Ritualizing Returning Home

What follows is the text of a five-minute presentation given at Beyond Memorial Day: Understanding the Hidden Wounds of War, sponsored by the Interfaith Center of the Presidio.  More about that event to follow shortly, but for now I post this piece on "Ritualizing Returning Home."  Bear in mind that this was presented to an overwhelmingly Abrahamic gathering, most of whom know nothing at all about Paganism.

Ritualizing Returning Home

Beyond Memorial Day: Understanding the Hidden Wounds of War

April 26, 2012

Orinda, California

            Pagans are much taken with ritual.  As with all, or at least most, religious practitioners, we perform rituals we’ve learned in our training.  We also create new rituals, or adapt familiar ones, for specific purposes.  We draw from many of the customs of our ancestors all over the world and we blend these with more contemporary techniques and themes to suit not only particular occasions but also to customize them for specific individuals and the work, often healing work, that we do.

            In addition, we recognize the importance of doing things with our bodies, not just in our heads, as a way of engaging with the world.  This is especially important when folks have been engaged in something as physical as combat.  Ritual is a physical way to engage with the spiritual and psychological realities of returning home

            We offer some suggestions here for support and inspiration in all of our work to reintegrate our military sisters and brothers into our communities.  Some may be obvious to you, things you may customarily do.  Others may be unfamiliar.  Perhaps articulating these ideas will inspire you in your work with your congregations.

            1.            Cleanse and Release:  Using one or more of several methods, we welcome the returning serviceperson by cleansing her or him.  We may use sage or another purifying incense.  We may use water, salt water, scented water, anointing oil.  We speak, chant or sing words while we do this, or we may perform these acts in silence, or with the rhythm of drumming or a droning sound.  Performing acts of ritual cleansing can help release the burdens of war both energetically and symbolically.

            Such acts may be preceded by the literal laying aside of arms (although the arms themselves may be symbolic.  For instance, one may cleanse, polish, and sheathe a sword, even though he or she didn’t use a sword in battle.

            The clothing of the returnee may be changed.  He or she may wish to remove the uniform and redress in civilian clothing.  Others may prefer to clean their uniforms, polish their brass, and re-don the uniform that has been rededicated to another use, such as keeping the peace.

            2.            Support and Welcome Home:  Next we welcome the veteran home.  One individual may speak words of welcome on behalf of the entire congregation or community.  But it’s better, more effective, more meaningful, if this welcoming is done by each person one by one, extending a personal face-to-face, eye-to-eye, hand-to-hand, heart-to-heart welcome to the returnee.  This series of acts can be done in the context of a circle or spiral dance, with music and/or chanting and/or drumming.  Flowers may be exchanged, or flower petals strewn around.

            3.            Expression of Thanks for Service:  It’s easy to say, “Welcome home.  Thanks for your service.”  These words bear repeating from time to time, and by different people.  Other ways to articulate our gratitude are the planting of a memorial tree, the engraving and installation of a plaque, bench, garden gate, or other lasting physical acknowledgement of the person’s service to the greater community.  A shared feast, or perhaps a specially decorated cake, always brings people together in camaraderie and fosters fellowship.

            Circle Sanctuary, a Pagan organization based in Wisconsin, bestows a Pagan service ribbon on all veterans of whatever military conflicts.  Your religious institution may have symbols – pins, ribbons, armbands, pendants or other jewelry – that can be presented to your returning veterans.

            We hope that hearing of some of the ways Pagans use ritual to restore returning veterans and their families, to heal them of their spiritual, psychic, and emotional wounds…

            We leave you with a brief guided meditation that anyone can use wherever they are to reconnect with the sense of the sacred.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Don Frew concluded with a Tree of Life meditation, something everyone can understand and use when they feel the need.

M. Macha NightMare (Aline O’Brien)

© 2012

The Golden Gift

Ian Kappos and his Grandma

One afternoon about three weeks ago, I had lunch and a rare three-hour visit with my remarkable friend Patrick.  He regaled me with tales of his recent extensive trip to India where, among many amazing adventures, he was recognized as a saint.  In whatever ways this particular Hindu sect customarily ritualizes the making of a saint, they sanctified? -- beatified? -- Patrick.  After lunch, Patrick said he wished to bless me.*  As we stood in the parking lot of Fat Albert's Restaurant, he placed his hand lightly but firmly upon my crown, looked deep into my eyes, and poured words of blessings upon me.  Warmth and a sense of conviviality arose in me.

Last Friday morning my phone rang.  I was groggy from sleep, although the hour was late.  The caller announced himself as Ian Kappos.  Instantly I was shocked into full wakefulness!  I think I said something like, "You're kidding me!"  It was a man's voice.  I knew immediately who he was.  I knew who he had to be.  He is my grandson.  I did not know of his existence.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The brief back story is that in 1962, during a time when the situation for unwed mothers and their children in society was bleak, I surrendered my firstborn to a private adoption.  It was the most difficult thing I've ever had to do.  The mystery of this child's fate has haunted me continually for a half century.  Each year around the time of his birthday -- a Virgo he -- I wonder with a sense of longing about my lost son, whose name I knew to be Nicholas.

In 1976, I birthed another child, a daughter named Deirdre.  I don't need to tell the parents who read this of the sweet surge of love that suffuses every cell, and beyond, of one's being with the arrival of a newborn.  She has been the light of my life since then, although our lives have not been without periods of challenge.  Deirdre always knew she had a brother out there somewhere.  We both had hoped we might meet him some day.

In late 1988, my former husband and Deirdre's father, Rod Wolfer, died at 55.  The date was 11/22/88.  Not long after, my father, Jim O'Brien, died on 2/13/89.  I lost my job in July and in September, the man who had been my lover for seven years sent me a "Dear John" letter and went off backpacking.  I felt sad, confused, bereft.  Both of my brothers had died years earlier; I felt that I had lost all the men in my life. 

For the previous 26 years I had not explored the possibility of finding Nicholas.  Oh, I was always on the look-out.  I registered with a clearing house that helped biological kin find each other.  (There was no Internet in those days.)  I purposely never covered my tracks.  I was open among friends, as the topic of conversation suggested, about the fact that I had this child and mourned his loss.  But now, at this period of great turmoil and loss in my life, for the first time in all those years I explored the possibility of finding Nicholas.

A therapist once told me that I didn't lose him, I gave him up.  The active role was mine.  I've never entirely agreed with that, given the circumstances of the day.  I felt that I was doing the best I could to assure his opportunities in life.  I knew that a childless couple deeply desirous of a child wanted him.  I felt he deserved a better chance in life than I thought I could provide.

With the help of my attorney friend Lisa, and via a circuitous route, I discovered that Nick had died of a drug overdose a few months earlier in April (4/8/89).  Grief descended upon me, as grief will do, and it hung around, always in the shadows in the corners of my life.  By this time, of course, I held no hope of meeting my child.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

In more recent years I've bemoaned that there are no children in our family.   We are all adults.  My sister Catherine has two daughters, none of whom has borne a child.  Deirdre hasn't either.  Our deceased half-brother, Jimmie O'Brien, had several children by several women.  We are in touch with only one, his son James in Idaho, but seldom.  Occasionally, I'd say, "Well, you know, Nick was an adult when he died.  He surely had sown some oats.  Who knows?  I could have a grandchild or more out there and never even know it."  It was really just a wistful throw-away line.  I never really imagined it could be true.

Last Saturday Corby drove me to Sacramento where Ian lives to meet him.  He dropped me at a coffee bar near South Side Park and went off to amuse himself while Ian and I talked.  

I think both Ian and I felt a little awkward at first; who wouldn't?  Still, I think Ian would probably agree with me when I say that we experienced an instant sense of connection.  A wee bit of caution, but a fairly easy feeling.  We spent a few hours alone together.  Ian is a writer of speculative fiction and a college student.  His first published work (as an adult), a story called "Cunt Mold Calamities," will appear in the literary rag Specious Species in May.  We share a love of literature and writing, of intellectual explorations, of the surreal and the avant-garde.  We're both social creatures.

Later we met Corby at Catherine's house nearby.  There, Ian met more of his late father's kin.  We have been in communication ever since.  I am learning who Ian is and Ian is learning who I am.  I am learning who else is in Ian's life.  He is learning who my people are.  The photo above, taken by Catherine in her back yard, is the first of us together, only a few hours after we'd first met.

Of that meeting, Ian said, ""My grandma is a pagan witch and my step-grandpa is a carpenter who wears daisy dukes. Everything in my life makes sense."

Corby says my face had changed in the first three days.  He says I look five years younger and far "less stern."  I smile a lot.  I feel kinda giddy.  On Thursday, Don Frew said Corby's right, said my face is glowing.  Today, my friend Karen at the gym says I look like I'm in love.

Oh, and about those dates:  His mother, Tuesday Petrie, told me Ian was conceived on 2/14/89 and born on 11/22/89.  He phoned me on 4/20/12.  I'm not one for numerology, but even I can see that there's something there.

This year, 2012, marks a whole half century since I lost Nick.  This is our golden year, Nick's and mine.  Whether one believes that events were precipitated by my pal Saint Patrick's blessing or not, I am blessed and Ian is my Golden Gift.

*  This was after he had awarded me a grant for interfaith work from The Patrick McCollum Foundation.

Patrick McCollum Foundation Awards Grant for Interfaith Work

Press Release

PATRICK McCOLLUM FOUNDATION AWARDS GRANT FOR INTERFAITH WORK

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date:          April 11, 2012

From:         M. Macha NightMare (Aline O’Brien)

Contact:     herself@machanightmare.com, 415 454-4411

            The Patrick McCollum Foundation has awarded a grant to M. Macha NightMare (Aline O’Brien) in support of her work in interfaith relations.

            As a National Interfaith Representative of the Covenant of the Goddess (CoG), and as an individual Pagan, Macha has been actively involved with Marin Interfaith Council, the Interfaith Center of the Presidio, and other interfaith organizations.  She participates in the Marin Interfaith Street Chaplaincy’s annual Thanksgiving program for Marin County’s homeless population, as well as its annual memorial for those who died in the streets.  Currently she is collaborating on Beyond Memorial Day: Understanding the Hidden Wounds of War, a conference focusing on the spiritual needs of returning military veterans and their families, under the overall aegis of the Interfaith Center of the Presidio.

            “I take the words of Swiss Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung seriously when he says, ‘There will be no peace among nations until there is peace among religions.  And there will be no peace among religions until there is dialogue among religions.’  My life has been enriched by my friendships with my interfaith colleagues of many different religions.  I am both proud and humbled by this award,” says Macha.

            The Patrick McCollum Foundation’s work “focuses on seeing the sacred within each and every human being and bringing together people of all spiritual paths, to work together toward global sustainability and world peace.”

            Macha reports on her activities on her blog, The Broomstick Chronicles, and on CoG’s interfaith blog.  For more information, contact Macha NightMare at herself@machanightmare.com or 415 454-4411.

Marin Interfaith Council and International Relations

Two of my friends and colleagues in Marin Interfaith Council are doing their own work in a most sensitive area of the world, India and Pakistan.

Sister Elizabeth Padilla(1) of the Brahma Kumaris Worldwide Spiritual Organization, left last Friday for a month of travel, retreat and work in India, the founding country of the Brahma Kumaris.  The local Brahma Kumaris have a center here in Marin, Anubhuti Retreat Center, where I have attended several MIC days of retreat.

Another member, novelist Nafisa Haji, of the International Association of Sufism, left Sunday for two weeks in her family's homeland of Pakistan, where she has been invited by the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan to represent the US at the Karachi Literature Festival.  I have read Nafisa's first two published novels, The Writing on My Forehead and The Sweetness of Tears, and I recommend them highly, both for their eloquence and literary merit and for the unique perspectives on Pakistani-Americans and people of mixed heritage in today's complicated world.

Both prior to and since Partition in 1947, India and Pakistan have a complicated and challenging history. Today those relations continue to be strained relations.  Not to mention the challenging and complicated relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan.

To quote MIC's Director, the Rev. Carol Hovis,

It is fitting and hope-filled that two of our own MIC leaders (Elizabeth is currently on our Board of Directors and Nafisa served as Board President last year) are in these two countries, representing the very best of the US and world-wide humanity.

We send our traveling mercies, love, prayers and strength to these two courageous and talented women, Nafisa and Elizabeth.

I have always enjoyed a very warm and respectful relationship with both of these women.  I'm proud to report to the Pagan world the extent and potential of the work of my local interfaith colleagues.

1.  Sister Elizabeth, in a previous life, played Snow White in the well-known San Francisco revue, Beach Blanket Babylon.  Now she sings beautiful Hindu devotionals.

Loving Yule

The altar has been erected with loving care, each item carrying meaning and intent.  Similarly, the hearth has been laid with care, the cauldron of gifts on the fireplace apron.  Witches gather and greet one another.

The priest sings incantations as he prepares salt, water, and incense.  During the course of the ritual, a newer coven member may stumble a bit on wording, but is quickly, gently, and lovingly righted on his footing by more experienced colleagues. The ritual unfolds seamlessly and gracefully.

We meditate on the year and the darkness.  All candles are extinguished.  Out of the darkness, a priestess lights the center Sun candle, then the other candles on the altar.  I am struck by the beauty of the poetry she speaks as she brings back the light.  A priest takes the flame from the altar candles and uses it to ignite the hearth fire.

We dance around the old year's dry wreath, chanting:  "Horned One, Lover, Sun, leaping in the corn, deep in the Mother, die and be reborn."  The priestess calls a drop and places the old wreath on the fire, where it roars and brightens the whole room.  In some years, this act elicits cheers.  This year, however, we gaze in silence -- contemplative, reflective, awestruck, warmed, renewed.  We see a bright year ahead

After some time of communal silence, we exchange gifts from the cauldron, each a surprise to the recipient.  We share culinary delights that each of us has brought to our common feasting.  We engage in sacred conversation -- sacred because it takes place within the sacred circle.

We are rewarded for our efforts and our honoring (or maybe not by our efforts) by the return of the Sun, without whose light we and the many beings with whom we share this glorious green egg cannot thrive.

I am sustained, nourished, renewed by the sharing of this annual rite.

Solstice blessings to all!  May your year be warm and bright like our burning wreath.

AAR Annual Meeting, Part V

Shawn Arthur of Appalachian State University presided over the Contemporary Pagan Studies session on Pagan Analysis and Critique of "Religion on Monday afternoon. 

Suzanne Owen's paper described "Definitions, Decisions, and Druids: Presenting Druidry as a Religion."  In England, where they do not have separation between church and state, residents are asked to state their religions on census forms.  For religious groups other than those of the state religion to thrive, they must be sanctioned or approved or in some way officially recognized by the government.  In recent years Druids have sought, and eventually received, such recognition.  Dr. Owens' paper detailed their efforts.  During Q&A, Patrick McCollum noted that this case in England has been useful in efforts here in the U.S. for inmates who are Druids (and other Pagan inmates) to assemble as a group in prison chapels for worship and ceremony.

Dr. Christine Kraemer, Cherry Hill Seminary, delivered an excellent paper on "Perceptions of Scholarship in Contemporary Paganism."  Of course, since Christine is Chair of CHS' Department of Theology and Religious History, I'm confident that she's knowledgeable and current on such matters.  She offers several examples of Pagan critiques of Pagan scholars and their responses -- Ronald Hutton, Ben Whitmore, Aidan Kelly, Don Frew, et al.  While confirming the value of these critiques, she also cites Richard Hofstader's contentions, propounded in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life , that this attitude is "historically rooted in deeply held American values such as egalitarianism and democracy." He claims that nineteenth-century evangelical religions have influenced American thought so that it expresses "more heart-centered than head-centered values," and that this attitude is found among modern amateur Pagans as well.

Helen Berger, Brandeis University, delivered a paper called "Fifteen Years of Continuity and Change within the American Pagan Community" that follows up on her earlier studies.  She noted that religions either die or change.1  Among the changes she found in her follow-up studies are: 

1. The population of American Witches and Pagans2 who are female has increased from 65% to 71%.
2. Pagans are geographically more evenly spread, pointing towards "normalization."
3. Pagans are more educated than most Americans; 98% have high school diplomas compared to 87% for the rest of the population.
4. There are fewer "older" Pagans.  I don't recall that Helen specified what age would be considered "older," but it appears that more of her respondents were "younger."  This fact, coupled with the fact that religions either change or die, reinforces the need for us to explore the notion of eldership, as I've been doing.3
5. Seventy-eight percent of those surveyed claim to be solitary; 86% of "younger" people consider themselves to be solitaries.

These data provoked lots of questions.  For me, I wonder if the fact that so many claim to be solitaries reflects perhaps: A dearth of teachers and/or training covens? An unrealistic expectation of what covens are? An indication of poor social skills and difficulty getting along with others or building trust with others?  A move away from a more private practice and towards a preference for larger-group or community rituals?

Caroline Tully, University of Melbourne, delivered the final paper, "Researching the Past as a Foreign Country: Cognitive Dissonance as a Response by Practitioner Pagans to Academic Research on the History of Pagan Religions."  Caroline is someone many of us have known for some years online, but on this, her first trip to the U.S., we had the good fortune to meet her and hang out.  Her paper reminded me once again of a phenomenon in Paganism that I call a "yearning for authenticity."  Many people, not just Pagans -- Christians are a fine example -- seem to require evidence of antiquity or of a long unbroken (or broken and reclaimed, revived, reconstructed) tradition to cite as a claim of authenticity, to claim credibility.  I am not among them.  On the contrary, I see much syncreticism in almost every religion of which I have some knowledge.  I don't think a religion is more or less authentic because of its alleged antiquity.  I think it's authentic if it speaks to its practitioners' spiritual needs, if the practice of its forms offers meaning and comfort,

Later I attended the Comparative Studies in Religion Section session on Noncanonical/Nationalist Reinventions of Religions' Narratives of Origin, Christopher Patrick Parr, Webster University, presiding.  Chris, who teaches religious studies and I had encountered one another at other sessions and we had a friendly chat before the meeting began.  The subject intrigued me.  Pagans have many stories of their origins. All religions and ethnicities and groups of people seeking to distinguish themselves from the rest of the world, or seeking to define themselves, and seeking a sense of group solidarity and cohesion, have narratives of origin.  We Pagans have a few ourselves.

I apologize ahead of time for confusion about which speaker was speaking about what, since the program only listed their names and not the titles of their papers.

The first speaker said that there were numerous neopagan nationalist groups in Russia who posit an advanced Russian civilization before St. Cyril, and that they claim a conspiracy of silence on the part of monks and others to suppress knowledge of this earlier time.  These groups are more bookish than outdoorsy and do not perform outdoor rituals.  They claim a mysterious Russian or Cyrillic or "planetary" alphabets comprised of 147 characters, and that the monks' theft of this alphabet paved the way for aliens and alien culture to proliferate in Russia.  Slavs had an autochthonous alphabet and writing before Cyril.

To me, the most interesting paper was about Buddha Shakyamuni and Mother Earth, or Mae Thoranee.  Mae Thoranee is a Thai and Laotian Earth mother figure found beneath the Buddha in statues and paintings.  The fingers of the Buddha's right hand touches the earth.  A tiny image of Mae Thoranee appears underneath the larger image of the Buddha.  This Mae Thoranee foundation upon which the Buddha rests reminds me of the appellation of Mary as Mother of God found in Catholic prayer.

Mae Thoranee, protrectress of the land and its fertility, exists in localized versions.  She is both animist and Buddhist; the soil is her spirit and the trees are her children.  Merit is stored in the water in her hair.  She is shown wringing water from her hair, pouring the waters of merit to redistribute it among any wandering spirits.  One of the slides showed a statue of Mae Thoranee in the act of wringing water from her air on the grounds in front of a civic building.

Another paper was about Takeuchi Kiyomaro (1874-1965), a priest of the Shinto sect known as "Takeuchi-bunsho," dating from the 3rd-4th centuries CE.  The speaker told of how this sect, and others, asserted the superiority of the Japanese people.

* * * * *

Tuesday morning, the last half-day, and which session to savor? I was interested in:

• Ethics Section, Economic Ethics and Political Reform, in particular, "Whole Foods or Whole People?: The Madness of Neoliberalism and the Paradoxical Political Economy of Hunger" and "Reforming Economic Excess: Towards a Solidarity Economy."  I don't know how much effect a bunch of academics talking about these topics might have to influence economic change or to fill empty stomachs.

• North American Religions Section, Industrial Effervescence: Manufacturing Economic Selves and Producing Religious Collectivity in American History, in particular, "Gilded Age Railroad Brotherhoods as Industrial Religion" and "Parts of a Whole: Ecological Consumerism in a Global Age." I find the whole culture of railroads fascinating, and know little about it.  I'm also intrigued by brotherhoods, lodges, and other "in-group" organizations.  I suspect we could learn more about creating group cohesion, group identity, group solidarity from studying these phenomena.

• Women and Religion Section.  Performing Gender and Identify through Song in South Asia, "Dancing with the Goddess, Singing for Ourselves."

However, I attended the session on North American Hinduism Consultation, California Dreaming: South Asian Religions Encounter the Counterculture.

"Utopian Settlements, Californian Vedanta, Huxley, Isherwood, and Friends," presented by Smitri Srinivas of UC-Davis, described places and people I've heard of or encountered in my years in California.  It was interesting to hear these times spoken of from a historical and analytical perspective when one has some awareness of how they have influenced one's life.  I say that as a person who lived in the heart of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury during the 1960s.

"The  Reception of Kundalini Yoga in California and Its Relation to Sikh Dharma/3HO," was presented by Michael Stoeber, himself a practitioner of kundalini yoga.

"California Hinduism: The Shiva Lingam of Golden Gate Park, 1989-1994," by Eliza Kent, Colgate University, related to a new audience a story I like to cite when the topic of sacred images and sites comes up.  I remember when this occurred; it's a wonderful tale.

Jeffrey J. Kripal of Rice University and Shana Sippy, Carleton College offered thoughtful responses.  I'm familiar with Dr. Kripal from my readings about my matron, Kali Ma.  He wrote Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna as well as other writings on Kali.


I enjoyed comments from people of a certain age, myself included, during the Q&A session at the end of the session.


As I was leaving the room, I was pleased to encounter Samir Kaira, a friend from the Hindu American Foundation.  I had expected to run into others from that organization over the course of the Annual Meeting, but other than seeing Dr. Mihir Meghani at the Pagan studies reception on Saturday night, I saw no one.  No doubt this is because there were so many intriguing sessions and they probably focused on the Hindu related ones while I focused on the Pagan ones.

~~~~~~~~~~

1.  Interestingly, it is our survival, and the changes necessary to ensure it, that motivate my work.


2.  She did not, to my knowledge, make a distinction between the terms Paganism and Witchcraft.


3.  Please see my survey on Survey Monkey  Note that this survey has been extended to January 15, 2012, so if you haven't already participated, I invite you to do so now.

AAR Annual Meeting, Part IV

On Monday morning I attended the New Religious Movements Group on Religious Appropriation of Secular Culture.   All five papers interested me from a nascent-culture perspective.  First was "Haunted Ground: Nature's Nation form the American Metaphysical Perspective," followed by "Summer Camp and New Paradigms of Sacred Space in New Religious Movements," by Ann Duncan, Goucher College.  In past posts on this blog, I've commented about Reclaiming's Teen Earth Magic, a summer camp for adolescents.  Many of these teens are alumni of the annual Witchlets in the Woods family camp.  Summer camps have been a part of American religious life since at least the early 19th Century, if not earlier.  I attended both Girl Scout and Methodist Church summer camps in the 1950s.

"From HippieCrits an' Jesus Freaks to the Twelve Tribes: the Integration and Reinterpretation of Vietnam Era Pop-culture into a Fundamentalist Communitarian Movement's Ideology" had great potential, but I think this was the first paper the two young scholars, Bryan Barkley and C.A. Burriss, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, had ever presented because they fumbled a lot when their Power Point Presentation didn't respond as they'd planned, and as a result they lost time and had to abbreviate their talk.  It dealt with a Christian camp created by counterculture boomers, presuming to appeal to younger seekers, but the reality turns out to be that there's a lot of transiency.  People come but don't stay long.  I think only six people have been there any length of time.

I'm only minimally knowledgeable of the many Pagan attempts at creating Utopian communities, but I do know that it is a desire for, a yearning for, a belief in the possibility of a "better" world that motivates many Pagans.  "Better" means different things to different people, but one might reasonably assume "better" would include plenty of nourishing food, warm, comfortable shelter, clothing, loving family and community, the pursuit of "right livelihood," education, music, art, all in an atmosphere of safety, mutual love and trust, a spirit of cooperation, working together for the common good.

Shannon Harvey spoke on "'Eat Your Way Back to the Godhead': Reducing Karma and Calorie-intake Using International Society of Krishna Consciousness Cookbooks."

But it was the final paper that I found most intriguing, "Hoop Spiritualities: The Hula-Hoop and Embodied Spiritual Practice," presented by Martha Smith Roberts and Jenna Gray-Hildenbrand, both from UC Santa Barbara.  Both scholars are hoopers themselves.  They undertook this study because anecdotally they learned that hoopers underwent spiritual experiences when they got "in the zone," and they themselves had had similar experiences.  They surveyed many hoopers from around the country.  Hooping appeals more to women than to men, although among the men there are charismatic teachers.  Some hoopers spin for many hours a day.  Respondents described their experiences as being meditative, offering a sense of oneness with the universe, a sense of peace.  Hooping rebalanced them from the stresses of their daily lives.  It created an altered state of consciousness in the hoopers.  The sense of being a part of the world both increased and decreased with this sense of wellness.  It increased a feeling of interconnectedness yet allowed hoopers to let go of worldly concerns.

As Roberts and Gray-Hildenbrand described their findings, I was struck by all the parallels I was seeing between hula hooping and Pagan religious practices.  First, hoopers are literally working within a circle; most Pagans construct sacred space in a circular form.  Hoopers have no guru and neither do Pagans, although we do have organizers, ritualists, writers, and leaders among our illustrious co-religionists.  Hooping has no doctrine. We call the space we create one that is "between the worlds."  Hoopers feel suspended between the worlds.  Respondents described individual spiritual experiences in the course of hooping, as Pagans do of experiences in ritual, and their experience/learning is embodied.  More women practice Pagan religions, as more women spin hula hoops "religiously."  I spoke to Ms. Gray-Hildenbrand after the session, since any Q&A time had been eaten by delays of one kind or another.  She agreed with the similarities I had observed, and said that as it happened, a large percentage of their survey respondents identified as Pagan.

While I attended the NRM session described above, I forewent a Wildcard Session on Gods and Monsters of the Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Imagination.  The session addressed ideological and material exchange among Greco-Roman, Anatolian, Mesopotamian and Levantine cultures in the form of shared religious and mythological themes from the Bronze Age to late Roman civilizations.  The five papers were "Hearing the Chaoskampf in Iliad 21," Further Parallels in Greco-Anatolian Disappearing God Rituals: the Hittite Kursa Hunting Bag and the Dios Koidion (Fleece of Zeus)," Syncresis and the Cult of Isis in the Greco-Roman World," The Greek Gigantomachy and the Israelite Gigantomachy: Giants as Chaosmacht in Israel and the Iron Age Aegean," and "The God Aion in a Mosaic from Paphos and Helleno-Semitic Cosmogenies in the Roman East."  Don't they sound juicy?

Monday afternoon I was tempted by several sessions.  In particular, the

• Native Traditions of the Americas Group, Resilience and Revitalization in Indigenous California.  "Asumpa (To Flow): Native American Language and Cultural Revitalization through Hip-Hop," Melissa Leal, UC Davis.  This whole session sounded intriguing.

• North American Hinduism and Yoga in Theory and Practice Consultations, panel on Mother India Meets the Golden State: California Gurus and West Coast Yoga.

• Religion in Europe and the Mediterranean World, 500-1650 CE Consultation on the theme of Mapping Medieval Boundaries: Textual, Physical, and Institutional, two of four papers, "The Anachronistic Crone: Margery Kempe and the Hands the (Re/Un)Wrote Her Theology of History" and "From Dominican to Benedictine, form Benedictine to Dominican: Religious Women and Reform in Late Medieval Italy."  The second paper interested me because I have formed friendships with two Dominican sisters1 in MIC, and I have heard them speak of the powerful feeling they experience when they consider that they have 800 years of tradition behind their work.  I don't quite understand how Catholic religious orders work, but I understand that the Dominican Order includes friars, nuns, and congregations of sisters and lay members.  I also know that Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, Dominicans both, wrote the Malleus Malifacarum (Hammer of the Witches) that was so cruelly employed during the Inquisition against segments of the populace I identify with.  Regardless, the Dominican sisters I know are wonderful, caring women.              

• Religion in South Asia Section and Hinduism Group, Mughal Bhakti: Devotees, Sufis, Yogis, and Literati in Early Modern North India. Paper entitled "Bitten By the Snake of Love: Jogis, Tantra, and Mantra in the Poetry of the Bhakti Saints."  The San Francisco Asian Art Museum's current exhibit, "Maharaja: The Splendor of India's Royal Courts" compliments this session.

• Indigenous Religious Traditions Group, Sacred Mountains in Indigenous Traditions.  Of the five papers, two interested me: "Places with Personality: Sacred Mountains, Sacred Geography" and "Returning to Foretop's Father: A Sunrise Ceremony in Wyoming."

• Mysticism Group and Music and Religion Consultation, Music, Mysticism, and Religion.  What can I say?  Isn't that a lot of what we are about?  The four papers that most appealed to me: "The Musical Self: A Nonemotive Reinterpretation of Schleiermacher's Aesthetics of Feeling," "'Drumming' Ritual Identity in Santeria," "From Breath to Dance: Music as a Language of Experience in an American Sufi," and "What the 'Strange Trip' of the Deadhead Community can Teach Us about Religion."  Well, duh!

• Religion and Disability Studies Group, Metaphor, Language, and Corporeality, in particular "Of Gimps and Gods: Disability as Embodiment of the Divine in Yoruba and Diasporic Religions," by Amy Ifátólú Gardner, UC Berkeley.

• Western Esotericism Group, Western Esotericism and Material Culture.  Five papers. Egil Asprem of the University of Amsterdam, who spoke first on "Technofetishism, Instrumentation, and the Materiality of Esoteric Knowledge, had joined us on our pilgrimage to Isis Oasis, et al. on Friday.  "The Use of Tracing Boards and Other Art Objects as Physical Aids of Symbolic Communication in the Rituals and Practices of Freemasonry," by Shawn Eyer of nearby JFK University.  (I'm fairly certain that Shawn's path has crossed with mine somewhere along the line, but I cannot place him at the moment.)  I had chatted with the next presenter, Stephen Wehmeyer, at the NCLC-CoG reception on Saturday night, but missed his talk on "Conjurational Contraptions: 'Techno-gnosis,' Mechanical Wizardry, and the Material Culture of African American Folk Magic."  Henrik Bogdan of the University of Gothenburg's paper was ""'Objets d'Art Noir,' Magical Engines, and Gateways to Other Dimensions: Understanding Hierophanies in Contemporary Occultism."  If I'm not mistaken, Bogdan published a book about Asatru a few years ago that caused a stir.  The final paper was "Storming the Citadel for Knowledge, Aesthetics, and Profit: The Dreammachine in Twentieth Century Esotericism."

Though many of the papers speak from the rarefied air of academia's ivory towers, one can also see how many are relevant to, and informed by, contemporary 21st Century (CE) culture.  Pop culture and embodiment flavor much of this year's studies.  The reader can see from the samplings mentioned here and in my other blogs how the AAR can be viewed as a banquet table laden with a glorious intellectual feast.

Please check this blog in a few days for more about the rest of Monday and Tuesday morning.
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1.  Sisters may be confused with nuns.  Nuns live cloistered lives.  Sisters live and work in the public world.