Happy Holiday!

Whether you call this day 'Samhain' or 'Halloween' or 'Wednesday', I hope that it's a happy one for you. This is always the 'most wonderful time of the year' as far as I am concerned.

Another Croning!

Another croning takes place in The Path of the Personal Divine! Jan is really pleased, since now we have a society of crones. A tiny one, but a society. As the first Crone, she also has... seniority.

Karen and Chandonn witness the magnificence of our mighty Crones.

Jan presented Hypatia with a Pendant of Power, good for repelling all jokes about age. It doesn't guarantee her the senior discount, though.

Not to be outdone by Jan, Chandon presents Hypatia with two dragon eggs...

...which contain little dragons (go figure). Guess she'll have to apply to AARP on her own.

Summerfest 2007

On June 23rd, the Path of the Personal Divine members held their annual meeting. At that meeting, the board was chosen and their offices were selected.

This year's Board:

Janeene Rowenashadi-Kirsch - President
Hypatia X - Vice-President
Sophia X. Pharou - Secretary/Treasurer


Summerfest 2007 is the year we multitasked. We elected our Board and discussed our individual approaches to prayer as we built rattles. Jan was kind enough to provide us with gourds and materials for rattle construction.


We all enjoyed the workshop. Each attendee put a lot of work into his or her rattle. While we chose beads and attached our decorations, Jan also gave us a short lesson on the esoteric purpose of rattles.



By this time, we were ready for a nice meditation and mind clearing. Karen led us through an excellent one, and has been drafted to teach us more!



Afterwards, Sarah gave a short lesson on basic astrology. She provided handouts (Oooh! Powerpoint handouts!) with descriptions of the signs.



Finally, it was time for ritual. Chris led us in a celebration of our life journeys. The ceremony was short, and followed by comfortable fellowship.

Summerfest!

Summerfest is coming up fast!

Our annual business meeting will convene at 12 PM on Saturday, June 23rd. We will be choosing the board and church officials for the coming year.

Afterwards, the fun will begin!

Location for the meeting: Hypatia and Sophia's house. Please email Hypatia if you need directions.

Note Bene: The ritual feast this year will be ice cream. Please bring toppings, fruit, cones, waffle bowls, root beer for floats, etc. We have 10 pints of ice cream in a variety of flavors. If you think that's not enough... bring some more with you!

Finger foods and other beverages would also be appreciated. Pagans do not live on ice cream alone.

Preliminary Schedule:

Church meeting

Jan’s rattle workshop

Discussion - HypatiaX

Sophia X. Pharou – Astrology lesson (Journey through the Signs)

Karen’s meditation (Body as Temple)

Ritual – Chandonn and Sophia X. Pharou

Drumming?

See you at Summerfest,

Sophia X. Pharou

May Meeting has been moved to OUR place

Tomorrow's meeting has been moved to Sophia and Hypatia's house. It begins around 1 PM SPT (Standard Pagan Time).

If you need directions to the house, email Sophia.

Hope to see you there!

Sophia X. Pharou

Meeting Sunday

We’re meeting again after a two-month hiatus. Chandonn will be our host this Sunday, April 29th, from 1 PM to 4:30 PM. We will be conducting a collective ritual where different people bring in their own talents and ideas together in what should be an interesting, if eclectic, whole.

We will also be talking about this year’s Summerfest: when will we celebrate it, and what will the theme be this year?

Come join us!

Divine Divination in January

It's time for our annual divination meeting!

Sunday, January the 21st, will be our annual Divination meeting. Bring your Tarot decks, your runes, and your ephemerides!

The fun will begin at noon. There will be DVD entertainment available so the people who are not currently having or doing readings won't get bored. Make your suggestions for DVD selection on the PPD Yahoo! list.

We will be meeting at Sophia & Hypatia’s house this year. Contact them if you need directions.

Scary Story Night is TOMORROW!

Scary Story Night will be held tomorrow at Chandonn’s house. We will converge around 3 PM to share scary stories, and perhaps some videos as well.

Please bring a scary story to share with the group. This can either be a short story or poem you've always enjoyed, a spooky legend, a story you heard around a campfire, or a scary story you wrote yourself.

It is not mandatory, but drinks and treats for sharing are as welcome as the scary stories!

Please contact Chandonn if you need information about the location.

Pictures from Summerfest

The Spirit Mask workshop was led by Hypatia X.

Karen makes a very stylish swan!

Who is this masked woman?

Dragon, or Martian Scooby Doo?

AARGH!! What horrible masks! So lifelike!

Okay, time to knock over that 7-11!

We had a great time at Summerfest.

If you missed it this year, hope you can make it next time!

Sophia X. Pharou

Summary of Annual Meeting

© SuperStock, Inc.

On June 24th, we had our annual meeting. At that meeting, the board was chosen and their offices were selected.

Presenting: This year's Board!

Chandonn - President
Hypatia X - Vice-President
Sophia X. Pharou - Secretary/Treasurer

As part of her duties, Sophia X. Pharou filed the paperwork with the State Treasurer's office and paid the annual fee of $4.00.

No new business was proposed at the meeting.

Our next meeting will be this Saturday, July 8th, at 6 PM. We will be creating the blessing stones we'd planned to do at Summerfest; we had so many other activities, we ran out of time! For more information or directions, please contact Rev. Chandonn.

Personal Mythology

Personal Mythology explains how we put our experiences into mental and emotional order. Rather than our lives being a set of disjointed events, we tend to form an internal narrative, a storyline, to explain the things that happen. We look for cause and effect in our world. We also tend to have internal scripts, notions of how we’re supposed to act, how others are supposed to respond. The people around us play roles, as do we, and our fates respond accordingly.

A guiding myth tells its recipient, the hero, what sort of person he is and what type of story he is living in. Sometimes the myth is helpful, lending courage and willpower when the hero needs it the most, providing a moral code to live by, and giving him a lofty goal to pursue. Unfortunately, it can also limit the hero from looking at alternative ways to solve his problems, or prevent him from seeing that he has outgrown the book he’s in and needs to move on to a text of a higher grade level.

How do we identify a guiding myth? More specifically, how do we identify the myths that guide our own lives? The human potential movement has provided us with a wealth of personality inventories and archetype catalogs to help us determine the sort of people we are. Jean Shinoda Bolen explains how Greek mythological figures demonstrate different patterns of human mindset and behavior, and how they play out in our lives. Carol Pearson provides a group of human archetypes, the stories they live out, and a way of measuring which archetypes hold the most sway over our natures. There are several temperament sorters, such as the Myers-Briggs system, the ennead system, and Barbara Bowers’ ‘aura colors’.

We can use these methods to identify the qualities of our own nature, but we must go further. The hero has a story; we must identify our own stories by studying the context of our lives. Once we know the plotline our life has been following, we can decide for ourselves how it ends, or if it is time to go ‘off script’ and find a new role.

Works that can help you identify and work with your personal story include: Your Mythic Journey by Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox, The Mythic Path by David Feinstein and Stanley Krippner, and Path of the Everyday Hero: Drawing on the Power of Myth to Meet Life's Most Important Challenges by Lorna Catford and Michael Ray.

The above was part of my Summerfest presentation this year. The exercises we did afterwards were within the context of the themes of the celebration.

Addendum: Another useful text I omitted earlier is Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential by Caroline Myss. The book is a bit schizophrenic - the first part deals with examples of 'sacred contracts' with the Divine drawn from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, while the second part deals with personal archetypes and their function in your daily life. I suspect Sacred Contracts began as two books and got merged into one for the sake of the booksellers. Huge tomes that sell for $20-30 are all the rage these days.-SEG

Summerfest!

Summerfest will be held June 24, 2006, at Chandonn and Jordsvin's new home. Expect to see the Lap Chicken in the house, and a starter orchard in the back yard.

The celebration will begin around 'noonish', according to Rev. Chandonn. His house can be more easily spotted these days: it has a flying pig flag near the front door. For more specific directions, please contact Rev. Chandonn directly.

The events scheduled so far:

Main Ritual:

“The Spirit Guide Dance”
by Guide Chandonn

Workshops:

Spirit Guide Mask-making
by Guide Hypatia X

Spirit Guide Meditation
by Guide Chandonn

Personal Mythology discussion
by Guide Sophia X Pharou

Making Blessing Stones for Chandonn’s and Karen’s households

Blessed be,

Sophia X. Pharou

So, What Color is YOUR Aura?

I've found this to be one of the more interesting surveys. The quiz takes about 10-15 minutes and the answers are detailed. So far, we seem to be leaning to the purplish end of the color scale. I'm a Violet, HypatiaX is a Lavender, and our resident Gemini, Karen, is a Magenta and a Lavender.

Sarah G

Your Aura Colour is Violet.

Violets are the visionaries and the leaders of the spectrum. They are spiritual, driven, motivated, dedicated, responsible, charismatic big-picture-types. They can also be curmudgeons.

Find out what colour your aura is.

Winterfest!

Winterfest will be held Sunday, December 18th, at Sophia and Hypatia's house. The feast will begin in the evening hours, but people will be gathering in the late afternoon. The festal meat this year will be turkey, provided by Chandonn. Your side dishes and beverages would be very welcome, but are not required to attend!

We will also be making our annual collection of toiletries for the homeless. Bars of soap, little bottles of shampoo, and razors are welcome. Old towels are also desirable: we took a boxful to the Hope Center one year, and you should have seen those people's faces light up.

Other information TBA. Reserve the date!

Sarah G

And a Good Time Was Had By All

The little fellow on the left peered out the back window of my car all the way to Jan and Ken's for Scary Story Night. Jordsvin, who shares my love for Lovecraft, presented him to me for Halloween. Now you know what Pagans and Heathens read for horror!

Scary Story Night was marvelous, as always. Jan and Ken had really decorated the inside of the house with candles, ghost lights, illuminated witches - the works. There were bowls of candy, a dish of chocolate 'dirt' with Gummi worms, apple and caramel pie, cheeses, and a crockpot of Smokies and meatballs in barbeque sauce. I also learned that Peeps makes marshmallow ghosts, pumpkins, and spiders for Halloween. Very, very yummy!

The stories presented shared everything from children's books to "Stargate: Atlantis" fanfic. Some original works by Hypatia and by me were also presented. Chandonn and Karen had to return to Lexington afterwards, but Hypatia and I stayed the night.

The morning after was equally pleasant. Jan and Ken were wonderful hosts. We had eggs, bacon, and cheese bread with our choice of tea, coffee, and warm cider. Beatles music played in the background as we discussed our faiths and how we had come to the individual paths we pursued.

All in all, it was an excellent event. We greatly appreciate Jan and Ken opening their home to us.

Sophia X

Yet another quiz. BLAME KAREN!

Karen keeps putting these little quizzes on HER page. I'm not sure why Scientology rates a designation and Paganism doesn't.

I fit in with: Spiritualism

My ideals are mostly spiritual, but in an individualistic way. While spirituality is very important in my life, organized religion itself may not be for me. It is best for me to seek these things on my own terms.

40% spiritual.
40% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Sophia X. Pharou's Soul Guardian

A faerie watches over you. You are charming and cunning. You have a way with people that you can lead them and they will follow. You're active and ambitious. You're smart and outgoing. Your faerie is always by your side. Whether or not you may always see it, your faerie is always there, keeping an eye on you and protecting you. Your faerie is like your conscience. It will always lead you down the right path.

Who is your soul guardian?
brought to you by Quizilla

Some fun photos from the retreat!

Ken takes up a new style of headdress. Who told him that the secret members of the Inner Circle wear those hats? We have a leak!

Me outside. We all know how much I love being out in nature. What is it about Pagan gatherings and going outdoors?

If it weren't for Hypatia X, we'd have had no fire. All those years with the Girl Scouts paid off!

The first lesson of fashion: accessories should be coordinated with the theme of the outfit. Chandonn needs to talk to Ken about headgear.

Fresh from her croning (is that an oxymoron, or what?), Jan browses for jewelry appropriate to a Church Elder. Four words: amber and jet necklace. Just don't expect the funds for this to come out of the church budget.

Hoping that a good time was had by all,

Sophia X. Pharou

Scary Story Night: October 29th

Scary Story Night will be held at Jan and Ken's house in Fairfield, Ohio on Saturday, October 29th. The festivities will start around 7 PM so more people can drive up from Lexington. Carpooling is encouraged, of course. It takes about 2 hours to get to their home from Lexington, depending on the driver and whether they get pulled over.

Attendees are requested to bring a scary story to share with the group. This can either be a short story or poem you've always enjoyed,, a spooky legend, a story you heard around a campfire, or a scary story you wrote yourself. Please limit the length of these stories to around 20 pages or so. Some people need to drive back afterwards so they can work on Sunday.

Munchies or soft drinks would also be nice, but are not mandatory for attendance. Neither is bringing a story, but it would be nice.

Please email Jan if you need information on the location.

Blessed be,

Sophia X. Pharou

A Successful Croning! Or is that Crowning?

Congratulations to Janeene Rowenashadi, first Elder of our church!

Her crowning took place during our 2005 retreat.

Sophia X. Pharou