These are the steps of Pagan religious life, a map to building and advancing your practice in a way that’s meaningful and helpful. It’s not the only way and it’s certainly not the One True Way, but it’s a way – and it’s a way that works.

Satchel Paige--the Big League years. at last.   Note:  Yesterday we took Satchel Paige’s wild ride from childhood to the cusp of World War II.  Now the rest of the story. Achievements like Satchel Paige’s—his 19–3 record, a 1.93 ERA, and 208 strikeouts in 205 innings in the Puerto Rican League in 1940—naturally revived interest in Paige despite his ban in the Negro Leagues for jumping to the Mexican League in 1938.  The Kansas City Monarchs were now in the new Negro American League and could not promote Paige to their regular roster until the ban could be dealt with.  Paige started the 1940 season with his barnstorming team.  The Negro National League (NNL) Newark team claimed they owned rights to Paige.  It took a meeti...

The needles of this tree are only 2-4 cm long. Like its close relative Pinus balfouriana, from yesterday, they grow in a “foxtail” of closely bunched needles. “The oldest known dated living trees are Bristlecone Pines more than 4600 years old . . . . Although these trees are classed among the oldest known living […]

Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out what is joy and what is happiness. Are they the same thing? How should I be attached to it, do I deserve happiness or is it just something that exists where we find it? Like In a cup of tea, or a moment with dear friend. I do … Continue reading Happiness and Joy

Journalist Sean McShee compares the modern Olympic Games to the Olympics of antiquity. Continue reading The Olympics, a pagan festival? at The Wild Hunt.

Sunday, February 13, 10:30 a.m. Widening the Circle: Pro-Sex, Pro-Choice, Pro-Life An Online Worship Service led by Rev. Alice Anacheka-Nasemann, UCMH, and Rev. Lynda Sutherland, First Parish Northboro   Join us this Sunday, February 13, as Rev. Alice and Rev. Lynda reflect on what it means to be pro-sex, pro-choice and pro-life.     Join Zoom Meeting   [ … ] The post Sunday, February 13 ~ Pro-Sex, Pro-Choice, Pro-Life ~ 10:30 a.m. appeared first on Unitarian Church of Marlborough and Hudson.

      “Everywhere I went I inquired as to the local whereabouts of a spiritual director or a devout spiritual guide. Eventually I was told that in a certain village there was a landowner who had lived there for a long time and who spent all his time working out his salvation. He had […]

…The comfort of invisibility, the ease of ignorance As I continue to study the ethical foundations of equity, particularly as those foundations show up in public policy, I learn more about the various personal motivations that seem to sit at the heart of cultural belief.  I’m struck by how, in a very general way, when […]

Lynette Yetter I was often being a stern taskmaster over my mind. I yearned for more openness and joy. Continue reading "Starting Fresh"

                                             Satchel Paige's breakthrough Baseball Hall of Fame plaque.  Note:   One of those posts in which my enthusiasm for the subject broke the length limits of an acceptable blog post.   Thus today part I of a two day series. On February 9, 1971 Satchel Paige became the first player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame for his accomplishments in the old Negro Leagues .   It was a belated honor for both the legendarypitcher and Black baseball in the Jim Crow era. Paige, who was both coy and vague about his exact age, undoubtedly had the longest career ever in professional baseball from 1926 with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts of the Negro Southern League to his last p...

The Ozarks Watch video filmed at ESSSA about hands-on learning can now be viewed online at your convenience. https://video.optv.org/video/hands-on-education-p5fsiw/ Today in the Clear Spring School wood shop we'll be working on bird houses and bird feeders.  Kindergarten students will be making boxes. Make, fix and create...

Going for something a bit more impressionistic. Didn’t capture the feel of rippling waves that the original gave me, but I try, try again.

For me, joy is like a deep feeling of gratitude for major elements of my life beyond the circumstances. For example, even amidst the rivers of tears in the last year and a half, I’ve found great joy due to finding a community of like-hearted people, here and in other spaces, to work with, struggle … Continue reading Gratitude and Grace

UUSC partner Victim Advocates International is working tirelessly to hold Facebook accountable for its complicity in the Rohingya genocide.

My father-in-law, Marty Morgenstern, died on Saturday. I can’t believe he’s gone. I know the unreality will fade with time, but I will keep on missing him. Marty was very special to me, and although I’m glad to say I had many opportunities to say why before–such as at his “I’m really, really retiring this […]

Bylaws often include a statement of purpose. In this religious community, the UU Schenectady Bylaws use the language of covenant, of promises we make to one another. We are, after all, a covenantal rather than a creedal faith. The UUSS Bylaws say, “ARTICLE 2: PURPOSE The members ... read more . The post Co-Ministers’ Colloquy- Feb. 8th appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

WINTER OUTING! Come, join the Green Sanctuary folks for a winter outing at the Albany Pine Bush on Saturday, 2/12, from 1:30-3:30. See 2/8/22 Circuits for details. Upcoming RE Classes: – K-6 EXPERIENCES WITH THE WEB OF LIFE:  These nature lovers will meet again Sunday morning, 2/20, from 9:30-10:15. – ... read more . The post RE This Week – Feb. 8th appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

30 Days of Love is Side With Love’s annual celebration that runs approximately from Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January through Valentine’s Day in February. It is an opportunity to collectively nurture our spirits, deepen our understanding, and take action on our values ... read more . The post 30 Days of Love appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

As we gear up for UU the Vote 2022, I am excited to tell you about our Spring 2022 Skill Up Series! But first, let me tell you about my learning journey last week, participating in the UU Ministers’ Association Institute for the Learning Ministry. I immersed myself in worship and thought-provoking keynotes. I played cello as part of a ritual of lament with fellow members of the Committee on Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression and Multiculturalism. I had FOMO (fear of missing out) as I made dinner for my children during seminar time, but I also got to take in some parts of it that fed my soul and challenged my mind in evocative ways.  Lifelong learning and the ever-unfolding of our paths is central to Unitarian Universalist practice. For m...

A Tennessee pastor held an event that included burning books that related to Witchcraft and the occult. Continue reading Pastor holds “ol’ fashioned” book burning to destroy “witchcraft” items at The Wild Hunt.

By Ricky Tucker | This was one of the first images my friend and “And the Category Is . . .” photographer Kareem Worrell developed while I was writing the book—and it became an aspirational photo. The audacity of Lee, the central figure, drove my urge to match in tone his ferocity in the first few chapters. To, like Ballroom, unapologetically hold accountable the public appropriation of this unique culture, AND to elevate to divine status the unwavering love that is its foundation. In short, this photo is the epitome of the chapter “Werk.”

A recorded sermon, suggestions for opening and closing words, readings, and hymns, as well as a complete transcript. Continue reading "Sermon of the Month Series for Small Congregations"

Bruce Knotts We see a historical pattern that puts everyone in the world in danger. To obtain a safe and dignified life, we need to foster trust, mutual support, and reliance on science.

        The list of things I do not believe in is quite long. Among the things I do believe is our Lady of Guadalupe. Okay, believe isn’t quite the right word. Rather Mary appears in my life in all sorts of intersections. She does have different names at these intersections. And her […]

  Students at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg marched after some of them had been barred from the All Star Bowling Alley and roughed up by police the night before.  This orderly demonstration deteriorated into scuffles after being attacked by police. 1968 was one of the most eventful years in American history—the Vietnam War raged.   Riotsexpressing Black rage tore up inner cities. Chicago Police themselves rioted, beating and gassing demonstrators at the Democratic Party Convention. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. Richard Nixonwas elected President. Apollo astronauts first orbited the Moon. Maybe that explains how the first shooting of students on campus by authorities on February 8, 1968 gets ov...

Third-rate preachers have been burning books for years. In an era of mass production, it’s an exercise in futility. But it’s also a warning. This preacher and his church are trying to destroy what they see as upsetting the proper order of things.

I call it Black Joy because I am Black and it is the joy that I have been familiar with my whole life. It is the joy that I have learned from Black people. It is the joy created through our collective healing — our laying down of burdens, to be picked up and shared … Continue reading Black Joy

Someone pointed out to me that Star Island has posted an interesting job opening. Star Island, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, is a retreat center off the coast of New Hampshire that was founded by Unitarians and liberal Congregationalists, and remains affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the UUA. … Continue reading "Not OK"

In this week's Pagan Community Notes: Indigenous communities denounce Ottowa protestors using Native symbols, HBCUs threatened at the start of Black History Month, Roma demand Jimmy Carr apologize, community announcements and more news. Continue reading Pagan Community Notes: Week of February 7, 2022 at The Wild Hunt.

Harbor Freight Fellows continues to repost some of my blog/facebook posts on occasion as they did today. It's a reminder that we're all in this together and there are many hands working on educational reform. https://www.harborfreightfellows.org/post/wisdom-of-the-hands-serial-position-effect Make, fix and create...

as preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, December 24, 2021 “For there exists a great realm and a boundlessness whose measure no angelic race has comprehended.” I start my annual Christmas homily with words you have probably never heard before. They come from a text that I suspect is equally unfamiliar, the […]

  It was this day, the 7th of February, in 1497 that followers of the Dominican friar and preacher and for a moment functional dictator of Florence, Girolamo Savonarola, gathered together what they and the good friar considered temptations into sin, piled them up, and lit them as bonfires. These objects included clothing, cosmetics, mirrors, […]

Going through my boxes of old files in the basement, I am now working on files related to activism in solidarity with Indigenous people in Boston back in the 1990s. I found some correspondence with one particular activist, for example, and I am remembering the long process of getting to know each other, building trust, […]

Through the church, we became incredibly involved in the greater Tulsa community. All Souls has enriched our lives in so many ways. It is because of All Souls that we have and are living a fulfilled, rewarding, and enjoyable life in Tulsa. The post Centennial Award: Dave Kroll appeared first on BeyondBelief.

Yesterday I watched myself on the Ozarks Watch video production, and have decided TV does not put me in my best light. I've gotten a bit too old for that kind of spotlight. The old joke, "you look perfect for radio comes to mind." In any case, however, I did manage to tell my tale and get some word out about our Eureka Springs School of the Arts and about the need for hands on learning. The crew took some nice video of my boxes and of the school and I thank them sincerely for their interest in my career and their kindness during the production of the show. Pre-orders of the new book are going well with over 1200 copies being ordered so far. Make, fix and create...

  Debi Thompson on ice at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. Note —The controversial Beijing Winter Olympics are in full swing and ever popular figure skating competitions are underway with new stars with compelling stories. There are more Black faces sprinkled among the athletes than in the past, due largely to international teams .   Afro-Americans include speed skater Erin Jackson , short track racer Mama Biney , and bobsledders Elana Meyers Taylor , Sylvia Hoffman , Kaysha Love , and Hakeem Abdul-Saboor but look high and low and you will find no figure skaters. Thirty-four years ago, at Calgary figure skating was about the whitest sport imaginable.   OK, maybe yachting or some other contestthat requires millions of dollars for th...

Also known as the two-needle pinyon. “The most common species on the south rim of the Grand Canyon.”

Joy can be big–for example, the birth of a child.  Joy can also be small things to be happy about–seeing an old friend, watching a bird eat, seeing a color filled sunset, wearing new warm socks on a cold day.  Be sure to take the time to embrace the joy you feel in the smaller … Continue reading Small Joys

The Aquarian Tabernacle Church (ATC) announced its award winners last week and report on the recipients and took a moment to spotlight the organization's work and history. Continue reading Aquarian Tabernacle Church International announces leadership awards at The Wild Hunt.

as preached at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, February 5, 2022 It is good to be back in the pulpit. I miss you when I am gone. Not that I particularly went anywhere. I spent most of the last month holed up in my home office working on finishing the manuscript for the […]

Is the earth a mirror image of the sky? No wonder the ancients thought heaven was above us. For me, God (and heaven) is on this earth. Beauty is in abundance, at least around here. It helps me to believe that God is here with us and not sitting on a throne way up in […]

We kick off February's exploration of "Widening the Circle" with a look at the circles closest to us – our own selves and the people we call "us."

Under stress or despair, I feel as if a completely different person inhabits me. When jealousy arises, I contract becoming stingy and cranky. When fear sweeps over me, my imagination dissolves to one single response. When anger and rage strike, my choices are so constricted I spew forth unhelpfully. Spiritual Practice is like a great reminder. The post Please, Help Me Remember to Be Loving appeared first on BeyondBelief.

Melissa Lewis will be at the church parking lot this Sunday afternoon (6 February 2022) from 2:00 to 4:00 PM to collect food and other items for the Noel United Methodist Church Food Pantry. Items requested this month are Jiffy cornbread mix, canned soups (any brand), and cereal (any brand).

      Joseph Priestley died on this day, the 6th of February, in 1804. He was born into a comfortable dissenting family in Birstall, Yorkshire, on the 24th of March, 1733. As a small child he lived with various extended family. His brilliance was quickly noticed, at four he could recite the entire Westminster Shorter […]

As week 4 of 30 Days of Love begins, I’m thrilled to introduce myself to you. I’m Rachel Myslivy, Climate Justice Organizer for the UUA’s Side With Love Organizing Strategy Team.  As someone who has worked in the climate movement for roughly fifteen years, I know that we all come to the work from different places with different perspectives and strategies. Climate justice requires us to see climate change not as a technical problem to be solved, but as a moral and ethical challenge that we as people of faith need to rise to meet and overcome.   Climate justice requires us to act on the reality that the communities hit first and worst by climate change are the least responsible for climate impacts.  Similarly, climate impacts exa...

Today, February 6, 2022, Ozark Public Television's program Ozarks Watch features an interview with me recorded at the Eureka Springs School of the Arts. Locally or on local satellite, look for channel 21. The program airs from 1:30 to 2:30 with my segment being the second half. News around the country is that being an educator is an endangered profession. Teachers are disrespected and undervalued and are leaving the profession in droves. Teachers with a masters degree in education often leave the profession in their first five years. This is in part due to the unreasonable expectations placed upon teachers—too large class sizes, the rigid expectation of teaching exactly by the book, and the use of standardized testing to measure studen...

The first minstrel show established conventions and stereotypes for blackface revues and introduced songs like Jimmy Crack Corn  and Turkey in the Straw.  Note the end men who became the stock characters Tambo and bones. On February 6, 1842 the very first all Blackface revuetook the stage of the Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City.  The Virginia Minstrels launched a new theatrical form with their own entirely self-contained shows after brief trials, first for no admission at a billiards parlor, and in January as part of a larger program at the Chatham Theater. While Blackface performers had been popular on stage for at least two decades, they usually appeared as soloor duet acts or occasionally in short comic skits.  The new show pu...

I plan to get back to the needles once I have my field guide again, but I’m tempted to just draw one of these every day until I have done them justice.

An atheist blogger hopes that reincarnation is real. I believe it’s real, but I hold that belief rather loosely. I might be wrong, and even if I’m not I don’t want to get so caught up in the next life that I neglect to live this life as fully as I can.

      Joseph Priestley died on this day, the 6th of February, in 1804. He was the chemist generally acknowledged as the discoverer of oxygen, and not long after of soda water. Priestley was also an educator, progressive political theorist, and a Unitarian clergyman. According to the Wikipedia article on him, “Priestley’s science was integral […]

In recent years, I have come to embrace joy as an act of resistance. There is so much evil and sadness out there and it was through reading and following Black activists that I realized that we can’t get lost in the idea of finding joy wherever we can. How do you resist the evil … Continue reading Resistance

"Does the toll of work on the physical body bring about a sense of depletion or restoration? Aging is a fact of life. When what we do for a living hastens the spread of life's markings on our bodies, a change can be made. I find that asking this question on a regular basis matters to keep my energetic levels in balance. I ask if what I do nourishes and restores me. I ask if I choose this work today. Each day.  I leave in flexibility to change my mind each day because I am human." Continue reading Column: Time is a Gift of the Great Pause at The Wild Hunt.

Please join us on Sunday (6 February 2022) at 11:00 AM for “Revelation in Relationship” by Rev. Barbara Jarrell. Our service will be livestreamed on Facebook Live here. For this Sunday only, we will not have an online coffee hour because many of us will be going to the Highland Center for the LA-AID Fundraiser. … Continue reading "Online All-Ages Worship (6 February 2022)"

Our give-away-the-plate recipient for February 2022 is the Whitney Plantation. Every month, we dedicate all of our non-pledge income to an organization doing the work that best embodies our Unitarian Universalist principles and values. We usually choose a local organization but we are changing that for this Black History Month in order to honor The … Continue reading "Whitney Plantation — February 2022 Give-Away-The-Plate Recipient"

When: Saturday, February 5 from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm Where: Unitarian Church of Los Alamos 1738 N. Sage St. (Patio outside front door) Bring only packets of seeds you wish to give away entirely. You may not get any back! Take only enough seeds you can use in one growing season. If you are …<p> 2022 Community Seed Swap Read More »

You are invited to a fundraiser for Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention on 6 February 2022 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM at the Highland Center (520 Olive Street, Shreveport LA  71104). Join us for an afternoon of food music, and art as we celebrate one year of advocacy and aid. If you can’t … Continue reading "Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention Fundraiser (6 February 2022)"

Please join us on Sunday (6 February 2022) at 9:00 AM for our adult religious education class via Zoom. This Sunday’s topic is “Redistricting in Louisiana”: The Special Redistricting Session of the Louisiana Legislature opened this past Tuesday (1 February 2022) and must be completed by 20 February 2020. This Sunday, we will have a … Continue reading "Online Adult Religious Education — 6 February 2022"

We will continue to watch the local COVID numbers.  We feel encouraged by the dropping Omicron COVID case rates. We are not resuming regular classes for children and youth at this time because our classrooms are too small to be safe for unvaccinated children, and because we want some time to be together and nurture … Continue reading "Children and Youth Religious Education Updates"

Please join us next Tuesday (8 February 2022) at 12 noon for our weekly Zoom lunch (please note the new day of the week for Zoom lunch). Bring your lunch and meet up with your All Souls friends, have lunch, and just catch up.

      Inayat Khan Rehmat Khan Pathan died in Delhi, India, on this day, the 5th of February, in 1927. He is more commonly known as Hazrat Inayat Khan. Hazrat being an honorific. And sometimes by the title Pir-O-Murshid, which could be understood as senior teacher and head of a Sufi order. He was born […]

African Americans cast their first vote during Reconstruction,  In 1870 the 15th Amendment was meant to protect the right to vote. Anniversaries of two amendments to the U.S. Constitution which protected and extended voting rights for African Americans and the poor were recently marked.  The 15th Amendment ratified on February 3, 1870 prohibited the Federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen’s right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”  The 24th Amendment ratified on January 23, 1964.  Yet today voting rights are under sweeping attack not only in the states of the old Confederacybut everywhere Republicans control state legislatures and/or governorships. The 15th Ame...

I am visiting family without my field guide, so I picked this up in their yard.

Deep calls unto deep, joy calls unto joy, light calls unto light. -Gordon B. McKeeman Where are you being called by joy?

Please join us on Saturday (5 February 2022) at 10:30 AM for our weekly meditation group with Larry Androes. This is a sitting Buddhist meditation including a brief introduction to mindfulness meditation, 20 minutes of sitting, and followed by a weekly teaching. The group is free and open to all. For more information, contact Larry … Continue reading "Meditation with Larry Androes (5 February 2022)"

Lyonel Perabo recounts his recent visit to the Raymond Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick near Cleveland, Ohio. Continue reading Column: A Discovery of the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick at The Wild Hunt.

I like the sense of scale the hand provides. These are such short needles, only 1-2″ long as a rule. This tree, which as far as I know I have never seen, is just barely native to the land that is now the state of California. Its range is mostly in Baja California, Mexico, and […]

A Q&A with Jeanne Theoharis | I think people assume that they know her. Even many people who know Rosa Parks wasn’t just a simple seamstress who accidentally walked into history don’t realize how much of her history—the militancy of her early activism in Montgomery, her activism in Detroit, her work in the Black Power movement—is still largely unrecognized.

Jeff Milchen Reasonable people disagree on appropriate levels of immigration, but to have substantive debate, we must refute racist scapegoating and tactics of dehumanization. 

A short  “ thought for the day” offered to the Cambridge Unitarian Church as part of the Sunday Service of Mindful   Meditation  (Click on this link to hear a recorded version of the following piece) —o0o— Most of us grew up within a world-view that taught we were beings with distinct and definite limits. So, as I talk to you now, I was taught to view you as a being with distinct and definite limits and you were taught to view me in a similar fashion. You are definitively there, and I am definitively here . . . or so it once seemed. But, as the philosopher Thomas Nail asks in a recent essay, what happens when “we are trying to talk about something without definite limits or a fully positive presence?” What kind of thing i...

Roger Santodomingo, Bruce Knotts An interview with Bruce Knotts, director of the Unitarian Universalist Office at the United Nations and new UU World columnist.

Last night at 9 Ozarks Public Television broadcast an interview with me and I forgot it was being aired. It will be rebroadcast on Sunday February 7 at 1:30 PM in case you missed it as I did. Later it will be made available on the network website. I'll share the address when its available to me.  Make, fix and create...

Sunday, February 6, 10:30 a.m. Widening the Circle: Tending the Fire at the Center An Online Service with Rev. Lynda Sutherland, First Parish Northboro   This week we join our friends at First Parish Northboro for a combined worship service where Rev. Lynda will speak to the ways in which Imbolc prepares us for growth by   [ … ] The post Sunday, February 6 ~ Widening the Circle: Tending the Fire at the Center ~ 10:30 a.m. appeared first on Unitarian Church of Marlborough and Hudson.

I feel like in the COVID world joy is like an overly polite guest who might be waiting for you to invite them to call you after texting. We might feel a fleeting moment of joy, and then too often squash it instead of acknowledging the moment. It takes work to be present for joy … Continue reading Fleeting Joy

As a congregational minister who has been creating worship online and/or outdoors for two years, and will soon, I hope, be resuming indoor services, I read with interest a recent New York Times opinion piece by Tish Harrison Warren, a priest of the conservative Anglican Church in North America. She ends with the reminder, “A […]

Queen Elizabeth II will celebrate her Platinum Jubliee as the British Monarch and some UK Pagans shared their thoughts on the event. Continue reading UK Pagans reflect on the Platinum Jubilee that begins this weekend at The Wild Hunt.

      A Zen teacher was once told he was going to hell. He said that was certainly fine by him. The person was taken aback, and asked, why? The teacher said so I can help. It was seventy-nine years ago, today, the 3rd of February, 1943. Methodist minister George Fox, Rabbi Alexander Goode, […]

Last year The 1619 Project , a long-form journalism project developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, writers from The New York Times , and The New York Times Magazine , came under attack.  The highly praised series and book re-examined the Black experience in the New World from the importation of African “indentured servants” to the Jamestown Colony in 1619.  It clearly showed that the generational experience of slavery continues to put African-Americans at a social and economic disadvantage and laid the blame for that on the development of an explicitly racist ideology that still lurks not far below the surface of polite white society.  Naturally the right wing propaganda machine when on a full-press attack on the series and on it’s a...

My dog brings me so much joy! The way she is so happy to see me. The way she spends every evening on my lap.  The way she snuggles next to me when we go to sleep. Whenever I am feeling low, I just cuddle with her and I feel better! What brings you reliable … Continue reading Dog Joy

“…[there are] levels in what counts as political. As you dare to witness police arresting people, or dare to ask a woman who is saying ‘no’ to a man’s hold whether she’s all right, whether she wants to leave, you notice that it is quite different to do that than to organize a demonstration against … Continue reading "Noted without comment"

Blessings on the Turning of the Wheel! Continue reading Blessed Turning of the Wheel: Imbolc/Lughnasadh at The Wild Hunt.

I wasn’t able to capture most of them with my camera, but I want to speak of bird visitors nonetheless. This morning little winter goldfinches, with their olive feathers, were flocking to our bird feeder, and to the water, and to the dead heads of bee balm never cut down, and likely full of lovely […]

This is a link to the article in  Independent  School if you want to read it online and pass it along for others to read.  NAIS - School News: Two Decades of Woodshop Class . Today we're out of school due to a serious winter  storm watch. Hopefully as the temperature is dropping below freezing we'll avoid the worst effects of ice accumulation that breaks trees and power lines. I'm working on promotion of my new book by writing op-ed pieces to submit to various newspapers and magazines. It is fun to reflect on the various benefits of woodworking education.  In the wood shop at School this week my students  helped me by whittling pens and allowing me to take photos of them as they worked. The photo shows a  simple jig for drilling...

Since the cult classic movie Groundhog Day came out in thirty years ago in 1992 the minor folk holiday of the same name has taken on a new meaning.   Now it denotes being stuck in a time loop, living the same day over and over and over.   It has certainly seemed so the last two years as the Coronavirus pandemic sent us all into isolationand dread. In 2020 in Woodstock, Illinois where the movie was filmed the usual enthusiastic crowd gathered on the Square after several inches of overnight snow for the annual prognostication by a supposedly hibernating large squirrel .   All the other customary hoopla went on as planned.   The spread of the Covid-19 from China to the U.S. had only recently been confirmed and although there was concern...

JeKaren Olaoya I affirm that I am worthy of being good enough to touch hearts and souls, and connect others to Spirit. Continue reading "Claiming My Worth"

Is simpler always better in ritual? So much depends on the tradition, the group, and the goals of the ritual. But there are four elements I believe are always necessary in a group ritual.

      Celebrate this unlikely oracle, this ball of fat and fur, whom we so mysteriously endow with the power to predict spring. Let’s hear it for the improbable heroes who, frightened at their own shadows, nonetheless unwittingly work miracles. Why shouldn’t we believe this peculiar rodent holds power over sun and seasons in […]

Amidst the harshness of our world, it is an important spiritual practice to claim (or reclaim) joy. To wrap it around us like a blanket against the coldness of our world. Joy keeps the ember of our soul burning when forces outside of us would conspire to snuff it out. Find something today that makes … Continue reading Joy

By Leigh Patel | On January 24, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases that have upheld the use of affirmative action in college admissions. The cases, one filed against Harvard University and one against the University of North Carolina (UNC), have been organized financially and in media by Edward Blum, a legal strategist who has worked for years to lodge attacks against affirmative action. Although not a lawyer, Blum uses strategy of media and message and is also the president of Students for Fair Admissions, the organization that filed both lawsuits that will all be heard in the highest court in this land. What is affirmative action and what is at stake?

We discuss Kemetism and how some modern practitioners bring ancient religious practices into the modern-day. Continue reading Egyptian Archaeology, Dignity and Ethics at The Wild Hunt.

As human beings, we are capable of doing very difficult things if we understand the purpose. When we don’t know the purpose, or want to support it, even simple tasks feel meaningless. This month we explore purpose. How might purpose connect with your search for ... read more . The post February Theme – Purpose appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

Upcoming RE classes: K-6 Experiences with the Web of Life:  These nature lovers will meet again Sunday morning, 2/6, from 9:30-10:15. Our topic for the day will be squirrels. Be sure to check out last week’s parent email for a fun squirrel assignment! Here’s the link to Experiences with ... read more . The post RE This Week – Feb. 1st appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

Register to join one or more of the upcoming GA 2022 prep webinars let by members of the UUA Board. Continue reading "Prepare for General Assembly with the UUA Board of Trustees: Attend Board-Led Webinars About the Governance Process at Multiplatform GA 2022"