Anti-Racism Resources

Dear Everyone, really, but especially white people,

We all have a lot of work to do in the fight against systemic oppression, racism being one of the big systems of abuse and discrimination that is currently on everyone's minds, especially where police brutality against BIPOC (black indigenous people of color) communities is concerned. I have been posting some things on my Instagram, sharing MANY things from other people in my story there to amplify other voices, and I'm working on a video that will go up on my YouTube channel tonight (31 May 2020).

I wanted to put together a post here with links to some of the anti-racism resources for white people that I've been finding thanks to other people sharing them, so I can link people to all of these more easily and have them handy for my own future reference, as well as everyone else's. I will continue updating this occasionally as I collect more. Please share any more resources you have.

~

Anti-Racism Resources for White People: bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES

This document includes resources for parents to teach anti-racism to children, podcasts to listen to, movies or videos to watch, articles and books to read, social media of organizations to follow, and more. There is a LOT here and I recommend starting here and going through it a bit at a time.

One of the articles I found via the large compiled document above: "75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice". #38 is decolonize your bookshelf, which is one thing I've been doing -- looking up all the authors whose books I own so I can see how many are white men, as opposed to women, POC, queer, trans*, gender non-conforming authors, and so on.

---

I Am a Change-Maker

Hey, Readers,

Last month I posted a video going over the results from a viewer survey I posted about a year ago. Some of the questions I asked in the survey were about how people felt about the more political topics I had started to make some videos about, and in the video I responded to a few things I learned from the survey results. For example, some people said they don't understand why the political/justice related topics are relevant, and/or they don't think they belong on my channel. I explained briefly in said video, that my channel is about my life, and the identities I hold are part of my life. So when I talk about the LGBTQ+ community, I talk about my own place within it and my own experiences as a non-hetero person. When I talk about Paganism and Witchcraft, it is with the similar knowledge that I am sharing views from minority identities. There are more of us than people think, but Pagans ARE still a religious minority. And we get treated as such. I used to not think my life was political, and I "didn't like politics" (which, as a child, I thought of mostly as voting for Senators and the like, and voting for or against school tax levies).

Ever since starting my YouTube channel, however, I have made videos about my religious path and identity with the knowledge that this is a minority point of view. This is fringe. This is still widely and vastly misunderstood by many people.

Generalization: "ALL Witches" etc.

Hey, Readers,

After posting a miniature version of this post (really just introducing the ideas/thought process) on my Facebook Page, I'm happy and unsurprised to see that those who responded basically already get what I'm going to say here. Happy, because that's great! Unsurprised, because they're people who watch my videos and hear me talk about this stuff a lot, so it's really a "preaching to the choir" situation. Nevertheless, I hope some of this provides food for thought and gives a little more background.

For a quick recap, I mentioned that I get comments on my YouTube videos saying things like "Wiccans all think ____" or "Witches are all ____" or even "All Pagans ____". These are coming from someone outside whatever group they're commenting about. But then what gets me is that in the same comment, they'll talk about their own groups in a much less generalized way, talking about the diversity and variety that can exist in their group. This is something that happens a lot. We have a tendency to see our own groups as diverse and able to be different from one another while still part of the same group, and to see groups we aren't in as being made up of people who are all the same as each other (and very different from us).

There's a term for this in prejudice psychology: outgroup homogeneity. Our outgroups (groups that we do not identify with/that we are not a part of) seem like one big, homogenous group of people with no variety. We generalize them into people who all act, think, believe, or look the same. But since we know the groups that we are part of, we know how different they can be... because they're made up of real people... whose personalities and quirks we know well. And accept.

New Year, More Me

Greetings, dear Readers,

It's 2017. A new calendar year. For some reason, even though I know it's an "arbitrary" measurement of time, the New Year does seem to feel like something new to me. At least, it has for the past two years, since I started celebrating the New Year in the way I've always wanted to--at home, with my loves, with no midnight phone calls connecting me to people all over the place, no noise... only what I want to do. It's amazing how, when you create that space you want to be in, create that moment and that experience, how you can feel subtle shifts that never seemed to be there before.

Still, on another level, I don't think of the New Year as anything magic(k)al, in itself. It's still one day leading into another. I do not subscribe to the "New Year, New Me!" school of thought. If you choose to make a change, you can do so at ANY time. And even when you do so, it doesn't mean that you are new, or someone entirely different, or somehow not who you just were. You are different, perhaps, in ways. Some people change DRASTICALLY, for better or worse. They are still themselves.

Magick Class' First Ritual

Hey, Readers,

You may have heard me mention before that I am a co-facilitator for a small group/class hosted by my UU church, which we call Magick Class. The class meets once a month (one month I think we met twice, because it fit everyone's schedules better), and is centered around magickal practice of all kinds and cultures. The class is open to the public, but most people who attend are members of our church or personal friends/family of the church-goers so far. Each month we cover a different topic of interest to the group. As you can imagine, everyone was interested in spellcraft and ritual! But we couldn't just dive in and do a ritual, so we spent a few months teaching the class about some basics that go into ritual and spellcraft: cleansing, the elements, symbolism, and Deity concepts and other guides.

Once we got through the what, where, why, how, and back to who, we thought it was time to do our first ritual as a mixed group! We had all already decided that we wanted to do a ritual for our church, and without giving away too many of the exact details or the exact spell that we did, I want to talk about the general experience of creating a ritual this way, in a group of mixed religious background and belief, and then actually performing that ritual.

Our circle, before the ritual.

We had a meeting last month, September, to plan the ritual. Only six people came to that meeting, including one woman's young daughter (6 years old, or so). We planned the ritual around some bare bones, basic structure, in a process I had read about in The Twelve Wild Swans (which I was finishing at the time). In the book they talk about how planning their rituals starts with the "meat," or "tofu" of the ritual, or the main "body" if you will, and then adds the appropriate opening and closing details around that base. Since we knew our main goal for the church, we started with phrasing that in a concise way that would help everyone remain focused on the goal. Then we had to decide, well, what do we want to DO?!

There was some time where those of us who do magick/ritual more often explained some options for how ritual can go--devotion, celebration, magick, and so on. We shared how some rituals are just honoring something or celebrating, while others include a spell of some kind. The group wanted one with a spell, so we wrote that down on the board. Then we asked what that spell would be, and someone suggested baking bread with magickal ingredients for our purpose, and bread also had to do with our goal. We liked this, and agreed that one person would bake the bread with intent and bring it to the ritual, instead of the baking being the ritual itself. Then I offered an idea of a spell I had done with another group for the same intent, where we blessed items with our intent and kept them or scattered them around. Everyone liked this idea, and someone had the perfect items to bring for us, so we wrote down that we would bless these items using a chant/spell and scatter them around the church building and grounds.

Now that we had the "body" of the ritual, it was time to fill in the details from beginning to end. We decided to cleanse the whole church from the outside in. We talked about how that would be done, with sage and sound. Someone said "I think it would be fun to all bring a special scarf and dance around with them as we move around the church," so we wrote that down. The young girl said "I think we should howl like wolves!" and after someone asked, "What do wolves have to do with it?" someone opened up my Animal Spirit book (which I had with me because we had used it in our previous class and I was hoping to fill people in on what they had missed last month) and read from it that wolves symbolize community, among other things. The qualities of the wolf matched our intent, so we said "Great!" and wrote it down on the board. This is how it progressed. I provided the basic structure, which I told them is not the only way of doing ritual but is the general way that I work personally, and the group offered ideas and then said yes or no to each one. We wrote down how the outside cleansing would transition to the inside cleansing, then into the entrance to the circle. We decided where in the church the circle would be! We decided that each element would be called by a different person or group of people (we were hoping for a larger group than six!), and that I would call The Universe instead of any Deity because that was the most common belief for all the people in the group. We decided the bread would be magickal but also for our Simple Feast/Cakes and Ale, and that someone would bring drink. Then for ease of closing, they asked me to do the thanking/releasing of any energies we called and opening of the circle and extinguishing of the chalice (as we would be bringing in the UU tradition of our Flaming Chalice). We also decided that some of us would get there early to set up the items in the circle so that everything was ready to go.

On the night of the ritual, which was this past Tuesday, my car had broken down so one of the other co-facilitators picked me up at work and we got to the church early to set up. We looked in the church supplies to see what we could use, and found many candles in jars that we decided would form the physical boundary of the circle. We placed printed copies of the ritual order around the outside of the circle, so if anyone forgot what came next, we could look and see. As my friend and co-facilitator placed the elemental items she brought at the four quarters, and her daughter and myself arranged the candles in a circular fashion, everyone started saying how it already felt like part of the ritual, even though all we were doing was setting up. People gradually streamed in, carrying their own elemental representations to add to the circle and the items they said they would bring: scarves, bells, drinks and cookies, and more. We looked in the kitchen to find bowls and cups. I had brought my chalice--a new one I purchased at the renaissance festival--to use as a communal cup, but we wanted others in case not everyone was okay with drinking from the same cup. One of the women had extra scarves, so we used one to decorate the center "altar" area of the circle where we would do the working. We got the Flaming Chalice from the church sanctuary to begin and end our rite. All the pieces came together and people were chatting and having fun setting up. When everyone arrived, we handled the practical things like putting on sweaters since we were starting outside, and going to the bathroom so we wouldn't have to go in the middle of ritual! The total count was eight adults, three teenagers, and three children under 12. Yep, we fit 14 people in that little circle! We were expecting more, but a few people couldn't make it.

My ritual attire was my work clothing, plus my Spider pendant and scarf/shawl.

The ritual itself went very well and was a lot of fun. Since everyone had done the cleansing class the first month, or had been smudged at some other time in their lives, it was easy to start with my friend Moon smudging everyone in turn. Her teenage son played a drum next to her to set the beat, and the rest of us drummed, clapped, or rang bells along with him as everyone was cleansed. When everyone was cleansed, we set off in a sunwise circle around the whole church building, playing drums, clapping and ringing bells, and howling like wolves! We have very understanding neighbors, haha. When we got back to the front door, we had to wait for the whole group to catch up and someone started a chant of "Om/Aum" which everyone naturally picked up. When we all got there, we went inside and cleansed the church from end to end, turning on lights, drumming and clapping and chanting and ringing bells and smudging. Then the lights were turned off as the candles were lit (My friend's son and I were lighting candles, and as he reached to light his stick from a flame I just lit, his stick TOOK my entire flame right out of my candle!), and we prepared to enter the circle. It took a few reminders for us to get the littler kids to not step back outside the circle, but we moved in using multiple circles to cast, called the elements using everyone's original, prepared invocation, and I invited the Universe and lit our Chalice. Then it was time for the spell working and chant, which honestly, the few of us who were there early had written right before! We used a well known chant, We Are a Circle, and wrote a verse to it which stated our intent for the spellworking. We chanted this over the items numerous times, and I had the kids kneel with me on the floor to get closer to the bowl of cleansing water with the items, to pull the energy the adults were raising above us, down down down into the bowl! It engaged them more than when they were just standing, since they weren't able to pick up on the words of the chant. We did this until the energy died down. Then we broke bread and shared apple cider from my chalice or from the individual cups, which I explained was also my new chalice's initiation as it had not before been used! This was our grounding. After that, I did my usual thanking/releasing/opening, which is to say that I improvised based on a basic structure I use, and made it applicable to the group and our individual intent. I referenced back to the chant that we did to solidify it in everyone's minds. Afterward, the circle open, we had more drinks and snacks as we scattered the items around the church in hidden areas. Moon and I took the remaining breads and cider set aside during the ritual, and the ash from the smudge stick, outside as the offering.

During the ritual, we acknowledged issues and gave instruction as it came up. This is a learning group, so we didn't see a problem with things like "Hey, we never decided how we would actually cleanse the items. Should one person do this? Who should do that?" We laughed at our oversight and I suggested a plan of action. "How about I pour the water into the bowl, you add the salts, and then everyone takes some of the items and puts them into the bowl?" As we started that, someone else said, "May I suggest that everyone hold the item in their hand for a minute first, to charge it with our intent, and then put it into the bowl?" And so we did. Then the person who was going to lead the chant started, and I said "Wait, let's make sure ALL the items are in the bowl so they are all charged. Who would like to charge the last items and add them?" Some people reached for them and did that. We passed around a sheet of paper for everyone to read the words of the chant as we tried to pick them up. Things like that! This was by no means perfect, but it went smoothly because we all knew it was a learning environment. When I started to thank the elements, people raised their hands to ask questions first! As I did it, the kids raised their hands to ask more! It was a great experience, and I think everyone enjoyed it because we did it together. It had a plan behind it, so that no one would feel like we were floundering in the dark, but people did improvise and add things as they saw fit, and it worked very well.

Our circle, after the ritual.

So what is the point of this post? I guess, for one, I want to share it because it was a fun learning experience for me as well as for my group. And two, it lets you know a bit more about what I do in my personal life as far as teaching/learning/group work. This is my learning group, whereas I do get together from time to time with an informal circle of witches, which is still eclectic and variable, but everyone in that group has their own personal practice already and identifies as pagan/witch and already knows the basic things we are just getting to learn about in Magick Class. And three, I want it to be a sort of encouragement for those of my viewers/readers who may be concerned about what ritual is, or what it can be. Was this a traditional ritual? Not in ANY sense! But was it a ritual? Of course. And the cool thing is that some of the people who participated in this ritual are pretty much brand new to magick, and they were still able to participate in a way that they felt comfortable with. We built the ritual to fulfill that, from the invocation of the Universe instead of particular deities (which I do a lot anyway, which is why I offered it as an option) to the inclusion of separate drinking glasses. We come from different religious and spiritual backgrounds, but we were able to work together toward a common goal for our church. And we had a great time doing it.

Blessings~
-C-

For My Birthday: Simple Gifts Meditation

Hey, Readers, Viewers, Followers, and Others,

Tomorrow, 16 August, is my birthday. On this particular birthday, I reach three-and-twenty. (When I told Grams this yesterday, she made a sound like "Ew!" and when I laughed and asked her why, she said because this means I'm REALLY getting old. Says the 88-year-old Italian woman.)

Me, 10 August 2013

So tomorrow I turn 23, and last year around this time some people who wanted to give me gifts donated some money through PayPal (which you can still do, the links are always on my blog page, but I don't usually plug it) and I got some things on my birthday list with it: a Yoga mat, a DFTBA t-shirt, and a Mike Falzone t-shirt! This year, I haven't had very good internet, so I haven't been up to date with my videos in order to even mention that my birthday is approaching (except on Pagan Perspective, because the collab's 4th birthday is also that day). I haven't even made a birthday list, nor do I know what I'm doing to celebrate my birthday!

But I do know what I've just decided I want all of YOU to do for my birthday. Yes, YOU. If you're reading this, I want you to try this out. Even if you don't consider yourself a "magickal" person, this is something EVERYONE can do. Please just try, for me! This is a meditation or prayer, but can also be sort of a spell if you want it to be, and it's for me as much as it is for you and for everyone in the world. This just came to my mind about an hour ago, so it's not like I've been planning this forever. It's simple, it's easy to execute, and you can tweak it to make it fancier or simpler as you personally require. The important thing is not that you do it a certain way, just that you do it. Try it out!

What You Need:

• You.
• Some quiet time.
• (OPTIONAL) Three tealight or birthday candles, ribbons, or any other object that makes visualization easier for you. Again, this is optional, so the people who want to make it more spell/ritual-like may do so. The rest of you do NOT have to do this. You will just visualize/imagine everything.

What I'd Like You to Do:

1. Find some quiet time in your routine on the 16th (if you come across this a day or two later, go ahead and do it then, too). Sit down at the breakfast table with the paper and your coffee, take a moment as you get in the car to head out, a short hiatus after dinner--Whenever and wherever you need it to be.
2. A) If you're using candles or some other item you'll need a place where you can use them. If you're doing that, set them up. Three candles in a row, three ribbons pinned or tied together so you can hold onto them, whatever it is. This is mostly for the people who usually do spells, so those people should do it the way they see fit! B) If you've never done something like this before, or if you just don't want to use any extra items, all you have to do at this step is get comfortable and prepare to sit quietly for a few minutes.
3. When comfortable (and you can be sipping your tea during this or whatever is comfortable), close your eyes and think for a moment about the day. Think about birthdays, if you celebrate them, and what they mean to you. Think about gifts--material, spiritual, emotional. What makes a good gift? When do you enjoy giving gifts, and when do you dread being expected to give them? Think about the concept of birthdays or other special days, and about gift-giving, for a minute or so. This is just to get your focus ready for the next few steps.
4. For the first "candle" (If using tools, light the first candle or hold the first ribbon, etc. while doing this. The rest of you will simply think and visualize), think about what "gifts" YOU personally would like to receive. This can be physical, but more likely should be intangible, mental/spiritual. Do you wish to be more relaxed or have time to relax? Do you wish you were more motivated? Maybe you desire more recognition, or more anonymity. Whatever it is, take a minute or so to reflect on what it is that you personally want. Imagine yourself receiving or using these gifts. Either speaking aloud or just in your head, form these thoughts into sentences. Say to yourself, "I desire to spend more time with my kids." "I wish for more peace at work." Create positive affirmations by stating the sentences as though they are already true--"I have more time to spend with my kids," and so on. (If using ribbons, tie knots in the first ribbon as you affirm these things.) Then move on to the next.
5. For the second "candle" (again, if using tools, do what you need to do!), think about what gifts you would like ME to receive. This is where the birthday part comes in. It doesn't have to be something you could actually give me, or even help me to get. It just has to be something you wish for me. Maybe you know how I've been looking for work in my field, or a place of my own, or maybe you know something I'm interested in or something I want to accomplish. Maybe you barely know me at all, but there are things you wish for every human being. Whatever it is, think about it for a while, and then once again, form these wishes into positive affirmation sentences or simply state the wishes, aloud or to yourself. (*NOTE: If this part really feels weird to you, go ahead and skip it! Or think about gifts you desire for someone else in your life, if doing it for me is weird.)
6. For the last "candle," broaden your focus to the world as a whole. What does the world require that you desire for it? For all the people on the Earth, or maybe just for everyone in your country, or state, think about those gifts you wish for them. Think about gifts you wish to give the Earth itself. Chances are this one will be difficult for some people, if you're not used to thinking on a large scale. Take an extra couple minutes on this one, however long you have. But don't skip it. Think about all the other people doing this exercise and what gifts you want for them. Or think about the people you've read about in the paper or seen on TV and what gifts you want for them. Again, when you have a few ideas really strong in your mind, say them to yourself (and tie that final knot, or what have you).
7. Quickly recap the exercise in your mind. What are gifts, what do you want for yourself, what do you want for me, and what do you want for the rest of the world? At this point, I would close my eyes in a final moment of focus if they weren't already closed, but do whatever you need to.
8. When you're finished, get up and go about your day! If you used candles, I requested tealights purposely because they don't burn long, so you can let them burn out and toss them, or snuff them out to use later (relighting them will only reaffirm these positive wishes! Don't use them for another working, but you can light them again). Birthday candles would also be great here, because they're quick, and many of us associate them with this kind of thing! If you use birthday candles, go ahead and blow them out instead of snuffing--It follows tradition and releases your wishes to the Universe.

Hopefully, if enough people try to do this tomorrow, we'll have several people doing this at the exact same time. If I had planned farther ahead, I would have tried to plan a time for all of us to try doing it together. But whatever time you get to do it, make it count! And while you're doing this, I will be taking time in my day to do it, too. I will be thinking about the gifts I want, of course, but then I will think about the gifts I want for my viewers/readers/followers as individual people, and finally what I want for the World or Earth as a whole.

If you do this, leave a short comment here (don't share what you wished for!) or on Twitter or Facebook saying that you did, just because I'd like to get an idea of how many of us got to it during the same day. Feel free to do this any other time you want--For other people's birthdays, or for general well-wishing.

Well, that's what I want from you all for my birthday! Especially if you're the person who doesn't usually do this type of thing, your willingness to try something simple like this is a gift in itself. And who knows, maybe you'll find it's useful and start using this type of thing more often! Hey, it's my birthday. I can wish.

Blessings~

-C-

Earth Day Service

Flag hung over the dais for our Earth Day service.

Hello, dear Readers!

As you all know, this past Monday was Earth Day, and the day prior was our Earth Day service at my UU church, which the Green Sanctuary committee planned and executed. We've been planning the service for about a month, and I'm happy to say it came together well! I was very nervous beforehand, but once it got going, things calmed down a lot. This is not to say it was not without bumps, but I think everyone understood this was not something we were able to have everyone together to rehearse over and over. Someone forgot to get up to read something so we had to nudge them, some transitions took too long, and our play was read more slowly than we had rehearsed it. But overall, I heard from people that lay services (services planned by lay members rather than the acting minister) do tend to run long, and that it was worth it. I counted when we were about to start and we had just about 50 people in attendance--not counting the students and teachers down the hall, but actually in the sanctuary for the service--and by mid-way through I noticed that some stragglers had joined us later. I think 50-60 is pretty usual for a general service, so that was good.

You may be able to find links to the songs and readings online. I'll include the numbers as they relate to the UU hymnal, just in case you can find them. Here is a page where you can listen to recordings of hymns from the supplemental hymnal for educational purposes (as in, learning how the songs go!). In doing a quick Google search on UU hymns to find out if you could find them, I actually came across a few pages saying things like "I hate the words to UU hymns," "I feel sorry for UUs who have to sing those songs, Catholic songs are so beautiful," and so on. There is even an article entitled "WHY I AM NOT A UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST" and the first words showing in the search result reveal that this person is not a UU because they think the hymnal "is a disaster." As though the hymnal were the only reason to be a UU! I really enjoy the UU hymns, not only because there are plenty which do not mention the Christian God, but also because I think they touch on something a lot more. AND I like that they're easy melodies that everyone can sing, even people who don't feel comfortable singing or reading music. Besides, UU hymnals do contain Christian and Catholic hymns, as well as Jewish ones, Buddhist and Hindu chants, Native American music, Pagan music, and more. But I digress!

Marianne's Gaia

One of the women from the choir brought in this lovely statue of Gaia which she hand-crafted. She set it up with the flowers. Our Opening Words reading (#417) addressed Gaia as our home and our mother, and also mentioned the Earth as a "blue green" orb. I picked the reading mainly for that reference, since the play I wrote for the service was inspired by one of our members' devotion to the water and the idea that Earth should be called Planet Ocean and the environmental movement should be called BlueGreen instead of just Green.

Our Call to Worship reading (#502) was more about activism, and the fact that now is the proper time for change and work. We have to plant today to reap in the future. Then we all sang a song called Mother Earth, Beloved Garden (#1067) which is one of the first UU hymns I ever sang, during a meeting of my college's UU club. The song has five verses, each one ending with a calling of a direction/element: North, East, South, West, and finally, Center/Spirit.

Pentacles of Pride

Hey, Readers!

I have a lot of things to blog about, but right now I just want to let you know about something I've recently heard about, called Pentacles of Pride. This is a non-profit organization started by a circle of practitioners based in Arkansas, which seeks to provide free pentacle necklaces for anyone who wants one. Besides this, they also have other community outreach goals, and have begun a scholarship fund for a pagan student. My own local group (the pagan women's study group run by my friend) was talking about doing something like this--not the pentacle part, but raising money for charities we want to gather more support for, collecting scholarship funding for pagan families, and generally creating more of a local pagan presence--so I am really encouraged by this group's efforts, and the fact that they just DID this and made it happen.

I plan to order one of their free pentacles, even though I have access to my own, for two reasons:
1) I imagine they keep track of how many orders they receive, and I'm all for helping numbers!
2) I may wear the pentacle for now specifically to reference this organization, but down the line I plan to pass it along to someone I may end up working with who won't be able to get their own pentacle for whatever reason. Maybe it will be a student type relationship, or perhaps that won't happen and I will end up keeping it in my possession until I have children.

Anyway, there is an endorsement image/button on their site, and I wanted to include it on my blog because one of their members asked (on Twitter) if they could include me as a resource on their website. So of course I want to do my part to let people know about them, as well. I don't know if they plan to include my videos or my blog, or both, because I noticed they have separate categories for each type of resource on their page. But whatever it ends up being, I hope I have earned the privelege of being there, and I hope I continue to help people into the future.

Click the image to go to their website/blog, and click on the tabs at the top of the screen to view the other pages! Some of it is still under construction as of now. And they're on Wordpress, whereas I use Blogger for the Google connection, so I can't follow them on this account. I'm not sure if I have a Wordpress account from the project I did in college, because that project's website is on Wordpress. I'll look into it, though, so I can follow people there, as well.

As for me:

Twitter

Personal YouTube

The Pagan Perspective YouTube

And obviously you're already on this blog. =)

Happy Snipping Blog (t-shirt reconstruction)

Thank you for reading!

Blessings~

-C-