Remembering Alia (Denver OFM 5 May 2017)

Tonight's (May 5) Hearthstone Community Church Open Full Moon ritual will be remembering Alia, who ran Hearthstone for over two decades, who died last week (28 May 2017). Doors open at 7 pm. Community announcements at 7:30 pm. Upstairs at First Unitarian Church, 1400 Lafayette, Denver, CO.

WSLA Dealing with predators in the pagan community

Recognizing and Dealing withPredators in the Pagan CommunitySunday, July 10, 2016
at the Mercury Café 2199 California StreetDenver, CO 80205Doors open at 2:15pm, Forum from 2:30-5pm
In the interest of discussing tough topics with clear-eyed discernment and inviting all voices to be heard, WSLA is hosting a 3rd forum on Predators and Ethics.
Our community isn’t immune to people who habitually manipulate others - energetically, sexually, financially, or in other ways that betray trust.
At this gathering, we’d like to look specifically at what our shared ethical basis might be, and come up with some suggestions for recognizing inappropriate behavior, and for responding effectively to protect ourselves and better support each other.
What do healthy boundaries look like? How can we foster our own good boundaries and support those of others, especially among our young people? How do I feel supported in community – and not supported? Where do I feel I’m not being heard? Among genders, are we “hearing” each other clearly? If not, how can we improve communications?

There will be time to break out into smaller groups by gender to discuss these points.This gathering is open to all in the Wiccan-Pagan community,whether or not you attended the previous forums.

House of Bast Art Studio Open House Event (July 2 & 3, 2016)

Come join us at the Open House event.

House of Bast Art Studio--Celtic Soul Jewelry and Pottery, and Khari's Wiccan Treasures—July 2016 Open House

July 2nd & 3rd
House of Bast—2727 Cook St., Denver, Colorado USA
Studio is located on the south side next to the alley.

At the Open House & Studio Tour, we will have pottery for sale, pottery throwing demos, pottery lessons, Kid's Clay Korner, and refreshments.

The hours will be 11 am to 6 pm on Saturday, July 2nd, and 12 pm to 6pm on Sunday.

Pottery lessons will be from 1 to 5 pm each day. Come see our studio!

Some of the pottery available for purchase. 

Some more pottery available for purchase. 

Call 303-815-8211 for information if you get lost. 

[In the afternoons, after 2 pm, Mad Uncle Morgan will be around if anyone needs to talk Denver Witch Quarterly business. He will also have some fresh garden herbs (not that type of herb!) and some random fairy fortunes for sale.]

A fairy ritual in poetic form (June 2016 Hearthstone Open Full Moon ritual)

The June OFM ritual will be presented by Morgan Drake Eckstein. The ritual will utilize High Ceremonial Wicca techniques, along with the symbolism of four types of fairies (sylphs, salamanders, undines, and gnomes), to provide an omen (fairy fortune) to each of the attendees.

When: June 17, 2016---7 pm to 9 pm (doors open at 7:00 pm, community announcements 7:30pm, ritual starts after community announcements).
Where: First Unitarian--1400 Lafayette, Denver, Colorado
Cost: Free (suggested donation $5)

You are to be called Azulina (From The Black Princess and other Tales from Brazil), 1916 by Florence Mary Anderson

Women Forum Predators v Empowered Community (Denver event)

 

Women’s Forum:  Predators v. Empowered Community

     Sunday April 10 at The Mercury.  Doors open at 2:30pm, Forum from 3-5pm 

     This gathering continues the conversation we began in the WSLA forum on March 6. We’d like to begin defining a broad community basis for recognizing and responding to predatory behavior in our Wiccan-Pagan community. It’s open to all women who attended the March 6 forum, and to any other women from our community who are interested in contributing to this conversation.

    Don’t believe everything you've heard about the March forum, especially from people who weren’t present. If you want to be part of this conversation, please join us on Sunday, April 10.

    While predatory behavior can victimize men and women, this April forum is for women only, the better to address our own needs and concerns. Human beings have always shared information (both fact and hearsay) as a means of keeping themselves informed, strong, and safe. Sometimes, especially for women, this sharing was the best defense we had. What are the healthy and positive ways that we can do this? 

    Topics we’re likely to touch on: 

    Creating strategies of safe interaction for ourselves, our loved ones, and our Community. 

    What (if any) are our shared community mores? How we can recognize and better express them, and better respect each other? 

    How to spot warning signs of predatory behavior, and how to diffuse it. 

    What is “gas-lighting”? 

    Resources to report predation: Call the cops… or not? Some of what we’re talking about isn’t illegal. For example: What is inappropriate contact in a drum circle or other ritual space? What if you feel like your teacher is becoming more intimate than you’re comfortable with? 

    Resources for support: How can we best pro-actively support each other?

    Please bring your ingenuity for change, your desire for joyful and healthy connection, and especially your good intentions.

    Hawk Shadow and Renna Shesso will again be moderating.
________

Some guidelines for this gathering:

    We will work on identifying problematic behavior and potential responses to it, not on naming any individuals or groups.

    We request that details and feedback from this meeting continue to move forth live among participants and friends, and not posted in on-line forums. Please respect this boundary!
________
    Mercury Café, 2199 California Street Denver, CO 80205 (get there by the Light Rail station at 16th and Stout, come by bus or there's parking all around) 

    Doors open at 2:30pm, Forum from 3-5pm 

High School teacher reads Tarot cards for her students

File this under "News stories that you do not want to see as an occultist." A teacher at Hidden Lake High School (Westminister Colorado) chose to cleanse her class of bad energy and read Tarot cards for her students. Two students received the Death card, and at least one Catholic student is transferring to another school. The teacher was taped on cell phone video. And please note that the student interviewed by Fox 31 News (Denver, CO) said that the Tarot was created by a Satanist. The teacher has been suspended while the school district investigates the incident. *sigh*

  

Denver Colorado free cat spay and neuter day February 2014

If kittens can fix a computer...

If you are living in Denver, Colorado, and have a kitty or cat that needs spaying or neutering, the Dumb Friends League is offering a FREE cat spay and neuter clinic on Monday, February 24, 2014 and Tuesday, February 25, 2014. Kittens must weigh at least two pounds to qualify for the surgery. No limit on the number of kittens and cats you can get fixed, but there is limited capacity, so please consider arriving early.

Where: Meow and Lulu Mobile Clinics will be at the Denver Animal Shelter (1241 W. Bayaud Ave.)
Check-in is at 7:30 am.
All surgeries are performed by licensed veterinarians.

For more information on the mobile clinic, call 720-241-7098.

And if you are unable to make this free spay and neuter day (in honor of World Spay Day), remember that the regular fee is ten dollars, which is still a good price.

Remember getting your kitten or cat spayed or neutered is an act of love. Both you and your pet will be happier...well, once they forgive you for taking them to the vet.

Attention Colorado Voters

It just came to my attention that Colorado has purged a lot of voters from its list of registered voters. It is not just Democrats either--I am a Republican (it is family tradition--one that I continue simply because...I have no idea why)--and I was purged from the list (and I did vote in last year's election).

To check if you are still registered to vote in Colorado, visit the Go Vote Colorado page on the Colorado government page---here is the link to Go Vote Colorado.

Remember that if you were purged, you have to re-register by October 7th to vote in the upcoming Presidential Election.

Lost a black walnut tree to thousand cankers disease

I am kitty and my butt approves of this tree stump.

So yesterday, I woke up to the sounds of a chainsaw...in my own front yard. Mile High Tree Care had came out to cut down one of the black walnut trees that are in my yard.

The reason that it had to be cut down was that the tree had caught the thousand cankers disease (fungus) that is expected to kill off all the black walnut trees here in Colorado within five years.

Those brown leaves showing up is a sign that your tree is diseased.

The city of Denver is asking...and then issuing fines...to get people to remove their infected black walnut trees in a timely manner.

I am not happy about this disease. This tree was a nice tree, and fairly old (I am guessing that it was planted at the time this area was developed, so it was 60 to 70 years old I think).

The team work was amazing.

I will admit that I was impressed by the amount of time they needed to take down the entire tree. It was only a half hour to forty-five minutes before they were completely done.

The sad part is that I still have another black walnut tree...and I like it. As I said, I am not happy about the disease.

My other black walnut tree.

After Mile High Tree Care finished with my tree, they pulled across the street and cut down one in my neighbor's yard. I imagine that my neighbor is not any more happy than I am about the situation.

So now, I have a rahter large tree stump in the front of my yard. My wife thinks that she is going to use it to sit on while gardening, but I think that one of the cats has already claimed it.

It was a fairly large tree as you can see from this photo.

Colorado Batman Mass Shooting

Last night, as most of my American readers know, a mass shooting happened at the midnight screening of the new Batman movie. What they may not know is that the Aurora theater is (maybe) a whole ten miles from my house, my former place of employment and the university that I gone to here in Denver. And there are other things that bring this senseless tragedy even closer to home.

(Feel free to skip reading the rest of this post--it is just Morgan kicking around his personal issues while standing on his public soapbox.)

One of the things that bring it close to home is the fact that this is the worst mass shooting since 2009. Both the Fort Hood (Texas) shooting and the Columbine (Colorado) school shooting happened in 2009.

As the time of the Columbine shooting, I was dating this rather bossy redhead, Khari Seshent. Khari (her motto in GD) was training to be a school teacher at the time. Many of you have actually met this woman; she is still a school teacher, still bossy--the only difference is that we are married now.

I will openly admit that I was more emotionally disturbed by Columbine than I was by the terrorist attack on 9/11. Part of it was that I was dating Khari. But a larger part was that I understood the minds of the shooters.

I suspect that I am going to discover that I understand this shooter, James Holmes, and his mental state as the story develops and details come out. Blame it on being a writer who writes about villians, murders and other insanities; one can also blame it on "By the grace of god, go I."

It is kinda freaky that Holmes was attending the University of Colorado in Denver. Ok, he was attending the medical school, but that campus is only a couple of miles from my house. UCD is where I just graduated from with two Bachelor degrees, and where I might be going when I start my Master degrees. And I seriously considered dropping out of school this last year.

When Columbine happened, I didn't know anyone who was going there. Since then, I have sat in classes (both esoteric and academic) with people who either were present or were connected to students attending Columbine at the time of the shooting. Turns out that I was connected to people who were going to Columbine at the time, I was just unaware of the connections. I suspect that history is going to repeat itself here.

And in the case of this shooting, several of my friends were concerned that I might have been present. After all, I am a nerd (or is it a geek?) and would have considered going to a midnight screening of Batman Rises if I would had more money in the bank.

Anyways, this shooting has disturbed my mental waters so much that I blogged about it rather than the fact that I woke up this morning to the sound of chainsaws...which I guess I will have to blog about tommorrow instead (yes, I am going to share my feelings about thousand Cankers Black Walnut Disease because...well you will see).

(Oh, for those people who saw one of my friends on Facebook joking about the SRIA assassin missing me, just remember that the barking-mad started that joke several months ago and my friends decided that I would be higher on the list of people that the SRIA would want to eliminate than the barking-mad person who insisted that the SRIA were gunning for him. The joke loses something if you do not know that little fact.)