Gaia Community

Join Gaia Community as our Ritual Teams move into the next phase of our Annual Patron Selection process. We will mentally construct a temple to Many Powers as we engage in a series of small festival events to experience short rituals in exploration of the 12 Powers put forward in our Patron Nomination forum earlier in the year. This week we’ll be hearing from the temples of Ostara, Janus, Ushas, and Inanna.

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This year, Gaia Community has been guided and inspired by Hermes, Greek god of travel, markets, communication, and getting one over on the system. In this ritual, we step out of our Greek myths about Hermes to honor his Roman counterpart, Mercury. The Mercuralia was a Roman festival of prosperity for merchants – we mix it up by asking for blessings on our own prosperity, the local merchants we depend on, and everyone who works and hustles to pay the bills.

For this ritual, you will need:
– your chalice or candle to light
– a small dish of water for anointing yourself, perhaps with a bay leaf or other herb of blessing added
– some currency (coins or bills are fine, so long as it’s money you can spend where you are)

You may also want:
– some incense
– something to cover your head with
– a praise offering of some sort if appropriate (we will have an open section of ritual where you can make offerings to any deity, spirit or power you need to address – this could be a physical offering, a poem, a song, an oath, or anything else you want to give)

Our online space will open at 3pm Central for social time and ritual prep, and the ritual will begin at 4.

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Come celebrate Beltane and the flow of life with us this Sunday. We welcomed the birds back at Equinox, now we acknowledge the busyness of bees. For this ritual you will need a small amount of honey (as an alternative, you can use any liquid sweetener), a container to store the honey in, a bowl of water, and you may want a candle to light for a chalice. Our virtual space opens for social time at 3, and the ritual will begin at 4.

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Just what the heck is Discordianism anyway? Is it just a joke? A joke that became a not-very-serious spiritual practice? Is it Eris-centered spirituality? Join Kit and Jamie on Sunday to learn more about the history and current practices of Discordianism.
We open our virtual space for social time at 3pm central, and the class will begin at 4.

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During the pandemic, the enforced reduction in human movement around the planet made a measurable difference in some of the stresses the planet faces through the burning of fossil fuels. In fact, it is theorized that the pandemic itself may at some level be due to the proliferation of human life, resulting in the continual destruction of wildlife habitat. While in some cases this leads to extinction of species, it is also possible that the new proximity of some species to humanity has facilitated the transfer of viruses to people. And, of course, now that restrictions are being lifted, human movement will resume and so will the levels of pollution.
On this 51st celebration of Earth Day, we will review all that has been achieved since 1970…and all that is still to be done; and rededicate ourselves to walking as lightly as possible on our sole, our only home.

Every Sunday we hold social hour at 3pm Central, and begin the service of the week at 4pm. All are welcome!

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Our Patron Selection Season is beginning this Sunday! Gaia Community has a tradition, begun in 2003, of annually selecting a deity or power, dubbed a “Patron”, whose mythology, cosmology, traditions, worship and wisdom are studied by ritualists for the next year; the results of the study are presented in rituals, classes and other formats throughout the year. This tradition has allowed us as a congregation and as individuals, to explore and learn about more areas of pagan worship. Since last July, we have focused on Hermes.

This Sunday, April 11, we will hold nominations for next year’s patron. We encourage people to bring your ideas about what entity to study. If you have a deity you particularly work with, and would like to see formal rituals dedicated to them, we hope you’ll share your knowledge and insight with us on Sunday. Or, if there is an entity you would like to learn more about, we hope you share that suggestion, and ideally, do a little research so you can tell us about the candidate and any ideas for how they might work with our community. Even if you don’t have nominations, please attend, join the discussion, and give your input, thoughts and reactions. Later there will be some voting to narrow the field, and then some rituals presented for chosen candidates before a final vote.

For questions about how the process works this year, or if you cannot attend, to nominate a candidate, feel free to email jamie at gaiacommunity dot org. We open our room for social time at 3pm Central, and the forum will begin at 4.

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We know many people have been asking, “Now that COVID-19 infections have started to decline and there are vaccines becoming available, when will Gaia Community return to holding in-person services?”. The answer to that question is still “Not yet.”

We are, however starting to make some plans about *how* we will return to meeting in person, even if we are not quite ready to say *when*. We want to make sure that folks attending our events and services are kept as safe as possible, and we also want to make sure that, in our rush to get back together in the same physical space, we don’t leave behind all the lovely people who are only able to join with us now because we have shifted to providing online services.

If you’d like to provide some input into our plans for the future, we’ve got a few questions for you. Please click here to take the poll!

Before the joining of the Aesir and Vanir, Freyr was lord of the earth, a god of sovereigns and of abundance of the tribe. Followers of Freyr were rewarded by a time of peace and prosperity–a peace that was in fact sustained by prosperity.  While Freyr was certainly a skilled and resourceful warrior, he bestowed on his followers, skills and wisdom to improve their lives through working together and with others rather than through domination.

In addition to a light for chalice, we encourage you to have some fertile earth to touch–a potted plant, a plant waiting to go in your garden, maybe some starts of herbs, or if nothing else, a pot of earth that you could plant something into if you get around to it.  This ritual will be in basic Druid format, so if you will want to make offerings yourself, you may wish to have items for offering and an offering bowl to receive them. 

We will open our virtual space at 3pm Central for social hour, and then begin the ritual at 4.
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Bardic Circle – The Fool! We come together to share tales of sacred clowns, holy fools, and merriment of all sorts. Bring a story, poem, song, or other performance to share, or just come to watch and listen — every bard needs an audience.

We gather for social time at 3p, and the bardic circle will begin at 4.
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