Celebrate Ostara with us!

Saturday, March 23, 2024 at the Minnesota Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, downstairs in the Fellowship Hall.

We join to celebrate the changing season – lengthening days and warm weather, green shoots in the flower beds… the robins and red-wing blackbirds call us to join them in rejoicing at Mother Earth’s awakening.

When: March 23

  • 6:00 pm Introductions and social time
  • 6:30 Pre-work (please arrive in time for this!)
  • 7:00 Worship
  • 8:00(ish) Pot-luck supper (please stay for this!)

Where: MVUUF, 10715 Zenith Ave. South, Bloomington, MN

What to bring:

  • A kind heart
  • Food to share (if this is easy for you – if not, there’s always plenty!)
  • Your own plate, cup, and silverware (if this is easy for you)

What to wear: Whatever makes you happy. Green is appropriate!

Utah introduces bill echoing 1980s Satanic Panic

The Wild Hunt reports that the Satanic Panic is back and we be turning the clock back on religious freedom. For more information and the full text of the article, see Utah introduces bill echoing 1980s Satanic Panic on the Wild Hunt page

SALT LAKE CITY – Last Wednesday, Utah State Representative Ken Ivory (R-district 39) introduced a bill in the Utah State House addressing sexual crimes.  The bill was introduced via the House Judiciary Committee and amends the sexual abuse statute to include ritual abuse.  The bill was backed by Utah County Sherriff Mike Smith who testified in its support.

Critics noted that it harkens to the Satanic Panic because it specifically codifies ritualistic child abuse.

House Bill 196, seeks to add “Ritual Abuse of A Child” to the sexual crimes statute. The bill defines “ritual” as “an event or act or a series of events or acts marked by specific actions, gestures, or words, designed to commemorate, celebrate, or solemnize a particular occasion or significance in a religious, cultural, social, institutional, or other context.”

Changes

The light is changing! The robins and geese are back! Tulips and daylilies are sending their first leaves up!

Early March: suddenly the days seem so much longer – and they are. We have a whole hour more sunlight each day than we did just three weeks ago. Soon it will be Ostara. The light changes fastest now, as the Wheel of the Year turns past the equinox, just as a pendulum moves fastest as it swings past the point where it will come to rest when it stops.

There’s a time during the winter when it seems that the ice has won a final victory and we will never see another green leaf. But then the light starts changing. The sun starts making its way back from the southern reaches of the sky.

We belong to Nature. She sends us signs to remind us: Even when we spend most of our time closed off from Her, She still lights up our spirits with the joy of seeing green buds, hearing a robin’s song, or feeling the caress of a mild breeze. Now, at the time of year when things change so fast, Nature reminds us to stop and step outside our fast-paced lives for a moment, to drink in the signs of the changing seasons and be fully in this moment.

Step away from your computer. Set down your phone. Go outside, even if it’s just for a moment. Feel the change in the air. Spring is coming. Blessed be!

Ethical Prayer

What do you do when someone you care about asks you to pray a prayer you don’t feel good about?

Many of us have been in rituals where someone offered a prayer like one of these:

  • Please pray that [natural consequence of recent actions] doesn’t happen to me.
  • Please pray that [candidate you don’t support] wins the election.
  • Please pray that [name] dies.

What do you do? You care about this person. You don’t want to break the flow of the ritual any further than it’s already been broken by hearing this prayer that feels wrong. Or if it’s outside of ritual, you just want to stay on good terms. But you can’t support them in prayer the way they are asking you to.

What do you want for the person who has asked this of you?

It’s someone you care about. If this happens in ritual, you’re sharing sacred space with them, worshiping together, and you still have the obligation of being present in perfect love and perfect trust as you pledged when you entered the circle, even if they’ve pushed (or broken) that boundary. If it’s outside of ritual, you may simply want to stay on good terms.

Sometimes we’re unable to support a specific prayer because we don’t feel comfortable with the desire expressed in the prayer, and we understand that what we need to experience and what we want to experience can be very different things.

A high priestess I know used to offer this prayer: “May you experience your best outcome, in a good way, for the good of all and with harm to none.”

We are not wise enough to know what others need, and this is never more true than when we feel that they’re praying for the wrong thing. But it is always ethical to pray that those we care about receive what they need.

Where’s the Fire?

There’s no snow this year, but it’s still time for warm sweaters, hot chocolate, and fire pits.

We’ve celebrated Imbolc, and we’re in that time of waiting for spring. Fire is our favorite element right now. We can engage with it through divination or meditation.

We all have a fire within that needs to burn bright and strong – the fire that lights the way for our best selves. The fire that we mean when we say “Let your light shine.” Sometimes life gets complicated and we don’t feed that fire. It burns low. We need to feed it.

We also have a fire within that burns through our boundaries and torches our good judgment. When it flares up, it can be hard to bring it under control. We need to refrain from feeding it.

Questions for seeking guidance through divination or meditation:

  • What lights me up? What is the guiding fire within me that I need to feed?
  • How do I need to feed my guiding fire?
  • How can I use my guiding fire to bring safety, warmth, and light into my life, and share it with others?
  • What is the fire within me that damages what it touches?
  • How can I stop feeding the fire that does not serve me well?

Every element has creative and destructive aspects, and sometimes it’s hard to stay in harmony with them. My own experience is that understanding the fires within has helped me to work more effectively with them.

2024 Imbolc Celebration

Imbolc comes at the time of the year when the sun is definitely getting stronger, though it is the coldest time of the year. This is a time to be indoors, getting ready for the spring which is coming—eventually. This used to take the form of refurbishing the tools for farming and animal husbandry. Now we aren’t agrarian people much anymore, though we do use tools. Nowadays our tools are computers and other modern contrivances.

This year WiCoM, the Wiccan Church of Minnesota will celebrate Imbolc with a blessing of the tools and what they create. We are asking all attendees to bring a symbol of the tools they use for blessing. A memory stick from a computer, a cooking or baking tool, an actual tool for whatever you may make; be creative! Just keep it small please, no lawn mowers or chain saws other large items that cannot sit on a small side table.

Imbolc will be celebrated Saturday evening, February 3rd in the MVUUF fellowship hall, Minnesota Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 10715 Zenith Ave. South, Bloomington, MN 55431.  We will gather at 6:30pm and the ritual starts at 7pm, with explanations beforehand. After the ritual we will have a potluck feast, so please bring something to share, if you can. 

See you at Imbolc! Blessed Be

When
Saturday, February 3, 2024
Gather in starting at 6:00 p.m., ritual at 7:00 p.m.
Potluck to follow the ritual

Where
The Minnesota Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
10715 Zenith Avenue South
Bloomington, MN 55431

Google Map: https://www.google.com/maps/place/10715+Zenith+Ave+S,+Minneapolis,+MN+55431/@44.8099187,-93.3215201,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x87f624b706222ccb:0xcf6d004de80a24c5!8m2!3d44.8099187!4d-93.3215201!16s%2Fg%2F11bw4dg2sl?entry=ttu

What to bring
• Potluck food to share, if you can do so without difficulty. Please label your offering (meat, vegetarian, vegan, ingredients).

• Your own silverware, cup, and plate suitable for a picnic if you can (we will have some disposables if you can’t do this)

2023 Yule Celebration

Samhain ritual

Samhain, when the veil between the worlds is thin…

…And it will be after a lunar eclipse (not visible here) so the energies will be strong and somewhat chaotic. We will gather and celebrate the turning of the wheel. There will be divination, so be prepared to learn something about your life. If you can, dress appropriately. It adds to the atmosphere. Estelle will be the HPS.

Saturday, October 28, 2023
Crystal Community Center, Forest Room (where we celebrated Beltane)
4800 Douglas Dr. N, Crystal, MN
Gather starting at 6:00 p.m., ritual at 7:00 p.m.

All are welcome!

BRING (if it’s convenient)

  • Picnic-type food to share, if you can do so without difficulty (there are facilities for a hot pot or similar warmer), and serving utensils.
  • Your own silverware, cup, and plate suitable for a picnic if you can (we will have some disposables if you can’t do this)

LEAVE AT HOME

  • Alcohol and other intoxicants
  • Weapons (a small knife if needed to cut food is OK)

BONUS!

Earlier in the day the Anoka County Gem and mineral club is having their annual show at the same place, 10am -5pm. There are many interesting rock-like things for sale, and worth checking out. The show is also on Sunday, so if you can’t make it Saturday, there is another chance.

Goodbye, sunflowers!

The wheel turns.

Lughnasad’s big, beautiful sunflowers have been picked over by the goldfinches, and now the squirrels have started biting them off and carrying them away. The plants are struggling to keep making flowers, but the wheel of the year keeps turning. Their leaves are dying, one by one, and the squirrels have fully embraced their role as agents of destruction. Even with no ripe sunflower seed-heads left to raid, the squirrels keep launching themselves into the tops of the plants and breaking the stems, determined to find and carry away one more blossom.

I found this infuriating until I stopped seeing it through the eyes of a protective gardener and began seeing it as a lesson in what “creation from destruction” really looks like. It’s just Mother Earth doing what She does; it’s not personal. That’s a surprisingly hard lesson for this gardener. 

2023 Mabon Public Ritual

Bringing in the harvest, sharing the bounty, saving the seeds… just as our ancestors taught us. 

We will be outside, and start after sunset. 
Dress for the weather. 

When
Saturday, September 30, 2023
Gather in starting at 6:00 p.m., ritual at 7:00 p.m.

Where
The fire pit at Richardson Nature Center
Hyland Lake Park Preserve
10145 E Bush Lake Rd
Bloomington, MN 55438

https://www.threeriversparks.org/location/richardson-nature-center

What to bring

  • Picnic-type food to share, if you can do so without difficulty
  • Your own silverware, cup, and plate suitable for a picnic if you can (we will have some disposables if you can’t do this)

What to LEAVE AT HOME

  • Alcohol and other intoxicants
  • Knives except what’s needed to cut food

Amenities available

  • Air-conditioned restrooms and water fountains (including one to fill water bottles) in the Nature Center building vestibule
  • Picnic tables near the fire pit
  • Seating around the fire pit