Toronto Pagan Conference - Speakers

Brendan Myers, PhD

Bio:

Brendan Myers is originally from the small town of Elora, in rural Ontario, Canada. With a doctorate in philosophy and environmental thought from NUI Galway (Ireland), he has worked as a university lecturer, a government researcher, a musician, a labour union leader, an environmentalist, and a simple country gardener. He is the author of "The Mysteries of Druidry" (New Page, 2006), and of four new books coming out this year, including "The Other Side of Virtue" and "A Pagan Testament" (both published by O Books, of Hampshire, England).

Brendan has appeared as a guest in numerous magazines, pod casts, and radio shows (including America’s NPR). His books have been critically acclaimed by such luminaries as Janet Farrar, Gavin Bone, Isaac Bonewits, Macha NightMare, Gus DiZerega, Philip Carr-Gomm, and Emma Restall Orr. He is the 2008 recipient of OBOD’s prestigious Mount Haemus award for research in Druidry. In Ontario’s pagan community, Brendan is well known as a Bardic-circle performer. In fact he's one of the conspirators who started the Saturday-night Pagan sing-along in the Longship Bar.

http://wildideas.net/cathbad
http://northwestpass.livejournal.com

Topic:

Aboriginal Values: Justice and Healing

In the spring and summer of 2007, I conducted a government-funded research project called "Indigenous Values in Policing, Law, and Justice". I traveled from Quebec to Vancouver, interviewed almost 50 people, all to learn the cultural, traditional, and spiritual values Aboriginal people hold in relation to police work and related activities. The report is soon to be published by Public Safety Canada. But as you can imagine, I learned much, much more than what I was able to put into the report. In this presentation I will describe the results of this research, as well as some of the personal experiences that I had in the process. Aboriginal people have ideas concerning justice, conflict resolution, the importance of relationships of all kinds from interpersonal to environmental, and so on, which I think are centuries ahead of "White" Western society's values. I was especially impressed with Aboriginal people's treatment of Elders: and so I will discuss who and what an Aboriginal Elder is, and how contemporary Pagans might recognize and learn from their own Elders.