Friday
All Afternoon Spend Time Touring the Witch City & Shopping
2:00 – 7:00 pm Registration – Entrance Foyer
Go to the right side of the church to the side entrance.
The registration team will be ready to greet you!
3:30 – 4:30 pm Workshop – Cleveland Room
First Church & Paganism in the Witch City with Jerrie Hildebrand - In this workshop you will get a taste of the First Church has 397 years of history in its background. It was organized by the first Puritans in Salem on the lands of the Naumkeag tribes and today is a vibrant progressive Unitarian Universalist congregation. The congregation has been involved in so many aspects of history in the city. It includes the deaths of 20 people during the Salem Witch Trials, to the Revoluntionary War, and was home to illuminaries such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Parker, Nathaniel Bowditch, the Peabody sisters, and so many more. Today, like the city of Salem itself. it welcomes all people with many identities socially, economically, politically, and theologically, including those who celebrate Paganism and Earth-Centered traditions.
4:30 – 6:45 pm Out on the Town for Dinner on Your Own
It is highly recommended you make reservations ahead of time. Here are restaurants close to the event venue. There are so many places around town.
- Life Alive - Vegan/Vegetarian
- Bon-Chon - Korean Fried Chicken
- Gulu Gulu - Small bites. coffee, breakfast
- Ba Banh Mi - Vietnamese
- Dire Wolf - Pub Food & Sushi
- Rockafellas - American Cuisine
- Turners - Seafood
- The Neighborhood Tavern - Family friendly
- Blue Fe - Moraccan
- Koto - Asian
- Ginger - Asian/Creole
- Adriatic - Italian
- Odd Meter - Coffee Shop
- Brew Box - Coffee
- Honey Dew - Coffee & breakfat
- Ugly Mug - Breakfast & Lunch
- Front Street Cafe - Coffee, breakfast, lunch
- … and so many more!
7:00 – 8:00 pm Opening Ritual – Garden or Wilson Hall
8:15 – 9:15 pm Presenters Round Table – Cleveland Room or Sanctuary
9:15 pm Complete the Evening
Saturday
8:00 – 8:30 am Saturday Registration
Go to the right side of the church to the side entrance.
The registration team will be ready to greet you!
Fellowshipping/Coffee Hour
8:30 – 9:00 am Welcoming Saturday Participants
9:00 – 10:00 am Workshops – Cleveland Room or Sanctuary
The Sacred Marriage with Om Prakash - Through the Sat Yoga Labyrinth, we will explore our journeys into the material world and beyond in accordance with the psychological chakra system. This discussion and lecture will be followed by and intertwined with an experiential journey using Nada Yoga (Yoga of Sound) Mantras, chants and some movement to connect with the sacred.
Presentation with Dennis Carpenter - Description to Come
10:30 – 11:30 am Keynote - Cleveland Room or Sanctuary
Presentation with Selena Fox - Description to Come
12:00 – 12:45 pm Lunch - Box Lunch is available for a fee
1:00 – 2:00 pm Workshops - Cleveland Room & Wilson Hall
Why We Need the Rage Filled Goddesses with Susan Foster - If we allow ourselves to explore the dark, or shadow, side of our psyches, archetypal images of the dark, or “fierce,” goddesses of ancient times can emerge. These goddesses carry a primordial energy of destruction of systems and paradigms that no longer serve us, as well as the power to create new structures that align with justice. By tapping into the repository of fierce energy carried by these goddesses, men and women can work together to create a more just society. In the Cleveland Room
Chants & Songs with Liz Parker - Description to come
2:30 – 3:30 pm Keynote
Presentation with Marilynn Roach
4:00 – 5:00 pm Workshops - Cleveland Room & Wilson Hall
Eric Eldritch - Description to Come
Complexity of Pagan Landscape Workshops with Manny Tejeda y Moreno - Modern Paganism resists simplicity. In fact, that resistance is precisely the point. This presentation explores a religious movement in the United States with an estimated 1 to 1.5 million practitioners that rejects central authority, fixed identity, or easy definition. Pagan communities form a living network of covens, groves, circles, and institutions; simultaneously decentralized and organized, countercultural and increasingly visible. Yet the Pagan community is not monolithic, whether socioeconomically or politically. Even as many resist “respectability” and “normalcy” asserting no obligation to conform to dominant societal presumptions, Pagan institutions, scholarship, and advocacy continue to grow. This presentation traces a century of revival and reconstruction while confronting a central tension: how Pagans sustain identity, autonomy, and community amid rising political pressures and dominant religious expectations.
5:00 – 6:00 pm Panel on Religious Freedom Concerns
Lady Liberty League Democracy Task Force & Wild Hunt Team
Lady Liberty League (LLL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to defencing the religious freedom and fighting discrimination against Pagans, Wiccans andother Earth-Centered faith traditions. They were founded in 1985 by Selena Fox abd is headquarted in Wisconsin. They provide education, couseling, referrals, and advocacy for those facing religious prejudice.
The Wild Hunt is a non-profit online daily news service for Pagans, Heathens, Wiccans, Witches, and Polytheists. The Wild Hunt has been bringing you modern Pagan news and commentary.
This panel will discuss current affairs happening impacting the Pagan and Earth-Centered communities and how people can help. CUUPS has partnered with both organizations over the years and are thrilled to have them speak on issues of our times.
6:30 – 7:30 pm Community Meal – Wilson Hall
7:30 – 8:00 pm Dinner Cleanup
8:00 – 9:30 pm Ritual, Birthday Celebration & Bardic Circle
9:30 pm Complete the day
Sunday
9:00 – 10:00 am Round Table with the CUUPS Board – Wilson Hall
10:30 – 11:30 am Worship Service with Congregation, Speakers & Board – Sanctuary
11:30 am Fellowship - Cleveland Room
12:15 – 12:45 pm Closing Community Ritual & Farewell – Garden
1:00 pm Self-Tour the Witch City, Shopping, or Head Home
