AAR 2016

Gold Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol  1962

Last November, with help from the Covenant of the Goddess, I again attended the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Antonio.  (This year the meeting will be in Boston.)

If you’ve read any of my other posts about these annual meetings, you know that in addition to the Pagan Studies Section, I attend other sessions on other topics when they don’t conflict with Pagan Studies sessions.  This year was no different.

Kerry Noonan and I shared a room, where I listened to her rehearse her paper, sans Power Point.  It interested me, as did some of the other papers in that session.  One can always learn from other religions.  Not necessarily theology, faith, or belief; rather organizations and methods, successes and mistakes, things we may wish to emulate (organization-wise) and those we should avoid.  We also learn what I call “sacred technology,” by which I mean such things as visualization, meditation, chanting, breathwork, dancing, liturgical skills.

So the first session I attended was that of the Roman Catholic Studies Group, entitled

Ex-Catholics: Thresholds of Catholic Identity and Defiance.  According to a Pew survey, Catholicism … has been losing adherents, mostly to the secular, … but also due to relevance.

«    Nicholas Rademacher – “Rethinking Resistance: Varieties of Dissent and Patterns of Solidarity among U.S. Catholics.”  Many observers gloss over differences among dissenting Catholics of the mid to late twentieth century, collapsing a diverse movement into a seeming homogeneous group.  Even the radicals themselves perpetuated an impression of homogeneity in order to present a united front to the public eye.  While many dissenters at mid-century promoted similar ideas about racial and economic justice, pacifism, and a more egalitarian ecclesiology, they traveled different paths and even corrected one another from time to time.  Yet they rarely if ever publicly reproached one another.  A closer look at the internal conversation of the period by way of diary accounts, correspondence, and the public record reveals important distinctions and even disagreements among and between those who dissented within and against the Roman Catholic Church on social justice themes.

We’ve long included many, many ‘recovering Catholics’ in our Pagan communities, along with Jewitches, Buddheo-Pagans, Quagans, and Atheo-Pagans.  Some Pagans design rituals that have been influenced by Catholic ritual, not to mention the liberal use of frankincense and myrrh in our workings.[1]  Some Pagan organizations go so far as to mimic Roman Catholic hierarchy, assuming such titles as Reverend and Right Reverend, wearing [green or purple] Roman collars, and employing fractured Elizabethan English.  Not my personal cup of tea, but if using these methods aids practitioners to achieve a more spiritually receptive state and feel more compassionate toward and bonded with their co-practitioners, more power to them.

Dr. Rademacher spoke of “defecting in place,” citing Catholics working for social justice causes.  Among them, Dorothy Day, Daniel Berrigan and his brother Phillip, the latter’s wife and former nun, Elizabeth McAlister, Thomas Merton, and Mary Elizabeth Walsh.  These people interpreted church teachings as a living gospel calling for activism in pursuit of a better world.  From the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt forward, they sought to foster solidarity within the social justice movement.  They saw priests moving into middle class privilege, while they instead worked in the Bowery, established settlement houses, participated in hunger and peace marches, and in general chose to live with and among marginalized people instead of returning to middle class comfort.

«    Kori Pacyniak – “Ex-Catholics: Exile or Exodus in the Borderlands of the Church.”  As numbers of “former” or” ex” Catholics increase, various questions remain.  Why do some leave while others remain and work for change within.

Ms. Pacyniak, whose studies focus on queer theology, trans theology, and trauma theology, spoke of liminal overlapping space.  Many LGBTQIA Catholics leave their place of origin to find a more accepting space and a better life.  They seek these demilitarized places where they are both inside and outside, “both me and not me.”  These borderlands as places of “becoming.”  She also stressed the distinction between the exodus where one has agency, as opposed to excommunication which is not of one’s doing.

Often these dissenting Catholics find a welcoming home and a more relevant and satisfying religious practice within Pagan communities.

«    Meredith Massar Munson – “All That Glitters Is Not Gold: Andy Warhol’s Byzantine Icon, Gold Marilyn Monroe.”  When did celebrity become iconic?  Born of devout Byzantine-Ruthenian immigrants in Pittsburgh, Andy Warhol spent his childhood in the rich visual culture of the Byzantine Catholic tradition.  His 1962 painting, Gold Marilyn Monroe, has been casually associated with Byzantine icons since its creation.  However, scholars have not gone beyond the canvas’s gilded visage to explore the extremely provocative connotations that such a connection might actually hold.  An investigation of the artist’s personal Byzantine-Catholic history posits this painting as directly indebted to the long-standing icon tradition, and furthermore, as intrinsically connected to the acheiropoieta, [made without hands] the image not by human hands.  Warhol’s iconic painting opens the door for a cultural critique that compares and contrasts fame and exploitation.  This paper will endeavor to place Gold Marilyn within the much larger dialogue concerning the role of the icon, bridging the gap between the secular and the spiritual.

I had never heard of Byzantine-Ruthenian Catholicism before.  I was aware that Andy Warhol was Catholic, but I knew neither its particular flavor nor its prominence/importance in his life.  He attended Mass daily.

My interest in this talk was the examination of pop icons in light of the fact that many Pagans are idolaters or use iconic images as objects of reverence and/or for focused meditation.  Not all, of course, but many.  It is not uncommon to see on an altar a Wonder Woman action figure or a little Batman doll or some other object marketed as a toy.

We have our own versions of the Catholic Marian cults, such as the Ord Brighideach International, to which I belong, and the Covenant of Hekate.  Moreover, there are numerous orders, sisterhoods, and fellowships dedicated to the worship of specific deities.  Further, I know there are people, Pagans and cowans alike, who maintain special areas of their homes dedicated to Marilyn Monroe herself.  The painting called Gold Marilyn Monroe, created by the “pope of pop,” exemplifies this appreciation of graven images.

«    Kerry Noonan – “’I’m Going to Try Reiki Next, and I’m Not Going to Confession!’ Negotiating Vernacular Catholicism.”  In a guided meditation in a yoga studio, a conservative Catholic woman listens to the messages channeled by a psychic teacher -– messages from deceased loved ones, archangels, the Virgin Mary.  She’s not a “fallen-away” Catholic, nor a New Ager; Catholicism is part of her identity, and she works to integrate these new practices into an identity that eschews them.  Employing Leonard Primiano’s concept of  “vernacular religion,” I aim to better understand her and others like her who, while seeking direct and embodied experiences of the Divine, incorporate new practices and place them in familiar Catholic contexts.  In light of Catherine Albanese’s assertion that Americans have practiced “combinative” religion for centuries, and Robert Orsi’s contention that religious traditions are “zones of improvisation and conflict,” I explore the possibility that we can see this woman not as an orthodox outlier, but as emblematic of important trends in the American religious landscape.

This process of syncretism is a fairly common phenomenon among Pagan religions, Witchcraft in particular.  We often learn meditative techniques from Asian religions rhat may enhance our own.  Tibetan Buddhism employs the use of yantras as foci for visualization.  We also sing Hindu chants, purported Native American chants of various kinds, and chants from Voudoun.  We borrow rhythms.  We dance English, French, and Basque folk dances.

Contemporary Pagan Studies Group(1)

Modernity and Postmodernity:  Pagans Reimagining the Future.  Modern Pagan movements still struggle with identity and history, especially when former “historical” and ideological foundations are challenged by new interpretations or others’ voice.  Participants will present summaries of their papers and discuss with each other and the audience issues of history, identity and ethnicity across boundaries, and the pressures of institutionalization.  

Sabina Magliocco presided and Amy Hale responded to the following speakers;

«    Barbara Jane Davy — "Reconstruction Alternatives: Wicked Dilemmas for Contemporary Pagan Responses to Modernity." (description too long to type)

«    Stephen Quilley — "Reconstruction Alternatives: Wicked Dilemmas for Contemporary Pagan Responses to Modernity." (description too long to type)

«    Thomas Berendt —  "Postmodern Paganisms: Embracing Polytheitic Plurality, Diversity, and Hybridity.” (description too long to type)

«    Christopher W. Chase — "Differential Modernities: Rethinking Vodou in Contemporary Paganism."  “…contends that Pagan traditions respond to modernity according to sociohistorically contingent circumstances. As an example, Vodou has developed a Christian ecclesia model in Haiti in response to Pentecostalism, while tracking along a decentralized initiatory path in the U.S., similar to other Pagan traditions.

As you can tell from these descriptions, we Pagans are protean in our tendency to evolve and change.

I apologize for the skimpiness of commentary on the Pagan Studies sessions.  In the two years since I suffered a stroke, I have not fully regained my ability to handwrite, so my notes are minimal and often indecipherable.  Fortunately, Christine Hoff Kraemer shares a thorough report of her experience of this event on The Wild Hunt. 

Contemporary Pagan Studies Group(2)

Dilemmas of Identity and Formation in Contemporary Paganism:  Tropes of anti-modernism and primitivism inform the development of contemporary Pagan movements, yet these groups are sometimes described as postmodern as well.”  Papers and discussion of “whether the central tenets of postmodernism – plurality, diversity, and hybridity – chiefly influence such movements today or whether protests against modernity and reconstructions of fictive pre-modern societies and world views drive them equally.

Jone Salomonsen presided and Shawn Arthur responded to the following speakers:

«    Gwendolyn Reece – “The Scalability Crisis: Contemporary Paganism and Institutionalization.”  “…argues that one of the primary driving forces behind the trend towards institutionalization in Contemporary Paganisjm … (description too long to type)

This paper specifically speaks of the dilemmas we, as a fast-growing constellation of Nature-based and/or heritage-based, and related non-Abrahamic religious groups, confront when trying to create institutions that address our professional needs from a less conventional and, given our great diversity, from a somewhat Pagan perspective.  This has been the work of Cherry Hill Seminary, among other worthy efforts.

«    Patricia E’Iolana  -- “An Imagined and Idealised [sic] Past as a Source for Revisionist Rhetoric: The Dual Lives of the 1921 Murray Thesis.” (description too long to type)

«    Lee Gilmore – “Pagan and Indigenous Communities at the Parliament (Part 2): The Myth of the Unbroken Line in Constructions of Authenticity.” (description too long to type)

«    Leigh Ann Hildebrand – “Jews (and Jewitches) Touching Trees: Hybrid Jewish/Pagan Identity, Ritual Practice, and Belief.” (description too long to type)

The phenomenon of Jewitches has long been a facet of the Craft.  About twenty years ago Jewitches in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul) published a newsletter call Di Shmatteh (the rag).  Since then, various blends or dual perspectives have arisen:  Buddheo-Pagan, Quagan, Atheo-Pagan, and even Christo-Pagan.  As a person reared in Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, I don’t get this last one, but then again, it’s not mine to get.

The work of scholars and supporters at Cherry Hill Seminary is one manifestation of the expression of these issues of legitimacy, identity, and sustainability.  In fact, one of the older and still extant Pagan organizations, the Covenant of the Goddess, in its annual Leadership Institute, has recently done in a daylong focus on examining the current state of the Craft and Paganism, and locating CoG’s place in that larger community and in the world.

Native Traditions in the Americas Group

Indigenous Religious Hybridity and the Transformation of Traditions:  This session addresses different forms of religious hybridity.  Zitkala-Sa, or Gertrude Simmons Bonin, was an important Dakota leader who drew from her own cultural traditions as well as her education in boarding schools to publish at the national level and serve as an agent of the government.  Patron Saint Feast Days incorporate from and negotiate between indigenous and Christian practices.  Research on the Ohlone Shell Walk illustrates the revitalization of traditions while highlighting the relationship between religious and political activity.

«    Abel Gomez -- “Shellmound Peace Walk: Prayer, Pilgrimage, and Activism in Ohlone Territory” Ohlone communities of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas are experiencing a cultural renewal, despite their non-recognized status.  Central to this revival is the protection of burial sites, most of which have been destroyed because of urban development.  This paper focuses on Ohlone activist Corrina Gould’s efforts to honor the burial place of her ancestors through Shellmound Peace Walks.  Beginning in 2005, Gould has organized three-week long pilgrimages to the shellmounds (burial sites) of her ancestors.  At each stop, participants heard stories of the site and offered prayers and tobacco.  Drawing on fieldwork, historical writings, and oral histories, I argue that the Shellmound Peace Walks demonstrate the interconnectivity of religion and political activism in Native communities.  For Ohlone solidarity with non-Native people.

I was initially drawn to this section because I saw that Abel Gomez was one of the presenters.  He is a young man from the S.F Bay Area I’ve met through local Reclaiming. 

Another draw was the fact that the topic is about a region I call home.  Much of the southern Baylands and the land on the other side of SF Bay from where I write is home to Ohlone people.  My neighboring county to the north is Coast Miwok country.[2]  There are 425 shellmounds in the salt marshes and mudflats around San Francisco Bay and beyond (San Pablo Bay, Suisun Bay, Carquinez Strait).  

Over the time since Europeans settled this area, the largest, once a burial ground rising 60 feet high and dating back to 800 BCE, has been desecrated by being used for an amusement park and later as a dumping ground for toxic chemicals.   Since 1999 a shopping center occupies most of that shellmound, with a memorial park nearby, now designated Emeryville Shellmound, California Historical Landmark #335.

From time to time I have received email posts soliciting people to attend these peace walks.  I appreciated hearing this more detailed information about these activities.  Abel’s contention of the interconnectivity of Native religions and political activism matches my own convictions.

I have attended public Witchen sabbat celebrations at the Emeryville Shellmounds.  From that spot one can see beautiful sunsets behind some of the land surrounding the Bay.  I like to think that, rather than using the site as a dumping ground, by performing our sabbats on what is left of this formerly 60-foot high mound, we in some small way honor the ancestors of our Ohlone neighbors.

«     “Boundaries in the Borderlands: Pueblo Indian Patron Saint Feast Days and the Negotiation of Catholicism” 

Once again my post-stroke ability to take notes results in my inability to interpret my compromised handwriting.

Zitkala-Sa, Joseph T. Keiley

«    “Zitkala-Sa: A Warrior of Survivance [sic] between Traditionalism and Progressivism”

A mixed-ethnicity[3] woman who identified with her mother’s Yankton Sioux heritage, Zitkala-Sa, “Red Bird,” whose Euro-name is Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, first entered my consciousness a few years ago when I came upon the following quote:

“A wee child toddling in a wonder world, I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan.”

Zitkala-Sa was an amazing person.  She straddled two cultures, seeking the knowledge and wisdom of both, and she took those understandings into the world beyond the reservation.  She even wrote a Native-themed opera, “The Sun Dance Opera,” that was first performed on stage in 1913.  Her finding values in both cultures in which she found herself immersed seems relevant to what many contemporary Pagans have been doing by learning about our various heritages, and blends of heritages.   We syncretize what resonates for us into spiritual practices that give expression of who we are and enrich the meaning in our rituals.

I’m registered for the AAR Annual Meeting in Boston and hopeful that I’ll have enough money to get there.

---

[1]   The inmates in our circle at San Quentin State Prison, unlike in many other prisons, are allowed flame and incense, at least when I’m there, and they all love incense.  So we use it liberally and they emerge from circle with the scents permeating their hair and clothing and reminding them of where they’ve just been.

[2]   See Big Time at http://besom.blogspot.com/2010/07/big-time.html.

[3]   I feel uncomfortable assigning the word race to people of any heritage or complexion because humans comprise one race or species.

AAR Annual Meeting - IV

"The Nightmare" by John Henry Fuseli

  November 2014

San Diego, CA

Day Two:  Saturday Late Afternoon and Evening

For the 4:00 p.m. session I passed on three others of interest.

Indigenous Religious Traditions focused on “Ritual Objects and Materiality in the Study of Native American Traditions.”  Anthropologists have considered the importance of social and historical context while neglecting physicality and materiality in such circumstances as indigenous rituals “tied to particular places and things in irreducible ways.  Panelists spoke on

·      “Maya Persons, Places, & Things: Relational Theory and Maya Blood Offerings to the Ceiba Tree”;

·      “Ayahuasca as ‘Teacher Plant’: An Ethno-Metaphysics of Santo Daime’s Botanical Sacrament”;

·      “Animacy and Agency in Puppets, Masks, and Other Ritual Objects”;

·      “La Vara: Divining Bundle of the Highland May Ritual Specialist”; and

·      “The Way of the Mask: The Intersection of Ritual and Value in Highland Guatemalan Religious Dance Masks.” 

Blood offerings, entheogens/psychotropics, puppets (poppets?), masks – just some of the less conventional sacred technologies that we Pagans often employ.

Ritual Studies Group: “Ritual Assembly and the Dynamics of Democracy.”  This panel offered five different ways in which ritual acts and performances reveal and mobilize culture resources and initiate changes to establish new conditions for democratization processes. …[P]eople entering ritual activities establish new conditions and forms of social and political engagement, and … how they are continuously renegotiating social identities.  …[R]ituals significantly impact democratic processes, both in reshaping society and providing the grounds for responding to local and global crises.  Thus ritual is not just the outcome of social construction, but serves as a precondition for the construction and transformation of society.”

As a ritualist myself, I do see ritual as a vehicle of social change (not necessarily with respect to democracy).  The cultures from which these papers were drawn include, among others, Hong Kong, rural Uttar Pradesh, Norway, and Turkey.

Tantric Studies Group: “Out for Blood: Sacrifice, Tantra, and Normative Hinduism.”  “Taking animal sacrifice as the quintessential pubic marker of Shakta Tantra in much of South Asia, this panel examines how historical, regional, practical, and economic contexts have shaped the ways various traditions … relate the theory and practice of blood offerings to mainstream brahmanical Hinduism…case studies detail some of the social effects and rhetorical uses of … sacrifices within Tantra and Shaktism…while particularizing our understanding of how these categories relate to other comparatively peripheral formations including folk and tribal religions.  Taken together, these papers highlight the role of sacrifice as a flashpoint for divergent articulation and valuations of Hinduism’s center and its frontiers.”  [emphasis added]  Could you not change a few words and apply this statement to contemporary Paganism?  Given much discussion of animal sacrifice in the Neo-Pagan world, it would seem we might have something to learn from these traditions.

One paper in particular, “Blood in the Mainstream: Kali Puja and Tantric Orthodox in Early Modern Bengal,” intrigued me because I am a devotee of Ma Kali.  I perform Kali puja at the New Moon at a local store before altar in a temporary temple.  The pujaris (priest/esses) who conduct the ceremonies I attend are trained at Dakshineshwar, and the kirtan singers and musicians are mainly Indian rather than Euro-Americans, though I’ve seen no evidence of blood sacrifice, and suspect that most attendees are vegetarians.

When I ran into Steve Wehmeyer on Friday, he said he’d come to substitute for his wife, Kerry Noonan, to chair a wildcard session that he raved would be my best option among all these tempting sessions.  So that’s where I went.

* * * * *

Wildcard Session:  “Contemporary Scholars, Contemporary People, and Belief in Spirits: Folklore, Religion and the Supernatural.”  

We met in a moderate-sized room, and there were folks sitting on the floor and hanging in the doorway.  This panel could easily have filled a larger meeting space.  This, to me, indicates a growing interest in exploring these phenomena, and comparing them with our own personal experiences.  Perhaps ‘religious scholarship meets UPGs (unverified personal gnosis).’

Robert Glenn Howard, from the University of Wisconsin spoke on “Hoarding the Spirit: Discourse Approach to Folklore of the Supernatural.”   He explained that discourse analysis accepts the experience of the spiritual being as real at the level of experience.  The vernacular authority, on the other hand, is “an appeal to trust in what is handed down outside of any formally instituted social formation.”  He cited Don Yoder’s definition of folk religion, that folk religion is separate from but not necessarily in opposition to or replacement of official religion.[1]

As I mentioned above, I am a Kali worshipper, so I was familiar with the next panelist, Jeffrey Kripal , from his controversial book Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna.  I also heard him speak on a panel on North American Hinduism at the AAR in San Francisco in 2011. 

At this session, Dr. Kripal gave something of a fan’s appreciation entitled “Comparativism Unbound: The life and Work of David Hufford.”  It seems that Dr. Hufford has been Dr. Kripal’s mentor for most of his professional life, and from what we saw and heard, this relationship proved beneficial to religious scholarship. 

He described what he calls ‘supernatural assault phenomena,’ also known as ‘sleep paralysis’ or ‘Old Hag Syndrome.’   These phenomena are called by many terms and found throughout the world.  Described as an experience that occurs when one is awake, lying supine, and experiences physical paralysis, fear, the sense that someone is in the room, someone is on one’s chest.  An ‘old hag attack may be accompanied by the sound of footsteps, very soft, wearing no shoes.  This is the source of such phrases as “hag-ridden” and “haggard.” 

Dr. Hufford’s research centered in Newfoundland, where the included his own experience plus cross-cultural subjects.  He “found that these assaults are not associated with any anthropological variable. … People are being perfectly rational when they are reporting them.”[2] 

“Sleep paralysis does not seem to be causal.  It is more like the metaphor: the sun must go down for us to see the stars.  Night is a condition for us to see the stars but they do not cause the stars.” [3] 

David J. Hufford, from Penn State-Hershey and currently working with the Samueli Institute exploring the science of health presented a talk entitled “The Experience-Centered Approach to Spiritual Belief: Understanding the Persistent Enchantment of Modernity” immediately after Dr. Kripal.

Wow, this talk was even more fascinating than the two previous talks!  Gwendolyn took lots of notes, not especially easy for this reader to interpret, because we all have our own shorthands in note-taking.  Rather than incorporating her notes here, I’ll simply note a couple of things that impressed me most. 

Dr. Hufford cited Francisco Goya’s 1799 etching called “The Sleep of Reason Produces

Francisco Goya "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"

Monsters,” which I include here because, as they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

He has also published what appears to be a fascinating study, The Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions.   I recommended Hubbard’s book to my friend Megory Anderson, thinking it might prove germane to her work with the dying.  .  Further, Dr. Hufford's work at the Samueli Institute benefits veterans who return from the front with hidden injuries.

Our own Sabina Magglioco provided the response to the panelists, wearing her super-cool magical coat. 

* * * * *

 

Pagan Studies Dinner

Finally, on Saturday evening the Pagan scholars and other Pagans in attendance met for a dinner filled with lively chat and warm camaraderie.  This dinner is one of the few opportunities for all of us to see one another, since the Annual Meeting itself is vast and varied, and chances of our crossing paths are limited.

---

[1]   Thanks to Gwendolyn Reece for sharing some of her notes on these sessions.

[2]    Gwendolyn Reece.

[3]    Gwendolyn Reece.

Judy Harrow, 1945 - 2014

Judy Harrow, March 14, 1945 - March 21, 2014

I've just learned of the passing of my old friend Judy Harrow.  Her health had been fragile for some years now, so her passing is not entirely unexpected.  That said, it is a great loss to American Witchcraft and the Pagan movement in general.

First Meeting & CoG

Judy and I first met at CoG's very first MerryMeet festival at Rodeo Beach, Marin County, California, in 1981.1  Not only was this the first MerryMeet, but it was a first in other ways.  It was my first exposure to Witches2 beyond my Northern California Local Council of CoG.  It was the first time Witches from other areas attended a CoG gathering, and among those was Judy.  Also there were two Witches from Chicago and two from Salt Lake City.  From there Judy left to sow the seeds of a CoG presence in the Northeast.  If memory serves me, she also left with a membership in CoG and the first officership!  I'm not entirely sure about that, since it's possible that the two Chicago Witches,  unnamed here because I don't know their preferences about being identified publicly (although I suspect that now, as opposed to then they wouldn't object) left with that office.  CoG records can determine this accurately.  (There is more about Judy's involvement in CoG on Wikipedia; however, since her birth date listed therein is incorrect, I can't say how reliable the rest of the entry is.)

Judy left that event full of enthusiasm for CoG and its goal of assuring Witchen clergy the same rights and privileges as clergy of other religions.  Of course, the definition of clergy has changed since then, and is hardly uniform now.  That was a time when Witches were viewed as the 'clergy' for the rest of Pagandom.3  In any case, shortly thereafter there came into existence, in large part due to Judy's activism, the Northeast Local Council of CoG (NELCOG), encompassing New England, New York, and New Jersey.4

One of Judy's earlier efforts on behalf of CoG was to get CoG ministerial credentials accepted by the City of New York.  I recall this as having involved applications, hearings, petitions and meetings and other bureaucratic bother, with much help from Phyllis Curott, over a period of five long years.  In the end, Judy's and Phyllis' efforts resulted in one more jurisdiction recognizing the validity and authority of ministerial (and elder) credentials issued by a Pagan organization.  For that achievement alone Judy should be honored.

But she didn't stop there.  Judy's coven, Proteus, has engendered many prominent, and I daresay well-trained and -educated, Wiccans.  Some have gone on to write books and help to change and shape culture in other ways.

Some years later, in the 1990s I think, Judy and I sat on a panel at MerryMeet somewhere in Upstate New York.  The panel concerned different Craft traditions; among those speaking was the late Grey Cat of the NorthWind Tradition of American Wicca. This was at a time when Judy was struggling with the Gardnerian oath to which she'd been bound conflicting in some ways with what she believed was "right."  Now one individual's "right," "correct," or "proper" is not necessarily everybody else's "right," "correct," or "proper" even when presumably done with the understanding that everyone is swearing the same oath.  Since I'm not Gardnerian, I hadn't witnessed any of her efforts within that trad.  I do know, from a conversation with a Gardnerian elder this very day, that her statements on that panel claiming a "Protean schism" continue to have repercussions to this day.

I'm reminded of that day by Ivo Dominguez, Jr., who says (to Judy's spirit):

I first met you in 1991 at the COG MerryMeet when you gave a powerful speech before those assembled proclaiming that Protean Gardnerians were as valid as any other stripe of the Gardnerian Tradition. I was moved and impressed though I had no stake personal stake in the debate or the outcome. You made me care and you did it with clear words alone. I will miss the important though infrequent calls we had over the years. May you go forth shining and I'll see you on the other side. 

I remember standing up for Judy and saying I thought the venue she chose to make this announcement was entirely appropriate, much to the dismay of some others in attendance. I thought what she did and how and where she said it were entirely righteous.  I still do.

Gordon Cooper added:  "I encouraged her in that I told her if she felt a need to be heard, it should be said in public, in front of her peers."  Another in attendance, Cayte Jablow, says, "I was there also, & remember her courage & eloquence there as well."

Good people disagree about what Judy did, how she did it, and what it has meant to some of them ever since.

Honoring Precious Friendships

One of the fall-outs from that public announcement involved Judy's and my mutual and much-loved friend, John Patrick McClimans (one of the first Priests of Church of All Worlds).  He had worked with Proteus Coven when he lived in the same apartment building as Judy in Manhattan.  He went on to initiation, and if I'm not mistaken, to his Third Degree.  He was just fine with that, until the time when Judy contacted her initiates about her change of heart concerning the oath they'd all sworn.  John refused to change anything he'd avowed.  This led to an estrangement between the two that lasted for some years, until just before he passed.

I had the privilege of serving a one of John's death priestesses, an experience I described in "Sitting Vigil with the Dying" in The Pagan Book of Living and Dying (1997).  Something not mentioned in that piece is the rapprochement between Judy and John while he lay on his literal death bed in California.  I had alerted Judy to the direness of John's condition.  Judy phoned John, and they talked in low voices for a couple of hours during his final days.  I watched John's face from across the room.  I know both John and Judy were deeply moved and much relieved by this triumph of love over differences of opinion.  I know I was, because I loved both of them and knew how much each meant to the other.  I mention this because I'm hoping that any friends from whom Judy was estranged before her death had the opportunity to make things right between them.  I mention it because it's my hope that no one loses another or leaves this world with fractured relationships that remain unmended and unhealed.  I mention it because none of us ever knows how much time we or our loved ones may have to make such needed repairs.

Writings

Judy also was among the 40-odd contributors to The Pagan Book of Living and Dying, with "Coup de Grâce: Neo-Pagan Ethics and Assisted Suicide."

Shortly after that book was published, a Canadian publisher contacted me to write a book about the impact of the World Wide Web on Witchcraft and Paganism, resulting in Witchcraft and the Web (2001).  At that same time the publisher sought to publish a line of books about contemporary Paganism.  They asked me for suggestions.  I immediately thought of Judy and the late Grey Cat.  As a result, I'm happy to say that ECW Press published two of Judy's books, Spiritual Mentoring (2002) and Devoted to You (2003) as well as Grey Cat's Deepening Witchcraft (2002).

From there Judy and I, who had the same agent, moved to Citadel Press, publisher of subsequent titles.

Interfaith

In 2005 Judy, Katrina Messenger, and I were both invited to Center for Multifaith Education at Auburn Theological Seminary for what they called a "text study," which meant discussing Torah and Bible writings about women and Witches (or women with power?).  We had an interesting discussion with a rabbi, a Catholic sister, a Protestant pastor and others, all subscribers to book-based religions, whereas we are not.  Later than evening we sat on a public panel, at which Judy presented her piece "Exegesis on the Rede."  Others who are active in international interfaith organizations likely have more to say about her involvement on that level.

Cherry Hill Seminary

Somewhere around that time (late 1990s-early 2000s), Judy's and my mutual friend, Cat Chapin-Bishop, asked Judy and me to take a course she's designed for Cherry Hill Seminary.  That class was "Boundaries & Ethics," one of the best courses I've ever taken anywhere, and now a standard required course for all matriculating students.  The results of Cat's scheming have played out big time in Judy's and my continuing involvement with the seminary.  Cat was Chair of the Pastoral Counseling Department at that time, and when she returned to school to earn a teaching credential, she left the department in Judy's hands.

Judy took on this job with her usual determination, broadening the scope and fleshing out the department with new courses and new teachers.  At one point when she was ailing, she chose an assistant department chair, with the understanding that she'd be prepared to take Judy's place if Judy was no longer able to perform her duties.

I ended up taking on several different jobs over our first few years of feeling our way along, striving to keep to the vision, and making a school that worked.  Eventually the seminary shifted and settled and arranged itself into a stable state of operations.

It was during this time that Judy became the strongest influence in overcoming my reluctance to seek accreditation.  Now I'm a proud old hippie, one who treasures the fact that we arose from the smoky rainbow-hued '60s counter culture.  Not entirely, to be sure, but many seekers who eventually found a Pagan spiritual path wore flowers in their hair.  Anyway, Judy was active in a professional organization I recall as being the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, specifically the New Jersey Chapter.  I disliked the entire notion of pastoral care because of its Christian connotations.  Sheep in need of a shepherd indeed!  Hnf!  It seems an inaccurate term when applied to broom-closet Witches and other Pagans.  She convinced me that it is the accepted professional term for the field she'd devoted herself to, and that we needed credibility with such organizations.

Even more, she convinced me that Pagans in the military had a right to Pagan chaplains -- she wrote, or co-wrote, a Wiccan5 chaplains' manual for the U.S. military at one time; I don't think it's in use currently -- and that having graduates come out of an accredited seminary with a Master of Divinity was essential in order for them to be accepted.  The more I learned about the situations of Pagans in the military, especially with the evangelical Christian agenda of most career military chaplains, the more I agreed about accreditation.  The fact that hospital and school chaplains, as well as others in professional counseling positions, benefited too made the prospect even more compelling.

Judy and I both served on the CHS Board of Directors for a while, she for one term, I for longer.  In more recent years her health led to her reduce her workload, so she's left more of the day-to-day work of making a seminary to others.

In 2009 when Judy had retired from CHS, the Board honored her service by designating its new online resource the Judy Harrow Library & Information Center "to meet the specific information requests of professors for their courses and students, and serve as a repository for faculty and student work" and to complement our current relationship with the New Alexandrian Library.

For many years she also served on the Board of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

During those years Judy and I also enjoyed our participation in the Nature Religions Scholars Network, which grew to become the Pagan Studies Section of the American Academy of Religion.

As news of Judy's passing circles the globe, our AAR colleague from Dale Cowley Wallace in South Africa writes me:

It is so early here in Africa and I have woken to your mail on Pagan Studies telling of the passing of Judy.  My heart is broken at this news and I feel lost, bewildered and so far away.  This wonderful person I loved so dearly and whose life was such a gift to so many.  I spoke to her very regularly and my last call just a few days ago.  My friend was filled with optimism, new thoughts and much laughter.  Like she told me once in another context, she is "off to new adventures".  Out of words I send blessings to you.

High Maintenance

Like many of us strong, proud, opinionated women, Judy tended towards high-maintenance.  Not so much in physical terms, more in emotional and intellectual terms.  If you knew her, you know what I mean.  That's not a criticism, merely a statement of fact learned from observation and experience.  I'm not exactly low-maintenance myself, though I try to be.  In fact, such tendencies may be evidence of one who is driven to change culture, to serve one's community(ies).

Oh, there's so much more to say about Judy and her life!  Others have told their Judy stories elsewhere.  There's plenty of drama to go round.  In my experience, however, over many years and many projects, Judy maintained the ability to keep her eye on the prize.  Regardless of personal disagreements -- and they could be long and heated and irresolvable -- Judy made sure we kept our focus on the goal toward which we were striving.  Her life influenced many people, from teaching coveners to getting NYC to accept CoG's credentials, from writing a Wiccan chaplains' manual for the military to schmoozing with world religious leaders in Barcelona, from dancing round a bonfire to helping create a respected Pagan seminary.

Knowing Judy has enriched my life beyond measure.  She was a Pagan pioneer.  If you knew her, you know all this.  If you didn't know her in life, know that her work has advanced our religions and made our futures more assured and comfortable.  She has blessed us all.

Judy went to the simmering cauldron of emerging American Paganism and added something every once in a while.  Then she'd stir it to mix it all in and to keep stuff from sticking on the bottom.

Hail the goer!

~~~~~~~~

Note:  I am positive that the date of April 3 which appears on Judy's Wikipedia entry is incorrect.  I know she was a Pisces like me, since we often made note of that fact.  I'm uncertain of the year.  I thought it was 1946; Wikipedia says 1945; I could easily be mistaken.

1.  This was not the first CoG Grand Council, only the first MerryMeet.

2.  CoG is an organization of Witches, some of whom are Wiccans (i.e., lineaged British Traditional Witches).

3.  No need to get on my case about this.  This is not a stance I take, it's just the way it was then.

4.  NELCOG dissolved some years later and reformed in other iterations, including Weavers LC.

5.  Yes, Wiccan, not Pagan.  After all, Judy was a Gardnerian priestess.  Getting this manual under the eyes of military chaplaincy personnel was a righteous act that ultimately benefited all Pagans.