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Twin Cities Pagan Pride Day
Dec. 13th, 2010 09:36 pmI'm so bad, I need to post here more, especially since I have plenty of thoughts all the time. Laziness and seasonal hectic schedules and all that.
Back in September I was able to attend part of the Twin Cities Pagan Pride Day festival, which was held at the Lake Harriet Spiritual Community. The building itself was kind of an interesting place, obviously serving as a Christian church (judging by the large and very beautiful stained-glass windows featuring Jesus doing Jesus-y stuff) but featuring art from various other religions. The venue was pretty decent as far as buildings go, but I will admit that I found it to be a bit stifling; the opening ritual was held in the chapel and I found it to be a little disconnected and stuffy.
That sort of set the tone for the day. The opening circle was very well-meaning and I liked the thought behind it (it took place around Mabon, and it being a harvest festival we shared some things about ourselves, what we "harvested" over the previous year, and what we hoped to gain from the year to come), but people were kind of drifting in late and that spoiled the mojo just a bit. It also felt kind of "prepared at the last minute" by the woman leading it. Again, she seemed very kind and probably very overworked with having to help plan the event itself, but overall things felt a little hectic, and not as solemn as I would have liked.
The merchandise area was pretty okay, though not as well-stocked as I remember from the last PPD I attended (that year it was at Coffman). I ended up buying a choker from one vendor, and a skirt from another. I wished that I had brought more cash with me, since I don't believe that anyone was taking credit cards :(
I attended one "panel," which was an overview of Shintoism. I already knew a lot of what the presenter was talking about, but that was okay. Afterwards we were able to spend some time talking to a friend-of-a-friend who belongs to a Celtic Reconstructionist Temple in Minneapolis and got some good information on that. I hope to attend one of their public holiday rituals at some point (it's also convenient because their place is right along the bus route I take to work). After that we didn't stick around for too much longer. I sat in on some musical performances which were enjoyable (Magic Mama is worth seeing if you get the chance).
I kind of felt like there wasn't a whole lot of enthusiasm at the event. I recall a couple of years back when I attended PPD at the U, there were a whole lot of workshops and a lot of rituals to sample (a friend and I participated in a Druidic ritual, which was a lot of fun) and the sense of community was much stronger. I don't know if this was due to the location or what, but I'm sort of looking forward more to next year where they plan to hold things in a public park somewhere. The potential there for some outdoor ritual work in the open air is very appealing to me.
One thing worth mentioning is that I pre-registered for Paganicon, an event being held in the Spring (the week before Anime Detour, lol, we'll see how that goes for me). It sounds like the organization in charge is planning to concentrate more of the heavy programming stuff in that event, leaving the music and ritual stuff for the one-day Pagan Pride event in the Fall, which might work out better. We'll see.
Back in September I was able to attend part of the Twin Cities Pagan Pride Day festival, which was held at the Lake Harriet Spiritual Community. The building itself was kind of an interesting place, obviously serving as a Christian church (judging by the large and very beautiful stained-glass windows featuring Jesus doing Jesus-y stuff) but featuring art from various other religions. The venue was pretty decent as far as buildings go, but I will admit that I found it to be a bit stifling; the opening ritual was held in the chapel and I found it to be a little disconnected and stuffy.
That sort of set the tone for the day. The opening circle was very well-meaning and I liked the thought behind it (it took place around Mabon, and it being a harvest festival we shared some things about ourselves, what we "harvested" over the previous year, and what we hoped to gain from the year to come), but people were kind of drifting in late and that spoiled the mojo just a bit. It also felt kind of "prepared at the last minute" by the woman leading it. Again, she seemed very kind and probably very overworked with having to help plan the event itself, but overall things felt a little hectic, and not as solemn as I would have liked.
The merchandise area was pretty okay, though not as well-stocked as I remember from the last PPD I attended (that year it was at Coffman). I ended up buying a choker from one vendor, and a skirt from another. I wished that I had brought more cash with me, since I don't believe that anyone was taking credit cards :(
I attended one "panel," which was an overview of Shintoism. I already knew a lot of what the presenter was talking about, but that was okay. Afterwards we were able to spend some time talking to a friend-of-a-friend who belongs to a Celtic Reconstructionist Temple in Minneapolis and got some good information on that. I hope to attend one of their public holiday rituals at some point (it's also convenient because their place is right along the bus route I take to work). After that we didn't stick around for too much longer. I sat in on some musical performances which were enjoyable (Magic Mama is worth seeing if you get the chance).
I kind of felt like there wasn't a whole lot of enthusiasm at the event. I recall a couple of years back when I attended PPD at the U, there were a whole lot of workshops and a lot of rituals to sample (a friend and I participated in a Druidic ritual, which was a lot of fun) and the sense of community was much stronger. I don't know if this was due to the location or what, but I'm sort of looking forward more to next year where they plan to hold things in a public park somewhere. The potential there for some outdoor ritual work in the open air is very appealing to me.
One thing worth mentioning is that I pre-registered for Paganicon, an event being held in the Spring (the week before Anime Detour, lol, we'll see how that goes for me). It sounds like the organization in charge is planning to concentrate more of the heavy programming stuff in that event, leaving the music and ritual stuff for the one-day Pagan Pride event in the Fall, which might work out better. We'll see.
