Wood Carvings by Robert
The Lake Okeechobee Pagan Summer Solstice Festival was an amazing experience for everyone who attended, staffed, supported, and visited the festival.More importantly is the fact that the Pagan and Wiccan Community pulled together to promote a positive outlook of what the Community is and what the Community does. This takes more than one individual or even one faction of the Community. It takes a concerted effort to achieve this by the majority of the Community along with various individuals and groups. So, I personally salute each and every person in the Community for pulling this effort together in the face of national attention to the festival and politics surrounding the festival.
Florida Pagans and Wiccans also owe appreciation to Selena Fox and Peter Dybing of the Lady Liberty League for stepping up in the political face of religious misinformation prior to and during the festival and reminding us all to maintain our peaceful ways. We came in peace and we left in peace.
Appreciation also goes to the Christian leaders of local Pahokee for opening their hearts and minds to see beyond misperceptions.
A couple of the festival promoters, Bruce and Sharon Mullins, requested an opportunity to express their appreciation of all those who participated in the festival by providing a long list of names, which I would have loved to share with all of you. Unfortunately, it has been our longstanding rule to embrace the right of anonymity of the Community and not to publicly identify individuals without express, direct permission from each person. To contact everyone individually on the list would take until the festival comes back around, so if you were a part of it, please accept their deep appreciation.
Tom Evans, another festival promoter along with his wife, Alysia, has announced that he is stepping down from the future festivals. He has expressed that he was honored to have been a part of this first time festival and will always have a fond place in his heart for the festival; but, unfortunately, the festival was too time consuming and he must return his attention to other endeavors at this time.
We can all only hope that this is part of post-festival lag and after he has time to relax and recuperate from such an energy-intensive effort, he will reconsider this decision in the future as he and his wife were such an integral part of the success of this festival. Regardless, we admire and deeply appreciate their efforts which were pivotal in bringing this Community closer together.
As for the future of the festival, it's going to take a lot to top this first festival and rumor has it that they are already working towards that with top musical names coming through the grapevine.
Reference: goddesses-and-gods.blogspot.com
