The Nov issue of EKO newsletter will be out on the 15th. If you have any
community events which you would like to list for free please send them to me at
chicagopaganpride@....
We also have advertising space available in this month's newsletter for $5.00.
If you have not signed up and would like to sign up you can do so at
www.chicagopaganpride.org
Blessed Be
Maria
Merry Meet -
The leadership committee for Chicago Pagan Pride has started a newsletter and we
would like to invite you to sign up to receive it.
Our Newsletter named, "EKO" is free. There are no subscription charges.
Our first issue will be out in mid October just in time for Samhain. To kick off
our first newsletter AutTumn, who is a published author, obtained an interview
with one of the hottest authors in the Pagan Community: Christopher Penczak.
We will be including a celebrity interview in each issue as well as an interview
with a local pagan who has made an impact on the pagan community along with
poems, spells, articles, short stories and other things of interest to fellow
pagans including updates on Chicago Pagan Pride 2010. Contributions are always
welcome. If you have anything that you would like to contribute please feel free
to contact us thru www.chicagopaganpride.org
We still have $5.00 ads available for the October issue but space is filling up
fast!
Our Nov. issue will contain an interview with Dee from Pagan FM and will revolve
around pagan music and books.
We also have advertising space in the newsletter. We have monthly sponsorship
which gets you a banner ad at the top and bottom of the newsletter, a short bio
of text and your banner ad on the front page of the Chicago Pagan Pride website
for the month. The price is $30 monthly.
In addition, we offer three lines of text with your link for $5.00 for the month
and a banner ad or link of your choice on our forthcoming "Support The
Community" page on the website.
We still have a bit of space to fit in a few reader contributions if any of you
have something great to share in relation to Samhain that you would like to add
to the newsletter.
We are also taking submissions pertaining to pagan music and books for the
November issue.
Please either contact one of us directly or sign up thru the website at
www.chicagopaganpride.org using the form on the front page and we will
automatically add you to the newsletter.
Blessed Be
The Chicago Pagan Pride 2010
Leadership Committee
Maria, AutTumn, and Tonya
Greetings,
I'm Maria Alioto, the co-Local Coordinator of Chicago Pagan Pride. I would like
to introduce myself and thank everyone for attending. Let me be the first to
announce that I'll be the new Local Coordinator for the Chicago Pagan Pride in
2010.
The PHOTOS are up and ready for you all to see!
http://chicagopaganpride.org
This year's event was wonderful! We collected 800 lbs of food for the local
food pantry (almost double what we had last year!), and had 400 happy Pagans
and Pagan-friendly people attending.
We had so many talented artisans and vendors with the most delightful array of
wares. Our entertainers were fabulous - I heard rave reviews about them all.
This year we had some wonderful community booths, readers, psychics and an
awesome spa line up. Once again, we owe special thanks to Rosina for performing
the main ritual. Our volunteers and Leadership committee worked exceptionally
hard to put things together. I did get a chance to speak to many of you who
attended and I am so glad that so many of you came out.
On behalf of the Chicago Pagan Pride leadership team, Paulette, Naya and myself
I would like to thank you for making this the best Chicago Pagan Pride yet!
I look forward to seeing you all again next year. Please also note that there
is a new contact email address, too!
P. S. If you'd like to be a VOLUNTEER for 2010, please contact me directly!
Brightest Blessings,
Maria
CPP Local Coordinator
Chicago Pagan Pride
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://chicagopaganpride.orghttp://paganpride.orgchicagopaganpride@...
10 Reasons It Sucks To Be
A Woman
http://dennisnajee.wordpress.com/2008/08/09/10-reasons-it-sucks-to-be-a-woman/
Here is a list by an
unknown author. What do you all think.
1) I am so sick of my
period! One-third of every month is negatively affected by my period. I am
either sick from cramps, bloated beyond belief, on it, finishing it, too
emotional, not emotional at all, or just simply not myself. The right months
are worse than the left ones. Ortho, Depo and the others do nothing to help..
2) I hate make-up. I went
to work today without make-up (I feel like crap already) and the first thing I
hear when I sit down is a co-worker saying “I see you woke up late this
morning, you should put your face on before anyone else sees you like that”…
WTF, this is my face… it is a cute face… I like it just the way it is. Why do I
have to put on a show for everyone around me, hell some of the guys here don’t
even shave before coming to work… they wear the same tired clothes every week…
so why do I need to bother?
3) I have to be a slave to
fashion. Same as the make-up situation, god forbid if I wear my most
comfortable pants to work, or an out of style outfit that I personally like..
Why do I have to spend a couple thousand dollars a year on clothes and
accessories, why do all of my friends want to shop all of the time. This is a
sickness, and I am sick of it. I wish I could dress like a guy, in the same
suit I bought in 1999 and the same tie that I have worn every week for the past
three years. That would be nice!
4) My bra has never fit me
right! Why can’t I find a bra that fits me perfectly? One that is slightly
adjustable to compensate for my ever changing body? With the right cup just
slightly
larger than the left cup, one that provides just the right amount of support.
Is this too much to ask, retailers have put significant effort into the
feminine hygiene realm, perhaps they could divert some of their R&D monies
away from moisture lock technologies and into making the perfect bra. If only I
was a little smaller, then I could go without.
5) I hate the following
terms: Pussy, Slit, Cooche, Cunt, Snatch, Cooter, Beaver, Hole, Muff, Twat, and
Clam… I also hate Titties, Boobies, Funbags, Melons and any other idiotic name
people come up with for my body parts. I have a vagina and breasts or tits.
Easy as that. Can you say Vagina? I hope so.
6) Double standards: Men
get away with murder in the business world. Women are held to a much higher
degree
of scrutiny and to a much higher standard than men. When men talk they are
networking, when women talk we are gossiping… when men make mistakes they are
risk takers, when women make mistakes we are incompetent, when men argue they
are debating, when women argue we are being catty. You get the idea. I am just
as smart, if not smarter than most of my coworkers, but I will always get stuck
behind a guy with ‘ambition and drive’, especially when I spend a good portion
of my month focusing on my insides (see #1).
7) Sex is different for
women. Men take great pride in bedding women, as many and as often as possible.
If a women expresses her sexuality she is a whore, tramp or slut. Rightly so
sometimes… there is no female equivalent to the blow job, a blow job is a power
trip for the guy… I am on my knees in front of him or with my head around his
waist in some fashion, pleasuring him until he finishes, then it is up to me to
clean up while he basks in the satisfaction. If he goes down on me, it is a
different experience, there is no power exchange, he is still in a powerful
position (legs apart is always vulnerable) and he is still happy to see my
vagina. The picture alone is worth ten minutes of licking on his part. Don’t
even get me started on penetration…
8) My yearly gyno appointment. enough said, I wish I
could just turn my head and cough, just once!
9) The bathroom! Ok, I am
not going to talk about the cleanliness of bathrooms and the hygiene habits of
women, that has been covered ad nauseum on this board. I am going to say that I
wish I could be a little neater when I pee, I can’t stand that first dribble
that tends to go somewhere other than in the bowl if I am not sitting. The
squat pee (which I have to do given the state of the restrooms in some places)
is never neat for me. No need for graphic details here.
10) My mother and all
other women who feel that I am breaking the social contract by not having
children. I have enough issues with my girly parts already, I can’t imagine
what having a child would do to me. I also don’t feel like bringing new babies
into the current world, so don’t tell me that I should. Don’t say that I should
’start looking for a husband’ because I am getting older… why don’t you tell
the guys, ‘better get serious about a family, your time is ticking’.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Progress on that ...
One new person has signed up for one of the two meetups, and
has RSVP-ed, and so apparently is interested. I've already gone
on record as requiring a quorum of six to hold a Meetup.
Otherwise, the thing would have that uncomfortable "blind date"
feel to it. I'll give it a few months, and if I can get the
siz RSVPs will be delighted to hold the Meetup, but I'm
still not optimistic. Not that this should keep anybody from
signing up and RSVP-ing, as both are free.
http://www.Meetup.com/
If things don't work out, I'll probably just dump the Recon
meetup and replace the Pagan meetup with a Conservative Pagan
meetup. It's a question of what it is that people are interested
in, and willing to put an effort out for. While other Pagan
lists are just lingering, in some cases looking very much
like something waiting to be put out of its misery, the
Conservative Pagan lists are slowly but surely taking off.
Personally, I'm not completely surprised. Political Correctness
primarily worked by terrorizing people into silence, so a lot
of the lurking and slacking we see now may be little more than
a conditioned response in a Liberal-domainated community.
Conservatives, however, had the good sense to reject the
confrontationally paranoid PC ethic from Day One, and to reject
it firmly. This has made for a much more warm and comfortable
social atmosphere, one that encourages spontaneity.
Also, while Liberalism seems to encourage the true believer
to make endless demands of others, often with little concern
as to how reasonable those demands are, Conservativism
has encouraged more of a spirit of self-reliance. The
difference is that while a liberal will show up to a
participatory event and wonder why all of the work hasn't
already been done (by whom is never made clear), the
conservative knows that work gets done only because somebody
does it, and "if not by me, then by who" he asks himself,
just diving in and doing what needs to be done, and there is
nothing more participatory than a mailing list.
It's the difference between a political view that would turn
us all into dependents of the state, vs. one that wants
children to really grow up to be adults, and the expectations
such views create as to what is to be expected out of the
individual by others, and by himself. I think that this
is where the real future of Paganism is to be found. I'll
keep this list up for a possible future time when an
expanding Conservative Pagan community, looking for new
places to meet online, discovers it.
Antistoicus
Two, technically, but they function as one:
"Followers of Aphrodite" : http://pagan.meetup.com/687/
"Followers of the Olympians" : http://reconst.meetup.com/53/
The second meets 30 minutes after the first starts, in the
same location. While the group would follow something akin
to reconstructionism, it wouldn't be hard Reconstructionist
putting it on the boundary of the Pagan and Reconstructionist
categories, and establishing it that way seemed to be the
best way of dealing with its hard-to-pigeonhole character.
We'll see if people are interested. I hope so, and it's worth
trying, but to be honest, I'm not completely optimistic. People
who've tried to run meetups have often reported problems with
non-participation, memberships that aren't willing to do anything
until "things start moving", not bothering to think about the
fact that the reason why things aren't moving is because
everybody is sitting around waiting for things to start moving.
But, like I said, we'll see.
Antistoicus
Still getting no responses, I see. You folks do know that you
can post to this list, right?
On real concern, for anybody holding such a gathering here in
Chicago, is where to hold it. Even if the Chicago police were
willing to wink and look the other way as some of us went
charging down the street in our skin, the climate would not
be as forgiving. -20 degree Farenheit temperatures are hardly
unknown at the time of year, with winds easily topping 30 mph
on a regular basis. Chicago does not have a Mediterranean
climate, or even a Northwestern European one.
One possible solution might sound a little depressing, but
let's face it - Chicago is depressing, a nasty, grey bleak
place, that isn't going to look charming no matter how we
look at it. But we can make the most of it.
One thing that our city possesses in regrettable abundance
is floorspace in abandoned factories, let over from the
closings of the late 20th century. These things were built
solidly, to contain explosions, and in the process, were
built to last. Artists have taken them over in the past,
and turned them into extremely spacious studio and loft
spaces, if, perhaps, not in the best neighborhoods. OK, so
now, instead of running naked from the police with our
appendages falling off and shattering, our participants
would be running around naked on bare concrete floors,
inside an old warehouse or factory. Is this a steup upward?
It is, if we make it into one. Lay down a little canvas,
perhaps - much kinder to bare feet than concrete, especially
in the midwinter chill. Have people bring a lot of nice, large
plastic plants, dim the lights, and let imagination take
hold. With a little work, one can get one's guests to
hallucinate a whole forest into existence well enough,
that they won't be bothered by their surroundings.
A little silly, but then, so is Mardis Gras.
I'm pleased to see how many people have signed up for this list.
Pleased, but a little confused. This is the homelist of a proposed
Chicago area group, and yet most of you don't even seem to be
located on the North American continent! Yes, I know, it's on the
uk server. I have no idea of how that happened, having never even
been a visitor to the British isles, much less a resident.
So, where stands the krewe? I put this project off to one side
for a few years, not coming back to it until recently. I wasn't
sure of the direction to take it in, but with the (short lived)
resurrection of "Skyclad in Chicago", I had an opportunity to
test the waters a little. I have to admit, they were a little
choppy. The very question "how do we help create a more comfortable
environment for would-be female participants", pitched to a Pagan
crowd, produced responses that varied between paranoid hysteria
(somebody though that the discussion was a veiled personal attack
on him) and a stoner's brain-dead self-satisfaction (complete
with comments about how people were "living too much in their
heads" when the discussion turned too rational for his tastes).
Very clearly it became clear that any attempt to run this as a
strictly Pagan event was doomed to disaster. The childishness and
self-absorption are just too common and well-entrenched for an
adult event there to be a good idea.
How does one handle this? Part of the answer, I would suggest,
is to recognize that while a festival, for some of us, may carry
religious significance, the actions taken during them aren't
intrinsically religious. We can go out, we can party and talk
about the history and culture a little bit along the way -
and leave it at that, keeping the event outwardly secular,
keeping the spiritual experience a personal one, shared only
with a few who come by and ask, shared by those who are open to
doing so - BUT WITH NO ATTEMPT TO MAKE THIS A COLLECTIVE
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. I think that's important - important
enough to underline or put in caps in lieu of a way of
underlining the text. In some sense, by trying to make the
spirituality collective, we hand the outright nutcases a
podium they can try to seize hold of, and an excuse to say that
normal societal expectations should be set aside. By saying
that that which is collective shall stay secular, we take that
excuse away. And we open the door to participation by our
Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends who might have some very
serious qualms about taking part in anything Pagan.
What is common is what we do, not what we believe, and if
you wish to think of a statue as representing an angel or
relevant patron saint or even just an allegorical figure and
the values embodied by it, go right ahead - a ceremony
in honor of that which you would wish to honor is what you'll
be part of, and why not? Take a good look at the myth of
Romulus and Remus. The Roman gods make few appearances in it.
The symbolism, if representing remarkable events, is nevertheless
secular - one could just as easily have God looking over the
infants and inclining the wolf to be gentle. Thus, we lose
nothing and gain much by making this a multifaith group, and
as Classical Traditionalists some of us do our part to help to
return to Pagandom, something that it has been losing - its
sense of humor. The ability to not take itself so (bleeping!)
seriously. As for the Christians, they get a good party.
Win-win, eh?
One very basic understanding for those who would come, though -
we talk ABOUT religion from time to time, but we don't talk
OF religion - we approach it on an academic or cultural level.
What did people do in the past, what did they believe, what
are the implications of those beliefs - but we don't talk about
what our beliefs are. Some who are present are Catholic, some
are Pagan, and odds are you won't know who's who if you're
there - and you shouldn't ask. It's a private matter that, as
we've seen will not (and should not) have any bearing on what
we are doing. On another day, perhaps we might discuss this,
but here that mystery is left as yet another of the masks we wear.
More later.
Antistoicus
Owner, Lupercalia Gathering
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