From the Mind of Trevor Stone

I was saddened to hear that teal_cuttlefish Margaret Alia Denny passed away today. It sounded like her body couldn't quite readjust after a surgery a couple days ago. If you have a Facebook account, you may be able to read more on her wall; as a non-user, I had to have Kelly show me what folks posted.

I knew Alia as the co-leader of Hearthstone Community Church, which she founded about 25 years ago. Hearthstone most prominently hosts Open Full Moon events in Denver, providing an important venue for folks curious about Paganism and Pagans, often new to town, who are seeking to connect with the community. As organizer, Alia got a diverse cast of characters to take their turn leading a ritual and sharing their approach to Paganism. Open Full Moon provided the venue for many folks to organize and lead their first ritual. Since neo-Pagans tend to be solitary practitioners or gather in small private groups, Alia's nurturing guidance and commitment to community and diversity of practice was a great asset to countless Pagans. She helped us find each other, helped us find our path, and gave us the space and encouragement to grow as leaders. Alia also performed a lot of ministerial services, from weddings to personal counseling.

I really admire the demonstration of courage and commitment to openness that Alia displayed when I hosted an Open Full Moon ritual about Jesus (my journal post, her friends-locked post). I knew it would be a very controversial ritual in the group; a week in advance the church leaders almost cancelled the event, but Alia stood by the principle of diversity of view. I didn't realize how big of a trigger issue it would be for her. But to her great credit, despite being emotionally and visually upset, she stayed in the circle and extended her energy to help support others in the group who were taken aback. At the end of the night she told me "Never again," and I think OFM has stayed a long way from Jesus in the last dozen years. Yet I continue to give her respect for giving me the opportunity to give it a try, and I think a lot of folks got a lot of value from the experience. It would've been easy for the group to say no, but Alia had the great strength to see through the fear and worry and say yes. In a comment thread on her post, she wrote When principles and preferences battle, I try to go with principles. That was definitely her character.

Alia had a lot of strengths in addition to her skills as a religious leader. She was on the on the Board of Directors of Dragonfest when I first attended and continued to advocate her ideas in the community for a few years after the traditional BoD burnout. She was politically active; she fought for feminist ideals, disability rights and more. At least once she ran for office, garnering 37% of the votes for Arapahoe County Commissioner as a Libertarian. She was a mother; although I haven't seen Alyria in over a decade, she was a fantastic tween. She was a techno-acolyte, communicating through computers years before the Internet was a big thing and working in software for more than a decade before the dot com crash put a major kink in her employment trajectory. She was crafty; crocheting up a storm and more. She had a geeky sense of humor that I quickly grokked. She also had an immense drive: her body faced a lot of challenges, but she wasn't one to give up—she made things happen, kept commitments, and raised energy through force of will.

Not long after the Jesus ritual, I stopped going to OFM—not because of any conflict but because life happened and other community attractions grabbed my Friday nights. Around the same time, Alia stopped going to Dragonfest, so our circles have drifted apart. I hope I have a chance to go to a memorial, or at least this Friday's Open Full Moon.

Got some time to kill? Been through all Vi Hart's videos on YouTube? The next best thing there is almost assuredly Don't Eat the Pictures, a Sesame Street movie from 1983 full of dark myths and deep characters. I saw this on TV when I was 4. Years later, I remembered parts of it vividly, but nobody my age had any idea what I was talking about. Did I really have an imagination rich enough to come up with this? A couple folks have confirmed my memories that this producted. And now, thanks to scott_lynch, I know what it's called and where to find it.

Originally posted by scott_lynch at Against Big Bird, The Gods Themselves Contend In Vain

Two hours ago I got back to Boulder from Burning Man. There's a lot to be said about the past week and a half, but this is not the occasion to say most of it.

Every year at Burning Man, a crew builds a large wooden temple. The attendees then write messages on the temple, attach offerings to its nooks and crannies, and have a good cry inside. On Sunday night of the event, the temple is burned as thousands of people look on in near silence, appreciating the symbolic release of all the words, objects, and memories they placed there. The majority focus on death, but many people seek release from old relationships and personal hardships, while others add messages of philosophy and joy.

I liked a lot about the temple's design this year, but I didn't connect as strongly with the messages people left as I have in years past. Perhaps that's because I wasn't yet ready to release: the important death to me had not yet come.

Our old family friend Clover has been in the hospital and hospice for the last few weeks. We all knew his days were numbered, but when I called before leaving cell phone reception behind as I crossed the desert, he was doing well. I'd hoped to see him one last time when I got back, to give him a send-off in person. Sadly, Clover passed on Monday, around the time I turned from 447, Black Rock City's highway, on to I-80 and the default world.

Clover liked to do things in his own way and at his own pace, and there will be lots of time to honor our good friend Big Red. My dad, who shared so much with Clover in the last three decades, will be helping organize a memorial, perhaps at Halloween. I'm sure we'll be visiting our cabin soon, a place Clover lived in and looked after with his skilled woodsman ways. Perhaps we'll save a plate for him at Pie Night in November with a slice of some of the community's tastiest pies. And I've got a whole year to come up with a tribute to be burned at the temple in 2011.

I'll sure miss this old quiet, steady, dry, sharp guy. I'm glad I had the chance to grow up around him. And I'm glad I got to share my last words with him in the hospital, a moment containing both hope and acceptance.

I'm not sure how much coverage U.S. commercial media is giving to the death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, but the BBC and NPR both devoted significant time to retrospectives on his impact on Russian society and Western awareness of Soviet atrocities. The phrase "Russian author" carries a certain expectation of greatness like "French chef" and "Italian fashion designer." Solzhenitsyn may be the golden exemplar of that category for the Soviet era.

The only Solzhenitsyn work I've read is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. As a 16-year-old, my literary preferences tended to the grand and fantastic, authors like Tolkien and Poe. Ivan Denisovich was a very different sort of story, one intensely personal and practical. Solzhenitsyn wrote so well that I was thoroughly engrossed in the matter of a prisoner's spoon for page upon page. I remember sitting in the back of the dark multi-purpose room during Midsummer Night's Dream rehearsal, reading the challenges of a gulag prisoner by the light of the sound booth. Along with Bartleby, the Scrivener, Ivan Denisovich opened my sensibilities to the personal existential story. Thanks, Pfoots.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the pro-life Catholic Church spends a lot more energy opposing abortion than opposing the death penalty. In every place of worship, and around many believers necks, sits a sculpture of an ancient device for killing a prisoner in public.



(I've heard that Catholic organizations have started taking stands against the death penalty, war, and other politically-charged death situations. I applaud this direction and hope the world's largest organization takes a more public and active role in these campaigns.)