Holli S. Emore
Executive Director
Cherry Hill Seminary

Whitman and Muir as Guides to Restoring Connectedness
by Holli S. Emore©

Roiling, unfolding individualism in dynamic tension with cooperative community has characterized the ongoing story of America.  Hardly more than a lifetime past, the North American continent was still wild, tantalizing those who felt the restrictions of an old world and stale way of life.  By the time of poet Walt Whitman and naturalist John Muir, the scores of refugee religious movements had dispersed beyond their original settlements and the American psyche seethed with existential questions.   

In her social history of spiritualism in America, Weisberg articulates the dilemmas faced by many in the country: 

Ordinary Americans in the 1800s had great opportunity for social, economic, and geographic mobility.  They faced a number of questions that perhaps can be summed up in a simple query that had rarely been so pressing in the past: “Where are we going?”Shall we pack our worldly goods and journey westward?  Or leave the farm behind and head for the city?  Are our struggles moving us upward on the social ladder, or have our risks only pushed us down a notch?  Is our society advancing toward utopian perfection?  Or under new pressures such as urbanization, is it descending into chaos?¹ 

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Selina Rifkin
MS LMT

Nourishing the Body Sacred
by Selina Rifkin©

As Pagans, we do not shun our bodies. We do not assume that any physical pleasure is bad, and our bodies are often the paths we use to interact with the God/dess, via drumming or dancing. We hold that all acts of love and pleasure are sacred and that we will harm none. So why is it that we so often harm ourselves and reduce our capacity for pleasure by giving our bodies toxins and foods with no nutritional or spiritual value?

While we seek to model our spiritual practice after those of the ancients, we ourselves are the products of Western culture, and the Western world is very mental. We seek constant stimulation for our minds, but the attention we give our bodies can be superficial. More often than not, this attention is based on how our bodies look rather than how well they function. As a modern religion that reclaims the good things that were lost and creates a new vision, Paganism is well suited to re-create, revitalize and restore positive functional ideas about the body.

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Holli S. Emore
executive director
Cherry Hill Seminary

Where do my freedoms end and your rights begin?  At the late June Summer Intensive CHS grad students tackled every conceivable aspect of dual relationships and ethics for Pagan ministers and counselors. 

We continue to hear stories of Pagan groups which blow up because of interpersonal issues, or an event that is marred by rumors of sexual abuse.  There are the violent crimes which receive widespread media attention because the perpetrator is portrayed negatively as a Pagan.  And then there are all the times that Pagans have parted ways without a word, with no explanation, no closure, no continuity. 

We struggle with the many ways that Pagan values and those of the dominant socio-religious culture seem at odds.  Too often, people leave Pagan groups with deep psychological wounds.  The religion we found so refreshing becomes a painful reminder of misunderstandings and missteps. 

Many are reluctant to air our dirty laundry by reporting a crime, even though we want to be respected as peers with the ministers of other religions.  Are our values really so different from the rest of the world?  Don’t we start with “harm none,” long before we reach the part about “all acts of love and pleasure?” 

I’m convinced that if more Pagans took advantage of good training like CHS offers, we would all better withstand the occasional storms that blow through our lives.  As CHS grows, we hope to become a foundational resource that the Pagan world can count on for many years to come.