Building Harmony - A meeting and an altar

Last night's SHRC meeting made it clear that they are hopeful of creating policies of inclusion in Scottsdale. Hopefully the Mayor will be supportive of their suggestions, and will work with Equality AZ during their meeting tomorrow to create better policies in Scottsdale and create more harmony and security for TLBG people who are living in OR visiting Scottsdale.

I think it was stated very clearly by Erica that there is a large amount of money being spent in Scottsdale by transgender people since there is a major surgeon for SRS found there. We also heard from many other members of the Scottsdale community including PFLAG, Equality AZ, a gay couple who moved to Scottsdale because they'd thought it was a gay friendly part of AZ and wanted to be closer to their kids who live in the state... another transgender woman, and myself and Guard Spiketakiss.

Afterwards Sam From Equality AZ thanked us for sharing our thoughts and basically said it's nice when he attends a meeting and the community speaks for itself instead of a group like Equality AZ having to speak for us. It was wonderful to meet you Sam!

Most of the things I expected to hear discussed are actually being addresssed more directly in the next meeting. But in the mean time, it was good to make connections with people in the community who attended, and let them know that the Sisters are here to support them and to make connections with some people from the Scottsdale HRC and let them know the Sisters support their attempts at creating safety and building harmony in their city.

I just hope they can work FAST, because there are some serious problems starting, and if they don't head it off now, it will only get worse. I heard them saying it's not what Scottsdale wants to be, so I say... stop it now.

Afterwards I built an altar in public, at Papago State Park. It will eventually be taken apart, pieces may be taken and used by others, or someone from the park may take it down, but creating it left me feeling empowered and that I was actively working towards empowering others, almost more than attending the SHRC meeting did (although that also was a good experience)

I recommend anyone living in Scottsdale who has concerns attend the SHRC meeting. They are willing to listen to community concerns, and in fact do want to hear directly from their community. Not only on TLBG issues, but also on issues of Race, Gender and Religion.
I encourage you to attend and share your thoughts.

The altar I built was

Devoted to: Njord, The Great Mediator

* Focal Aspect: Building harmony in the Scottsdale community, ending hate crimes and discrimination. Asking Njord, the Great Mediator to help the SHRC in communicating the needs of the city to the Mayor, to help the TLBG community

* About the altar: I built this altar in Papago State Park on my way home from the Scottsdale Human Rights Commission meeting where it was discussed various discriminations and how to deal with them

* Why that location?: Why not? It was perfect. We just felt lead to where we put it. Also, I have done ritual at Papago State Park before and knew there is a lot of good spiritual energy there

I look forward to making other altars in the future. It was a really empowering experience and I hope to involve others next time so they too may feel empowered, revitalized and rejuvinated as I did. I sent more information about the altar as well as several pictures to the altar project

They already put a page up about it here:
http://www.altarproject.org/seanmichaelnjord.html

And you can also see the video Guard Spiketakiss took of me setting the altar up on my youtube channel