~ March 2006 Supplemental Page~
 

Circle of Life

Continued . . . Born in Kristiansund, Norway on July 29, 1933, Solveig Pedersen married Sigurd Jordahl on June 25, 1955 and immigrated to the United States on November 19, 1961. Solveig was a talented gardener. She kept a beautiful home, warm and inviting with a vase of fresh flowers welcoming all who entered. She had a wondrous spirit and joy of life. She enjoyed shopping with her daughters, dining out, and taking trips, and was a lifetime member of the Sons of Norway for 41 years. She participated at all lodge functions, and was often one of the last to leave. Solveig was loved by all who knew her. She persevered through her illness with a smile always on her face and a caring heart for others.

Solveig will be dearly missed by her husband, Sigurd. She was his special lady, dear friend and confidant, and life-long companion. Solveig was the cornerstone of her family. Her children will cherish her strength and loving nature. Her memory and spirit will live on forever.

It was Solveig’s wish to return to her native land to be laid to rest beside her father and mother in Kristiansund, Norway.

Solveig Pedersen Jordahl’s life was honored at her home on Sunday, March 12 at 2:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Solveig Jordahl’s name to “Sons of Norway” for the Snorre Lodge Scholarship Fund, P.O Box 3998, Hayward, CA 94540.



What Is Religion?


Continued . . . According to historian Barbara Walker the word religion is derived from the Latin religio which means, “re-linking or reunion.” Then what, pray tell, are we “re-linking” to? What is our Source, our Cosmic Roots? What, whom are we created from? Could everyone’s Source be different and right for them? If we could prove there is a Divine Source, what would the Divine be?

And are we made in the likeness of the Divine? Or is the Divine made in the likeness that we create Her/Him to be? The truth is as hard to grasp as water through desperate fingers. Desperate, to contain and claim the "One Truth." As if another's truth could somehow invalidate our own belief or take something away from us. What arrogance for any of us to believe we know "The Truth" of the Divine. Maybe the Divine, the “Source” is as diverse as all the peoples of the Earth. Maybe each person must re-link to a Source that, in the end, provides them with sustenance, comfort and peace.

One person re-links when they pray the Rosary and another when they light the Menorah. Someone else re-links to their source listening to the song of a stream surrounded by the comfort of trees. For still another, re-linking to Creation might be found in the serenity of their sleeping child's face.

                All are right. All are profound.



      In music, in the sea, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of     

     kindness...I see what people call God in all these things.
                            -- Pablo Casals



Goddess and Paganism: The Old Religion


Continued . . . In the past two or three decades much has been written about Paganism. But we have no Bible, no Torah or Bhagavad Gita to claim as a central truth. Truth, ephemeral as it is, is revealed from within. Most that has been written in the last 2,000 - 3,000 years has been destroyed. This destruction culminated with the deaths of an estimated million people (mostly women) now referred to as "the burning times." This female holocaust began around 1126 CE (Current Era) and went on throughout Europe for nearly five centuries. Only recently with the deciphering of cuneiform have we reclaimed the more ancient mythology of Sumer which dates back about 3,500 BCE (Before Current Era). These early Pagans "were an enterprising and cooperative folk that had a complex religious ideology" (Whence The Goddesses by Miriam Dexter) teaching us a lot about our own spiritual evolution.

Most of the teachings of Paganism have been passed down–mother to daughter and father to son. Probably the single most important tenet is the philosophy of immanence which is the belief that the world and everything in it is alive; that the Creative Life Force that courses through us also exists in everyone and everything. The Earth is a living being, an organism made of an intricate "WebWork" comprising oceans, air, animals, rocks, and plants all dependent on one another. This too is true of the Moon, whose lunar pull controls the ebb and flow of the tides on Earth. It applies as well to the Sun, Stars, and Planets informing us of the interconnectedness of the entire Universe.

Paganism is a religion of celebration, not redemption. These celebrations take place within "the Wheel of the Year," an ancient and sacred ritual calendar marking the Earth's changing seasons and the Sun's never-ending journey across the sky, as well as the Moon's waxing and waning cycles. Each holiday, or Sabbat, brings joy and good times along with deeply felt spiritual, cultural, and ecological meaning. The Wheel represents the life cycle of continual birth, death, and renewal as expressed in the changing seasons. These changing seasons also represent a psychological "map of consciousness" facilitating human growth. They contain the framework for personal transformation, rites of passage, healing, empowerment, and manifestation.

In addition to the Wheel of the Year, Pagans use spiritual techniques such as Shamanism and Magic. Shamanism is a technique used for healing and acquiring knowledge through forays into "non-ordinary reality" and is being used fairly extensively by therapists and counselors. These forays known as "journeying" are usually aided by repetitive drumming, and often involves interaction with "power animals" (The Way of the Shaman by Michael Harner). The technique of Magic or "the art of changing consciousness at will" involves prayer, rituals, and affirmations in combination with the Wheel of the Year. Author Dion Fortune describes Magic as "a change of consciousness brought about through a deliberate act of will." This creates self-empowerment or as writer Starhawk describes it in Dreaming The Dark, "power-within rather than power-over."

There are no commandments, but two creeds have been passed down that most Pagans acknowledge and adhere to. They are (1) "And doing what you will, harm none.", and (2) "All that you say and do will come back to you three times over." Pagans ascribe "evil" to individual intent, i.e., a knife in the hands of a surgeon becomes an instrument for healing, the same knife in the hands of a murderer is an instrument for killing. It's the ethics of the individual who wields the knife that creates the evil.

In addition to the important mandate of environmental activism as a religious responsibility, the manifestation of Divinity in female form, as Goddess, carries the most potential for impact upon our society and the world today.