2nd Annual Cosmic Mass in Melbourne, Florida, Sunday April 27, 2008.
Last year was a tremendous success - a sold-out crowd of 300 and so this
year a bigger hall has been rented - capacity 1000-1200. More details below...
First Cosmic Mass to be held in New York City, Sept 19, 2008.
Jointly sponsored by One Spirit Interfaith Learning Alliance, and
Fourth Universalist Society. Stay tuned for more details....
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
THE COSMIC MASS RETURNS TO MELBOURNE
SUNDAY, APRIL 27
Interfaith Spiritual Celebration Unites Community, Religions and Cultures
(MELBOURNE, FL) April 14, 2008 - The second annual Cosmic Mass Melbourne returns this month to the Space
Coast with a larger venue and a greater presence. The event, which will take place Sunday, April 27 from 4 -
6:30 p.m., is an interfaith spiritual celebration, uniting the community across religions, cultures and generations.
Featuring live music, dance, prayer and communion, the Cosmic Mass is a conscious effort to reinvigorate
Western ritual by deconstructing the forms of modern worship. Its goal is to bring together people of
diverse ages, faiths and cultures in shared prayer, highlighting participants' common bonds. The concept,
introduced and popularized on the West Coast, has steadily gained attention throughout the country and
international community.
The event is spearheaded by Mike and Elizabeth Stamper, who first experienced a Cosmic Mass in
Oakland, California in March 2006. Inspired and enthusiastic about the program's message, the two
underwent training to produce a Cosmic Mass locally. Working with a dedicated group of volunteers and local
organizations, the team's first effort was a rousing success and the program is now in its second year. In
addition, proceeds from the event will benefit local environmental groups and churches.
Due to the popularity of the first Cosmic Mass, this year's event will take place at the Melbourne Auditorium,
allowing for nearly three times the capacity and participation. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door,
and can be purchased online at
www.cosmicmassmelbourne.com or at the following local centers and retailers:
Melbourne
Unity of Melbourne (321-254-0313)
Creative Energy (321-952-6789)
The Center for Healing Arts (321-733-7633)
Cocoa
The Gathering (321-917-6976)
The New Way (321-751-7584)
What You Love To Do (321-504-0304)
Rockledge
Appleseeds Health Food Store (321-631-1444)
Merritt Island
Unity Center for Spiritual Living (321-452-2625)
Indialantic:
Aquarian Dreams (321-729-9495)
For more information or to purchase tickets to the Cosmic Mass, please visit
www.cosmicmassmelbourne.com
or call 321-777-6216.
Media Contacts:
Emily Hess, 404-579-7041
ejhcarrier@yahoo.com
or
Elizabeth Stamper, 321-777-6216
eliz121@juno.com
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A cosmic gathering in Brevard
Spiritual seekers congregate for annual get-together
BY BREUSE HICKMAN • FLORIDA TODAY • APRIL 27, 2008
People often take their spirituality too seriously as far as local author Paula Langguth Ryan is concerned.
In 2006, she and a few other “co-inspirators” as she calls them began holding sessions in a storefront that years ago was a funeral home.
But there was nothing somber about what they wanted to do.
“We wanted a place where we could play, a place where we could get a little booster shot before going back to work on Monday,” Ryan said. As its name suggests, The Gathering claims 35 members who come from different faith backgrounds.
“About 65 percent of our congregation go to different churches in the area,” she said. “Some are Catholic, some are Buddhists, some attend Unity churches.”
One recent gathering found attendees involved in a sketch of sorts called “The Wizard of Om.”
“I played Dorothy,” Ryan said. “It was a fun way for us to think outside the box of traditional religion and recognize how we follow many paths to God.”
The Gathering, which meets on Sunday and Wednesday nights, doesn’t call itself a church, but rather a forum for those of different faiths.
As you might find in church, leaders present a message “which in a church setting would be interpreted as a sermon,” she said.
But unlike church, a discussion follows the message.
Last Sunday, the folks gathered to celebrate Passover, as viewed through “A Course In Miracles,” a teaching in Unitarian churches that during the ’90s was made popular by self-help spiritual guru Marianne Williamson.
The inclusiveness that The Gathering encourages is expanded starting at 4 p.m. today when The Gathering sponsors the second annual Cosmic Mass at the Melbourne Auditorium.
The event will include music, drum circles, chanting, singing and praying, said event co-founder Elizabeth Hess Stamper.
Much focus will be placed on one’s responsibility in saving the planet, which Scamper believes is a human issue, not a religious or political one.
At one point the lights will go down and attendees will be encouraged to dance to beat-driven, electronic music.
Think of it as a spiritual rave.
Brevard County is actually late in the game in welcoming such an event, which has happened in communities around the country.
“The idea of it goes back to the late ’80s in England when a group of young people involved in the rave culture felt they had a spiritual experience through the dancing,” Stamper said. “The young people had felt through raves their hearts were open and they felt more spiritual. They asked their priest to hold a rave mass that would combine music with the liturgy — without the drugs of course.”
Enter Matthew Fox.
In 1993 as techno music-driven culture was hitting its zenith, the priest was dismissed from the Catholic Church over some of his beliefs.
For instance, he had written in books that homosexuality is not a sin and celibacy among priests should be voluntary.
In his book “A New Reformation,” he went as far as to write that modern-day Protestant faiths are “uninspired, one-dimensional and burned out.”
Ravers loved him and invited him to their rave mass. He attended and connected to the vibe.
Now among his followers, he’s considered the vissionaire behind the Cosmic Mass, which he began in Oakland, Calif., mixing music, dancing and prayer in a setting he dubbed “creation spirituality.”
Stamper, a former Episcopalian, was able to study under Fox during a five-day intensive training session for ministers who want to host a Cosmic Mass in their community.
“It was amazing,” Stamper said. “There were people from the Catholic church, Methodists, Episcopalians and Jewish,” she said. “What’s so wonderful about it is that this is not a new religion, but a philosophy that looks into the depths of all sacred traditions and finds those common denominators.”
About 400 people attended Brevard’s first Cosmic Mass last year. Stamper says most found out about it through word-of-mouth.
They heard about it at stores often associated with the so-called new age movement.
Others read about it through Horizons magazine, locally produced by Andrea de Michaelis.
The Cosmic Mass, de Michaelis said, brings to life exactly what the magazine promotes: “nonsectarian interfaith unity, connecting those who seek purpose in life, using our combined power to encourage each other in our personal visions, and knowing that we participate in creation of the reality we experience,” de Michaelis said
“The music, storytelling, chanting and ritual communion are all just how today’s awakening society dances with the cosmic creator of their understanding.”
Local musician Bo Frazer attended last year. This year he’ll perform John Lennon’s “Imagine” with The Gathering co-founder Rosalie Bianco.
Frazer likens the Cosmic Mass with the phenomenon behind Oprah Winfrey’s promotion of spiritual guru and author Eckhart Tolle.
On her Web site, Winfrey offers online classes based on his teachings.
“You can dig what she is saying without feeling you have to betray or abandon any religious doctrine you might have been raised with,” Frazer said.
And yet, Winfrey has also been attacked by traditional believers who say she is starting a cult.
But while event organizers expect a near sell-out this year, they also are accustomed to the nay-sayers, especially Christian traditionalists who believe Jesus is the only way to heaven.
But those behind The Gathering and today’s Cosmic Mass say they aren’t out to cause dissent among other faith groups.
“There are still a lot of traditional churches that are serving people in wonderful ways,” Stamper said. “The Cosmic Mass is the idea of finding the common denominator. You can still go to your synagogue, church or New Age center and come here and experience of sense of unity and understanding that we all love God.”
Contact Hickman at 242-3789 or bhickman@floridatoday.com.
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What is the The Cosmic Mass?
The "The Cosmic Mass" (TCM) is a conscious effort to reinvigorate Western ritual by deconstructing the forms of worship we have inherited from the modern era.(such as sitting in benches and being read to, preached at or reading from books(including song books). We reconstruct these forms of worship by going back to the pre-modern practice of dance. Dance gets us into our first chakras again; dance takes us out of our heads and down again and connecting to the earth again. Joy results. Dance demands breathing and so it fulfills ancient teachings that connect breath with spirit. This connection is found not only in the Biblical story of the Creator breathing the divine breath into the clay to make it a living human but also in the ancient languages of Africa where the word for "dance" is the same as the word for "breath" which is also the word for "spirit." ("Breath" and "Spirit" are the same word (ruah) in Hebrew as well.)
The African spiritual teacher, Malidome Some, tells us there is no community without ritual. Thus renewing ritual lies at the heart of bringing community back to our consciousness and experience. The modern era with its emphasis on ruggedly individual atoms, practically destroyed a sense of community. Renewed ritual can and does bring it back. And today's science with its emphasis on interconnectivity lays a groundwork for the return of community. But it needs ritual to make it happen. At our Techno Cosmic Masses people dance to techno music as well as live music; DJ's provide the musical ambience and VJ's or video jockeys provide images through slides and videos that tell the story of the theme celebrated. The theme might be "Gaia our Mother" or "The Return of the Sacred Masculine"or "The Return of the Divine Feminine" or "Kinship with Animals" or any number of themes that unite us spiritually today.
In the "Return of the Divine Feminine" Mass we collected 500 slides of the Goddess from all the world's traditions (including the Black Madonna and Mary from the West). And we danced in the presence of these images, bringing in the spirit of the Divine Feminine. At each Mass we have a "via negativa" or grief experience where we grieve and lament together the loss or pain we are feeling in our hearts from abuse about the theme of the occasion. Grieving is such an essential aspect to getting over anger and into our creativity. We also have communion or sharing of the sacred bread and wine that unites all beings in the sacred act of eating and drinking divine food and drink.
Early in the Mass is a fifteen minute "via positiva" dance or dance of Joy and Delight and Celebration. At the closing of the service is a fifteen minute "via transformativa" dance or warrior dance which prepares us to go into the world and back to our communities as healerss and strong defenders of compassion. A variety of ages is always represented as well as many kinds of artists and people from diverse religious backgrounds ranging from Christian to Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Pagan. The worship is so pre-modern in many respects that many find a home there. Beauty is everywhere present.
And, one might say, magic.
