TEO 3000

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

Episcopal Organization? Meet your future:

"After making it through the harsh winter, people in Western North Carolina are looking forward to the warm sun of spring. Some are preparing to celebrate the season’s change with an ecumenical ritual."

You mean some kind of joint Catholic-Protestant-Orthodox thing? Nope.

"Members of Mother Grove Goddess Temple will celebrate at 7 p.m. Saturday with A Breath of Appalachian Spring: A Ritual in Celebration of the Spring Equinox, in the parish hall of the Episcopal Cathedral of All Souls in Biltmore Village."

And nothing says “Welcome, spring!” quite like a fake religion performing its strange ceremonies inside the cathedral of another fake religion.

"Saturday’s event is open to all faith traditions, said Byron Ballard, wiccan priestess and a member of the temple. Mother Grove “isn’t a wiccan group, though some of us are wiccans,” she said."

Noted.

“Mother Grove is an outgrowth of the work of several people in the goddess/earth religions community,” Ballard said. “Its goal is to create a permanent sanctuary, where people of all faith traditions may openly and safely celebrate the divine feminine, the goddess.”

This is badly needed what with all the witches the Christian right burns in the United States all the time. What are you looking at me like that for? You know it’s true.

Anyway, exactly how are they going to celebrate Katharine Jefferts Schori the divine feminine, the goddess? With “ancient” rituals like these.

"The celebration will consist of raising a circle, singing, “whistling up the wind” and flying prayers written on paper airplanes. Ballard will lead the ritual, explaining that it is a joyful expression of the beginning of spring and coming together as a community."

If I’m not mistaken, the pagan Celts used paper airplanes to pray to their gods. But why do all this in the first place?

"Jill Boyer is a co-founder and priestess with Mother Grove. She says she looks forward to celebrating “with my celebrants and community, having time to celebrate something that is very important to me and the ritual aspects themselves.”

B"oyer believes people have an ancient and human need for ritual and celebration in groups, and to acknowledge the changing of the seasons."

Inventing gods. Performing weird rituals devoid of meaningful content for no particular reason other than emotion. I’d say TEO’s just about there.