February 19th, 2010

We are holding our own through this winter and I am finding that living here and commuting to Albany is not as bad as I had feared.



As of this writing, our court case has not yet been resolved, but the judge has now rejected the oral arguments. What this means for us is that there will be no trial – the judge will issue a verdict based on the evidence submitted. Our attorney is optimistic – we’ve submitted some pretty strong evidence! Among that evidence are copies of those pagan-oriented books mentioned in the first October 20th entry. Right now, we are still playing the Waiting Game. In the meantime, we carry on with our work.



We are preparing for Season of the Tree and Cathy and I have begun to work on a new body of ritual for the other three major Cybelline holidays. We are quite excited about this, since we are branching out into other goddess traditions for these, and not just sticking to the Roman Cybelline period. This religion spanned several aeons and cultures, and our rituals should reflect this.



We are also moving forward on our historical projects. I am pleased to report that Chessie has been mentioned in Cambridge Who’s Who for her work on the Women in Technology project for her work on our telegraph office. Congratulations, Chessie! Caillean is also looking to collaborate with the Mountaintop Historical Society on this project.



We have found more historic postcard images of Central House. This brings the total up to five. Unfortunately, one of them was from an image of a postcard of Central House from 1906 on Worthpoint that we didn’t get. However, we did acquire a black and white postcard image that we think dates from 1890-1900 as well as the crowning pride: an A.S. Landis birdseye view of Central House and the grounds that was postmarked in 1930. This one in particular solved a few mysteries, one of which was the purpose of those tiny sheds behind Cathy’s house. We thought that they were outhouses, but they were actually icehouses! We have had Helen blow them up and we now have them framed and hanging in the downstairs hallway, which is starting to become our gallery of historic images. We have also put up some other historic images of Palenville landmarks there.



Helen’s kiln is now operational and she has done her first firings. In the near future, she plans to hold pottery classes as she prepares her studio. If you are interested in taking a pottery class, please email firstchurch@gallae.com for details.



As for other events, we are having the first organizational meeting for Palenville Pagan Pride Day 2010 on February 28th at 2:00pm. We are also starting up a new bisexual brunch here at Central House that will be held on the second and fourth Sundays of the month from 11:00am to 1:00pm. We hold it through Meetup.com. If you are interested, check out this link: http://www.meetup.com/Hudson-Valley-Catskills-Bisexual-Meetup