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Greetings, listeners! Tuesday the 14th found Zaracon totally coherent, but RevKess was not with it. They elected to do a Brief instead of a full show. A full edition of PWN will air on Wednesday the 15th at the usual time.

Links

• Minnesota becomes the 12th state to legalize some form of same-sex marriage.
• First ever Wiccan memorial service for fallen airmen held at Edwards AFB.
• Thor’s Hammer added to list of accepted religious symbols that are available for burial markers to U.S. Veterans.
• Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing movie project has a new “trailer” narrated by famed actress Olympia Dukakis. 

Music

1. Lorelei Greenwood – Gallimaufry 
2. Didges Christ Super Drum – Witch Doctor – Alien Technology 

We did say it was a Brief. Tune in at 9am Central on Wednesday 15 May 2013, or in archives at anytime after the show, to catch a full edition of Pagan Weekly News.

We’re living in awe-inspiring, evolutionary times; the last 28 27 days of a 16 billion year cycle of human evolution. The show isn’t about to begin, you’re in the midst of it right now!

Humankind is at the edge of great change as is our Earth and Sun. The upheavals in our culture that are taking place around the planet coincide with great changes brewing in the Sun and Stars as solar activity is at the highest levels recorded and growing, and heavenly bodies hurtle towards and past Mother Earth matching major geological events with uncanny timing.

This doesn’t mean the destruction of the earth is imminent as the story has come to be told. It does mean that life as we’ve known it is already experiencing great changes and will continue to do so.

The citizens of Earth are starting to awaken, live authentically, seek the truth, tell their truths, find each other, love each other, and claim our place in the coming world of Global and Universal Consciousness.

All paths lead to this.

As if in the third act of the grandest of operas with a cast of 6 billion, we are all playing our roles as the scenes play out. But the roles are changing, the plot thickens, and the pace quickens. We will all have to stay tuned, become aware, and trust our senses and hearts.

This blog is a place to put all the many things that come past and influence me. That stream of info and images seems to be increasing as does the pace of everything. But there is a focus coming too. Streams are merging. My role is changing too. It’s time now for me to send these ideas and truths back into the Universe that someone else may see them and find their new role; and add my truths as well.

Many of my truths came to me in a rush when I read Starhawk’s book, “The Fifth Sacred Thing” in 2006. It painted a picture of the world I wanted to live in, and I set off to help create that world. We are getting so much closer to doing that in 2011.

Now to the great delight of many who were similarly influenced by the book, Starhawk’s dream of the story being made into a movie is happening. She tells you about how it came to be here and you can find the latest at the website. In the spirit of the book, the film project itself embraces the same visions and tools the book does.

In the years since reading that book I have tried my best to live that vision, given what I had to give to make it happen, and held on to the dream when it seemed like most of the rest of the world was not yet ready. But I was changing regardless.

My truth now is that we are in the midst of a huge leap in Evolution;

and we are the Ones we’ve been waiting for;

And we must take Action;

And we must proceed with Love in our hearts.

For if we don’t act from a place of Love, we end up with what we already have.

With much Love,

Calliope

Cross posted at Dirt Worship.

This summer has been a whirlwind of teaching permaculture and working on making a movie from my novel, The Fifth Sacred Thing.  But a few days ago I took a break to attend a performance of Guys and Dolls put on by SF Arts Education, in which my fifteen-year old Goddess-child Kore was singing and dancing. SF Arts Ed runs a wonderful program where students from middle schools and high schools put on Broadway musicals, complete with singing, dancing, and a full jazz orchestra.  We had balcony seats behind the stage, so I was looking down on these bright and beautiful young people of all different backgrounds and ancestry, reflecting the multicultural nature of San Francisco itself.   They are a talented bunch, but I also know how hard they work, how much time they rehearse and the discipline they develop.  What a gift it is to have such wonderful youth growing up in our city!

Weighing on my mind were the terrible murders in Norway, where Anders Behring Breivik blew up government buildings and then went on a shooting rampage at a camp full of young people.   His avowed intention was to somehow defend the purity of Norwegian and Christian culture against Muslims and others who in his mind are undesirable.  He apparently fantasized himself as some sort of modern-day crusader.

Breivik is clearly insane—meaning, far off the spectrum of consensus reality.  Unfortunately, there are many others who share his views if not his eagerness to commit mass murder.   When news of the bombing first surfaced, the media leapt to the conclusion that Muslims had done it.  Racist commentators bleat their poison over the airwaves daily, and solemn pundits intone that somehow in Europe, ‘multiculturalism has failed.’

I was pondering all this, watching the wonderful dancing and the songs from a day when multiculturalism meant Jewish gangsters on Broadway encountering Salvation Army missionaries.  A Broadway musical, I thought, must be the most quintessential American art form, if there is such a thing.   I considered whether these youth whose ancestors came from Europe, African, China, Japan, Central and South America, the Pacific Islands, India, and probably some other places I haven’t listed might not benefit from doing something more ‘multicultural’—the Ramayana with African drums, perhaps, or Ntozake Shange’s play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow iss Enuf.

But the jazzy music caught me up in pure enjoyment.  And then suddenly it struck me—Guys and Dolls is multicultural.  Along with every other Broadway musical, as well as jazz, gospel, blues and rock & roll, it owes as much to Africa as to Europe in the rhythms and patterns of its music.  That fabulous tap dancing started as Irish clogging way back when.  The form of storytelling with music and dance goes back as far as humankind recounting the hunt around the communal fire.

“Western culture” itself is multicultural.   Breivik blew up his buildings with explosives invented in China.  He counted his dead in Arabic numerals.

The media is full of strident voices telling us greed and prejudice and self-righteous, self-justifying bile are not only okay, they’re patriotic!   Breivik’s horrific murders were a clear message about where that thinking leads—to the death of innocents.

We need strong voices now to raise up a powerful countercry, to say that all of us have value, that we’re here on earth to take care of one another, to proclaim that every difference of background and culture and perspective is a gift.   We need a vision of how we might live in such a world—for if we can’t imagine it, how can we create it?

That’s why I’ve thrown myself so deeply into the project of making my novel, The Fifth Sacred Thing, into a movie.  In the book, I envisioned a society that truly valued diversity.  It’s one vision—not the only vision—of how ideals of justice might play out, and the huge support we’re receiving for the project shows how hungry people are for a positive vision of a future here on earth.

But truly, I don’t just want to make a movie.  I want to make a different world.  The movie is a vehicle toward that end—one vehicle, maybe not the best but the one that seems to lie before me right now.  I’m enormously grateful for all the help and support we’ve been finding along the way.  But I don’t want people to wait for the movie.  Now, today, do something to nourish and strengthen your own vision.  Now, today, do something to counter the voices of hate and greed and doom.  Every heritage includes great beauty and great pain, and we will need to draw on the wisdom and experience of all of them to weather the storms ahead.  Shout out the truth—that we all count.   We are interconnected, interdependent, and when we get good at it, a multiplicity of rhythms will move our feet in a joyous dance, and a chorus of voices harmonize in exultant song.

Some simple things to do:

Pat Buchanan, on MSNBC, stated that Breivik may have been right about a Crusades-like conflict between Christians and Muslims.  CREDO is circulating a petition to get the network, which is trying to position itself as a counter-voice to Fox News, to deny him a platform.  Sign the petition at:

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/fire_buchanan/?r_by=24909-2190680-HCRZxNx&rc=paste1

Oppose John Boehner’s plan to take money from seniors, the poor and the middle class to support big business, big oil and big money.

http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2592

You can support The Fifth Sacred Thing movie by backing our Kickstarter campaign:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fifthsacredthing/the-fifth-sacred-thing

The Fifth Sacred Thing website:

http://fifthsacredthing.com/home/

Like us on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/TheFifthSacredThingFilm

As mainstream media aims to desensitize us with spin and marketing to make scenes such as has happened seem commonplace, for me it has come to feel like this kind of intense media coverage trivializes the magnitude of what’s happened.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve seen and heard about far too many events like this in recent years, or that my limited knowledge of other cultures only allows me a superficial level of comprehending, but I feel like I’ve lost the ability to really understand the impact one person can have on a culture, and the world. Words feel sorely lacking.

A friend who lives in Norway has also had difficulty finding words for what has happened there. But she has put together a blog post filled with pictures of the beautiful people of Norway and how they are grieving their loss. It is moving beyond words and has taught me much about the Norwegian people in just a few minutes. Thank you Agnes.

If you’re a Second Life resident there is also a memorial inworld at the Second Norway sim.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Norge/136/152/31

Then I find a blog post from someone who does have some words about what has happened in Norway, and it has given me some context that helps. Her name is Starhawk and her words and ideas have inspired me for years.

The most positive thing I can leave you with in this post is to tell you about her book that literally changed my life, The Fifth Sacred Thing. Now her utopian view of a society in 2048 that embraces diversity, community, and the earth is being made into a very unique film. Please read more about it and see if you can’t give it your support. It’s a story the world needs to hear.

Love and take care of each other,

Calli