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20 December 2009
As we were heading back along Melbourne's Left Bank to the hotel after having just seen Andre Previn's Street Car Named Desire with Yvonne Kenny as Blanche, the full moon emerged over the skyline, and it was there and then when I fell in love with the city. The Parliament of the World's Religions began the next day. What was thrilling was to encounter so many of the 'old gang' (Angie Buchanan, Drake Spaeth, Phyllis Curott, Barbara McGraw, Patrick McCollum, Andras & Deirdre Corban Arthen [along with other Arthen clan members such as Kay, Maya, Sue and the stunningly attractive Isobel], Rachel Watcher, Jonas Trinkunas, Don Frew & Anna Korn) and to meet new comrades-in-arms (Shelley, River Higginbotham, Thorn Coyle along with Robert and Jonathan and an Australian contingent that included David Garland, Lisa Kenny, Gavin Andrew, Glennys Livingstone, Tricia Szirom and Fabienne Morgana among many others.) The opening plenary was long and unprofessional, but the congress was underway. The following morning, Richard and I attended the Yoruba Religious Observance with Baba Wande Abimbola and his wife ("Ifa is the Yoruba gift to the world.") This was the real start for me for a crammed series of presentations and discussions that were exhausting but stimulating and at times enlightening.
Angie, Phyllis and Andras appeared next in a session entitled "People Call Us Pagan." It was here as I recall that Andras introduced the term 'Indigenous European Spirituality'. Many subsequently questioned this as a 'replacement' for the term 'pagan' as well as its possible exclusionary potential, but I do not think either was the intention, and for many of us it became a 'bridging' expression with people of other, non-pagan traditions who might have been initially put-off by the term 'pagan'. There has, however, been heated debate subsequently on The Wild Hunt forum by those who have either misunderstood the purpose of the designation or felt that the new religious movement nature of much contemporary paganism was being cast aside.
A central theme of the Parliament was on indigenous spirituality. The indigenes held their own Assembly for one day and issued from it an Indigenous Peoples' Statement to the World which raised the matter of the Doctrine of Discovery and its carte blanche endorsement of the conversion of native peoples and destruction of their cultures. The Assembly itself was controversial and elicited memories of the Native Americans' private debate during the 1993 Parliament over the Lakota-sponsored Declaration of War. Whites were not allowed into the Assembly, and Abimbola's wife specifically was excluded. The racist card appears to have been spear-headed on the present occasion by one Omie Baldwin, a Parliament Council member. By contrast, Aboriginal Joy Wandin Murphy expressed warmth and sensitivity and appeared quintessentially as the positive side of indigenous identity and effort. While the Statement calls for a need to address "contemporary problems of racism," it becomes a two-edged sword if used by those who are objecting to discrimination as a discriminatory measure in itself.
Another element that came frequently to the fore was that of sacred sites. Although the first session on this focus was Sikh, the gist was the need for protection and accessibility to holy places. The Sikhs wanted access to Mecca because their Guru Nanak had visited there. By that token, the Ka'aba had previously been a pre-Islamic pagan shrine that housed 360 idols. It would be interesting to speculate on future ramifications if sacred places were to become open to all those who had historical ties to them. In any event, the Indigenous Sacred Sites session with Chris Peters (Yurok), Jonas Trinkunas (Romuva) and Wande Abimbola (Yoruba) was one of the more interesting of all I attended. While the complaint includes the desecration and pollution of such places, a Maori lady said at the end that in New Zealand, their springs, rivers and revered places are pure and protected by the government. It had taken years for the indigenous peoples of the country to procure the present position, and she advised the rest of us to fight, fight and continue to fight until we were able to secure the same elsewhere as well.
While there was much lack of proper organization and oversight throughout the Parliament as a whole (this being explained to me at one point by the fact that each Parliament ends up bankrupt and all those staff workers who now had the experience and knowledge had to be let go), there was also a magical comradeship and warmth of interaction and exchange throughout the proceedings. Other highlights included sessions on the Feminine Divine (an electric and stunning panel with Phyllis, Mother Maya, a Buddhist nun and a Catholic nun and, in addition, Barbara who began with her lovely invocational grandmother song), Men Who Love the Goddess (for which I was a panelist), the Australian pagan panel, and the 'agora fori' sessions with Hans Kung ("Reflections on the Global Financial Crisis", etc.) When I mentioned during the afternoon session that the present economic meltdown was inevitable as a stop to the American administration and what it stood for and that the Parliament had to learn to become an active player on the world stage, I received a huge round of applause.
We also had a chance, thanks to River, of visiting the Magick Happening Expo where we were able to hear performances by Wendy Rule and the Spiral Dance. Another offsite event was the warm and welcoming Communities Night sponsored in our case by the Melbourne pagan communities. James Jacob Hurtak (The Keys of Enoch) is always interesting, and we attended his 8 o'clock religious observance on one morning. And while there was much more, two highlights for me occurred during the final plenary. One was when, during a moment of Tibetan chanting and unlisted in the programme, the announcer quietly and unexpectedly announced the Dalai Lama as he walked onto the stage. This was beautifully done, and we all stood. The other moment was after the Dalai Lama's talk when he and Joy Wandin Murphy sat together with Michael Fitzpatrick as the last played his cello "Invocation for World Peace." For me, this was a divine triadic moment: holiness, indigenousness and music. While to my surprise, several pagans afterward expressed dislike of Fitzpatrick for inscrutable reasons, the moment for me was supreme – supremely beautiful, supremely reflective, supremely celebratory and a supreme summary of all.
With the Parliament now over, on our last morning in Melbourne, River took Richard and me along with Barbara and Patrick to the William Ricketts Sanctuary on Mt. Dandenong. Gavin joined us to become our welcomed guide, and the rainforest there is astonishing. It was a perfect kick-off and departure from both Parliamentary fullness and Melbourne magic. And then we were in Sydney.
Once again another dazzling town. Thanks to Joe, we had a relatively inexpensive and nicely located hotel to stay in, and thanks to David, we had a chance to meet some local pagans and to have had a most enjoyable night drive around the city. We've been to La Perouse on Botany Bay, Manly Beach, the Utzon Theatre (for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players' performances of James Ledger's Roshomon Confessions and Mozart's Clarinet Quintet), the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Harry's Cafe de Wheel (on the waterfront) and many walks around both the city and the Royal Botanical Gardens. Is Australia expensive? Yes. Is it fascinating? Also yes. It has much of the crassness of America and some of the sophistication of Europe and yet is a world that is neither America nor Europe but one distinctly its own. As I write this, we are in the plane to Uluru. I have no idea yet when I will next be able to send. It is Saturnalia, and everything is indeed upside down. My wishes for a happy and complete yule to one and all.
Michael