsburgh, PA

The Pulse of Samhain

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There must have been an autumn when I was a child... But those days I remember as being full of the smell of sharpened pencils and graphite shavings, the rustle of notebook pages, the glint of bent spiral bindings and — sometimes — at the bus stop, a glimpse of horizon between the houses and the whispering golden pear trees, a full moon setting pale opposite the rising sun.

This morning, I glance out the window between sips of mint tea. The vines cascading down the garage have flushed to copper and rust, fading back into the old red brick. The sky is overcast, but the sun is low and spills in shifting rays over the tall grasses of the backyard, coming and going, light and dim again as it sinks. A neighborhood cat prowls, its black body slipping through the weeds that bend and shift in soft browns almost like wheat. The silent overhanging trees are limp with mottled yellows and golds.

Somewhere, a cloud changes. Suddenly the scene is awash in early morning sunlight, illuminated, every leaf translucent like a moving, living fountain of stained glass against the low, dull sky. The cat pauses, a dark shimmering shape stilled in a shaft of light, its ears and tail twitching. I can almost see the tips of its whiskers shining. Then, it hunches down again, head low, its form one long line of shadow slinking off.

Samhaim slips in. The dead among us rustle like dying leaves, or notebook pages.

Sunrise on an Autumn Morning

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Keeping the Days: Meditation in Autumnal Woods

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On a beautiful autumn day just before Samhain, I headed deep into the woods that border our neighborhood
for some meditation among the trees, rocks, wind and sunlight.




Music by Pamela Bruner, "The Surrender" from Circle of the Soul

The Three Elements of Druidic Ritual

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The sun has set, and twilight settles dark over the autumn landscape. In another half an hour a harvest moon, swelling but not quite full, will rise over the eastern horizon, but for now the grove is thick with gray mist and half-seen shadows. In the center, a thin white altar cloth drapes a low, square stone; the cloth shifts once in a while, ghostly and almost whispering with the silent breeze that barely moves the trees. The altar itself is decorated with gourds, dried pale aster blossoms and pressed fall leaves collected from the local landscape over the past week, bringing out subtle shades of yellow, orange, russet and deep greens that are, nonetheless, difficult to distinguish in the darkness. A small bowl of incense smolders and smokes, its scent mingling with the damp late-night fog, and in the center of the altar a small lidded cauldron sits waiting, the waters of life inside ready to be ignited. When the time is right.

Suddenly, the strike of a match and a flame flares into life, held delicately between the fingers of a white-robed figure. Opening the cauldron, she tosses the match inside and within seconds a column of fire is dancing and leaping upwards as if out of the very womb of darkness, lapping at the round, black lip of the iron pot. Flickering light illuminates the entire grove, revealing other figures standing poised on the threshold of vision, some dressed in white, others in the colors of the elements or of the autumnal season. As the cauldron fire grows stronger, the center figure raises her arms in a gesture of gratitude and exaltation, and those in the surrounding circle do likewise. Together, all begin to chant the familiar words of prayer, the syllables weaving and repeating, their voices cascading over one another in a rising harmony of sound and vibration. The energy is palpable, flowing through each tongue of fire, grounding in the deep earth and arcing towards the celestial realms — and each participant adds their own energy, opening themselves to the awareness of connection moving and dancing through the grove.

This is the cosmos recreated, the three realms meeting in a center which is everywhere at once.

The chanting prayer drops suddenly to a slow-whispered awen, and the grove falls once more into silence, the only sound that of the flames trembling and sizzling on the altar. Everyone waits expectedly, their skin shivering with energy, for the ritual to continue.

Keeping the Days: Fire and Flame

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Autumn Water Lilies
Phipps Conservatory, Pittsburgh, PA

Water on Water's the Way: Blog Action Day 2010

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When it occurred to me that the animals are swimming
around in the water in the oceans in our bodies.
And another had been found, another ocean on the planet,
given that our blood is just like the Atlantic.

- Modest Mouse, "3rd Planet"


Everybody knows we're mostly water. But I remember the kind of mystic revelation that hit me the first time I read that scene in J.D. Salinger's short story "Teddy" where the ten-year-old describes watching his little sister drinking milk, how he suddenly saw that she was God and the milk was God, and "all she was doing was pouring God into God." David Suzuki echoes this startling but simple truth when he writes in his book, The Sacred Balance, that "we are intimately fused to our surroundings and the notion of separateness or isolation is an illusion." Our physical being weaves us intimately into the world of air, water, soil and sun, and as Suzuki says, "these four 'sacred elements' are created, cleansed and renewed by the web of life itself."

When we eat, we participate with Spirit and the gods in a dance of growth, death, decay and rebirth, as even our waste returns eventually to the land to nourish and enrich the soil from which our food grows. Plants transform the energy gifted to them by the sun into forms that can be absorbed and exchanged, and when we work, we release that energy again through the efforts of our hands, legs, mouths and minds to shape the world. Our breath is the breath of our ancestors, but also of the atmosphere and the weather, the winds and storms that encircle the planet and rustle the leaves of the tree just outside the window. And when we drink of those waters that well up from the earth, blessed, guarded and sustained by the gods and goddesses of the oceans and the holy springs and the caves of the underworld, all we are doing is pouring god into god.

Blog Action Day 2010: Water

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Folks who might be a bit out-of-the-loop (such as yours truly) but still eager to hop on board the Opinions About Social Change Express as it makes its way around the blogosphere next week might want to think about participating in the annual Blog Action Day on Friday, 15 October, when thousands of bloggers will join an international discussion about water.

Yes, that's right: water. From the Blog Action Day website:

Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us who are subject to preventable disease and even death because of something that many of us take for granted.

Access to clean water is not just a human rights issue. It’s an environmental issue. An animal welfare issue. A sustainability issue. Water is a global issue, and it affects all of us.

In previous years, Blog Action Day has focused on issues like climate change, poverty and environmental awareness. I'll be participating once again this year with reflections on water and its role as both element and realm in Druidic spirituality, and how our spiritual relationship with water connects us to the larger questions of social justice and environmental activism.

I encourage others out there in the Pagan blogosphere to join in the conversation a week from today and share their insights, too! Just visit the Blog Action Day 2010 website for more information and to register your blog.

You can also snag this year's Blog Action Day badge, though not as snazzy as last year's it's infinitely more practical and proactive:

Change.org|Start Petition

Keeping the Days: Water and Wave

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Moonrise over the Atlantic, Outer Banks, NC

Keeping the Days: Sky and Flame

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Sunset from Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, Maine